This week saw the latest chapter in the utterly wonderful saga of Juicero, the $400 juice machine maker that attracted $120 million in venture capital funding. On Wednesday, a bombshell Bloomberg report exposed the secret that threatened to ruin the company: You can get almost exactly the same juice without the…
One of the many challenges of colonizing Mars is that the planet is lacking many of the natural resources we rely on here on Earth. We’ll need to bring as much of what we need to survive as possible, but you can only pack so much into a spaceship. So scientists are developing ways to utilize at least one of the red…
Zapping the brain with small bursts of electricity in hopes of improving memory isn’t a brand new concept, however a new study shows that the experimental therapy could be more effective than previous studies indicated. A team of neuroscientist from the University of Pennsylvania are the first to successfully…
After a longer-than-usual wait, we’re finally getting close to the return of Game of Thrones. HBO got the hype train rolling a few weeks back with the release of season 7’s first teaser trailer, and today it’s shared a new set of photos to keep excitement high. Obviously, if you’re sensitive to spoilers, you’ll probably want to turn back now. … Continue reading
R+L = J was the mother of all “Game of Thrones” theories, but this one is da big papa.
For a while now, fans have speculated that Jon Snow would learn of his heritage in the Winterfell crypts. There are empty tombs in the crypts, set to be the future resting places for Starks, and the theory claims Ned Stark may have put proof of Snow’s parentage down there. As support, Jon has dreams about the crypts in George R.R. Martin’s books.
Now, HBO has released new Season 7 photos, and looky what we got here:
That’s Jon Snow, and he might be in the Winterfell crypts. We don’t know for sure, but the lighting does seem similar to this scene from the show, in which Sansa and Littlefinger talk in the crypts.
If so, Jon might finally find out that his daddy and mommy are Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.
Other photos have us freaking out, too. Tormund and Brienne appear together (Just make them a couple already, HBO!), and the location Dany shows up in looks like the same spot where those leaked “Game of Thrones” photos were taken.
All men (and women) must speculate:
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During times of transition and new adventures, artist Joy Hwang has always turned to her sketchbook. So when she became a mother, she started documenting the experience with illustrations and sharing them with friends and family on social media.
Now, Hwang posts her art on Instagram and Facebook under the account “Mom Is Drawing.” While her drawings cover topics ranging from pregnancy to traveling with a baby to bedtime struggles, many of her most powerful illustrations focus on one particularly emotional aspect of motherhood: breastfeeding.
“One of the hardest assignments I received as a new mom was to keep my baby alive with my boobs (breastfeed),” Hwang told The Huffington Post. “I’ve always imagined it would come naturally and magically, but it was quite the opposite.”
Hwang struggled with supply issues and tried many different methods to produce enough milk for her baby ― from tea, cookies and pills to eating her placenta to nursing and pumping every three hours “and falling off the chair while pump-sleeping.” The process was exhausting.
“I remember times when my baby and I both cried all night because I couldn’t produce enough milk,” the mom told HuffPost. “I wanted to breastfeed because I wanted to give my baby the most natural food designed just for her from my own body. Then I found out my milk was set back from traumatic birth, and I was starving her. I was so grateful that formula was there for my baby, and it had my back.”
Eventually, Hwang’s supply came in, and she continues to nurse her now 18-month-old daughter, though she said she may wean soon. The mom is grateful for the bonding experience that breastfeeding has given her.
“I’m not excited to admit that my connection to my daughter did not happened in an instant when she was born,” said Hwang. “I remember meeting her for the first time and feeling as if we were on an awkward first date, rather than destined soulmates as many mothers and media have described.”
The new mom was filled with guilt and anxiety, especially as she struggled to breastfeed. “Mom Is Drawing” helped with her negative postpartum feelings.
“It helped me to connect with my baby through the only way I knew how,” she explained. “Drawing her and sharing the art online has helped me find my tribe at my fingertips during the stretch of days when I feel isolated from the world I knew before my baby was born. Even on days filled with my amateur mom struggles, I had more inspiration to draw about them.”
Today, Hwang says that her daughter is her “favorite person in the whole world.” She believes art helped her foster such a strong relationship and continues to do so.
The mom hopes that her illustrations inspire her fellow parents. “I want my drawings to reflect every mom’s journey as well as mine,” she said. “My highest hope is to empower moms and challenge the taboo of breastfeeding and pumping in public and on social media, through sometimes silly or too-honest drawings. I want to open up these conversations and support one another.”
Keep scrolling and check out “Mom Is Drawing” for more illustrations about parenthood.
H/T The Stir
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Russia’s Supreme Court has designated the Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist organization and ordered the state to seize the religious group’s property.
In a Thursday ruling, the court upheld a government request to ban the group from operating on Russian territory. The decision could place more than 170,000 Russian adherents of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a U.S.-founded Christian denomination that preaches non-violence, in the same category as militant groups Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State.
The decision came after six days of hearings spread over the last two weeks, during which the court reviewed a claim submitted by the Ministry of Justice in Moscow. The ministry sought to liquidate the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, as well as 395 local branches throughout the country.
The ministry was investigating the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Russian headquarters near St. Petersburg over the last year and claimed it discovered violations of a Russian law banning extremism.
Like Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists and other religious minorities in the country, Jehovah’s Witnesses have come under intense scrutiny under Russian anti-extremism laws that ban proselytizing and curtail the dissemination of religious literature.
The government has cracked down on the group in recent years, imposing fines on congregations and occasionally arresting leaders perceived to be stoking anti-government sentiment.
In its claim to the Russian Supreme Court, the ministry accused Jehovah’s Witnesses of disseminating “extremist” pamphlets and said the center and all regional facilities should be “liquidated.”
One pamphlet the ministry reportedly took issue with quoted the novelist Leo Tolstoy and described the beliefs of the Russian Orthodox Church as superstition and sorcery, according to the BBC.
Thursday’s ruling will go into effect immediately.
Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, said he was “greatly disappointed” by the court’s decision.
“We will appeal this decision, and we hope that our legal rights and protections as a peaceful religious group will be fully restored as soon as possible,” Sivulskiy said in a statement.
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Cannabis has long been the target of criminalization and its use remains a hotly debated topic. Yet more and more states are legalizing the substance. They’re putting plans into action on how to regulate weed, and with countries like Canada planning legalization by July 2018, there’s no more burying the subculture surrounding cannabis. For those of you less tapped into “weed culture”, you may have heard the words “four twenty” thrown around. But what exactly is 4/20 and why do so many people blaze on this day?
4/20 is typically thought of as a day where stoners smoke pot all day and eat junk food. However, marijuana activist Jodie Emery stresses that 4/20 is a day of activism where people around the world get together to celebrate cannabis and push for legalization of the substance.
The classic myths are that 4/20 is a police code, or has something to do with Hitler’s birthday (he was in fact born on April 20th). There are also common rumors that 4:20 is tea time in Holland or that they are numbers in a Bob Dylan song multiplied. None of these are accurate.
The true story is about as plain as it gets. 4/20 originates from a group of teens who called themselves “The Waldos.” The group allegedly had a treasure map that lead to an abandoned cannabis crop. They would meet at a specific location on school grounds at 4:20 PM. Naturally, they would smoke some ganja when they met. The set smoking time was then popularized by The Grateful Dead followers in the same area who spread the message as they toured with the band. It’s that simple.
However, marijuana activism is an important step in combatting the repressive war on drugs. If Attorney General Jeff Sessions gets his way, cannabis will continue to be a schedule 1 drug in the United States. Schedule 1 is the most tightly restricted category reserved for drugs that have no currently accepted medical use.
This is consistently proven to be false.
Cannabis use can reduce anxiety, depression, and aides with conditions like PTSD. So, if you don’t agree with cannabis being criminalized: go outside today and resist.
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As of Wednesday, Bill O’Reilly is officially out at Fox News, a turn of events that has some rejoicing. Even though O’Reilly has been ousted only after it came out that he and Fox had settled at least 5 sexual harassment suits over the past 15 years ― and those claims began to hurt ad dollars ― his termination still feels like a win in the ongoing battle against sexist men with huge media platforms.
And yet Fox has announced that O’Reilly’s slot will be filled by anchor and commentator Tucker Carlson. While Carlson certainly doesn’t have any highly publicized sexual harassment allegations looming over him (a marked improvement!), he has a well-recorded history of dismissing sexual harassment and women in general.
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?
“Does it really need to be political?” Carlson asked, after the Sports Illustrated made history with its 2016 swimsuit issue by featuring plus-size model Ashley Graham on its cover, prompting praise for celebrating women of all sizes.
“Keep it out of my swimsuit issue,” Carlson says via voice-over in the clip below.
In 2015, an email obtained by Buzzfeed revealed that Carlson’s brother Buckley Carlson, a writer for his news site The Daily Caller, referred to called New York Mayor De Blasio’s spokesperson Amy Spitalnick as a “self-righteous bitch.” The email, which had been sent to Tucker, also speculated as to whether Spitalnick had ever been given a “pearl necklace,” accused her of having “extreme dick-fright,” and referred to her as “LabiaFace.” Oh, and it was sent to Spitalnick herself by mistake.
When the email came to light, Carlson declined to apologize on his brother’s behalf and quipped that the email had been meant “in the nicest way.”
Yup. In 2006, during a segment of his old MSNBC show in which Democratic strategist Steve McMahon said that the Dems taking control of Congress would mean an era of “a lot more fun,” Carlson responded:
A lot more fun? This is a group that made up the concept of sexual harassment. ‘You look great today.’ Boom, I‘m charging you with a crime. Do you know what I mean? It‘s not a group I associate with fun. You want a sex scandal, the Republican party, baby, that‘s where you go.
According to MediaMatters, on an episode of “Hannity” in February 2010, Carlson defended an ESPN analyst who had been suspended for making sexist comments about a woman’s clothes on air.
Because the sexist comments were made publicly, Carlson explained that the analyst had done done nothing wrong because: “Sexual harassment by definition takes place in private.”
On a 2007 episode of his MSNBC show “Tucker,” Carlson questioned the idea that woman have it harder in politics, citing the fact that “most voters are women.”
He asked: “If women were so anxious to have women in Congress, and there were so many great female candidates running, then why wouldn’t Congress be 52 percent female?”
Welcome to internalized misogyny and structural sexism, Tucker.
After her Teen Vogue article on Donald Trump and gaslighting went viral in December 2016, Carlson invited writer Lauren Duca on his show. He then proceeded to try and devalue her opinions and political writing because she writes for Teen Vogue, and has written non-political pieces in the past.
“You should stick to the thigh-high boots,” he said. “You are better at that.”
When audio of President Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women leaked in October 2016, Carlson claimed that the outrage over the comment was exaggerated.
“Nobody is actually shocked by this and everyone is pretending to be,” he said.
Because the idea of a female president is apparently the most terrifying thing ever, Carlson dedicated a segment of his MSNBC show in 2007 to talk about how scary Hillary Clinton is.
“There’s just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing, and scary,” he said.
After “A Day Without A Woman” took place on International Women’s Day this year, Carlson declared in a segment that because the day was designed to avoid shopping anywhere but women and POC-owned businesses, it was an act of “hostility” and “obviously an attack on white men.”
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Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” has become a worldwide phenomenon since its release in January. With over a billion views on YouTube, the hit is looking like a top contender for song of the summer.
Even Justin Bieber is a fan. The Canadian singer lent his star power and voice to the recently recorded remix of “Despacito.” The new version features Bieber singing in Spanish for the first time and has already left its mark on YouTube since its release Sunday.
The remix audio video had approximately 20 million views in the first 24 hours since its release, making it the biggest debut of a music video on YouTube in 2017 so far, according to Billboard.
Bieber gave fans in Puerto Rico a special surprise days after the remix’s release. The Canadian artist invited Fonsi up on stage during his Tuesday concert at José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum and the two performed their version of “Despacito” together.
Can’t decide which version you like best? Listen to the remix with Bieber above and the original below … des-pa-citooo.
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