PSA commercials have a long history of trying so hard that they become laughable, but this one works perfectly. It comes from the good folks of the Road Safety Authority in Ireland, which is the Irish DMV. I wish there were PSA videos like this to help me drop all my bad habits. Maybe one that scares me into never ordering too much food delivery. Until then, this commercial should be remade for every country and every language in the modern world.
George Takei, the one-time Lieutenant of a spaceship, now Lieutenant of all things wholesome on social media, took the time to write a letter to Ahmed Mohamed, the young man who was arrested for bringing a clock to school. In the letter, Takei relates the hardships he and his own family had to face in America just because of their race (Gosh, way to make it about you, Takei).
The letter is brief, but the message is clear: no matter how the ignorant try to hold you down, you have a bright future ahead.
Here's the text of the letter:
Dear Ahmed,
I’ve never met you, and it’s quite possible you’ve never heard of me, but my name is George Takei. I am many decades older than you, but your story and your experience—when you were arrested at your school simply because you brought in a clock for your teacher--struck a chord with me. You see, when I was a bit younger than you, I was also viewed by others as “the enemy” and treated as such, simply because I happened to look like the people who had attacked America.
Like you, I was just a kid trying to find his place in the world. I loved my country, and I looked forward to all the opportunities and challenges ahead. But my childhood was interrupted by fear and ignorance. When the authorities came for you because they believed you had built a bomb, I was reminded, in a way, of when the army came for us. They ordered us out of our home believing we were suspicious people because of our names, our faces, our ancestry. I spent my childhood in an internment camp because of that fear and ignorance.
But I want you to know, while America may have done a terrible thing to me and my family, and to 120,000 other Japanese Americans, I have great hope for this country, and I believe we do learn. There was a Japanese word we often said in the camps: Gaman. It means to keep on keeping on, with dignity and fortitude. I think you understand this word already. While certain school officials and police officers may have shown you the worst side of our nation, I understand many others have since shown you the best side. I was touched to hear you say that we all have to be true to ourselves.
Ahmed, you are now part of the story of America, and many will learn from your fine example. I see great things ahead for you.
I wonder which one Ahmed was more excited to receive, this letter from an esteemed Star Trek cast member, or our nerdy Commander-in-Chief.
If it weren't for the awful, awful failure of Atari's E.T. (which helped puncture the 80s video game bubble), I bet Ferris Bueller's Day Off would have been made into a great 80s video game. I mean, the whole movie is literally an adventure where you run around avoiding authority figures and sneaking into places. Now, thanks to the CineFix series 8-Bit Cinema, we can finally see what that game would have been like. And now I want someone to actually make it.
But NBC originally wanted the iconic role of bartender Sam Malone to be played by America's currently most hated celebrity: Bill Cosby. (Sorry for making you think about Bill Cosby today!) According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBC suggested Cosby but the show's creators declilned. Says co-creator Les Charles:
We declined because it would have meant doing the Bill Cosby Show.
George Wendt, aka Norm, explained that Cosby's own show eventually ended up helping Cheers:
We were worried because the ratings were so dismal. But The Cosby Show premiered, and it lifted the whole night.
The role went to Ted Danson, and Sam and Diane remain untarnished (yet still probably to blame for many toxic dating choices throughout history).
Mindy Kaling is currently on tour to promote her new book, Why Not Me?, and she's looking for restaurant recommendations in DC. She asked her Twitter "friends" (oh my god, we're friends) to let her know where to go, preferably in rhyme. And they did as they were told.
Dessert spot Baked & Wired quickly emerged as a favorite.
Some restaurants made bids to get Kaling to visit:
The Tombs, a popular bar near the Georgetown campus, hilariously declined to even try to do a rhyme and just tweeted Kaling a picture of complicated bestie BJ Novak there.
Of course, a few people offered fast food staples:
I'm from the DC area, and I wanted to tweet at Kaling about Sequoia, but I couldn't think of anything that rhymes with "it's where I had my Bat Mitzvah."
Elton John recently met with the president of Ukraine to discuss LGBT rights:
After this meeting, he publicly offered to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin in order to discuss similar issues, since Russia has a pretty terrible problem with homophobia. Vladimir Krasnov and Alexei Stolyarov, two Russian TV pranksters who known as "Vova and Lexus," jumped at this opportunity—they posed as Vladimir Putin and scheduled a phone call with Sir Elton. Because John is a committed philanthropist who was eager to engage in relations with Putin, he didn't verify that it was actually Putin and launched straight into the phone call. Here is the whole exchange. One of the pranksters poses as Putin, and another pretends to be a translator:
They pay their respects towards each other, talk about starting a dialogue regarding LGBT rights in Russia, and discuss the possibility of Sir Elton coming to a gay pride event in Moscow sometime. Listening to it is kind of depressing, since the whole time you're thinking "I wish this type of phone would actually happen with Russia." John posted the following Instagram after the phone call:
Thank-you to President Vladimir Putin for reaching out and speaking via telephone with me today. I look to forward to meeting with you face-to-face to discuss LGBT equality in Russia.@president_vladimir_putin @ejaf #lgbt#lgbtrights #ShareTheLove
Putin's spokespeople denied the call, and later the pranksters fessed up to the prank. After John found out the truth, he posted the following Instagram:
Pranks are funny.
Homophobia, however is never funny.
I love Russia and my offer to talk to President Putin about LGBT rights still stands. I will always stand up for those that are being degraded and discriminated against.
If this unfortunate incident has helped push this vital issue back into the spotlight, then I am happy to be pranked on this occasion.
@ejaf @president_vladimir_putin #lgbt#lgbtrights #ShareTheLove
Putin, meanwhile, is either 1) Undergoing a major change in values and is realizing that something needs be done about homophobia in Russia as a result of this conversation, 2) Laughing hysterically at the prank because the prospect of something like this actually happening in Russia is a joke to him, or 3) Hunting down the people who impersonated him and planning to subject them to some cruel form of KGB-era torture.
Unfortunate-haired human-muppet hybrid Donald Trump was asked at the Republican debate last night about his opposition to speaking Spanish in America. He answered:
We have to have assimilation to have a country. We have to have assimilation. I'm not the first one to say this, Dana. We have had many people over the years for many, many years saying the same thing. This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.
Considering he wants America's main export to be Mexican immigrants, this does not come as much of a surprise. Hillary Clinton (well, the people running her campaign) had a quick and appropriate response on Twitter:
This tweets translates to: "Freedom includes the right to speak in any language. That makes us strong as a country, and it is something that we should celebrate—not denigrate."
This eloquent burn should be a lesson to anyone, from politician to rapper, B-List actor to Kardashian, on how to really take down your competition. Here's the clip from the debate, if you want to hear Trump's bloviations straight from his puffy face:
Like her character in Trainwreck (Spoiler alert): Amy Schumer got to dance with the pros at Madison Square Garden. Last night, Amy opened for Madonna's tour with a standup set, and Madonna then"welcomed her to the stage," Swift-style. Amy showed off her impeccable twerking skills, and we got to see plenty of buns, hun.
.@amyschumer twerking on stage with Madonna. Get it girl! pic.twitter.com/pByZJHTjaw
— Johanna Fuentes (@jfuentes) September 17, 2015I am dead @Madonnapic.twitter.com/WCRWUGY2Uj
— Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) September 17, 2015Madonna crowned Amy the night's Unapologetic Bitch, before beginning a weird sock-puppet bit (which has been baffling people online for months) that shows while comedians can be great dancers, not all great dancers can be comedians.
Like a prayer, Madonna officially invited Amy into her squad. Suck it, Swift.
One of his tweets during the first debate became the most retweeted of the night, so this time around, he had to find some way to top that. He started off with some standard critiques of the debate:
He then got a bit more frustrated and starting throwing out some sarcastic zingers:
And then like all of us who watched more than 10 minutes of last night's debate, he asked a crucial question:
And then two minutes later, he peaced out, because sometimes tweeting nothing can be the most powerful tweet of all:
This was about 30 minutes before the debate was over, but Berns just couldn't take it anymore. A few minutes after the debate ended, he then posted the following on Facebook:
That post became the most-shared Facebook post of the night, beating Ben Carson's post, the most shared post by a GOP candidate, by around 50,000 likes and over 25,000 shares.
Bernie may be a 74-year-old Vermont senator, but deep down, he's a bored millennial who just wants to stay in tonight and chill.
Ever since 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for building a clock that his teachers thought could probably also be a bomb because why not, high-profile public figures have been coming to his defense. President Obama weighed in, congratulating him on his love of science and inviting him to bring his clock to the White House. Mark Zuckerberg expressed a similar sentiment, and gave the youngster an open invitation to tour Facebook HQ. Even George Takei, the king of virality, had his own take. But one legendary figure in the world of technology could relate to Mohamed's story in a way none of them could, and he told the story in this viral Facebook post:
It turns out that Steve Wozniak, the more technical brain behind Apple, had a shockingly similar experience in high school, after he tried bringing a homemade metronome to class. Of course, in his case he was actually trying to convince his teachers it was a bomb as a prank, so maybe the arrest wasn't so unjustified. Under the circumstances, it's remarkable he only spent one night in jail. But 1967 was a more innocent time.
Woz's story helps to put this whole incident in context. Although the racial implications of Mohamed's arrest are shameful, it's not like techheads getting in trouble for what they build is a new thing. The "PayPal mafia," including Elon Musk, is known for having members who did build bombs in high school. In fact, as Woz said in a comment on his post, he considers it a rite of passage:
Sounds like Ahmed Mohamed's on the right track. And by right, we mean "a little bit wrong."
Today in the Japanese parliament, a fight broke out between lawmakers when a committee in the Upper House (similar to the Senate) approved legislation that would change Japan's famous security laws, which since World War II have forbidden Japan from sending troops abroad except in cases of direct defense. To become law, it will have to be passed again in the full Upper House. It has already been passed by the Lower House. The vote came as a surprise to the opposition, and you can see party members surround Masahisa Sato, the acting chairman of the Upper House special committee, to protect him before he begins the roll call.
Amending the law has long been a goal of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration, motivated by the rise of China and threat of North Korea, although Japan's population remains mostly against such a move by a large margin. According to a poll done this weekend, 54% of people oppose the legislation, and only 29% actively support it; and a separate poll found 68% of people see no need for it right now. The United States has for a long time quietly supported the idea of amending the law, as America currently remains committed to Japan's defense and has often wished its ally would commit more than money to military actions around the world (with Germany having similar laws, this means the two biggest US allies are both extremely reluctant to lend military support). Of course, staying out of things like Iraq are also prominent arguments on the opposition side.
In practice, Japan does send some military personnel abroad (and lots of direct financial aid) in advisory and medical capacities (such as to Afghanistan) or to help with natural disasters, but the security laws have helped keep tensions in East Asia low for the past 70 years. The lack of any possible threat from Japan has, at the very least, made power dynamics simple: there's the United States, and there's China. China has used the memory of Japan's aggression as a tool to focus its citizens' anger, and the Communist superpower still gets paranoid about Japanese ambitions anyway. Reinvigorating the Japanese military could escalate tensions. On the other hand, threats like North Korea and China's ever-growing power make Japanese hawks nervous with good reason, and Japan is the third-largest economy in the world. It's admirable that they have these pacifist laws, but that doesn't mean it's normal for a great power. The vote in the full Upper House that will decide the fate of this bill (and the balance of power) could come as early as tomorrow.
So unless you get cremated and live in an ugly urn forever, you get a grave, which is one last opportunity to amuse those around you.
Someone captured footage of the earthquake in Chile yesterday from inside this grocery store. The quake was an 8.3 on the Richter scale, which, if you're not familiar with the Richter scale, is "pretty freakin' intense." Shelves swayed, bottles shattered, and the lights cut out. Here's the clip:
It looks like it's from a found-footage disaster movie trailer, except it's real-life, which makes it even scarier. Even though 10 people were tragically killed, the natural disaster emergency response was actually pretty well-executed—over 1 million Chileans evacuated their homes and tsunami warnings were issued, just in case. It was definitely nowhere as bad as the 2010 Chilean earthquake, but still, it's pretty damn terrifying.
This teenager looks like Mr. Bean, and he's living it up. Someone shared the photo below on Reddit and Imgur with the caption "My friend's cousin has embraced it." Your friend's cousin? That definitely sounds like a lie, but it can't be denied that this kid bears a striking resemblance to Rowan Atkinson. Especially because of the T-shirt he's wearing (Exhibit A) and the thing he's doing with his brows (Exhibit B). A lot of high school students are probably shuffling around hating their eyebrows and wishing it was college already. But this guy has the right idea.
Good for you, kid. And keep in mind that not only is Rowan Atkinson a giant in the world of comedy, he's also married to a very lovely lady. So just keep practicing those eyebrow waggles. Ladies love eyebrow waggles.
Ashley Graham is a plus-size model and fashion activist who unveiled her own lingerie line at New York Fashion Week. She has also been in the annual swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated and given a TED talk. That's quite a resume. All these accomplishments have built her reputation for successfully challenging traditional fashion and body image conventions. Ashley talked to Elle about the introduction of her line in America, and her impact on fans.
I really believe that words have power. And I think if you're telling yourself you're fat, if you're telling yourself you're ugly, if you're telling yourself you don't like what you're seeing in the mirror, that's exactly what's going to happen. So I really like to give myself affirming words.
It's been absolutely amazing. Incredible. Surreal. Life-changing. I mean, I'm, like, still shaking from being out on the runway. It was amazing.
I'm happy to embrace the women around me and encourage other women to feel comfortable in their skin no matter age, race, or size. I think there's a generation that we really need to start talking to and it's the younger generation.
I'm not just changing a curvy woman's mind, I'm encouraging every woman. And I think that's really what I want to do. Because it's about being inclusive.
What is it about the combination of empowerment and lingerie that hits the media sweet spot so perfectly? You can the rest of Ashley's interview in Elle.
Kylie Jenner has dyed her hair and/or hair extensions a pale shade of green, making her official look "one of the mermaids from Hook." She debuted her new hair at an event at New York Fashion Week last night, not in the depths of a mystical coral reef where she would fit in quite well with her friends in the sea.
She might just like changing her look to keep the public's attention, but it's more fun to think she's pulling a Reverse-Ariel and getting ready to magically acquire a giant fin.
Here's the mermaid scene from Hook, in case it isn't already a deep enough wrinkle in your brain since you saw the movie for the first time:
Costello and Costello Real Estate Group is a firm located in greater Seattle, Washington. Recently, the firm sought to distinguish itself with an ad touting its realtors' dedication and professionalism. The only logical way to do that? Taking a condescendingswipeatworkingmothers, of course.
On one side, the ad shows a staged photograph of a "part-time agent," a mother overwhelmed and literally tied up by her three children. On the other side, there's realtors Chase and Jeffrey Costello, looking professional in crisp business suits. Maybe it was intended as a commentary on full-time vs. part-time realtors, but it looks more like a big FU to every working mother in the world.
The ad, which was distributed on fliers around town, was soon shared on Facebook, where it has racked up scornful comment after scornful comment. People are outraged at the Costellos for perpetuating the stereotype of working moms as unprofessional and distracted, a double standard that's never applied to fathers.
The backlash was so severe that Costello and Costello was forced to issue an apology on its Facebook page. Evidently, that didn't stop the rage train, because that Facebook page has since been taken down entirely. But Mashable got a chance to copy the apology before it was too late:
The Costello Team would like to apologize for our last marketing piece and we take full responsibility for it. We have received a flood of emotionally charged messages and phones calls, and we thank you for your responses. As sons of a single working mother and agents trying to build a family business, these reactions were difficult and important for us to hear.
There are thousands of professional agents working in our area who are also dedicated mothers, including several members of our team. Our original hope with this message was to show the value of having a full-time agent in a competitive market, but we completely failed. We have the upmost respect for moms and working mothers, and we know that the job of a mother is far more demanding than what we do as real estate professionals. Again, we are truly sorry. It was not representative of the company we wish to be.
It adds another layer of irony to this story that the Costellos were themselves raised by a single working mother. But the layers of irony don't stop there. This thing is like a seven-layer dip of irony. Consider this: the premise of the ad is that full-time realtors are more responsive to their clients than part-timers. But who ever had a realtor who actually called back, full-time or part-time? They all just ghost you. It's infuriating.
Men, when you need advice about texting women, you could go ask your buddies — or you could go straight to the source of all great advice: a group of little girls. Cosmopolitan paired up men who needed advice about texting women with some very helpful 5- and 6-year olds, and the results are delightful. This video is worth a watch for the joke-writing advice alone, which includes a spectacular knock-knock joke that I won't spoil for you (well, it's spectacular if you're a 5-year-old, or an adult who enjoys some real silly business).
Catie Reay, a mom from Casper, Wyoming, hid her positive pregnancy test in an Apple Watch box and gave it to her husband, pretending that it was his birthday present. At first he's a bit confused (he didn't want an Apple Watch), but then he opens it and he's shocked. Then, he just starts sobbing years of joy. It's a pretty beautiful, genuine moment. Way more touching than if he was like "Damn, that's cool, I guess, but I wanted an Apple Watch!"
For the record, she had the box from when she bought herself an Apple Watch. Which I think she deserves.
