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New Gaming App Aims To Make Kids Comfortable Around Hospitals

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A new gaming app is helping kids feel less frightened by hospitals. On Thursday, Toca Boca released Toca Life: Hospital, an app that gives children the opportunity the experience what happens in hospitals, from checking patients’ vitals to using tools like gurneys and wheelchairs to making diagnoses. 


“Toca Life: Hospital gives kids unlimited space to discover the happenings of a busy medical center at their own pace, helping to increase their comfort level around hospitals,” Toca Boca play designer Petter Karlsson told The Huffington Post, adding that kids perceive hospitals in many ways ― from fun to thrilling to terrifying. 



Karlsson said the app is like a “virtual dollhouse” with characters and equipment based on real-life hospitals. The activities put kids in control of the experience and help them develop positive associations with hospitals. 


“Kids can experience welcoming newborn babies into the world and see how family members and medical staff love and care for tiny, swaddled babies,” he explained.



“They’ll also get to explore the operating room, discover the secret lab, stop by the waiting room, or grab a snack at the café,” he continued. “There is also a maternity unit with a fun ultrasound machine, garden to meditate and reflect, and a farewell room to say final goodbyes.”


The app developers visited hospitals and spoke with kids and medical professionals throughout the process of creating the app. In honor of the Toca Life: Hospital launch, some Toca Boca representatives visited Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn with photographer Marj Kleinman to observe and document how kids there have fun.



Kleinman is a photographer and children’s media consultant with a master’s degree in educational psychology. She brings that expertise to her vounteer work at Maimonides Medical Center and other hospitals. 


“The children I’ve encountered at Maimonides have generally been incredibly resilient and hard at work at the childhood business of play,” Kleinman told HuffPost. “There are naturally moments of struggle, pain and boredom, but these kids wait for the playroom to open, request Wii machines in their rooms and ride wagons and IV poles around the halls.”



The photographer said she hopes people who see these photos understand the healing and motivating power of play, for both children and grownups. 


“Although the hospital can be filled with unfamiliar and sometimes scary and upsetting situations, it’s a place where the business of childhood continues,” she explained. “Kids go to ‘hospital school’ with an on-site teacher and they engage in play and expressive arts, which leads to greater healing.”



Kleinman’s work appeared in a photo essay in Toca Magazine. Executive editor Ingrid Simone told HuffPost she believes the photos captured the value of playtime for kids and adults.  


“One thing that stood out to me was that Marj connected with hospitalized kids through play and creativity, and also worked with them to share their own stories — all of which is in alignment with what we do in apps like Toca Life: Hospital,” said Simone.  


Keep scrolling to see more photos of kids playing in the hospital and visit the Toca Boca website to check out the Toca Life: Hospital app. 


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The Best Gifts For Moms Who Love To Swear

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There’s a certain edge to moms who love to curse. For them, nothing sends the message better than a well-placed F-bomb when they’re doling out hard-earned life advice. Or just telling you to hang up your damn coat.  


Besides, research shows that people who use curse words actually have larger vocabularies. So check out some gifts that show the mom in your life just how much you love her and her sailor’s mouth. 


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That Time Michael Lewis Complained About Dating A Hot Woman

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Michael Lewis is best known for milling complicated subject matter like mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations into compulsively readable bestsellers, including Liar’s Poker, The Big Short and Moneyball. His books get churned into movies that star Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling and Sandra Bullock.


In the world of financial journalism ― actually, just in journalism ― the 56-year-old New Orleans native is a king. A rock-star millionaire writer at the top of his craft, far above the kinds of workaday hacks plugging away at places like the New York Post.


But back in 1994, when he was senior editor at The New Republic, Lewis tackled a simpler topic, one that’s back in the conversation this week, courtesy of the Post: The difficulties of a man being with a smoking-hot woman.


“The most ill-conceived work of his career,” proclaimed a lengthy Vanity Fair profile of Lewis written a few years later. “Though it masqueraded as a work of humility, it reeked of the pride that lay just beneath the mask of the naif.”


Lewis’ column drew a fair share of controversy at the time ― angry faxes, phone calls and real-paper letters. Titled “Scenic beauty,” the lengthy piece describes Lewis’ then-wife, a former model who he never names, as “terrifyingly beautiful.” Living in the shadow of that beauty is a “weird degradation,” he writes, at one point describing a scene in which several men gather behind his wife to ogle her butt. “Can you believe that shit?” one says. 


Kate Bohner, then Lewis’ wife and a writer for Forbes, was “blindsided,” by the piece, recalled Joshua Levine, who worked with her. Apparently, Lewis didn’t tell her about the article before it was published.



Lewis’ piece comes to mind this week, as the New York Post catches flack (and lots of shares and clicks) for an article in a similar vein. The Post story, “Why I won’t date hot women anymore,” interviews a man fed up with the difficulties of hooking up with attractive models (and touches on the difficulties woman face dating super-hot dudes).


“Beautiful women who get a fair amount of attention get full of themselves,” Dan Rochkind tells the paper, explaining that he used to only pursue women for their looks. “Eventually I was dreading getting dinner with them because they couldn’t carry a conversation.” He says he has since settled for a woman who is not a swimsuit model, “but is still beautiful.” 


The Lewis column is, of course, miles better written, crafted in his trademark conversational tone. But in the end, they’re the same: stories about what a woman’s looks mean to a man. The women are beside the point. They are shiny objects.


Back in 1994, Lewis’ wife, Bohner, already had an impressive resume: an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a few years as an investment banker at the prestigious Lazard firm. She also had a master’s in journalism from Columbia.


Even though she wasn’t named in the magazine, Bohner’s colleagues surely knew it was about her. As a woman who works in a newsroom, this reporter can only imagine with horror what the fallout would be like. 



Lewis mentions nothing about Bohner’s degrees or jobs. His article ― essentially a page-long humblebrag about how he bagged a babe ― tells readers only that she once appeared in a full-page New York Times advertisement for the Bloomingdale’s hosiery department. Since there’s no photograph in the New Republic, Lewis helpfully offers a soft-core description of the ad:


“It depicts a young woman, to me terrifyingly beautiful, reclining in midair, clad in a black slip and spiked heels. Her head tilts back, exposing the delicate line of her neck and making a niagara of her thick golden hair,” he writes. “She curls one of her long slender legs under her perfectly shaped bottom; the other she kicks up to the top of the page like a dancer in a chorus line,” he writes. “What is shocking is that the women in it is now my wife.”


The piece offers four “scenes,” meant to demonstrate the difficulties of being with such a precious gem of a woman. At a tennis lesson, the instructor becomes aggressive and makes Lewis look like a loser by drilling aces at him. At a restaurant, a maitre d’ fawns over his wife. At stores, it’s assumed Lewis will pay top-dollar for whatever she wants. At one point, Lewis marvels when construction workers fail to catcall his wife when they’re out together. He calls himself “the tamer of a lionesss,” because in his mind, he’s protecting the construction workers from her. 


“[Of] the many theories that purport to explain and interpret the role of female beauty in our society,” he writes, “none fully captures the weird degradation of being intimately associated with the genuine article.”


Bohner disappears into the story. You could easily swap her out for, say, a very expensive sports car. Owning a Porsche also comes with difficulties ― you pay more for service and parts, valet parkers race to greet you, store salesmen assume you’ll pay full price. The Porsche lacks substance ― it’s just a vessel to make you look good. To Lewis and to his New York Post counterpart, the hot woman lacks substance, serving only to reflect glory on her owner. She is just a pretty hot rod.


The New Republic has not made the piece available online, but portions of it can be seen here:




The year 1994 was after Clarence Thomas landed on the Supreme Court, even though he’d been credibly accused of serious sexual harassment. But even in that pre-Twitter era, when people were less likely to take offense to sexism, Lewis’ piece raised hackles.


“It is discouraging to know that one of your staffers has nothing better to write about than how women are sex objects and to instruct us that the more successful sex objects get lots of perks,” Sara Wermiel, a New Republic reader from Boston, wrote to the magazine, which ran a half-dozen complaints about the piece in a subsequent edition. “I can’t remember ever coming across anything that reeked of such blatant self-promotion,” wrote Joseph Bornstein of New York City.


The New Republic published a one-line response from Lewis: “And she can cook too.”


Lewis proposed to Bohner after just three weeks of dating, according to Vanity Fair. He whisked her into a jewelry store, proposed, and plunked down $30,000 for a ring.  


One reader predicted Lewis’ marriage to the “Bloomingdale’s model” wouldn’t last.


It didn’t.


Three years after his column was published, Lewis married Tabitha Soren, a photographer and former MTV newscaster. They are still together and have three kids.


He offered a more detailed defense of his article to the Los Angeles Times a few years after it was published:


“It was just a funny little piece, meant to be touching,” he’s quoted as saying. “If I’d written it for Elle magazine, nobody would have paid attention to it.”


Lewis could not be reached for comment for this story.


Bohner declined to comment, but at least we offered her the opportunity to speak for herself. 

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Behold, Trump's Cabinet Members As 'Sesame Street' Characters

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“Sesame Street” is known for its good-natured parodies of famous people, even featuring a Donald Trump-esque character called Ronald Grump


Since the current administration seems to love “Sesame Street” and PBS so much, HuffPost Comedy decided to give members of Trump’s Cabinet a “Sesame Street” makeover.






Sean the Spice Bottle


Sean is a clumsy spice bottle from the spice rack. He desperately wants to make things taste better so they’re easier to swallow, but Sean the spice bottle can’t seem to keep a lid on it, and usually ends up making a mess.



 


Steve Bananan


Steve is a banana, and incredibly proud to be a banana. In fact, he usually can’t wait to peel away the layers and show everyone just how white he is. Nothing says “potassium, potassium, potassium!” like Steve Bananan!



 


Chaired Cushioner


Chaired is a cushion who loves to make people feel comfortable. So comfortable that they trust him with the most important jobs and secrets, even if he’s not even remotely qualified to have access to them.



 


Ryan 3 Bus


No matter what terrible things might be going on, Ryan the No. 3 bus believes everything is wonderful. His driver couldn’t be doing a better job! People he swerves past on the streets yell encouraging things! Climate change? Bah, nonsense! No need to get that carbon emissions test! 



 


Kellyanne One Way


Kellyanne is a one way sign! She’s here to teach you that there is only one right way to go. Unless she switches sides or gets turned around, then that’s the one way.



 


Bed Carson


Shhhh, Bed Carson is sleeping! And he’s also very good at helping you sleep! There’s nothing bad underneath, don’t worry about that, just sleeeeeeeeep!



 


Ike Fence


Ike is a white picket fence with small town values, and he keeps unwanted people away from his neighborhoods and bakeries and bathrooms. He looks after the house while his owner is away at the golf course, on vacation, or at the golf course while on vacation.


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When Will We Let Sienna Miller Graduate From Playing Wives Stuck At Home?

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There’s a persistent, pernicious movie trope that can be summed up thusly: While the man goes off to war, the wife is left ashore. An actual battlefield isn’t required, though Nicole Kidman sure had her work cut out for her while Jude Law trudged through Confederate combat in “Cold Mountain.” Think of Laura Linney fretting while Tom Hanks lands the plane in “Sully,” Kate Hudson watching on Skype as the “Deepwater Horizon” oil rig starts to explode, Amy Ryan waiting at home during Tom Hanks’ Berlin mission in “Bridge of Spies,” and Keira Knightley birthing a child while Jason Clarke climbs a mountain in “Everest.”


Sienna Miller somehow seems to have been saddled with more of these roles than any other actress. In “Foxcatcher,” she mostly folded clothes while drama ensnared Mark Ruffalo and the other men on hand. She was quite good in “American Sniper,” particularly in the scene where she sits at a kitchen table and tells a PTSD-stricken Bradley Cooper, “Babe, come home, OK? We miss you.” The brash mistress she played in “Live by Night” began as part of the gangster scheming, but ultimately got sidelined so the guys could take over. By the time her character appeared again, she’d become a prostitute. 


Whereas most of the aforementioned films offer these women limited characterization outside of their romantic partners’ plights, “The Lost City of Z” at least makes something worthwhile of the wife-left-at-home ploy. The latest from “The Immigrant” and “We Own the Night” director James Gray, this remarkable new movie, opening in limited release this weekend, casts Miller opposite Charlie Hunnam, who plays early-20th-century British explorer Percy Fawcett. Even though Hunnam rightfully takes center stage as Percy surveys an uncharted civilization in the Amazon, Miller never feels like an afterthought, an emotional device or a tally mark that lets studio execs sleep at night knowing there’s a woman somewhere doing something.



Partly owed to Gray’s script and partly to Miller’s soulful performance, this particular character, Nina Fawcett, has a mind and backstory of her own. Moreover, as time passes across the 19-year tale, Nina’s presence looms larger. A hardworking suffragette, she is just as smart as Percy, contributing to his research between explorations and eventually offering to accompany him on an expedition, proclaiming what a perfect team they’d make. She’s right, and the movie doesn’t have to work to make us believe it ― we can sense her wherewithal. Of course, she cannot join Percy, because this is the 1920s and women’s cultural stature still revolves around the household. Percy and Nina exchange impassioned words about female rights, and Percy says she must resign herself to financiers’ unwillingness to support an explorer lacking the purported physical strength of a man. But as someone with an actual perspective, Nina is comparatively well-drawn, espousing first-wave feminism and landing the film’s killer final shot. 


That said, Miller hasn’t had a starring role on the big screen since “Just Like a Woman,” the 2012 road-trip dramedy that made all of $11,000 at the box office. She’s found better luck onstage ― Sally Bowles in Broadway’s “Cabaret,” Maggie in the West End’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” ― and in the HBO movie “The Girl,” playing Tippi Hedren in a Golden Globe-nominated performance. Miller’s party-girl reputation and tabloid-ready relationship drama seem to have landed her in lead-actress jail, and her presence as yet another wife reduced to concerned telephone calls and letter-writing is glaring. Having proven herself capable in “Factory Girl” and numerous other parts, Hollywood owes her a screen husband who calls to ask when she’ll be home. Dinner’s getting cold, after all.


“The Lost City of Z” is now in limited release. 

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See The First Trailer For 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'

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The first “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” trailer is here, and our prayers have been answered: Luke speaks! But he doesn’t seem very optimistic. Standing inside a remote cave ostensibly near the site where Rey met him at the end of “The Force Awakens,” Luke issues some ominous words about the future of the Jedi population. Also look out for what could be Darth Vader’s demolished helmet, the Millennium Falcon in flight, a shot of General Leia, plenty of Kylo Ren-affiliated destruction and generally stunning cinematography. 


Disney premiered the trailer at Friday’s “Star Wars” Celebration, an annual conference that unites the franchise’s fans and creators. Director Rian Johnson introduced the teaser along with a ravishing poster, seen below. 


“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” the eighth episode in the series, opens Dec. 15.



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The Unlikely Design Proposal For Trump's Border Wall From A Latino-Owned Firm

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Michael Evangelista-Ysasaga is a Mexican American living in Fort Worth, Texas. His grandparents immigrated to the United States, undocumented, in the 1930s. For the past 10 years, he has lectured on immigration reform across the U.S., including at the Fort Worth Rotary Club. And now, he’s leading the Latino-owned U.S. military and government contracting firm PennaGroup in creating and submitting a design proposal for President Donald Trump’s controversial proposed border wall.


“I will build a great wall,” Trump declared in June 2015, while announcing his candidacy for president. “And nobody builds walls better than me, believe me.” At the time, the statement seemed to many like an absurd proclamation that, especially coming from a former reality TV star, would likely never actually come to fruition.


For PennaGroup CEO Evangelista-Ysasaga, Trump’s vision for a border wall felt less like a vague possibility than an inevitable reality after his election. “We’re a Latino-owned firm,” he told The Huffington Post in an interview, specifying that about 80 percent of his workers are Mexican-American, the descendants of immigrants. “We had to do a lot of soul-searching when all of this was first happening.”


In response to a solicitation issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in March, various contracting firms began proposing bids for the 1,000-mile, $21 billion wall project. CBP outlined the requirements for effective wall proposals in a contract issued on its website, with a March 29 deadline. Ideally, it explained, the wall should measure 30 feet in height, though designs as low as 18 feet “may be acceptable.” The wall should be impossible to climb over or tunnel under, able to withstand continuous attack by “sledgehammer, car jack, pick axe, chisel, battery operated impact tools, battery operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch or other similar hand-held tools.”


And of course, it should be visually appealing ― at least on the northern side, facing the U.S. 


According to Evangelista-Ysasaga, word of the various design ideas sparked by the contract travelled fast. “The defense contracting community is very small,” he explained. “And we were hearing some very disturbing design options, some of which would be lethal for those who tried to cross. There was talk of electrified fences, razor wire — that stuff is just horrific. People’s hair and clothing get caught in it. If you’re trying to cross in the middle of the night and get caught in that stuff, it’s a disaster.”



Evangelista-Ysasaga declined to name any of the firms behind such design options. “I really don’t want to name them but among those proposing such designs was a Fortune 500 company that makes airplanes,” he claimed.


As a result, Evangelista-Ysasaga says he decided to throw his hat in the bidding ring. “We wanted to propose a more humane obstruction,” he expressed. “I didn’t want to have to wake up on a Sunday morning and read a story about a family getting killed trying to cross the border.”


PennaGroup’s vision is catered to fit CBP’s basic demands, delivering two relatively straightforward walls with a hint of patriotic flair. The first option is titled a “Solid, Concrete Border Wall,” featuring black wall panels emblazoned with the seal of the United States in recessed concrete and connected with highly polished steel beams.


Then there’s the “Other Border Wall” ― constructed from polished, double wire mesh panels, with a six-foot tall anti-climb cap, also emblazoned with a seal. The cap, PennaGroup’s technical team explained in an email to HuffPost, was designed with neoclassical architecture influences in mind, including the federal and Greek revival styles that inspired 18th- and 19th-century design in Washington, D.C. These architectural details, however, would only adorn the side of the wall that faces America.


“Design costs money,” Evangelista-Ysasaga noted. 


Aesthetics are key, especially while designing for a president known to privilege a particular brand of embellished style. Yet it was also crucial, according to PennaGroup’s technical team, that the wall would effectively bar individuals from entry and withstand efforts to destroy it. Although the team emphasized they could not share too many details at this phase in the selection process, PennaGroup’s two potential designs both meet the “threshold requirements” demanded by the government: anti-climb features, anti-tunneling features and anti-tamper features. Both walls measure 30 feet in height.



It was also important to Evangelista-Ysasaga that his design take wildlife, hydrology and ecology into account. While prepping their objectives, PennaGroup consulted with nonprofits and wildlife experts including the U.S. Forest Service and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to make the wall’s impact on its surrounding environment as minimal as possible. They declined to expand on specifics until after Phase II of the selection process. 


One detail they did expand upon, however, was a tactic to mollify the wall’s encroachment on a bird sanctuary by the Rio Grande River. The tech team stated that forest birds are reluctant to cross gaps of unfamiliar habitat. To ease the transition, PennaGroup’s design “preserves the ‘connection’ between the small patches of existing bird habitats by incorporating eco-friendly ‘wall paths.’”


As far as potential wall designs go, PennaGroup’s submissions are relatively straightforward. Others have veered more toward the dystopian, such as DarkPulse Technologies’ idea, which features a wall embedded with sensors that will notify border agents of any unusual motion or meddling with the wall in real time. Crisis Resolution Security Services’ Michael Hari turned somewhat hostile when explaining to The Guardian that the company’s design “is meant to defend what is truly American, and it can start by being beautiful in a way that ordinary American citizens appreciate, rather than by being starkly institutional or by catering to the controversial and perverse tastes of the elites.”


Other organizations, however, have used the callout as an opportunity for creativity and resistance, such as JM Design Studio, a team made entirely of women. JM’s vision imagines walls made of 10-meter organ pipes, with space in between for people to pass through. Another JM design option features three million hammocks hanging across the border from available trees, open to all.



Perhaps the most innovative response to Trump’s dictum comes from a critical collective proposing to demarcate a new bi-national territory on the border of Mexico and the U.S., co-governed by both, called Otra Nation. The region, dubbed “the worlds’ first continental bi-national socio-ecotone,” would be built by a workforce of half-Mexican and half-American laborers, founded on ideals of energy independence and local economic empowerment.


It is highly unlikely these artistic interpretations will be selected by CBP, or even make it to the sought-after Phase II, as they veer from typical wall imagery, whose symbolism has become so enmeshed with Trump’s politics. Also, some of the more radical proposals fail to live up the the structural requirements outlined, instead using the design opportunity to illuminate flaws in the reasoning behind constructing a border wall at all.


In the next round of proposals, down-selected firms will be issued a prototype task order, which requires them to build actual prototypes and mockups. Evangelista-Ysasaga is convinced his vision will make it to Phase II. 



According to the Pew Research Center, 83 percent of Hispanic Americans oppose Trump’s proposition of a border wall, yet 1 in 10 firms bidding for the CBP job are Latino-owned. For some firms, the choice is apolitical ― a job is a job, after all. Evangelista-Ysasaga, however, sees border security as a necessary step in comprehensive immigration reform. 


“In my lectures and over the last decade, I have figured out the American people are not going to pass a new set of desperately needed immigration laws without enforcing the laws in the books,” he said. “And that means securing our border.”


As Evangelista-Ysasaga sees it, the conversation regarding immigration in the U.S. is, like so many other polarizing issues, at a standstill. Those on the left are pushing to open pathways to citizenships for the hardworking, undocumented immigrants already living in this country. Those on the right are fixed on keeping people from crossing the border illegally. Evangelista-Ysasaga believes “there is no conversation in between.”


When Evangelista-Ysasaga describes immigrants, he does so in a vocabulary altogether removed from Trump’s rhetoric of Mexicans as “bad hombres,” rapists and criminals. Instead, he discusses their belief in faith, family and hard work. He cites the “across the board” studies that consistently prove immigrants commit crimes with less frequency than American citizens and contribute greatly to the American economy. 


According to Evangelista-Ysasaga, these immigrants are the people he is most interested in serving. “Bringing the undocumented immigrants in this country out of the shadows is the least we can do,” he said. A border wall, he asserts, does not run contrary to this goal, but will open up the necessary channels to realize it. 


The problem, he explained, is that when the conversation surrounding border security is co-opted by the extreme right, it becomes wrapped up in language that’s filled with xenophobia and hate. “The left has allowed extremists to hijack the security narrative and turn it into something that it is not,” he said. “I want the U.S. to be free of threats. I want to ensure that threats to the U.S. don’t make it across the border. There is nothing inherently xenophobic about this.”


“Now people say, you’re building a wall, you must be a racist, but that’s not true,” he added, comparing the obstruction to locking your door at night even though you don’t hate your neighbors. “Every sovereign nation has a right to say who stays and who goes.”



Michelle Mittelstadt of The Migration Policy Institute, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C., offered her response to Evangelista-Ysasaga’s position in an email to The Huffington Post. “Countries have a sovereign right to protect their borders and to determine who can and cannot enter,” she wrote. “And fencing makes sense in certain high-crossing areas, and has proven itself to be effective when used in key corridors and in combination with other strategies, as has been the case since the mid-1990s.


“But spending $21 billion or more fencing the entirety of the border ― by comparison, the U.S. spent $19 billion last year on all federal immigration enforcement ― would not represent an effective investment of resources and would be a case of fighting the last war.”


Lawyer Amelia Miazad, a founding member of the nonprofit organization Wall of Us, agreed. “All nations have different border policies,” she told HuffPost, “almost no nations have walls. The wall is a symbolic rhetorical tool to instill hate and division. There is no rational or responsible correlation between a giant wall and border security. It starts from an assumption that we have people pouring over the borders, which is not accurate.”


To this point, Mittelstadt noted that there were 409,000 apprehensions at the border in 2016, around one fourth of what they were in 2000, at 1.64 million. Furthermore she added that 40 to 50 percent of all unauthorized immigrants are visa overstayers, who would not be affected in any way by a wall. In fact, The Migration Policy Institute estimates that only 18 percent of undocumented immigrants have lived in the U.S. for under five years, with 58 percent calling America home for a decade or more.


“The whole migration picture from Mexico has been realigned, and huge inflows of illegal Mexican crossers are a thing of the past,” Mittelstadt summarized. 



Miazad also contested Evangelista-Ysasaga’s assertion that a border wall, at this point, is inevitable. “What the post-election enthusiasm and patriotism by Americans has shown is the only wall the that is going to get built is a wall of resistance,” she said. “The image of a wall is very divisive and it has really unified Americans to voice their desires to have unity, not division.”


Both Democrats and Republicans, Miazad explained, have voiced reasonable opposition to the wall. Liberals are skeptical that a border wall will increase border security, opting to build social programs supporting local communities at a fraction of the cost. Likewise many conservatives realize the fiscal irresponsibility of the wall’s massive budget, anticipating that despite Trump’s promise that Mexico will pay for the wall, Americans will end up doing so themselves.


“Between the legal opposition, the grassroots opposition and the congressional opposition, there will not be any wall,” Miazad said.


Underlying Evangelista-Ysasaga’s claims is the reality that Trump’s border wall is a lucrative business opportunity. When asked about the $21 billion project’s hefty paycheck, he replied, “We’re a for-profit enterprise, but if you take a look at my firm’s website, we have our pick of federal projects. We could have made enough money on other projects without taking on all of this heat.”


Moreover, Evangelista-Ysasaga condemned the Latino-owned contractors who refused to submit project ideas. “I don’t understand why you would allow someone who doesn’t care about immigrants to dictate the narrative of immigration,” he said.


In response to skepticism about his intentions, Evangelista-Ysasaga recommended a 2006 clip showing him reiterating the importance of immigration reform, which he recently shared on Twitter in light of the controversy his interest in the wall ignited:






Whether right or wrong, Evangelista-Ysasaga seems genuinely convinced the erection of a border wall will indeed yield progress toward immigration reform. Placing his faith in the Trump administration, he believes that walls will lead to effective border security, which will open up the conversation for the improvements he truly cares about. If the Trump administration does not use the wall as a springboard for the kind of change Evangelista-Ysasaga hopes for and predicts, he intends to make sure they will be held accountable.


“I have faith in the American people and their will,” he said. “Nationally, this has got everyone’s attention. I believe the American people will hold the administration’s feet to the fire. Solving one side of the problem is not good enough. And I’ll continue to pound on doors until it happens. Building this wall is going to give me even more of a platform to demand comprehensive immigration reform.”


Whether or not this pragmatic optimism will yield the desired result remains to be seen. In the meantime, PennaGroup’s vision embodies an unusual strategy in today’s polarizing political climate: one built on compromise, conversation and, not quite as unconventionally, capital.


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Are We All Chill With The Word 'Pussy' Now?

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Remember this time last year, when checking the news rarely meant hearing the word “pussy”? You know, outside of that one band from Russia?


Then came the tape.


The Washington Post, breaking news of Donald Trump’s now infamously vulgar “Access Hollywood” comments in early October, didn’t put the most outrageous word in its headline, writing instead the rather bland “Trump Recorded Having Extremely Lewd Conversation About Women In 2005.” As news organizations reflect the linguistic conventions of their audiences, the paper was considering its readers who weren’t comfortable with the slang for “vagina.” Others reporting on the tape, including The Huffington Post, and also avoided using it in their headlines, emphasizing instead the inappropriate nature of the remarks.


On TV, where perhaps our highest standards of decent language are meant to live, “pussy” was bleeped. In the aftermath, more headlines began appearing with the offending word partially present: “p***y.”


But then U.S. voters cast ballots and, through the ancient magic of the Electoral College, it was determined that the candidate who once bragged about sexual assault against women would become president. And the word began cropping up again ― in a different way.


“Women Knit Thousands Of ‘Pussy Power Hats’ To Support The Women’s March On Washington,” The New York Times reported in January, as women knitted in part against Trump’s vulgar remark about their bodies. The Huffington Post also let the word fly free, uncensored, while other organizations referred to the “pussy hats” not by name but rather their iconic pinkness. As people began talking about “pussy hats,” knitting them and wearing them, the word “pussy” seemed increasingly normalized. Case in point: pussy hats are ending up in museums around the world to represent our present cultural moment.


A moment when we said “pussy” and it wasn’t offensive or embarrassingly porny, but powerful and unifying for regular women.


It’s too soon to tell whether women have truly reclaimed the word, in the aftermath of a contentious election marked by criticism over a sexist candidate. Thanks to repeated references in the news and pop culture, “pussy” feels neutered, part of the natural fabric of our language. Does it still have the power to shock? Maybe not as much.


Pussy hats, though, might be merely the more ubiquitous version of Pussy Riot ― the all-female Russian punk group. Seemingly another pop-culture lifetime ago, in 2012, Pussy Riot was getting in trouble for their protest performances, thrusting the word “pussy” into the media in a quieter version of recent events. “’Pussy’ Is Having A Moment,” declared Slate. ‘Can We Reclaim And Redefine ‘Pussy’? Sure, Why Not,” said Jezebel. The former reminded us about the effort to re-contextualize words offensive against women, including “pussy,” kicked off by riot grrrls way back in the ‘90s. Slate’s Lindsay Zoladz also brought up the examples of musicians Iggy Azaela, with her song “PU$$Y,” and Grimes, who introduced a line of rings (”pussy rings”) shaped like vaginas. Women ― a few, at least ― have embraced the word, claiming it for the feminist movement.


With their constant syntactic companions, maybe “pussy hat” and “Pussy Riot” allowed women the chance to warm up to the word by diluting it ever so slightly. Seeing it on its own, then, as on a “pussy grabs back” T-shirt, becomes more of a ho-hum affair, whether we feel empowered or simply desensitized.


As always, context is everything. From the mouth of a man, the term can retain its cruelty when intended as a crass reference to a woman’s genitals, and its hostility when used to criticize another’s masculinity. “Grab ‘em by the pussy” still makes for a grotesquely sexist string of words.


Women could begin saying “pussy” as casually and freely as the LGBTQ community reclaimed “queer,” gradually pushing out those who would use it to demean them as a mere part of their whole selves ― perhaps gradually turning it into a word we would have a hard time reading with malice. Language can be that way: like the society that uses it, it evolves.


You can be highbrow. You can be lowbrow. But can you ever just be brow? Welcome to Middlebrow, a weekly examination of pop culture. Read more here.

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A One-Woman Show Explores The Fragmented Life Of Frida Kahlo

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A few years ago, Brazilian-born writer, actor and dancer Andrea Dantas heard back about her audition to dance flamenco on Madonna’s world tour. She didn’t get the job. 


“I thought, ‘OK, you’re allowed to feel sorry for yourself for 10 minutes,’” Dantas told The Huffington Post. “After, I thought, ‘What do you want to do now? What do you want to do with your life?’ And I swear, I heard a voice that said ‘Frida,’ and I just knew.”


The fruits of Dantas’ labor are currently on view at Brooklyn’s BAM Fisher, in a one-woman show called “Fragmented Frida.” Dantas plays the role of the iconic painter Frida Kahlo, starting as a young, awkward yet precocious child ― complete with a bowl cut and a limp ― and ending up as the most renowned woman artist of all time: braided hair, unibrow and all.


Far more than Dantas focuses on the specifics of Kahlo’s artistic craft, she zooms in on her life story, an extraordinary journey riddled with hardship. At the age of 6, Kahlo was stricken with polio, leaving her right leg incapacitated and in tremendous pain. At 18 she was involved in a near-fatal bus crash, which left her pelvis crushed. While recovering, and spending most of her time in a wheelchair, Kahlo began to paint, famously declaring: “I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.”



It was Kahlo’s incredible resilience that drew Dantas to her as a character. “At that time in Mexico, being a woman wasn’t cool, being a feminist wasn’t cool, divorcing a man wasn’t cool, being a bisexual wasn’t cool, being so free sexually was not cool at all,” Dantas said. “How did she manage to do so much in spite of all the illness and all the betrayals? How does the underdog become the hero?”


Dantas read around 20 Kahlo biographies before writing the script, taking about eight months to research. She then trained with movement coach Thiago Felix to accurately convey how Kahlo moved through the world, crippled at various points by illness, injury and heartbreak.


Even after receiving recognition for her dreamlike self-portraits, which translated her brutal physical and emotional wounds onto her painted flesh, Kahlo continued to suffer. After being told she could not conceive, she became pregnant, only to suffer a grisly miscarriage. She experienced infidelity on the part of her husband, painter Diego Rivera, most painfully with her own sister. 



While today Kahlo is regarded as a figure of strength and courage, it was important for Dantas to capture the softer, more vulnerable aspects of her personality to show how, despite the mythical status she achieved, she was an emotional, fallible human being.


“She had such a subtlety to her and a magnetism, she was a hopeless romantic,” Dantas said. “She was soft, she had a great sense of humor. It’s not just about the pain and the suffering. She was not a victim. This is a woman who, when her leg was amputated, the first thing she did was custom-make a boot for herself. She painted it red so everyone could see what was happening to her. She had an amazing zest for life.”


Although Dantas could not have predicted the political climate in which her play would debut, the current moment seems to make its message all the more pressing. “In the 1930s Frida said: ‘If the American people rebelled against everything that is wrong here, this would be a very different place,’” Dantas said. “Even then, she always said that women matter, that the LGBTQ community matters, that art matters. All the craziness that is happening in the country regarding immigration, she would have a lot to say about that for sure.” 


There have already been countless retrospectives, books, essays and films devoted to the life of Ms. Kahlo. Through “Fragmented Frida,” Dantas hopes to add her own perspective to the mix with a performance revolving around one particular thread of Kahlo’s many accomplishments: Her exceptional ability to turn vulnerability into strength.


“She overcame so much,” Dantas said. “She shows, with certainty, there is nothing a person cannot overcome.”


Fragmented Frida,” directed by Christine Renee Miller, runs until Sunday, April 16, at BAM Fisher in Brooklyn, New York. 



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The 20 Funniest Tweets From Women This Week

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The ladies of Twitter never fail to brighten our days with their brilliant ― but succinct ― wisdom. Each week, HuffPost Women rounds up hilarious 140-character musings. For this week’s great tweets from women, scroll through the list below. Then visit our Funniest Tweets From Women page for our past collections.




Sign up for our Funniest Tweets Of The Week newsletter here



















































































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This Dad Posed For His Own 'Maternity' Photos And The Results Were Hilarious

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A Spanish dad gave traditional maternity photos a hilarious spin with his own photo shoot.


Francisco Pérez, known to his friends as Paco, posed for some parody pregnancy photos on the outskirts of Málaga City in southern Spain.



The series was the brainchild of photographer Martyn Wilkes


“I had been recently doing lots of maternity work, and I wanted to do something different to break things up and have a bit of fun,” Wilkes told The Huffington Post. “I have known Paco for four or five years and admittedly often jested about his rather large stomach, which resembled a pregnant mother.”



The photographer came up with the outfit, painted stomach concept and flower accessories. He said his subject found the photo shoot hilarious and totally nailed the execution.


Both men are fathers, as Wilkes has a 5-year-old girl and 13-month-old boy, and Pérez has two daughters, 22-year-old Natalia and 26-year-old Virginia. 



A story involving Natalia influenced Pérez’ decision to participate in the photo shoot and to write “Noelia” on his stomach.


After their second child was born, his wife sent him to officially register her name, Noelia. But Pérez had a few too beers along the way and his drunken scribble was misread as Natalia.


The dad decided to use this photo shoot to help make up for his mistake all those years ago and give his wife a Noelia. Fittingly, Wilkes compensated Pérez for his time with beer. 



Although the shoot took place a year ago, the photos are still spreading giggles across the internet. Wilkes hoped the project would create good publicity for his work, but he ultimately had one goal.


“The main thing I was looking for was to make people laugh,” the photogarpher said. 


Mission accomplished.



H/T Sad And Useless Humor

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Take A Glimpse Inside A Massive North Korean Celebration

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With U.S. and North Korea tensions rising, the hermit kingdom is preparing to celebrate the 105th anniversary of the birth of the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung, with an expected huge military parade on Saturday. 


Hundreds of journalists are in North Korea covering the festivities, allowing photographers to capture new images of the country, albeit on official media tours. 


Check out the new images from North Korea below: 


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Help A Queens Museum Create A Permanent Home For Jim Henson's Muppets

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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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Meet The Actress Playing The New Resistance Fighter In 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'

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Star Wars” has launched a career or two in its time. This year, the franchise will introduce us to Kelly Marie Tran, who plays a Resistance mechanic named Rose. 


Tran joined the cast panel at Friday’s “Star Wars” Celebration event in Orlando, where director Rian Johnson said she will join Rey and Finn as characters with only one name. 


“This possibility that any of us could step up and become a hero, that’s where Rose comes from,” Johnson told the crowd, comparing her to Luke Skywalker and Rey. “She’s not a soldier, she’s not looking to be a hero. But she gets pulled into a very big adventure with Finn.” (Watch Tran join the panel around the 40:00 mark in the video below.)





Tran is a San Diego native whose IMDb page is peppered with sketch-comedy work. She’s a CollegeHumor regular and a co-star of the web series “Ladies Like Us.” Tran also appeared on a couple of “About a Boy” episodes and, according to Entertainment Weekly, trained with improv groups like Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade. 


Showing off her comedic roots, Tran said during the panel that she told her family she was shooting an indie movie in Canada because “The Last Jedi” was so top-secret. “At one point, I actually got some maple syrup so I could bring it back to them so they actually thought I was in Canada,” she quipped. 


Disney hasn’t revealed any images of Rose yet. “I can’t wait for you to meet her,” Tran said.


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This Couple's Love Story Inspired A Heartfelt (And Funky) Music Video

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An impassioned fan letter inspired electro-pop trio A R I Z O N A to cast a real-life Michigan couple in the music video for “Electric Touch,” the first single from their hotly anticipated debut album, “GALLERY.” 


According to singer-songwriter Zachary Hannah, he and bandmates Nathan Esquite and David Labuguen received an email from fan Hailee Ritcey prior to a performance in Seattle earlier this year. In it, Ritcey explained how the band’s music helped her and her girlfriend of four years, Carly, navigate challenges they’d experienced as a same-sex couple.  


“We had some on and off moments... coming out was just part of the struggle,” she wrote in the email. “We had to learn what a serious relationship was about. We are strong now.” 


Hannah, who hails from New Jersey, told HuffPost that Ritcey asked the band to dedicate a song to her girlfriend during the show. But the guys were “so touched” by the couple’s story, they decided to film the women as they explored the city’s waterfront for the new video instead. They also incorporated segments from Ritcey’s original email to punctuate the song’s more tender moments.



A R I Z O N A hopes viewers ultimately see “Electric Touch” as a simple love story rather than a political statement of any kind. Of course, Hannah said the band was aware that featuring a same-sex couple in their music video would resonate on a deeper level with their audience “because of what’s going on” in the U.S. politically.


“I don’t think we gave much thought to trying to hit a mark with it,” he said. “[But] to see the world now that doles out so much hate and misunderstanding to communities, especially the [LGBTQ] community, is disheartening. It doesn’t have to be this big, misunderstood concept ― that people love each other no matter who they are.”  


According to press notes, Ritcey has felt “so much love” in the wake of the video’s release. Calling “Electric Touch” an “incredible opportunity” for her and her girlfriend, she added, “I knew it was a long shot to even get a response, but then they took it one step further.”


“Electric Touch” kicks off a busy spring for A R I Z O N A, with “GALLERY” set to hit retailers May 19. The men are also in the midst of a national tour, with upcoming concerts slated for New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, among other cities. 


Hannah hopes “GALLERY” is reflective of the band’s multicultural backgrounds. “As long as it’s honest to us, and as long as we feel it really resonates well with us, we put it out into the world,” he said. He went on to note that he was proud of the response “Electric Touch” has generated so far. “If we can do something that can influence someone’s way of thinking or help them through something, I think that’s the biggest goal,” he said. “If this has done that in even a small way, that’s good for us.”  


For the latest in LGBTQ entertainment, check out the Queer Voices newsletter. 

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When Tiny Girls Terrify Grown Men

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This column originally appeared in Emily Peck’s newsletter, a weekly email that looks at the convergence of women, economics, business and politics. Sign up here







Look, it’s obviously the height of absurdity to be afraid of little girls. Yet, here we are. Earlier this week, the sculptor behind the 11-foot bronze bull, a symbol of the virile finance industry and an institution on Wall Street for decades, held a press conference to complain about a 4-foot statue of a little girl recently placed nearby.


The “Fearless Girl” statue was installed facing off against Arturo Di Modica’s bull last month, as part of a publicity stunt by a massive financial institution.


The little girl ― posed with her hands on her hips ― was only supposed to be there for like a day, but she became so popular that she got an extension from the city of New York.


Di Modica is freaking out about the girl statue’s “threat.” He’s gotten himself a lawyer. He said “Fearless Girl” is an insult to his work.


Because of “Fearless Girl,” Di Modica’s lawyer, Norman Siegel, said at the press conference, the bull “no longer carries a positive, optimistic message.” The little girl has  “transformed” the giant muscular bronze bull into “a negative force and a threat,” he said.


I suggest Messrs. Di Modica and Siegel stay away from local playgrounds, the American Girls store and Hannah Anderson shops during sales season.


What’s really scary




Men who shoot their wives and girlfriends. They are scary. And threatening.


Like Cedric Anderson, who shot and killed his wife and an 8-year-old child in a San Bernadino, California, classroom where she was teaching on Monday


Every day, three women, on average, are killed by men ― usually a husband or boyfriend, according to reporting by my colleague, Melissa Jeltsen. In fact, more than half of all shootings in the U.S. in which at least four people died involved domestic violence. Many of the victims were children.


But yeah, let’s do extreme vetting and bomb Middle Eastern countries to feel safe. Gun control seems ridic, amiright?


The absolute terror of a pretty woman




I’ve enjoyed many of Michael Lewis’s books ― Moneyball, Liar’s Poker, The Big Short, etc. So I was surprised how much I did not like this essay he wrote in the 1990s. It’s about how his wife is beautiful and how he finds that threatening. Living in the shadow of her hotness is a “weird degradation,” he wrote back then.


You can read more here






Read more:



 

 

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'I Am Heath Ledger' Focuses On The Actor's Life, Not His Death

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Heath was the most alive human and if it wasn’t on the edge, it didn’t interest him. If there wasn’t some type of risk involved, he had no time for it. He went all the way out with the time that he had. He went all the way to the edge.



That quote by musician Ben Harper opens “I Am Heath Ledger,” the new documentary premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival April 23 and airing on Spike TV next month. 


Harper joins Heath Ledger’s closest friends and family members in the heartwarming project, directed by Adrian Buitenhuis and Derik Murray. The film compiles interviews with the likes of Ledger’s parents and colleagues, including Naomi Watts, Ang Lee, Matt Amato and Djimon Hounsou, among the actor’s own photos and footage, which he shot throughout his 28 years. In a way, Ledger himself is a director of his own documentary. 


“There were always cameras around,” Ledger’s former girlfriend and model Christina Cauchi says in the film. “I mean, he was documenting everything and he was just surrounded by all of those moments he was in, but then he’d be capturing the next moment and the next moment and the next moment. It didn’t stop, it never stopped.” 


“It wasn’t just to film us or film what we were doing, he was creating something, straightaway,” Ledger’s best friend Trevor DiCarlo explains. 


Ledger’s death in January 2008 took the world by storm, considering his illustrious career and reputation in Hollywood. At the time of his passing, Ledger was shooting “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” and was set to debut his unforgettable work as The Joker in “The Dark Knight,” which went on to win him a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. 


But Ledger was so much more than just an actor, as the film comes to show.


He was a son. He was a director. He was a brother. He was a chess player. He was a friend. He was a photographer. He was a father. He was a music lover. And most importantly, he was an influencer. 


“Some people are just bigger than the world has room for,” Harper says of Ledger, with Lee later adding, “He was a person so talented, even God envied him.” 


Below, eight things we learned while watching “I Am Heath Ledger.” 



 


Mel Gibson was his first teacher. 


When Ledger booked the role of Gabriel Martin, Mel Gibson’s son, in “The Patriot,” it was a dream come true for the Australian actor.


“It was a huge production. It was a little terrifying,” DiCarlo says of the 2000 movie. “You can tell he wanted to do a good job, he was still learning.” 


Ledger’s agent, Steve Alexander, admits that he had a slight “crisis of confidence” and was struggling on set, but soon took note of the lessons he was learning from Gibson. 


“He’s standing across from his idol,” Alexander says. “Acting with Mel Gibson for a young Aussie kid was a lot. [But] Mel was great and really generous with him and took him under his wing and was amazing.” 


“Mel really taught him how to come in and out of a character,” DiCarlo adds.


 



 


Fame scared him. 


Although Ledger always knew he wanted to be an actor, once “A Knight’s Tale” really put him on the map, he became a bit overwhelmed by all the attention.


He was “mortified, and he felt owned,” his friend and director Matt Amato says. 


“He kind of almost pulled out of every movie he ended up doing [over fear he’d fail],” Alexander admits, adding that Ledger followed through with his career because he enjoyed the art of the craft.


 


He housed a lot of Australian actors when they came to Los Angeles. 


Ledger apparently was everybody’s buddy, putting up dozens of Australian actors at the start of their careers, including Martin Henderson, Rose Byrne and Joel Edgerton. 


“The Australian thing, to me, was, ‘Yeah, come one, come all!’” Naomi Watts, who dated Ledger from 2002 to 2004, jokes in the film. 


“You’ve flown around the world. Staying in LA somewhere for a couple of months? That cost a lot, and I had nothing going on work-wise. Nothing,” actor Ben Mendelsohn, who stayed at Ledger’s place, explains.


Ledger would apparently throw parties and DJ on the turntables all night. 


“People would stay a long time, sometimes a bit longer than necessary,” Watts says. “With him, it was just [having] friends to hang out with and share the journey. He was very big on sharing his success.”


 


He might’ve, sort of, inspired “Entourage.” 


At one of these house parties, Mendelsohn spotted “Entourage” star Adrian Grenier, and swears he was doing research for the HBO show by getting a glimpse into Ledger’s posse.


“Heath’s place in LA was a renowned sort of pre-’Entourage’ entourage house,” Mendelsohn says, explaining the time Grenier showed up at the house. “I often fancy that he was doing a bit of research on a functioning entourage, because Heath wasn’t there so ‘Vinny,’ as it were, would have been away making a film.” 



 


He almost played Spider-Man. 


After “Monster’s Ball,” people viewed Ledger in a different way, as more of a “dramatic actor,” Alexander said. 


“When I read ‘Spiderman,’ I talked to him about it and it was almost immediate that he said, ‘That makes no sense for me. I can’t possibly be Peter Parker,’” Alexander explains. “He was looking, always, for something that was going to be truly challenging ... ways that he could disappear into a character and be almost recognizable.” 


The role obviously went to Toby Maguire. 


 


He was an impressive chess player.


Ledger played chess “every day,” according to Amato, who says they would often face-off in matches or play online if they weren’t together.


“I always felt that he was five moves in front of me,” Ledger’s dad, Kim, says of his son’s chess skills. “By the time he was 10 or 11 or so, it was pretty hard to actually beat him. Heath was trying to achieve a grand master status, and was only a few points away from achieving his goal.”  


Ledger, who directed a few music videos, was set to make his feature-length directorial debut on “The Queen’s Gambit,” about a young chess player addicted to drugs. The film was reportedly going to star Ellen Page, and was scheduled to begin shooting in late 2008. 


“He understood that story inside and out ... he had something to say. He had the ability to communicate his ideas, he could translate into film,” cinematographer Ed Lachman says in the doc. 


 


Bon Iver wrote a song based on Heath’s life. 


When he found out Ledger died, Amato was shooting Bon Iver’s music video “The Wolves (Act I & II).” 


“I just held him for the longest time,” Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon says. “This person that I had just met just lost somebody so important to them ― it was no longer about making a Bon Iver music video anymore. This was now our chance to be there with Matt as he grieved. It was a three-day wake.” 


After the experience, Vernon began writing down lyrics “on some of these visions Matt would kind of tell me about Heath growing up in Australia.” 


“The words ended up being the first song on [my self-titled album], and I called it ‘Perth.’” 


The mostly instrumental song features the lyrics, “Still alive for you, love.” 





 


There are misconceptions about his death.  


The film discusses Ledger’s sleeping problems at length. Almost everyone interviewed admits that he had a hard time resting his mind, soaking up every second of each day. His email was even “illberunningaround@[insert].com.”


At the time of his death, Ledger was having trouble sleeping and was sick with pneumonia. The prescribed medications mixed with sleeping pills are what caused his accidental overdose.


“It’s still hard when people talk about it and people have preconceived ideas surrounding that period of time. But that’s what people do. They come up with their version of it that makes it convenient,” Alexander says. “The truth is, he was super happy and loving life and he struggled with some demons but he wasn’t wanting to go anywhere but forward.”


“I guess we’re no different from anyone else who loses a child or loses somebody suddenly. The only difference being we had to live our feelings out in the public eye,” his mom, Sally, says, with sister Kate adding, “The world did find out before we did. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.” 


 


I Am Heath Ledger” airs on Spike TV May 17 at 10 p.m. ET. 

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Meet Pearl Mackie, The 20-Something Shaking Up 'Doctor Who'

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When Pearl Mackie began the audition process for “Doctor Who,” she didn’t know she was auditioning for “Doctor Who.”


She’d been starring in the West End production of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time” when her agent asked if she was available to tryout for a part in a show called “Mean Town.” With little more information, Mackie said she was free and agreed to wait for more details on the opportunity. When her agent contacted her again, she told the actress that “Mean Town” wasn’t actually a show, it was an anagram for “Woman Ten.” Turns out, Mackie wasn’t just auditioning for a poorly titled drama or sitcom, she was now in the running to become the newest female companion on “Doctor Who” Season 10. 


“I was like, riiight, OK, I’m never gonna get that,” the London-born Mackie told The Huffington Post in a phone interview. Long story short, she did. After an initial audition, she performed lines alongside a theatrical Peter Capaldi, the resident Doctor entering into his final season as a time-traveling alien this year. 


“He’s running pressing buttons and pulling levers, because he knows where everything is in the TARDIS,” Mackie recounted. “And I’m sort of just standing, open-mouthed, looking around in wonder, kind of thinking ― What is going on here? This is the maddest experience of my life. I’ve just had the most intense experience, and I can’t even tell anyone about it.”


Secrecy is par for the course when it comes to the BBC show, which ran for 26 seasons between the 1960s and 1980s, only to return in a 2005 revival that’s about to air its Season 10 premiere on BBC America on April 15. But Mackie’s character, Bill Potts, is anything but traditional. According to The Guardian, she’ll be the show’s first openly gay companion, a woman who’s been described as “completely fresh and new,” perhaps due in part to the fact that the actress behind the role has never really watched more than one episode of the show.


Check out our entire interview with Mackie, in which we talked about her character’s persona, the pressures of joining the “Doctor Who” family, and what representation on television means to her.







I love your character’s name ― Bill. Is there anything behind the name? Is it short for anything?


Well, no, not as far as I know. She’s just called Bill! I wondered the same, but I haven’t discovered anything, unless they’ve got big plans for a reveal later on. No, as far as I know, it’s just Bill.


Fans have been speculating that Bill is from the ‘80s and that there might be a parallel to a former “Who” companion, Ace ― is any of this true? I’ve read that “Doctor Who” showrunner Steven Moffat has hinted otherwise.


She is not from the ‘80s, no. She is very much from now. She’s very much a present-day woman. Kind of a normal young woman, really. Kind of a nod there, in her vintage-inspired outfits, but she’s definitely not from the ‘80s.



Is there anything else you can tell us about Bill’s origins that won’t incite utter rage from the BBC?


Yeah! In terms of personality, she’s very open and she’s very real. When I read Steven’s script, I was very struck by how fully rounded the character was. Not sort of struck in terms of being surprised by Steven’s writing ― because, I mean, we all know how good that is ― but it was very much more that I felt she was already there. She had a history. She felt like a real person that you would meet. And someone that you’d like. She’s quite open. She’s quite honest ― sometimes to her detriment. She doesn’t necessarily always think things through before saying them. But I don’t do that very well either, so maybe that’s why I related to her. But yeah, she’s quite witty and quite intelligent and very human and driven by her gut and the way she feels about things, which is something that I really liked.


Do we know how old she is or where she was born?


I mean, she’s about early 20s, I would say. Yeah, that kind of age. Aaand I don’t know if I can say where she’s born. In the U.K.! To be vague.



Well, obviously the entire “Doctor Who” universe is filled with a ton of secrecy and a lot of these really really dedicated fans. I saw that kids are already dressing up as your character online. What has your life as a companion been like so far ― even before the show has aired?


It’s been kind of a whirlwind. It’s sort of like being welcomed into like the biggest, most enthusiastic family at a family gathering and being introduced to them all at the same time. And, you know, everyone’s got really strong opinions about what it is you’re about to do, which can be a little bit overwhelming at times. But I think, for me, it’s been amazing. It’s such a wonderful thing to be part of a show that means so much to so many people. You know, people relate to “Doctor Who” in such a personal way, which I think is why people have their own personal favorite Doctor, their favorite companion, their favorite monsters, their favorite episodes. It’s a very strong relationship for a lot of people. And it’s been wonderful to be to be welcomed so wholeheartedly into it.


Did you do any particular research before you took on the role? Did you brush up on any of the history or any of the fan theories?


You know, I didn’t watch much of “Doctor Who” when I was a kid. I didn’t watch any of the feature series ― I think I’ve watched one episode. But obviously you’d have to be living in some type of a hole to not be aware of the show. After getting the job, I said to Steven and [executive producer] Brian [Minchin], “Look, give me the back catalog and let me watch everything.” And they said, “Well, what you’re doing at the moment is great. You’re bringing a really nice sort of freshness to it. And, you know, you experiencing things as Bill is kind of experiencing things seemed to work really well. So don’t watch it!”


And also, I kind of felt like as an actor watching someone play what is essentially your role [as a companion] and watching them do it so well, it would be hard not to borrow a little bit here and there, even subconsciously. And I really didn’t want to do that because I thought Bill was supposed to be completely fresh and completely new to this. So I thought it was best not to [watch].  


Did Peter Capaldi or some of the other cast and crew members give you any memorable advice during your first moments on set?


Peter was great. He gave me a little card and a scented candle for my new flat in Cardiff. It was really sweet. It’s such a big beast of a show, you know, in terms of its its reach and its fan base and all the extra little bits that make up the world of Doctor Who. But he said, “Remember why you’re here. You’re here because you’re really good.” Which was very kind of him to say. “The acting is what you’re here to do ― that’s the main job. We’re here to create this show and everything else is on top. But all of that can be a bit too much sometimes. It can seem like a lot, but if it does, here’s my number. Feel free to have a chat with me about it if anything seems too overwhelming.” Which was very lovely.


The trailer for the upcoming “Who” season contains the line, “2017 needs us.” And Peter Capaldi has hinted in interview that while Season 9 began to reflect on the modern world a bit more, he thinks we might see more of that in Season 10. Does this mean we’re going to hear about contemporary politics at all on the show?


Ummm, there might be some areas of contemporary politics in this series. Yes, indeed. But not in a very direct way. In a way that is open to interpretation, as all good art that imitates life is. If you know what I mean? Am I being too abstract?



I can’t imagine keeping secrets, so I applaud you. On to the next question! One of my favorite “Doctor Who” fan theories claims that the Doctor always regenerates into a face he’s seen before. So, is there any chance the character of Bill is just one giant teaser for your eventual takeover as the Doctor? Would you turn down the role?


What, would I turn down the role of Doctor Who? No, I’d be mad to do that, wouldn’t I? Can you imagine if someone was like, “Do you want to be Doctor Who?” And you were like, “Nah, I’m alright. One of the most exciting jobs in television? Nah, you can leave that, actually. I’m over it.” That’s not to say that’s what is going to happen. I mean, who knows?  


There’s been loads of discussion about the all-male Doctor roster ― we’ve yet to see a woman tackle the role. What do you make of the show’s track record with representation?


I think in terms of representation, this series is doing pretty well from what I’ve seen so far. Hopefully, by the end of the series, we might have another conversation, or you might think the same. But in terms of playing the character of Doctor Who next, hopefully, they get whoever is best for the job, whatever gender or race that may be.


You mentioned in a Guardian interview that you didn’t see many people who looked like you on TV growing up. When you think about your role on this show, are you thinking about the fans today who might still feel the same way you did?


I think as an actress of color, there’s always that kind of responsibility. And especially in a prime-time, widely reaching show. For me, if even a couple of kids can look at Bill on “Doctor Who” and think, hey, she looks like me, maybe that means there’s more room for me in the world of acting or the world of television or the world of fighting aliens, then that’s a good thing, you know? I think it is important to see people that look like you and to show that there is a place for you in the world. That you do exist and that you are important. But then, that said, you know, I am only playing one person and she’s not supposed to be representative of every person and every young woman of color, because that would be a generalization that we wouldn’t want to make either.


“Doctor Who” Season 10 premieres Saturday, April 15 at 9 p.m. ET on BBC America.

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Radiohead's Coachella Set Was Kind Of A Disaster

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The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival got off to a rough start on Friday night, as Radiohead’s set was chock-full of technical issues that forced the band to walk off stage multiple times.


The Friday-night headliner got through a few songs from their newest album, “A Moon Shaped Pool,” to start the set before the main festival speakers cut out during “Ful Stop.” To make matters more awkward, the band’s in-ear monitors continued to work, so they played on unaware that no one could hear them. 





 Radiohead experiences technical difficulties during “Ful Stop”


After that, the band reportedly made it through “Airbag” from the “OK Computer” album. But the audio issues returned for most of “15 Step,” causing the band to eventually leave the stage.


Frustrated festival-goers, who paid hundreds of dollars for tickets, could only stand in silence and anger looking at a dark stage. When the band returned, so did the audio issues, and the band had to leave the stage for a second time, according to Variety. 



Sound keeps cutting out during #radiohead at coachella #someonesgettingfired

A post shared by Lyndsey Parker (@lyndseyparker) on




Can you actually hear me now?” Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke had to ask at one point. “I’d love to tell you a joke, lighten the mood, something like that. But this is Radiohead, so f**k it.”


Luckily, the end of the set sounds like it went rather well. And hey, they even played “Creep” later on. So it’s not all bad. Let’s just hope the same thing doesn’t happen during Kendrick Lamar’s scheduled performance on Sunday night. 


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On Growing Up With The 'Girls'

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“We were all just doing our best.” –Hannah


“Our best was awful.” –Jessa


**


“Girls” is the Hillary Clinton of TV shows: You can’t admit you like it without acknowledging that it’s not perfect. So let’s get that out of the way, and acknowledge that “Girls” was far from perfect, from its hamfisted approach to race, to its over-emphasis on millennial laziness. 


And yet.


I’ve grown up with the Girls. When the show first premiered, my colleagues and I recapped each episode by G-chat, and during our season 1, episode 3 recap I wrote: “I am literally the target demographic.”


Fans of “Girls” don’t tend to identify with one specific character on the show ― “I’m a Hannah” or “a Marnie” never entered our lexicon the way “I’m a Carrie” or “a Charlotte” did in the ‘90s. And that’s because the girls/women of “Girls” have never been glamorous archetypes to aspire to. The show didn’t make a generation of young women dream of being columnists who run around in ridiculously expensive shoes and have fabulous (or at the very least, entertaining) sex in New York City.


“Girls” is less aspirational, full of unsettlingly realistic bad sex, friendships that ebb and flow and sometimes end, career opportunities that pop up and then result in failure. It’s like a fun house mirror that reflects back a distorted, somewhat terrifying version of what life as a white, financially comfortable, Brooklyn 20-something might look like, and the show’s “unlikable” protagonists often reflected its target audience’s worst impulses and most selfish thoughts. 


The actresses who play the Girls are about my age ― Lena Dunham (Hannah) and Jemima Kirke (Jessa) are slightly older, and Zosia Mamet (Shosh) and Allison Williams (Marnie) are slightly younger. Although they are supposed to be a few years younger than their real-life ages and my own on the show, these women’s journeys from fresh-faced NYC newcomers to more actualized human beings seemed to mirror my own. (The four actresses who play the Girls also underwent their own real-life transformations as the show progressed, from virtual unknowns to bonafide celebrities.) 



When “Girls” premiered in April of 2012, I was in my last few months of my early 20s, writing listicles about the things I had learned heading into 25. I was just establishing myself as a writer, my therapist was helping me tackle my dating anxieties and imposter syndrome, my Upper East Side apartment was furnished with the IKEA furniture I had bought in college, and I had recently returned from my first truly “adult-feeling” vacation with one my best friends.


As “Girls” ends in April 2017, I’m staring down 30 and reflecting on how much has changed and how much has not.


I suppose I have “established” my career, though what you learn as you get older is that you never quite feel established ― the finish line just keeps moving. The same therapist who coached me out of my imposter syndrome while I was looking for a journalism job is now coaching me through impostor syndrome as I write a book. I still have anxiety (about dating, and otherwise), though I no longer have crappy furniture or an apartment on the Upper East Side. I live in a slightly nicer, significantly better furnished apartment in Williamsburg, the Brooklyn neighborhood where much of “Girls” takes place. 


Mostly, my issues remain my issues, just as the girls’ issues ― lack of professional fulfillment, selfish impulses, wells of emotional emptiness that beg to be filled ― remain theirs. This “baggage,” as Shosh put it in season 1, might manifest in different ways, but getting a job or a relationship or a better apartment doesn’t fix you, it just brings your issues out in new and exciting (challenging? terrifying?) forms.


It turns out that much of “growing up” is about how you react to the obstacles that life inevitably throws your way. And despite the one step forward, two steps back nature of “Girls,” in this way, our protagonists have grown over the six seasons we’ve known them.


We see this manifest itself in the penultimate episode of the series, when Hannah shows up to Shosh’s apartment, only to find that Shosh is hosting her own engagement party ― one that she was not invited to. All four girls begin sniping at each other, which causes Marnie to usher them into the bathroom for a “group meeting.” But rather than some friends forever (and ever and ever) moment, which would have felt false and forced, Shosh unleashes some harsh wisdom. 


“We can’t hang out together anymore, because we cannot be in the same room without one of us making it completely and entirely about ourselves,” she says. “I have come to realize how exhausting, narcissistic and completely boring this whole dynamic is.”


This is the second time we’ve seen Shosh fed up. She gave a similar lecture in season 3 at the beach house, which ended with the other girls hearing her feedback but still forcing themselves back together. As in real life, accepting that you’ve grown apart from friends you once felt you might be connected to forever is hard. But three seasons later, they are ready to “call it.” And this ultimately allows them to enjoy the rest of the party, dancing around but not with each other. It’s a devastating moment, but not a tragic one. 








One of my favorite quotes of the series comes during the premiere of season 3 when Hannah says: “It’s really liberating to say ‘no’ to shit you hate.”


In some ways, the best and hardest part of getting older is learning when to say “no” and when to bow out ― of friendships, jobs, relationships, cities, and that sketchy bar where drunk 22-year-olds will inevitably spill their vodka-unknown-syrup cocktails on you after 1:30 a.m. Growing up means learning what no longer makes you feel good or fulfilled or useful, and stepping back from those things in order to make way for the things that do.


When I think back on six years of “Girls,” what comes to mind first isn’t the much-discussed nudity or the more outlandish plot points. What stays with me are the moments of emotional truth; the pieces of dialogue that epitomize a feeling I’ve had or something I’ve said, or something I never had the guts to say but wanted to and kind of wish I had.


I think about that perfect scene where Marnie and Hannah dance in their shared apartment to Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own,” because dancing it out is sometimes the only and best answer to a bad day.


I think about the heartbreaking monologue Hannah delivers at Adam’s door when she admits that, “I just want someone who wants to hang out all the time, and thinks I’m the best person in the world, and wants to have sex with only me.”


I think about a delusional and coked-up Hannah declaring that “it’s a Wednesday night, baby, and I’m alive!” 


I think about the moment where Marnie lies to Hannah about her unhappiness, a tell-tale sign that a history of being BFFs isn’t always enough to sustain a friendship.


I think about the “Beach House” episode, where the cracks in the four girls’ somewhat situational relationships are laid bare by “cruel drunk” Shosh





I think about the beautiful three-day relationship Hannah has with Patrick Wilson’s Joshua, and their sex scene which Emily Nussbaum described at the time as “so intimate that it felt invasive: raw and odd and tender.”


I think about the moment Hannah realizes that Jessa and Adam are involved, and her face perfectly mirrored the stomach-dropping feeling you have when you realize someone you love has moved on without you. 


I think about Hannah’s encounter with a sleazy, accomplished author, played by Matthew Rhys; an encounter that explores the disturbing and subtle dynamics that can arise between powerful men and less powerful women. 


I think about Jessa finally letting her “cool girl” guard down as she cries at the relationship with Adam she thinks she has lost, and whimpers, “I don’t want you” to the man who she’s trying to use to stave off her heartbreak.


I think about Hannah and Jessa’s tearful tiptoe into reconciliation, because sometimes friendships that break up do come back together when the timing is right.


I think about the penultimate episode, where Hannah sees two younger women excitedly planning out their new NYC apartment, and realizes that she is no longer the same as them.


That realization in particular felt wrenchingly real. I am no longer new to my city or my job or my adult life. I am still young, but not the youngest. I don’t know everything, but I know something. 



“Girls” was never meant to represent all women ― something Dunham has been explicit about ― but the way the media spoke about the show during those first few seasons often assumed that she wanted it to. As more women-led TV shows made it on the air ― “Insecure,” “Broad City,” “Orange is the New Black,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Being Mary Jane,” “Jane The Virgin,” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” “Queen Sugar,” “Unreal,” “Sweet/Vicious,” “Big Little Lies,” “Harlots,” the list goes on ― the constant dissection of “Girls” tapered off.


Perhaps this is part of what has made the last two seasons of “Girls” two of the show’s very finest. As the TV landscape finally began to reflect the reality that no show can speak for or to every woman (nor should it), “Girls” was able to exist as art, separate from the scrutiny attached to its title or its creators. And in this new space, I found myself connecting to the show all over again, in a more poignant and deeply emotional way.


It’s only appropriate that “Girls” didn’t end with some neat wrap-up, the four women skipping down a Brooklyn street together, well-dressed and giggly. We left our girls ― and guys ― in stages, mimicking the way we tend to fade away from real-life relationships. First Ray and Adam, then Elijah, Jessa and Shosh. And finally, Marnie and Hannah. 


The finale episode felt less like the season 6 finale, and more like the beginning of season 7 ― a story we see a glimpse of, but will never see run its course. There are no neat endings for Hannah and Loreen and Marnie and baby Grover. 


Growing up does not mean things get easier or that your problems get solved in neat little packages. As Loreen tells Hannah, “You know who’s in emotional pain? Fucking everyone!” 


But what “Girls” fans did get to see is hope. Hope that Marnie will strike out on her own and meet up with her cute personal trainer upstate. Hope that Hannah and Marnie’s friendship, the most fraught and lasting love story of the series, will find a stable place. Hope that Hannah will, despite all of her flaws, raise a fine son. Hope that even the most mundanely messed up women can eventually find their way.


For now, it’s time for the Girls (and us girls) to move on to next chapter ― as all adventurous women do




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