Hasta La Gadget!

Note: Spoilers ahead.

Netflix series “13 Reasons Why” tells the story of a teenage girl’s death by suicide, and the 13 tapes she leaves behind for the people she feels are responsible for her death. The show has been commended and criticized for its handling of graphic scenes depicting sexual assault, abuse and suicide.

At the center of one the show’s darkest plot lines ― the rape of two characters ― is villainous jock Bryce, played by Justin Prentice. We spoke with Prentice about his time on the series, his relationship with the cast and what it’s like to play a wolf in jock’s clothing.

The novel Thirteen Reasons Why deals with some serious issues, from bullying to sexual assault to death by suicide. What are the challenges in portraying those themes?

Obviously, it’s a very dark headspace to get into. On set, when we weren’t filming the dark scenes, we tried to have as much fun as we could and keep things lighthearted for our own sanity. Me specifically, for the character Bryce — not to give too much away for the people who haven’t read the book — but I was kind of terrified because I knew what my character’s arc was and what I was going to have to do at some point. So I did a lot of research to help, but it obviously affects you emotionally. How can it not? These are very relevant issues to all of us. Even reading it on paper — our table reads were intense. Lots of emotion, lots of tears from all of us. At the end of the day, we wanted to make a great project that would hopefully start some important conversations. It was worth any emotional distress.

Your character Bryce is quite the villain in the book. How difficult (or easy) was it to inhabit that role?

Parts of it were easy, especially in the first few episodes — we’re kind of just introducing ourselves. He’s got the standard sort of jock-kind of facade. He takes care of his bros, he’s captain of the football team, the baseball team, he’s an MVP superstar, so he’s got all of that going for him.  But as you get further into the depth of the series, it obviously gets more difficult. One of the things I wanted to make sure I portrayed was that [Bryce] is not the Machiavellian villain. I didn’t want Bryce to be that. He’s a teen in high school, which makes it even more terrifying. I wanted it to be a real kid in a high school setting who unfortunately is capable of some monstrous acts.

Does the Netflix adaptation stay true to the book’s message?

I absolutely think so. I think it has the heart of the book in it throughout. I also think, because we’re able to draw it out into 13 episodes, we get to go even deeper with plots and with the characters themselves. For people who love the book, I think they’ll love the series just as much, if not more.

Selena Gomez mentioned in an Instagram post that she waited six years to cast the perfect characters for the show. How involved was she in the production of the show?

She was very much involved with it. She and her mother, Mandy Teefey, are both executive producers and none of us would be employed if it weren’t for them. They’ve been the strong force behind this from the get-go, propelling it forward. They’re both fantastic. They both met with us about the characters, we talked and had dinners to chat through things and talk about the upcoming episodes.

What do you hope people take away from “13 Reasons Why”?

I hope that they feel like they can talk about certain issues. I think, unfortunately, today a lot of these things aren’t discussed because of stigma. I think all of us hope that they’re going to see how even a small event piled onto an already large load can create a lot of distress for a human being, and how over time that starts to wear and tear you down. If people are having hardships, hopefully their friends can watch a show like this and have a better understanding of what people are going through and offer aid. It’s also beneficial for parents to watch. Bullying has changed a lot through the years. With cyberbullying, one press of a finger on an electronic device can shatter someone’s reputation and what they think is their entire life. It’s scary. I think this show gives parents insight into what their kids might be going through.

In order to tackle these difficult issues, I’m sure you had to be very connected with the rest of the cast. How do you and your castmates connect?

We all became really close through this process. We all became brothers and sisters. We had to be there for each other, to comfort one another and to talk through things. I think, because of those relationships and that rapport, because of all the trust we had for one another, these really hard scenes were a lot easier than they otherwise would have been. They were still very difficult, but because of the level of trust that we all built with each other, I think they’re going to turn out really really well.

Moving away from “13 Reasons Why” for a second, you also had a great character arc as Becky’s boyfriend on “Glee,” in which you did a lot to dispel stigma around Down Syndrome. What was that like?

It was awesome. I was honestly very honored to play the character. I was really pumped when I got it. “Glee” is a great show in terms of tackling social issues. Lauren [Potter] is an absolute sweetheart and the coolest person to work with — they all were, it was fantastic. I was honored to play it. Again, with a lot of these social stigmas, they just don’t need to be in place. Just by talking about them, we can often shatter them. People with Down Syndrome are people. Human beings are human beings, regardless of what makes us different.

What advice do you have for young people trying to break into the acting industry?

Make sure you’re passionate about it. When you know, you know, and you can’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. You’re going to face countless no’s. You get hundreds upon hundreds of no’s, but if you’re really passionate about it, then none of that matters. You see every opportunity as a chance to hone your craft and show people what you’ve learned. It doesn’t matter as long as you’re bettering yourself. Eventually, one day, you’ll better yourself enough to where someone goes, “Hey, you’re perfect for this.” If you’re really passionate about it and you’re always prepared, eventually the right opportunity will come up.

You’re from Tennessee originally. What Southern comfort food do you miss the most?

All of it. It’s all so good. Biscuits and gravy, grits, everything that’s horrible for you. Even when I go to Tennessee, I try not to eat it anyway because it’ll slowly send you to your grave. But you’ll be happy going there, I guess? You’ll die early but happy.

Chick-fil-A, Cook Out or Zaxby’s? 

Chick-fil-A.

In-N-Out or Shake Shack? 

In-N-Out.

Sweet tooth or salty tooth? 

I have both.

Favorite sport to watch vs. favorite sport to play? 

Watch? Definitely football. I love playing sports, so really anything — tennis, baseball, basketball, football, golf — I’m just happy being active.

Last TV show you binge-watched? 

“Firefly.”

If you could reboot one old TV show right now, what would it be? 

The original “Star Trek.”

Go-to move in rock, paper, scissors? 

I can’t give that away, because then I’ll lose every time! What is that “Big Bang Theory” thing — rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock? I’m going to go with Spock.

Pick a dream job that isn’t acting. 

I think law, or being a doctor. Also, I would have been super happy in a field of science — theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, anything like that.

Favorite number?

3.

Favorite movie right now? 

I just started watching “Reign of Fire,” so that.

Do you have a secret talent? 

I do balisong knife twirling.

Favorite sports teams, both pro and college? 

Tennessee Titans and Tennessee Volunteers.

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Former Republican congressman Jack Kingston appeared on CNN this week and couldn’t tell the difference between two prominent women of color featured on the panel alongside him. 

The flub happened during a segment hosted by Don Lemon discussing White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s cringeworthy comments Monday. Spicer made tone-deaf and false remarks about Hitler’s use of chemical weapons and called concentration camps “Holocaust centers.” 

During the segment Tuesday, April Ryan, who was recently hired as a CNN commentator and did a double take when Spicer initially made his comment, said that his remarks were especially upsetting not as a matter of politics but because they were made during Passover. She said his words diminished the horrors of the Holocaust. 

Kingston immediately interrupted to argue against Ryan’s claim that the outrage wasn’t political ― but nothing he said mattered after he confused Ryan for commentator Ana Navarro in his rebuttal and called her “Ana.” 

Lemon jumped in to correct Kingston’s blunder and told him, “That’s not Ana, that’s April,” before Ryan reminded him: “I’m April, this is April, I’m sorry.” 

Kingston attempted to play damage control and claimed, “I can’t see who’s talking, I apologize,” to which Navarro said: “Not all colored girls are the same, Jack.” 

But it didn’t stop there. Kingston went on to say to Ryan: “You might not be criticizing him because you’re a Democrat; you’re criticizing him because you don’t like Trump.”

Ryan reminded him that she never specified whether she was Democrat or Republican. “You don’t know my politics,” she said, before asking: “So I’m a Democrat because I’m black?” 

Navarro even came with the facts, reminding Kingston that Ryan is an objective journalist and that the real issue is that Kingston apparently thinks all women of color look the same. “He thinks you’re me, that’s the problem,” Navarro said to Ryan before she turned her attention to Kingston, saying: “Jack, do me a favor: Quit while you’re behind.”

Lemon could be seen shaking his head throughout the segment, which was just one of several memorable moments on TV this week with the CNN host.

On Thursday, Lemon moderated a discussion in which CNN commentator Jeffrey Lord referred to President Donald Trump as the “Martin Luther King of health care” and was promptly shut down by commentator Symone Sanders (and by many others on the internet). Lemon spoke with Lord during a separate segment later that evening that also went viral, in which Lord refused to apologize for his offensive remarks. And, well, let’s just say Lemon wasn’t here for that either.

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After losing her leg to cancer, a 10-year-old girl found companionship in a special doll with the same condition.

In November 2016, Dylan Probe was diagnosed with a type of bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma. The fourth-grader had to undergo chemotherapy and on March 17, had her right leg amputated below the knee.  

Throughout Dylan’s battle with cancer, photographer Sherina Welch has documented her journey in the hospital. Following the surgery, Welch decided to surprise the brave little girl with an American Girl doll that has a prosthetic leg just like hers.

Welch ordered the doll from a company called A Step Ahead Prosthetics, which customizes dolls for children who’ve experienced limb loss.

The little girl loved her new doll and named her Hope.

A video of Dylan receiving the surprise doll went viral on the popular Facebook page, Love What Matters, where it reached over 660,000 views.

Welch has been glad to see Dylan’s story getting attention and raising awareness around childhood cancer. The photographer has a project called “More Than 4,” in which she documents six families touched by childhood cancer to show “the good, the bad and the ugly” of this fight. 

As the name suggests, Welch also wants to make people aware of the fact that only four percent of federal funding for cancer research goes toward childhood cancers. The photographer is also encouraging people to donate to their local chapters of Flashes of Hope and families battling childhood cancer in their communities.

As for Dylan, her family told Today.com that she has more chemotherapy to undergo, but they’re praying her subsequent scans show no signs of the disease.

And through it all, the little girl will have Hope by her side.

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They dispatched the carrier strike force toward North Korea. They launched the cruise missiles at Syria. But the U.S. military, stung when it was sent to war before without a clear plan and then blamed for the resulting mess, is expressing caution about being thrust deeper into any of the conflicts raging around the world.

Combat-ready American and allied troops are deployed today against heavily armed opposing forces in Europe and the Korean peninsula. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, U.S. and NATO commander in Europe and the former top U.S. commander in South Korea, last year described their situation like this: They’re ready “to fight tonight if deterrence fails.” But a plan would be good.

After 15 years of bloody, inconclusive war in Iraq and Afghanistan, experienced military officers are looking to President Donald Trump not just to pull the trigger on military action when needed. They’re looking for a coherent statement of American goals and a coordinated strategy that combines military force with economic, political, diplomatic, cyber and media power ― and doesn’t leave the war to the military alone.

“There is a limit, I think, to what we can do,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said this week at a Pentagon news conference, when asked about next steps the military might take in Syria following the April 7 missile attack.

Mattis, a retired Marine four-star general with years of warfighting experience, indicated that he’s in no rush to send U.S. forces into combat as the sole instrument of American power.

In a book he co-authored with Hoover Institution scholar Kori Schake last year, Mattis argued that the public and politicians are “implausibly expecting military force to produce sophisticated political, economic and cultural outcomes.” That’s not the military’s job, but “inherently a political undertaking.”

“In free societies, politicians must choose the political ends,” Mattis and Schake wrote. “They must also determine what price ― in blood, treasure and national credibility ― to pay for those ends.”

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton put it more simply. By failing to coordinate and focus all elements of power, he told The Huffington Post, the United States has “outsourced foreign policy to the U.S. military, and we are frequently not the very best tool.”

While Trump praised the “flawless” missile strike on Syria, he’s been quick to complain about America’s recent war record. “We never win,” he groused earlier this year. “And we don’t fight to win.” When a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed during a military raid in Yemen in February, Trump was ready to blame “the generals.”

It may seem counterintuitive, but many generals say war is too important to be left up to them. “I don’t think it’s fine, personally, to leave it up to the generals at the top level,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, who has served at all levels of command including leading the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan on his third combat tour.

“I don’t believe in leaving it to the generals because the generals need help in harnessing political and economic and informational power,” he told HuffPost. “The political work has to be synchronized with the military, with one strategic outcome for America’s use of power.”

That might require Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, to structure the White House’s thinking about war the same way that military commanders approach it.

In combat operations, military leaders always write down and then brief their subordinates on their goal for the mission. This “commander’s intent” details precisely what the mission is intended to accomplish. Everyone should understand how each action contributes to the desired end state ― that is, the situation the commander envisions when the smoke clears.

Given the commander’s intent, staff officers can then plot out what resources will be needed to make the plan work ― troops, heavy-lift helicopters, ammunition, fuel, intelligence on enemy positions, even good weather (or bad, to cover troop movements).

At a higher level, the same kind of “commander’s intent” from the White House would help clarify, for instance, how a U.S. missile strike in Syria fits into an overall strategy of bringing down the regime of President Bashar Assad or ending the Syrian war. Guidance from the top would also help various staff allocate non-military resources to reach the goal.

It’s not something you can simply add water to a dehydrated plant and it’s suddenly a full-fledged plan. This is hard work and it’s going to take time.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis

That’s the sort of next steps that Mattis seemed to have in mind when he said the U.S. strategic plan for defeating the Islamic State exists “in skeleton form.” He said the plan is “being fleshed out now. This has got to be done in a methodical way, where we look at each element of it.”

“And it’s not something you can simply add water to a dehydrated plant and it’s suddenly a full-fledged plan. This is hard work and it’s going to take time,” Mattis added.

No such direction on any of the military conflicts in which the U.S. is engaged has come from the Trump administration ― or from Congress, which alone has constitutional war-making authority. The Pentagon has recently mounted operations in Somalia, Libya and Syria and has re-engaged in Iraq under the authority of legislation passed in 2001 to allow attacks on al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Congress has declined to update that authorization.

“Congress has been very content to go to ground, stay in foxhole defilade, if you will, and while the rounds are going over the foxhole, they’re not really involved,” Eaton said.

On Thursday, U.S. forces escalated the air war in Afghanistan, striking with a massive bomb on what was described as an ISIS tunnel complex. But the White House did not explain how the attack fit into an overall strategy or contributed to a clear end state. White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to talk about strategy and referred all questions to the Defense Department.

Similarly, the White House ordered the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its accompanying warships to head toward the Korean peninsula this week after Trump made vague threats about halting North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons development. But the White House gave no explanation of the naval armada’s precise purpose, and did not address what reaction it anticipated or how the U.S. would handle a North Korean escalation.

The military’s insistence that it operate with a coherent strategy and a defined end is hardly academic. They want to make sure that lives ― their own, their buddies, all the men and women they command ― are not spent in vain.

“One third of the Army’s general officers have children serving in the military. I have three children who have served,” said Eaton, a West Pointer who now serves as a senior adviser to the progressive group VoteVets. With his two sons still on active duty, Eaton said, “we are consumed with the outcome of the mission and the human lives that are at stake, both American and on the other side.”

So when they look to the commander-in-chief, they have a blunt request.

“If you’re going to give a four-star [general] a mission, then you better be clear about what your end state is,” Eaton said.

No strategy or clear end state has ever been defined for the ongoing U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, he said, with more potential conflicts tempting American intervention, “we as a military class do not want a mission where we’re going to be set up for failure.”

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Kermit the Frog. Miss Piggy. Beaker. Gonzo. Big Bird. Elmo. Cookie Monster. Count von Count. You will soon have a chance to see these and plenty more beloved creatures in the flesh ― or rather, in the fuzz ― thanks to a comprehensive Jim Henson exhibition headed, permanently, to the Museum of Moving Image (MOMI) in New York. 

The Museum launched a Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday, calling on all Henson buffs to help raise $40,000 to realize the creatively named “Jim Henson Exhibition” in all its glory. And boy did they deliver. In just two days, the museum met its initial mark. We can officially say, the show will happen. 

Now they’re hoping to reach their “stretch goal” of $100,000, in order to welcome even more bug-eyed creatures with squeezable noses and unruly mops of hair into their new Queens home. 

The permanent MOMI exhibition was first announced in 2013, with help from $2.75 million in backing from New York City, a place many muppets would have called home if they could talk.

“Many of the Muppets who you’ve come to love were made right here in New York City,” Jim’s daughter Cheryl Hanson said at the time. “They were sewn, glued, designed and built right here.” The money helped fund a 2,200-square-foot gallery on the museum’s second floor and ensure that it is puppet-proof. 

Given the fact that the Jim Henson Workshop was based in Queens in its day, the setting was a perfect spot for the muppets to settle down in. 

This next round of fundraising is geared toward the restoration of the puppets themselves, of which there are approximately 175. The crop is any puppet-head’s dream come true, featuring original beasties from all the Henson classics: we’re talking “Sesame Street,” “The Muppet Show,” “Fraggle Rock,” “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth.” The delicate creatures are to be spruced up by designers and builders at Henson’s legendary Creature Shop, where they’ll be preserved for future generations to ogle, as well. 

If you’re not based in New York, worry not, a traveling version of “The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited” is also slated to go on tour, starting off at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture on May 20. 

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