The Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their families has been credited primarily to the strenuous efforts of White House adviser Stephen Miller. Perhaps you would like to call him about it.
This has been found in the Chicago area - be safe!
Do not touch this plant. If you get some of the sap on your skin, chemicals in the sap will attack the DNA in your skin cells and make you sensitive to the sun. So sensitive, in fact, that normal sun exposure can give you a blistering sunburn-like rash that takes weeks or months to go away.
This is sickening. Remember when Obama bowed to another world leader and Fox said he was bowing and capitulating, and here this guy is LITERALLY blowing smoke up the NK dictator's ass?
Monday evening, as Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un met in Singapore, ABC briefly preempted its popular show The Bachelorette to convey the important news. Some viewers were miffed, but they might have noticed some similarities between the two shows, from the pageantry to the semi-scripted, uncanny quasi-reality. And then there was President Trump himself, who, in his comments following his meetings with the North Korean supreme leader, sounded like a smitten contestant on the dating show.
It was an “honor” to meet Kim, Trump said. What surprised the American most about his counterpart? “Great personality and very smart—good combination,” he said. “I learned that he’s a very talented man. I also learned that he loves his country very much.” He added that Kim was “a worthy negotiator … a very worthy, very smart negotiator.” The president continued to gush during a press conference and in interviews.
Trump’s flattery is noteworthy because he is much better known for vinegar than honey in his public statements. Yet his high praise for Kim stands together with his prior compliments for autocratic leaders around the globe, and in contrast to his sharp words for allies, especially democratic ones, over recent weeks—especially some harsh swipes at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump’s overt indifference to the question of human rights also shocks the conscience, and together with the emerging consensus that Kim got the better of Trump at the negotiating table, it raises new questions about Trump’s judgment and statesmanship.
Even by agreeing to the summit, the U.S. was engaged in a grand act of flattering North Korea, and regardless of how it turned out, it was going to be a huge propaganda win for Pyongyang. Still, the honeyed language Trump deployed was noteworthy for a president who has often seemed allergic to diplomacy. Even when standing with close American allies, the president has a tendency to veer off script and create incidents, a pattern that his defenders have attributed to his refusal to play by the stale, old-fashioned rules of traditional diplomatic protocol. In Singapore, however, Trump kept to his theme.
Whether that theme was wise or moral, however, is a different question. Even aside from the contents of the agreement that Trump and Kim signed—a vague, four-part declaration that seems to hold North Korea to very little—Trump chose to abandon the historic American focus on human rights in the brutally repressive totalitarian dictatorship. At the press conference after the summit, Trump shrugged.
“I believe it’s a rough situation over there,” he said. “It’s rough in a lot of places, by the way, not just there.”
This is false equivalence: While many countries abuse human rights, the scale and depth of the North Korean regime’s brutality is extremely unusual, with up to 130,000 people in concentration camps. It is perhaps unsurprising that a president who boasted that he hadn’t bothered to prepare for the summit didn’t grasp this. Or perhaps it was a conscious decision. Pressed on North Korean abuses by Voice of America’s Greta Van Susteren, Trump seemed to suggest that the country’s history was meaningless, and he would judge it only on its recent behavior.
“Look, he’s doing what he’s seen done, if you look at it,” Trump said. “But, I really have to go by today and by yesterday and by a couple of weeks ago because that’s really when this whole thing started.”
Trump also said that the death of Otto Warmbier, an American who was detained in North Korea but transferred home shortly before dying, helped to create the conditions for the summit. Warmbier’s family has said that he was “systematically tortured and intentionally injured” by the Kim regime.
But the indifference to human-rights abuses also echoes some of Trump’s prior statements—during the 2016 presidential campaign, for example, he said the U.S. had no right to lecture Turkey on human rights and declined to condemn Russia’s brutality, telling Bill O’Reilly, “You got a lot of killers. What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
Trump’s choice of comparisons is telling. Despite documented abuses in countries like Turkey, Russia, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia, he has found himself drawn to their leaders—generally outsize, swaggering autocrats with little concern for rule of law. Trump congratulated Erdogan on a controversial, anti-democratic referendum (declining to press the human-rights angle) and infamously disregarded staff advice warning, “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” Vladimir Putin on a rigged electoral win.
It is no surprise, then, that he’d be drawn to Kim, who fits with that group—yet with even less of a legitimate mandate, and with a far worse human-rights record. Yet none of Trump’s remarks would have intimated that Kim is a hereditary ruler of an oppressive state.
“His country does love him,” he said. “His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor. They’re gonna put it together, and I think they’re going to end up with a very strong country, and a country which has people—that they’re so hard working, so industrious.”
It is true that when a ruler has a history of ordering summary executions, his lackeys tend to emote great respect and work hard. Nonetheless, Trump said, “I do trust him, yeah. … He trusts me, I believe, I really do.”
Amidst these comments, Trump also fell back into his old real-estate developer shtick. “They have great beaches,” he said of North Korea. “You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, ‘Boy, look at the view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo?’”
Trump’s flattery for Kim would have been notable in any case, but it stands in sharp relief to his remarks about Trudeau. Immediately before flying to Singapore, Trump was in Canada for the G7 meeting, where he clashed with the leaders of America’s closest allies over trade. The president had initially planned to sign a joint statement that emerged from the meeting, but changed his mind after hearing Trudeau criticize newly levied American tariffs and say he would stand up for Canada.
On Twitter, Trump blasted Trudeau for making “false statements” and called him “Very dishonest & weak.” Another aide said that there is “a special place in hell” for the Canadian. Astonishingly, however, Trump continued to attack Trudeau during his post–Singapore-summit press conference, in the same breath that he praised Kim. “I actually like Justin, you know, I think he’s good, I like him, but he shouldn't have done that,” Trump said. “That was a mistake. That’s going to cost him a lot of money.”
Trudeau’s sin, to recap, is retaliating against punitive and possibly illegal tariffs on his country, which he was democratically elected to lead. (Ironically, he, like Kim, leads a nation that his father also led.) Kim, on the other hand, is a repressive, unelected dictator who has menaced the world and particularly the U.S. with a nuclear-weapons program. In return, he received a glitzy summit and a shower of praise from Trump.
At one point during the summit, the two leaders went for a stroll on a breezeway. The North Korean turned to the American and remarked, “Many people in the world will think of this as a … form of fantasy.” Certainly, Trump’s flurry of flattery must have been a fantasy come true for Kim. If diplomatic summits ended with a rose ceremony like The Bachelorette, Kim would be headed back to Pyongyang with bloom in hand.
The weird relationship between Mac from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and former Phillies second baseman Chase Utley officially has a much more satisfying coda now that actor Rob McElhenney is friggin jacked as hell.
Actor, writer, and It’s Always Sunny co-creator McElhenney’s Mac is one of the weirdest bozos on TV, and one of the most notable characters to go from thin to fat and back again before our eyes. But Mac’s obsession with Utley just may be the defining trait of his character.
Things got very specific about Utley during the show’s fifth season in a brilliant episode called “The World Series Defense.” Set around the series-clinching Game 5 of the 2008 World Series, Mac hopes to get a personal letter to Utley by giving it to Sweet Dee, who has decided to get blitzed on “riot punch” and later run on the field to kiss a player when the series win is locked up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6cEOk7x4HA
Mac wants her to kiss Utley for him, explaining that he gave the letter to “Major League Baseball, his lawyer, his manager and his mom” but he hasn’t written back. The letter itself is pretty odd but Mac stresses there’s “nothing sexual” about it. And oh, sh*t, there were stickers. Unfortunately Mac and Utley never got to “have a catch” or talk about their dads because the gang got locked in a hotel supply closet, but the episode became a fan favorite.
Utley even responded to the letter years later, but his stance on Mac’s affection apparently changed when pictures of McElhenney shirtless at a pride parade surfaced over the weekend. Because the man who was once Fat Mac is now absolutely jacked.
And Jacked Mac certainly has gotten Utley’s attention. On Monday, he posted an Instagram video of him standing next to a shirtless, still ripped McElhenney and called him his #mcm, hashtag-speak for “Man Crush Monday.”
It’s the ending this story deserves, really. And it’s great that McElhenney and Utley can keep this bit going for Sunny fans who still remember lines from an episode that aired nearly nine years ago. Because no matter what shape Mac is in, it was clear that their relationship was always going to be…
Amy and Rosa are “not spicy and sassy” stereotypes, Fumero said, because Schur and Goor simply “wrote real human-being characters and then just gave the roles to two Latinas.”
This - among many other things - is why I LOVE this show and I'm SO glad it was saved!
When I first met Amy Santiago, she was everything I never knew I wanted in a television character. I encountered the Cuban-American NYPD detective in early 2014, after Brooklyn Nine-Nine won two Golden Globes in its first season and landed on my radar. Initially, it seemed like a formulaic comedy about an immature cop, Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg), butting heads with a new captain, Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher). Jake’s fellow officer, rival, and love interest, Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), appeared to be the “straight woman” to his renegade cop. I thought I knew what their dynamic would be: that she was the rule follower who’d try to put him in line, and he was the rule flouter who’d outperform her anyway. But this is not where Michael Schur and Dan Goor’s comedy goes.
In its earliest moments, Brooklyn Nine-Nine does indeed establish Amy as competitive and goal-oriented. In the pilot, it’s revealed that she and Jake have an ongoing bet about who can apprehend the most criminals. Later, she tells Jake she wants their new boss to mentor her so she can eventually become a captain herself. When Jake goofs off at the scene of a robbery, Amy reprimands him. But after he reveals that he already solved the case, and cracks another joke, Amy reacts with a smile. With that smile, an amazing thing happened: Amy became lovable, too, subtly defying the idea that there’s something inherently unpleasant about an ambitious, brainy woman.
In the five seasons since, the Latina detective has flourished on the show, using her smarts to solve countless cases, going undercover in a women’s prison, and becoming the first of her peers to be promoted to sergeant. For five years, through my college graduation, first job, and the uncertainties of early adulthood, I have followed Amy and the rest of the precinct’s adventures. So, you can imagine my (short-lived) disappointment when Fox canceled Brooklyn Nine-Nine last month—though NBC rescued the show the very next day. It turned out that, while the comedy didn’t have good enough Nielsen ratings for its original network, it did have uncommonly passionate fans (including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Guillermo del Toro, and Mark Hamill) who rallied on Twitter to keep it going. As Linda Holmes noted at NPR, the reversal itself was ultimately a business decision, but the outcry was a reminder of all the qualities that make the show so fiercely loved.
Indeed, there’s a lot to love about Brooklyn Nine-Nine: its diverse cast, its ability to organically tackle serious topics such as racial profiling via the sitcom format, and its absurd-silly brand of humor (in one Season 5 cold open, Jake has suspects sing the Backstreet Boys in a line-up). What stands out in a quieter way for me—and I’m sure for many other viewers—is that, in a genre where women are often circumscribed within limited roles, Brooklyn Nine-Nine fluidly embraces the many dimensions of its female characters. The motorcycle jacket–clad Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), easily the toughest member of the squad, also loves Nancy Meyers films, used to attend a ballet academy, and comes out as bisexual in Season 5. The precinct’s apparently narcissistic administrator, Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti)—who fascinates a group of psychologists in a Season 1 episode for her “complete overlap of ego and id”—saves the Nine-Nine from being shut down in Season 4 and becomes a devoted mother in Season 5. The unabashedly nerdy Amy Santiago, then, seems to be a natural product of a show that seeks to write women fully.
Comedy, of course, demands exaggeration, but Brooklyn Nine-Nine manages to play on Amy’s nerdiness without implicitly condemning that part of her personality. In a Season 2 gag, Holt tells Amy, “No offense, but you are something of a teacher’s pet,” to which Amy responds without missing a beat, “None taken. People love their pets.” The show defines Amy by qualities not often seen together in women onscreen: She loves rules but isn’t afraid to break them when they’re unjust, she chases perfection but can’t give up cigarettes, she is obsessed with crossword puzzles but thrives in a dangerous, physically demanding profession.
A lesser show would see Amy through the eyes of Gina, who jokes about wanting to She’s All That her colleague, transforming her into a more palatable version of femininity. Fortunately, Gina’s perspective is not Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s. The show makes a point of illustrating that Amy’s smartness doesn’t mean she’s an unappealing, solitary genius. In fact, Jake’s pursuit of Amy—and their subsequent relationship—is central to the comedy and, to its credit, the show doesn’t use his interest in her as lazy shorthand for her desirability. Jake and Amy’s relationship starts off as a playful rivalry, and then grows into one cemented by mutual respect.
As Joanna Robinson notes in Vanity Fair, the pair appreciates each other’s flaws, with Amy enjoying Jake’s “juvenile frat-boy humor” and Jake valuing her “obsessive need for organization.” Their connection allows the show to emphasize Amy’s vulnerability and Jake’s supportiveness. When Amy is nervous about an exam, Jake sets up a mock test for her. When she worries that her potential promotion will altertheir relationship, he responds, “I mean, this is your dream, from before we were dating. And yeah, things might change a little, but for the better, right?” He tells her what she, and other brilliant women like her, sometimes need to hear: “Look, you can’t be afraid to be successful. You’re too good for that.”
Theirs is a dynamic not often seen on network TV, which has struggled with representing accomplished and intelligent women. In the 2007 book Geek Chic: Smart Women in Popular Culture, the Miami University professor Sherrie A. Innes writes that film and TVtypically depict smart women as “aberrations” and that “if brilliant women are not portrayed as outsiders, they vanish entirely.” Citing work in educational psychology, Innes argues that seeing negative social depictions of intelligent girls teaches girls that they should hide their academic ability in order to be accepted by others. Perhaps one reason that well-written, smart female characters in network comedies—like Amy Santiago, Rory from Gilmore Girls, and Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation—resonate so strongly is because audiences rarely get to see them.
A look at two of the most popular network sitcoms of the last decade offers a useful contrast to Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Another Amy over at CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, Amy Farrah Fowler, is a neurobiologist who fits the socially-awkward-smart-woman archetype despite having the potential to be a better developed character. Much of her arc revolves around being unlucky in love until she finds an even more socially awkward partner in the show’s lead, Sheldon Cooper. On the same series, Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz—a scientist who’s smarter and more financially successful than her husband, Howard—is usually reduced to the scary-bitch trope. Meanwhile, the resident smart kid on ABC’s Modern Family, Alex Dunphy, suffers a similar social penalty for being bookish: In one Season 2 episode, she asks, “So dumb guys go for dumb girls, and smart guys go for dumb girls? What do smart girls get?” The punch line, courtesy of her father, arrives: “Cats, mostly.” Since then, Alex’s love life has largely struggled to escape the realm of jokes. Season 9 has her crushing on her Caltech professor who falls for her sister Haley—the quintessential popular girl—at first sight.
Pop culture has long reinforced the idea that intelligence and desirability can’t easily coexist in a female character. When I was in middle school, I remember seeing a reality show called Beauty and the Geek, which paired attractive young women (dubbed “beauties”) with intelligent, awkward men (“geeks”) to compete for prizes—the very title, and premise, of the show implied the gendered distribution of these roles in society. In a recent episode, Brooklyn Nine-Nine allows Amy to break down this dichotomy while recognizing its cultural pervasiveness.
Stephanie Beatriz as Rosa Diaz (left) and Melissa Fumero as Amy Santiago (center) in a Season 5 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)
Soon after she’s promoted to sergeant in Season 5, Amy finds herself juggling the dualdemands of wedding-dress shopping and being a leader in the historically male world of law enforcement. Her attempts to hide the fact that she’s looking for a dress from her co-workers—shutting her laptop so Rosa doesn't see a boutique's website open and averting her gaze, later, when they walk past a bridal store—make for some light comedy. But then Rosa, in a sobering moment, asks Amy why she’s “being such a nutjob” about the whole process. So Amy tells her, “Because being a female sergeant is difficult. I have to work twice as hard to gain my officers’ respect and looking at girly dresses isn’t going to help.” In order to become a worthy leader, Amy feels she must abandon her “girly” side and become the type of emotionless female boss that people expect.
The arc, true to Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s history of doing right by Amy, culminates in an action sequence that involves her chasing a perpetrator while still wearing a voluminous wedding dress that Rosa convinces her to try on during their break. (Amy apprehends him using her sash.) Afterward, when the gown sparks discussion at the precinct, Amy tries to get everyone to return to work and change the subject, but Rosa stops her: “No, we’re gonna talk about [dresses], because while wearing a wedding dress you leapt over a couch, sprinted down an alley, and jumped off a car to subdue the crap out of a perp like you were Wonder Woman.” And then she gives Amy the reassurance she needs: “You are an amazing cop and a great leader and you’ve proven that a billion times over.” Rosa’s words are enough to get Amy to admit she’d like a “prettier” gown after all, and to proclaim exactly what kind of dress she wants: “a mermaid cut with tulip—freakin’—sleeves.”
That Brooklyn Nine-Nine has created a successful woman who’s not there to be a killjoy is a rare achievement—that it has done so with a Cuban American character is rarer still. Perhaps this is why Amy is all the more relatable to viewers of color like myself. When it comes to Latinas in particular, television has relied on the oversexualized, feisty stereotype more often than not (Modern Family’s Gloria, for all Sofia Vergara’s comedic talents, comes to mind). But the landscape is slowly changing: In 2014, Jane the Virgin unveiled a Latina protagonist with Rory Gilmore–like traits, a year after Amy Santiago arrived. Speaking to Us Weekly a few years later, Fumero recalled how she and her co-star Beatriz couldn’t believe Brooklyn Nine-Nine had hired two Latinas. She credited the creators, Schur and Goor, for the decision: “For them, they were just like, ‘This is what Brooklyn looks like.’” Amy and Rosa are “not spicy and sassy” stereotypes, Fumero said, because Schur and Goor simply “wrote real human-being characters and then just gave the roles to two Latinas.”
When television imagines characters as real human beings, audiences often respond—as Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s fans did most vocally during the show’s brief cancellation. The last episode of Season 5 embodied the humor, irreverence, and warmth that viewers would have mourned were it, in fact, the series finale. Near the end, Captain Holt officiates Amy and Jake’s wedding. “It has been a true pleasure,” he tells them, “to watch your distracting childish rivalry evolve into a distracting childish courtship and, now, into what I’m sure will be a distracting childish marriage.” That a responsible, “teacher’s pet” like Amy formed half of that “distracting childish courtship” is important. Sure, she’s an accomplished professional. She’salso, Holt acknowledges, a woman who indulges her immature side, who’s known—and loved—for the many different parts of herself.
Just after 9 a.m. local time in Singapore, President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un capped off months of Twitter trash talking, followed by months of making nice and weeks of actual negotiations, shaking hands outside the site of the summit at Sentosa Island. The pair briefly greeted one another and shook hands outside of the Capella Hotel before going inside to where the two leaders will start the negotiation by meeting alone with only their translators.
I really like McDonald's hot coffee - its one of my favorites, actually - and so I'm pretty pumped they're doing a cold brew now too!!
McDonald's adds cold brew coffee to the McCafe menu later this month and features it in the new Cold Brew Frozen Coffee and Cold Brew Frappe.
The Cold Brew Frozen Coffee (a blend of cold brew coffee, milk, sugar, and ice) is basically the same as the Frappe version minus the whipped cream and syrup.
You can also get cold brew coffee iced with various syrups, sugar, and cream, much like you can order regular iced coffee at McDonald's.
Cold brew coffee is made by slow-steeping (for hours or even a few days) coffee grounds in cold or room temperature water. The resultant coffee is generally smoother than brewed coffee with less bitterness. It's gained in popularity in recent years and is already on the menu at national chains like Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, and Chick-fil-A.
"the average person produces 26 gallons of sweat in bed each year"
WHAT
EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s scheduler testified to congressional investigators that her boss had instructed her to run a variety of personal errands for him, likely in a violation of federal ethics rules. In the testimony released Monday by ranking Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, Millan Hupp said one of those errands was to buy an “old mattress” from the Trump International Hotel in D.C. How gross are used hotel mattresses?
“I say we do whatever the hell we wanna do—set the weirdos free and see what happens” is my motto in life, but it is also a line from the Season 2 trailer for GLOW, which returns to Netflix on June 29.
Howdy folks! This post has been a long time coming, as Williamson County seems to be a frequent fixture of my inbox. Fortunately, the Nashville suburb did not disappoint.
This 4500 square foot esteemed piece of real estate, built in 2012, boasts 4 bedrooms and 4 baths, and somehow manages to spend over $1 million USD doing it.
Despite spending that much money, they fortunately didn’t allocate funds to a lawyer foyer, so we’re left to start with the formal dining room.
Dining Room
You see, stolen window units are just a risk of ground-floor urban life, and if you don’t like it you can go make enough money to rent some place with central air in this economy!!
Office
The best thing about this house is that it’s decorated as if the recession never happened and we all just kept doing 2005 forever.
IN THE TOP LEFT HAND CORNER OF THIS IMAGE YOU CAN SPOT THREE MORE TEAPOTS.
Master Bedroom
this is a suspicious number of pillows. pretty sure we might be witnessing a case of illicit pillow laundering.
Master Bath
The only thing that can explain the excessive number of duplicate objects in this house is elaborate divorce planning. What cynical times we live in.
Powder Room
did they glue that seal on there or???
THEATRE ROOM
man don’t u hate it when u spend all ur money on a theatre room and u don’t have enough left over for the theatre part? relatable content
Game Room
A huge subset of middle-class and rich people decorating is spending money on signs that signify what a room is used for (KITCHEN = the word EAT; pictures of food. BATH = the word BATH; pictures of tubs.)
Well, folks, that does it for the interior portion of our house but don’t worry, there’s still the
Rear Exterior
Why is it that there’s often better symmetry in the rear exteriors of McMansions? My guess: custom home clients are only really concerned with the front facade and therefore it’s subject to more of their meddling.
Well, that does it for Tennessee! Stay tuned for a new Looking Around this weekend and next week’s TEXAS SPECIAL. Stay cool!
There is a whole new slate of Patreon rewards, including Good House of the Week, Crowdcast streaming, monthly roasts of Important Architecture, and bonus essays!
Not into recurring donations or bonus content? Consider the tip jar! Or, Check out the McMansion Hell Store ! 100% of the proceeds from the McMansion Hell store go to charity!
Earlier this week, breakfast chain IHOP announced via Twitter that it would soon be (inexplicably) changing its name to IHOb; the reason behind the earth-shaking move will be announced on June 11. Our bet is on the “b” standing for “breakfast,” which will be a really anticlimactic reveal if that’s the case. But the…
We paid over $20 to binge it on Amazon! Oh well. Its so good.
Killing Eve is a breakout hit for BBC America, the kind of word-of-mouth success story that finds more and more people coming to a series simply because their friends are telling them it’s good. So it’s a relief to hear the news it’ll be on Hulu later this year, saving people the annoyance of illegally downloading it.
For many of us, Danny DeVito has been a stalwart, unshakeable presence in every phase of our lives; from reruns of Taxi, to roles in films like Matilda, Batman Returns, or Throw Momma From The Train, to his current multi-year run as the strangest, most vulgar presence on the wonderfully strange and vulgar It’s Always…
In the end horse Gronk didn’t manage to pull off the win, but did place — which was extremely lucky for Rob and crew.
Gronk and all his buddies placed $69 bets on Gronkowski the horse to place, so they’re heading back to New England very happy. pic.twitter.com/eQ6OBpGGsC
That $69 bet the group placed net them a cool $952.20 after Gronkowski (the horse) finished second in the Belmont Stakes after being at 24-1. It proves that sometimes nice guys horses finish first second.
I can confirm that the 69 jokes are NOT getting old to the Gronkowskis. They were so happy Gronk the horse had post postion No. 6, but so disappointed that there were 10 horses in the race, not 9.
They’d rolled in at around 4 p.m., and settled into a far-back table in the Garden Terrace room for some hot dogs, cheese and crackers, and beer. After about an hour, they went out in front of the park for a TV interview and, eventually, to meet Gronkowski the horse.
Nothing like hot dogs before a horse race. That’s what I always say.
One has to wonder whether Gronkowski unexpectedly finishing second in a huge race will increase his price to stud. Look, you might not think about this stuff — but I know football Gronk would want to know.
What an inspiring story. Also, fuck our justice system.
Probably the easiest sports story to write is one about a meteoric improvement. The Wow This Person Got A Lot Better At Sports story is one that works in every sport, honestly, but it tends to be most common in ones like running or swimming. (Stories about rapid improvements in those sports generally tend to elide the…
You will be forgiven if you look at the seemingly random pairing of Stephen Colbert and Patrick Wilson lining up to perform the national anthem at a Mets game and think “whuh?” Because, like, whuh? A comedian talk show host and the Insidious guy? Turns out, these nerds can fuckin’ sing!
I'm really upset by this. This one feels personal.
Multiplesources confirm that chef, author, and TV host Anthony Bourdain has died from an apparent suicide. He was 61. CNN, which aired Bourdain’s series Parts Unknown, has a statement:
For the past 60 years, the International House of Pancakes chain has sold hot cakes and greasy breakfast meats to weary travelers, old people, and drunk teens all across the nation (and Mexico and Canada, hence the "International" part). Sure, IHOP isn't the best diner or the nicest or even all that good, but by God, it is consistent—and that consistency goes a long way when it's 2 AM and you're trying to find food to wolf down somewhere within walking distance of your shitty motel.
No matter where you are, no matter what kind of terrible scowls or bad vibes the locals lay on you, you can always count on the fact that inside each and every IHOP franchise is a grinning pancake with cherry eyes and chocolate chip teeth waiting for you to savagely devour it. But, unfortunately, it looks like the one pancake constant in this cruel, dark world isn't actually as constant as we all thought.
On Monday, IHOP took to Twitter to announce that the restaurant chain will be dropping the "Pancakes" from its name and rebranding itself as "IHOb."
IHOb? The world whispered in unison, testing the unfamiliar syllables. Eye-ha-buh.What, pray tell, could that new "B" be?
For now, at least, it remains a mystery. IHOP says it will announce the new acronym's meaning next Monday, June 11, but until then, all we can do is wait anxiously and speculate about the fate of our beloved mediocre pancake chain. So in honor of the death of IHOP and the birth of the mysterious IHOb, here is a list of VICE Staff's top 100 guesses about what the mysterious "b" might stand for:
International House of Breakfast - This is the seemingly most obvious choice since IHOP might just want to expand its name to include more than round syrup traps, but the company's Twitter seemingly rejected the idea already. Let's keep guessing.
International House of Burgers - More lunchtime options, maybe?
International House of Beef - In case they don't want to be pigeon-holed with just burgers.
International House of Beer - An I-hoppy IPA.
International House of Brunch - Please, lord, no. We have enough avocado toast out there.
International House of Borscht - Really leaning into the "International" vibe here.
International House of Brie
International House of Bacon
International House of Butter - IHOP is basically this already, so maybe it's time to embrace it.
International House of Berries
International House of Bud - Suck it, Jeff Sessions.
International House of Blazing - Doesn't really have as nice a ring to it as the previous choice, but it's another option if the chain wants to dive into the cannabis industry.
International House of Buzzfeed
International House of Bronies
International House of Babies
International House of Boomers
International House of Bananas
International House of Barron [Trump]
International House of Boners - Sounds terrible.
International House of Business
International House of Brother
International House of Billions - Cross-promotion is important
International House of Ballers - People love The Rock
EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox, reached by phone, would not comment. He said: “You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash.”
A top aide to Scott Pruitt, Millan Hupp, resigned from the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a source briefed on the matter and correspondence reviewed by The Atlantic. Her last day will be Friday.
Hupp, who worked as the director of scheduling and advance, has been entangled in many of the scandals dogging EPA Administrator Pruitt. In March, she was one of two aides who received hefty salary bumps, even after the White House refused Pruitt’s request for raises. And as The Washington Post reported on Monday, she recently testified to the House Oversight Committee that she regularly spent her days doing personal tasks for Pruitt, from hunting for housing to calling the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., in order to inquire about purchasing a used mattress.
According to one top EPA official, the 26-year-old was “tired of being thrown under the bus by Pruitt,” and weary of seeing her name constantly appear in headlines about the agency. Officials began drafting her resignation paperwork on Monday morning, just after portions of her congressional testimony had been made public.
Hupp’s testimony contributed to the long list of scandals and improprieties plaguing the agency—including, most notably, that Pruitt rented a Capitol Hill condo from an energy lobbyist for just $50 a night, and spent more than $40,000 on a soundproof booth in his office on the taxpayers’ dime. The Washington Post also reported that Pruitt instructed Hupp to inquire about opportunities for his wife to purchase a Chick-fil-A franchise. For months now, according to multiple White House and EPA sources, officials as senior as Chief of Staff John Kelly have lobbied President Donald Trump to fire Pruitt.
Rumors circulated that Trump was simply waiting for Pruitt’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler, to be confirmed before letting Pruitt go. But that was two months ago. Since then, according to reports, Trump has been increasingly irritated by the barrage of stories that reflect poorly on his administration, including TheAtlantic’s reporting on a Pruitt aide who tried shopping negative stories about Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to other news outlets. Yet the EPA administrator appears to remain in good standing.
Pruitt has lost a valuable ally in Hupp, however. She was part of a small cadre of aides who worked for Pruitt in Oklahoma before joining him in Washington. She served on Pruitt’s political team during his time as the state’s attorney general. Hupp’s closeness with Pruitt was often a point of contention among officials; many staffers grumbled that she and others in the “Oklahoma posse,” as they were called, received special treatment, as the March raises seemed to imply.
“Millan has been a valued member of the EPA team from day one, serving an integral role in our efforts to take the President’s message of environmental stewardship across the country,” Pruitt wrote in a statement to The Atlantic. “I’ve had the opportunity to know Millan for the last several years as a colleague, friend and trusted partner. She has done outstanding work in all of her endeavors here and will be sorely missed. I wish her all the best.”
When reached by phone, Jahan Wilcox, an EPA spokesperson, would not comment. He said: “You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash.”
Donald Glover was easily the best thing about Disney's recent Han Solo origin film, and now it looks like the actor/director/writer/comedian/musician/maestro of our times could be getting an origin movie of his own—though no, sadly, it isn't a Lando story.
According to a new report from Collider, Glover is on the shortlist of actors to helm Warner Bros' upcoming Willy Wonka prequel, exploring the early days of the batshit chocolatier. Paddington director Paul King is currently developing the film based on a script by Simon Rich and reportedly has his eyes on Glover, Ryan Gosling, and Ezra Miller for the lead role.
Each of those three actors could probably pull off an interesting take on the character—at least better than Johnny Depp. Gosling doesn't get many chances to flex his comedic chops, save for the occasional movie like The Nice Guys, but the guy has surprisingly good physical timing. Miller is also a decent comedic actor, though maybe a little too bland for the Wonka role. Glover, though, would blow both of those dudes out of the water.
Gene Wilder's original Willy Wonka is equal parts magnetic and terrifying, a twinkling-eyed candy czar who is totally cool with torturing misbehaving children and losing his shit on a boat. Glover, for his part, can ride the line between his broader, zanier comedy antics from the Community days and his darker, brooding roles in Atlanta, which would be ideal for Wonka. Plus, the guy can sing.
It'd be interesting to watch Glover explore some of the more controversial sides of Wonka's history, too. Before the 2005 Willy Wonka remake force-fed us a bunch of unnecessary backstory about Wonka's abusive dentist father or whatever, all we knew about the character came from the original Roald Dahl book. In it, Wonka mentions his early days building his chocolate empire and "rescuing" the Oompa Loompas from their terrible, underdeveloped lives in the wilds of Loompaland. Wonka scooped them up and shipped them back to his factory where they were put to work making snozzberry-flavored wallpaper. Between Atlanta, "This Is America," and even that one-off Deadpool script, Glover has continually proven himself to be one of the most poignant and piercing artists addressing race in America today. In a more perfect world, WB would just give Glover free rein to tell the story about Wonka's dark, confectionary colonialist past. But sadly, WB is probably interested in taking the film in a more family-friendly (read: blander) direction.
The upcoming film is still in its infancy, so we probably have a long wait before we see the young Wonka—whoever winds up playing him—hit the big screen. In the meantime, we can all dream about Donald Glover singing a terrifying rendition of "Pure Imagination" while dressed up like a top-hatted Teddy Perkins. That would be incredible.
Aaron Persky, the California judge who gained national attention for his role in the Brock Turner case, was recalled on Tuesday night. Persky is the first California judge since the 1930s to be recalled from the bench.
1) I watch this show, I enjoy watching this show, 2) these recaps are brilliant and are basically everything I'm thinking while watching this show, and 3) that Lil Jon date does sound AMAZING
Monday night was a big night in the sports world as the Washington Capitals and Vegas Knights squared off in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the MLB draft got underway. The most important and highly-anticipated sporting event of the evening, however, was on ABC as Becca Kufrin continued her search for love as The Bachelorette.
Yes, it’s sports. If you missed it, you can catch up all the action with our Week 1 recap.
We pick up this week with Chris Harrison dropping off the first date card to the living room of hopeful suitors to get the action rolling.
THE FIRST GROUP DATE, DAY:
Clay, Nick, Chris R., David the Chicken, Jean Blanc, Jordan the Model, Conor, and Lincoln receive date cards for the first group date. For those that aren’t part of the Bachelor/ette universe, this is where eight guys all vying for the same girl hang out together and fight for private time with her and she makes out with (nearly) everyone.
As I’m sure all of your dates go, the guys are ushered into a beautiful barn structure as Right Said Fred’s “Too Sexy” plays. Becca stays in the room and pops bottles of champagne as the guys change into their pre-measured tuxedos, astutely noting that“Lincoln is a block of muscle.”
Jordan, who can’t let the attention off of him for more than 12 seconds, reminds everyone he’s a model by... modeling. He’s the model that punctuates his Sears catalog poses by saying “boom,” names his blank stare the “pensive gentleman,” and offers advice like telling Becca to put her confidence on before her socks, panty hose and shoes in the morning.
Oh my gosh. He’s actually Zoolander irl.
As for the actual date, the guys have to compete in a messy obstacle course, which somehow will help Becca determine if one of them will make a good husband. Now, I’m not married, but my friends have never once mentioned having to climb a staircase covered in egg yolk and Crisco to prove their love.
The elements of the obstacle course are:
Ball and Chain
Cold Feet
Slippery Slope
Get Over Your Exes
Cake Tasting
Race to the Altar
Clay, the NFL player, was cool, calm, and collected in the Cold Feet segment, calling upon his years of post-game ice baths to make everyone else look like total wusses. Lincoln wins a close race with David the Chicken, but as it turns out, Lincoln is a dirty, dirty cheater. He got out of the cold tub early, used his hands in the “mouth-only” cake eating, and elbowed David the Chicken in their race to the altar.
As my uncle always says, “if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’,” so I say do what you gotta do, Lincoln.
THE FIRST GROUP DATE, NIGHT:
Chris R. makes a comment about how he wants to treat her like he’d want his mom and sister to be treated, which is I guess a cute sentiment, but all I can see is this:
Chris R. on the new season of The Bachelorette sure does look like Chandler’s crazy roommate Eddie from Friends. pic.twitter.com/Cq1M4GQ7qA
— Zachary Winkelmann (@zachwinkelmann) May 24, 2018
Then, the drama hits... and by drama I mean eight grown-ass men have petty back-and-forth conversations about Lincoln’s victory picture with Becca from the obstacle course. I hate that I wrote that sentence as much as you hate having to read it.
First, Lincoln is talking to and kissing the picture. Like, having a conversation with it. I don’t care how much I liked someone, if I saw that, I’m getting a restraining order.
Connor takes exception to the framed photo repeatedly being “put in their faces,” so he throws it into the impeccable landscaping of whichever California mansion Chris Harrison rented for the weekend on ABC’s dime. Judging by the toss it seems our boy Connor has played some ultimate frisbee in his lifetime:
— The Bachelorette (@BacheloretteABC) June 5, 2018
Honestly, I have no problem with Connor’s decision, minus breaking glass on the pool deck, which is just rude and inconsiderate to whomever now has to drain that pool to get the glass shards. Was it mature? No. Was Lincoln being super annoying? Yes.
You know what women have no time for, especially on a show where there are 20 other options? Your bullshit. The look on Becca’s face says it all as Connor and Lincoln describe why the other isn’t there for the Right Reasons or how the guys were too mean.
After some quality one-on-one time with everyone’s favorite cologne enthusiast Jean Blanc (which involved some steamy smooches), Becca decided he would get her coveted group date rose to ensure he stuck around another week.
The next day, PictureGate continued as Lincoln tearfully explained to the other guys in the house how the picture was pretty much like a Medal of Honor for him. No, Lincoln. No.
ONE-ON-ONE WITH BLAKE:
Becca chooses Blake, the guy who showed up on an Ox, to escort her on her first solo date. Turns out Chris Harrison planned this date, and he knocked it out of the park. You guys, seriously, it’s the best fucking date ever.
First, when they show up, Chris Harrison is just hanging out like this:
— The Bachelorette (@BacheloretteABC) June 5, 2018
Blake and Becca don the mandatory coveralls and Timberland boots they’ll need to destroy her memories of Arie and enter the warehouse to find it filled with Arie-related things like a race car, TVs playing his proposal to Becca, and the ACTUAL gray couch he dumped her on. Then, out comes...
LIL’ JON.
Sure! They spend the next however many hours just breaking shit as Lil’ Jon yells “HIT IT WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER” and they blare “Turn Down for What.” I’m legitimately jealous. The next date I go one better have Lil’ Jon running a soundboard and feature me hitting champagne bottles with baseball bats or I’ll be very disappointed.
— The Bachelorette (@BacheloretteABC) June 5, 2018
Blake seems very sweet, but the evening portion of their date was super boring as he shared a story about intercepting a text to his girlfriend while she was in the bathroom that tipped him off about getting dumped. I kind of blacked out during that part because the Caps went up 3-0 and that was way more interesting.
Becca certainly likes Blake because they made out in an alley after she gave him the rose.
THE SECOND GROUP DATE, DAY:
Garrett, Ricky, John, Brian, Alex, Chris(ton, the Globe Trotter), Trent, Leo, Wills, and Colton all got their names called for the second group date. They enter a gym and are met by three adorable kids who make the dudes start running sprints and are mercilessly cruel in the way only tweens can be.
I didn’t know I needed a kid launching dodge balls at these suitors from a JUGS machine at 50mph, and then yelling “TRASH” at them when they miss, but I did. I want this kid to follow me around and take down my enemies.
For the second part of the date, the guys dressed in University of Oregon rejected uniforms and played an intense version of a dodgeball competition in a trampoline thunderdome. Chris Harrison was joined by Fred Willard (of Best In Show fame) to commentate the match, but kicked it all off with a story about a dodgeball game at a nudist colony.
How does she not get a front row seat? Why couldn’t she sit with Chris Harrison and Fred Willard? Who are the people that got better seats than her? Every time they cut to her, it was like spotting a friend on the Jumbotron at a game.
Leo, part of the pink team, had to carry his team like LeBron in the playoffs and eventually fell to the highlighter green team, eliciting this celebration:
— The Bachelorette (@BacheloretteABC) June 5, 2018
I’m assuming they had to wait 20 minutes for Becca to get out of her shitty seats to make it down to the celebration, though.
THE SECOND GROUP DATE, NIGHT:
The evening cocktail party portion of the date started with Alex saying, “Becca’s got her shit together. I don’t normally go after girls with their shit together,” making that the realest thing a thirty-something male has ever said on television.
Becca was pulled aside first by Garrett, the suitor who earned the first impression rose last week but was milkshake duck’d before the first episode was over. She clearly likes him, so I think he’s safe at least another week.
Colton drops a bomb to Garrett, sharing that he had a relationship with Tia (a contestant who also vied for Arie’s heart last season). He tells Becca that he and Tia spent a weekend together but there wasn’t a spark or flame. She clearly likes Colton a lot and this shook her.
Wills earns the group date rose and some smooches, guaranteeing him an appearance next week.
COCKTAIL PARTY:
Becca kicks off the evening by greeting the men as her voice over-explains how unnecessarily dramatic the week was with PictureGate, the Tia revelation, and probably unexpectedly having to deal with newfound feelings for Lil’ Jon.
Clay pulls Becca outside first, and teaches her a touchdown dance that ends with a kiss and goddamn if it wasn’t cute. Venmo John read something out of a book and also got a kiss. Connor makes amends for PictureGate with a dumbass picture of himself and makes Becca throw it into the pool, making it the second time the pool was ruined by this clown in two days.
Jordan thinks his best bet is to strip to his underwear and approach Becca, because he apparently believes women want to hangout with half-dressed men unexpectedly at cocktail parties (spoiler alert: we don’t).
Every season I become more and more convinced that this show and Chris Harrison are just trolling me and it’s an elaborate plot to waste an embarrassing amount of my life on this shit. The example of that this week: Jordan couldn’t be bothered to put his clothes back on, so during the Rose Ceremony he stands amongst the suited men with a fluffy pink blanket draped over his bare shoulders. I can’t wait for him to be stranded on an island during a two-on-one date later in the season.
Damn you, ABC, you know I can’t quit you.
THE WEEK’S BEST JORDAN QUOTES:
“He’s showing ingenuineity.”
“I’m going to do more with less,” as he strips to his boxer briefs.
“I don’t want you to misinterpret me as someone who is 007 all the time, because I’m not”
“I’m multi-dimensional. I’m not just a guy with hair.”
“I wonder how much time you have to do in the UK - and I don’t mean the University of Kentucky - to get that accent,” as he doubts whether Lincoln’s British accent is legitimate.
“I don’t mind being assertive. You know why? Because I’m a Wilhelmina model.”
There is a story—which is usually described as a poem but is more precisely a muddled version of a song written by the jazz singer Oscar Brown Jr.—that Donald Trump delights in reading to crowds at his campaign rallies. Trump refers to it as “The Snake” and his fans know it by that name. “Who likes ‘The Snake’?” Trump…
I honestly don't really care about basketball, but Steph Curry is an alien
This was a real Steph Curry night.
Steph Curry was the catalyst for the Warriors’ offense in a Game 2, 122-103, win over the Cavaliers. He scored 33 points on 26 shots, commanding the ball around the arc and dancing his way to the type of threes we’re so accustomed to him sinking.
Curry sunk 9-of-17 three-point shots on Sunday night, which was an NBA Finals record for both makes and takes. The nine makes bested Ray Allen’s record.
The game was over... pretty much all game, but this was the real closer. This is the three that snapped Allen’s record, and it was pretty from a distance only Steph makes look easy.
3. Pull up off balance and do a half-split
To set your feet, square your shoulders, release at the apex and land so awkwardly, yet still make the shot, is really a Curry thing. Who else does this in the NBA Finals?
2. Kevin Love takes out Curry’s legs, doesn’t matter
Curry finished this play on his back with his legs curled up on his chest. He fell awkwardly, but it didn’t matter. He gets Peek-a-Boo threes like this all the time, giving it and darting to the corner to catch and fire.
This was a Curry night.
1. What the **** was this?
Good night Cleveland. See ya in Game 3.
If this is going down there’s absolutely nothing that you can do.
Robots and freaks are the only beings capable of this sorcery. Steph Curry is some combination of both.
Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed Sunday that the President hypothetically could have shot the former FBI director to end the Russia investigation and not face prosecution for it while in office.
(@howertcn) June 11, 2018
McDonald's adds cold brew coffee to the McCafe menu later this month and features it in the new Cold Brew Frozen Coffee and Cold Brew Frappe.
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