In this dark hellscape we call reality, it can be hard to scroll through Twitter without having the urge to throw your laptop or cell phone into the nearest bottomless crevasse. But there is one noble Twitter user guaranteed to transform your fermenting feelings of rage into a peaceful, productive state of mind.

That social media savior is Yoko Ono. 

We have long been devoted followers of Ono’s poetic, strange and insightful Twitter feed. But since President Donald Trump’s inauguration and the barrage of controversial news online, we’ve been especially drawn to her pithy instructions for staying sane.

In today’s political environment, many citizens feel it’s their duty to be constantly vigilant, calling out and resisting corruption and bigotry of all forms. This kind of perpetual alertness isn’t easy. Thankfully, since Jan. 20, Ono has been offering helpful tips for partaking in basic but vital acts of self-care. 

Ono’s humble mantras provide blueprints for avoiding dangerous thought patterns and overwhelming feelings of helplessness. Recommending simple rituals and small acts of kindness, Ono provides guidelines for taking care of your beautiful self and helping to forge a caring, peaceful world. 

As always, thanks, Yoko. 

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Listening to music with your dog? Fido won’t have a bone to pick with reggae.

A new study published in the journal Physiology and Behavior suggests that dogs in animal shelters prefer listening to reggae and soft rock more than other musical genres.

Researchers with the Scottish SPCA and the University of Glasgow studied how different musical genres affected the stress levels of shelter dogs.

The dogs wore heart monitors while listening to different music styles, including Motown, pop and classical.

Reggae skanked its way to the on top at reducing canine stress, according to a news release.

“Overall, the response to different genres was mixed highlighting the possibility that like humans, our canine friends have their own individual music preferences,” University of Glasgow professor Neil Evans said in the release. “That being said, reggae music and soft rock showed the highest positive changes in behavior.”

Evans believes the results make a good case for piping in music into animal shelters, which can be stressful and scary to newly arrived dogs.

“We want the dogs to have as good an experience as they can in a shelter,” Evans told the Washington Post, adding that people considering pet adoption “want a dog who is looking very relaxed and interacts with them.”

Buzz60 correspondent Adam Cardona notes in the video at the top that dogs’ preferences for reggae and soft rock proves that “dogs are basically everyone’s dad.”

“That ‘man’s best friend’ thing makes a lot more sense now,” he added.

As a result of the study, the Scottish SPCA now plans to install sound systems into all of its kennels complete with a canine-approved playlist.

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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.       

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More than seven centuries after his death, Rumi’s poetry still has the capacity to fascinate his readers.

The 13th century Sufi theologian and poet Jalal al-Din Mohammad Rumi is one America’s best-selling poets. His work is read at weddings, performed by artists and musicians in cramped Brooklyn basements, and endlessly quoted on Instagram.

But few people know much about the man behind these timeless lines of poetry. In Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love, the author Brad Gooch seeks to give modern readers a glimpse into Rumi’s life by studying the poet’s travels and his spiritual formation. 

Gooch told The Huffington Post that, like many others, he was fascinated by the beautiful and sensual imagery in Rumi’s poetry. While researching the book Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America, he befriended a group of Sufi Muslims who met in New York City’s Upper West Side. It was there that he became exposed to the religious and spiritual dimension of Rumi’s work. 

“I think the romance of the quest for meaning, of the spiritual quest, is what’s so special and seductive about Rumi,” Gooch told The Huffington Post. “He has displayed how human light and divine light reflect each other and go back and forth in this incredible romance and passion to search for meaning.” 

Below, the Huffington Post gathered 10 things you probably didn’t know about this celebrated theologian and poet.  

1. Rumi was born in Central Asia, most likely in present-day Tajikistan, near the border of Afghanistan.

This region of the world had once been part of the larger Persian Empire, and a result, influenced by the Zoroastrian religion. Beginning in the mid-7th century, Arab tribes began to conquer the land, adding Islam to the mix of religions practiced in the region. According to Gooch, by the time Rumi was born in the town of Vaksh on September 30, 1207, Buddhist influences were also present in the area.

“There was a great clash of cultures but also synergy of cultures in that part of the world that is really important to understand,” Gooch said. “It’s kind of the perfect place for him to grow up.”

2. His father and grandfather were well-known Muslim preachers and jurists, and he was expected to follow this more traditional path.

Rumi came from a line of preachers. His father, Baha Valad, was an occasional preacher at the local mosque and a Sunni jurist. Baha Valad was strict about keeping religious rules and regulations, although he was influenced by Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam that Rumi would later be identified with.

“They were respected people,” Gooch said.

3. As a boy, Rumi reported seeing angels.

There are several stories told about Rumi’s early childhood. When he was five years old, he reportedly saw angels. These episodes agitated the small boy. His father reassured him that the angels were showing themselves in order to offer their favors. 

Within years of Rumi’s passing, his grandson had a writer interview people who had known him about the poet’s early life. In fact, many of the stories we have about Rumi’s early years emerged after his death. 

“It’s an interesting way of indicating an early interest in religion, spirituality and poetic imagination in Rumi.”

4. Rumi spent part of his life as a refugee and migrant.

Baha Valad resolved to move his family from Vakhsh between 1210 and 1212. At that time, according to Gooch, Genghis Khan was preparing his armies to invade Tajikstan. His father could have also been propelled to leave the town because of local political problems, or by the desire to see Mecca. Whatever the trigger, by the time the family had moved away from their homeland, the Mongols came down and destroyed the great cities that his family had known.

“Rumi never saw his homeland again, never returned,” Gooch said. “They really became refugees and migrant.” 

5. The map of Rumi’s life stretched over 2500 miles as his family’s migration lasted nearly two decades.

Rumi’s family traveled from Vakhsh to Samarkand in Uzbekistan, to Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and finally to Turkey, where Rumi spent the last 50 years of his life. 

The experience of moving exposed Rumi to many different languages and religious practices.

“He was truly migrant in this sense of passing through all these places. You see it in the impermanence of things embraced in Rumi’s poetry,” Gooch said. 

6. Rumi studied religion in a madrase, or college, in Aleppo, which is the scene of such tragic destruction today.

After Rumi’s father died, his boyhood tutor took charge of his spiritual education. Rumi was encouraged to study in Damascus and Aleppo so that he would bolster his presence as a religious teacher and a leader of his father’s community. The education he received at Aleppo was religious in the sense that the center of it was the Quran. He was also exposed to Arabic poetry. 

An important part of education at that time was learning to emulate your teacher and receive certain ideas from them.

“There was a very developed academic, scholarly culture especially in Baghdad, Aleppo, and Damascus, and with that a lot of pride, a lot of status,” Gooch said. “The idea of fame or making your name was very important in those kind of scholarly circles.”

7. He was likely never called “Rumi” during his lifetime.

The term means Rumi means “from Rome,” referring to the Byzantine Roman Empire. The empire included present-day Turkey, where Rumi lived most of his adult life. His birth name was Mohammad. Because the name was so common, people were given nicknames. When he began to see visions of angels, his father gave him the title of “Khodavandgar” which is Persian for “Lord” or “Master.” His father also called him “Jalaloddin,” meaning “Splendor of the Faith.” Later in his life, Rumi was called “Mowlana,” or “Our Teacher” or “Our Master.”

It’s likely that he was never called Rumi, the name he’s known by around the globe today. 

“If you’re reading anything from the time people are calling him Khodavandgar, Mowlana, and family members are calling him Jalaloddin Mohammad,” Gooch said.

8. When Rumi met his great teacher, companion, and beloved Shams of Tabriz, he was already in his late thirties, Shams about sixty years old.

By this time, Rumi is known in Konya, Turkey, for being a respected jurist, a scholar and a preacher. But he wasn’t satisfied, and felt a little ill at ease with his role. Gooch called it a “mid-life crisis.”

Shamsoddin, or Shams of Tabriz, was a mystic and a religious seeker. As a personality, Gooch said that he was irascible and misanthropic, interesting and difficult, never really satisfied. At the same time, he was steeped in learning and prayer and mediation. 

The two met on a street in Konya and immediately fell into a philosophical discussion. They recognized each other as kindred spirits. Rumi spent the next three months in seclusion with Shams, who tried to pull Rumi toward seeing music and poetry as spiritual practice. 

According to Gooch, the parity of this relationship bent the social norms of the time. It also put a stress on Rumi’s family and community. 

“Eventually, Shams of Tabriz leaves either on purpose or he was murdered,” Gooch said. “No one really knows, but that really moves Rumi towards a period of what would seem like madness.”

9. Rumi did not begin writing poetry seriously until the traumatic disappearance of Shams of Tabriz from his life.

Shams’ disappearance deeply disturbed Rumi, but it also helped him evolve spiritually. 

“Rumi tried to deal with the suffering caused by Shams’ departure, and he realizes this love he’s seeking is within himself,” Gooch said. “That, in some sense, Shams is within him.” 

Rumi went on to write over 3,000 ghazals, lyrical, rhymed poems often dealing with themes of love, and over 2,000 robaiyat, or four-line rhyming poems. He also wrote a six-volume spiritual epic in couplets, known as the Masnavi.

10. Rumi’s funeral procession in Konya was unusual for the time.

Rumi died on December 17, 1273. He had been a devout Muslim for all his life, praying five times every day and keeping all the required fasts. But by the end, he also wrote about belief in a “religion of love” that crosses over traditional denominational boundaries. In the Masnavi, he wrote, “The religion of love is beyond all faiths, The only religion for lovers is God.”

Rumi gave his followers special instructions to treat the night of his death like they would a joyous wedding night. The mystic had planned his own funeral, complete with singers, musicians, dancers, Quran reciters, and imams. For Rumi, the presence of the singers and dancers indicated that the deceased was both a Muslim and a lover. But there were also Jewish rabbis reciting psalms, and Christian priests reading from the Gospels at Rumi’s funeral ― which left some of his Muslim followers bewildered. They hadn’t realized just how much Rumi had become a well-respected figure within other religious communities.

Gooch says, “[Rumi] was thinking somewhat outside the box in finding in mysticism the origins of all religions.” 

The anniversary of Rumi’s death is still celebrated as Wedding Night, or Seb-i Arus in Konya, Turkey every year. The festivities include a Whirling Dervish ceremony, a meditative whirling practice that is believed to help practitioners connect with God. 

The mystic writes in the Masnavi, “When you discover the source of sunlight…Whatever direction you go with be east.” 

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The woman who accused 14-year-old Emmet Till of flirting with her in 1955 revealed for the first time that those claims were fabricated. 

Vanity Fair reports that Timothy Tyson, the author of a new book titled The Blood of Emmett Till, spoke with Carolyn Bryant Donham, who was 21-years-old when she accused Till of making verbal and physical advances towards her. Donham’s claims against Till enraged two white men, J.W. Milam and his half-brother Roy Bryant, who abducted and murdered Till three nights later, leaving his body bludgeoned, bruised and left at the bottom of the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

Both Milam and Bryant were ultimately acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury. They later admitted to their crime in a story for Look magazine, for which they were compensated $3,000. Donham, who is now 82, testified at the trial. Her testimony further criminalized Till, whose humanity meant little to the jury of white men charged with seeking justice for a young black man accused of whistling at a white woman. 

However, as Donham revealed to Tyson in his new book: “That part’s not true.” 

“Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she said.

Donham, who told Tyson that she couldn’t recall what happened during the remainder of the evening, took the stand during the trial and claimed she was “scared to death” in the moments that Till approached her. According to Vanity Fair: 

She had asserted that Till had grabbed her and verbally threatened her. She said that while she was unable to utter the “unprintable” word he had used (as one of the defense lawyers put it), “he said [he had]’”—done something – “with white women before.’” Then she added, “I was just scared to death.” A version of her damning allegation was also made by the defendant’s lawyers to reporters. (The jury did not hear Carolyn’s words because the judge had dismissed them from the courtroom while she spoke, ruling that her testimony was not relevant to the actual murder. But the court spectators heard her, and her testimony was put on the record because the defense wanted her words as evidence in a possible appeal in the event that the defendants were convicted.)

Tyson is the first author to interview Donham, who actually approached Tyson initially because she was writing her memoirs ― which reportedly will not be released until 2036. According to Vanity Fair, Donham’s daughter enjoyed Tyson’s earlier book titled Blood Does Sign My Name, which focuses on another tragic murder provoked by race.

Vanity Fair reports that Donham didn’t “officially repent” for her actions by attempting to join racial justice groups for example but she did admit to feeling “tender sorrow” for Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who died in 2003 and had committed her life to relentlessly fighting for civil rights. 

“When Carolyn herself [later] lost one of her sons, she thought about the grief that Mamie must have felt and grieved all the more,” Tyson reportedly wrote in his book. 

Tyson’s book, which is to be published next week, is sure to reveal more about Donham’s actions but she, along with those who came to her defense, have already written a dark part of history that cost an innocent young black boy his life. We must never forget. 

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Millions of people have read Anne Frank’s diary to understand the horrors of the Holocaust. But the fate of Frank and her family is also a disturbing reminder of what can happen when the U.S. turns its back on refugees.

On Friday, people around the world commemorated International Holocaust Memorial Day, including President Donald Trump, who then rolled out drastic plans aimed at restricting refugees. 

A number of Jewish organizations have spoken out against Trump’s actions ― the parallels between the experience of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe during the Holocaust and Syrian refugees today are hard to miss.

While Frank, a German refugee who died in a Nazi death camp at age 16, is now widely idolized, Americans at the time may have viewed her with the same indifference they currently feel toward refugees from Syria and elsewhere.

Frank was a teen when she wrote her now-famous diary, an evocative chronicle of the years her family spent hiding from Nazis in Amsterdam. They were eventually discovered and sent to death camps. She, her sister and her mother all died.

Her father, Otto Frank, survived, and later published his daughter’s writings. For decades, teachers have used Anne Frank: The Diary of A Young Girl to teach the value of tolerance and the dangers of hate.

Frank’s life could have turned out much differently. In 2005, historians discovered a trove of documents showing Otto Frank’s desperate attempts to gain asylum in the U.S. Over several months in 1941, he wrote letters asking a prominent American friend and a couple of relatives to help get visas for him and his family.

“It is for the sake of the children mainly that we have to care for,” he wrote in one letter. “Our own fate is of less importance.”

Frank’s American contacts campaigned to government agencies on the family’s behalf and put up thousands of dollars, but increasingly restrictive U.S. immigration policy meant the arduous process eventually failed. Jews in the occupied Netherlands faced growing persecution, and several months later, the Franks went into hiding.

Their story reflects the experiences of tens of thousands of others who were denied visas to the U.S. and were later killed.

At the time, most Americans opposed taking in more Jewish immigrants, and authorities suggested that refugees posed a national security threat ― President Franklin D. Roosevelt said some Jews seeking asylum could be Nazi spies or saboteurs, according to historian Richard Breitman. 

In a painful reminder of the consequences of anti-refugee policies, Jewish educator Russel Neiss tweeted on Friday from the perspective of Jewish refugees whose names appeared on the passenger list of the St. Louis ocean liner in 1939.

The ship, originally bound for Cuba, carried hundreds of Jews who were fleeing Germany. When Cuban authorities turned away all but a couple dozen people, the 908 remaining passengers sent a telegram begging U.S. authorities to allow them entry. They were denied.

Turned away and forced to return to Europe, 254 of the ship’s passengers were murdered in the Holocaust. The Holocaust Memorial Museum has collected their stories online.

Trump issued a benign statement Friday morning to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day. His pledge to “make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world” followed months of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslims fear-mongering on the campaign trail and a surge of hate crimes after his election.

A few hours later, Trump signed an executive order he said would establish “new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America.” Details of the final document were hazy, but a draft sought to ban Syrian refugees indefinitely, reduce the number of refugees admitted overall, and suspend admitting people from certain countries.  

Here’s what Neiss had to say about plans to turn refugees away:

Nearly 500,000 Syrians have been killed in the country’s ongoing civil war, and more than 11 million have been displaced. Last year, the United States admitted fewer than 13,000 Syrian refugees, who underwent a long and complicated vetting process to enter the country.

Anne Frank’s stepsister Eva Schloss is an Auschwitz survivor. Last January, she condemned the world’s treatment of refugees and said Trump was “acting like another Hitler by inciting racism.”

“The experience of the Syrian refugees is similar to what we went through,” Schloss told Newsweek. 

“We haven’t really learnt anything,” she said.

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Most people think that honoring the Lunar New Year is just a Chinese tradition, but it’s an event that’s celebrated in many countries in Asia. And the celebrations are as colorfully similar as they are diverse.

In China, they celebrate the Chinese New Year, but in Vietnam, they celebrate Tết Nguyên Đán (Feast of the First Morning of the First Day) and in South Korea, they call the traditional holiday Seollal.

Despite the difference in names, all of these cultures celebrate the beginning of the lunisolar calendar with an abundance of traditional foods, festivals and lots of reds ― a symbol of good luck for many Asian cultures. Dragons dancing through parades to ward off bad spirits are also common in Asian celebrations.

But not all these celebrations are exactly the same, as explained in the HuffPost video above.

Chinese families give their loved ones money in red envelopes, while Koreans traditionally offer theirs in silk pouches. And, of course, different Asian countries will celebrate the new year in their own traditional garb.

The Lunar New Year is “a tradition that we get to celebrate here, even though most people who celebrate it are halfway around the world,” Nancy Yao Maasbach, president of the Museum of Chinese in America, told The Huffington Post. “To share it and share it boldly is very special.”

Want to know how to celebrate the Lunar New Year in the most traditional ways? Watch HuffPost’s video above. 

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John Hurt, the intense British actor who mesmerized audiences in starring roles in “The Elephant Man” and “1984,” and was the Alien’s very first victim, has died. He was 77.

Hurt, who announced he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015, died in London on Friday, his spokesman told The Associated Press.

Hurt was a man of many personas on screen and stage. But he was unrecognizable in his most memorable role as the star of 1980’s “The Elephant Man,” in which he portrayed with great dignity and pain the real-life John Merrick, who suffered from a disfiguring, debilitating disease. 

The actor spoke in 1980 of the ordeal by makeup required to become the gentle soul with the monstrous skull.

“It never occurred to me it would take eight hours for them to apply the full thing — virtually a working day in itself,” he recalled. “There were 16 different pieces to that mask. With all that makeup on, I couldn’t be sure what I was doing. I had to rely totally” on director David Lynch.

The movie received eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Hurt as lead actor, but he lost out to Robert De Niro, for his role in “Raging Bull.” He nailed a Golden Globe Award for supporting actor in 1979 for “Midnight Express,” in which he played a heroin addict in a Turkish prison.

Sci-fi fans will remember Hurt as the pleasant, deep-space traveler Kane, who unknowingly hosts an extraterrestrial monster that bursts out of his chest in 1979’s “Alien.” The cast wasn’t told what was about to happen. Director Ridley Scott wanted them surprised.

As for other fantastical turns, he also appeared in the BBC’s “Doctor Who” in 2013 and as wand shop owner Garrick Ollivander in three Harry Potter films. He played the secret benefactor and billionaire builder of a massive flying machine in “Contact” (1997). He was the agonized protagonist in the grim movie version in 1984 of George Orwell’s dystopian “1984,” which has suddenly become a bestseller again. His last turn at science fiction was as Gilliam in “Snowpiercer” in 2013.

Among dozens of other roles, some of his most memorable included Quentin Crisp in “The Naked Civil Servant” in 1975, Caligula in the 1976 BBC miniseries “I, Claudius” and Richard Rich in 1966’s “A Man for All Seasons.” He was Control in 2011’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and a priest in “Jackie” (2016). His reedy, vulnerable voice garnered several voice-over roles, including as Aragorn in Ralph Bakshi’s animated “The Lord of the Rings” (1978).

Hurt was born in 1940 in Chesterfield, England. His father was a clergyman, and his mother was a homemaker who loved theater. Hurt earned an art teacher’s diploma and moved to London, where he won an acting scholarship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

He knew he wanted to act at the age of 9 when he was on stage and “felt an extraordinary feeling that I was in the place that I was meant to be,” he told The Guardian in 2000. He performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and became famous on both sides of the Atlantic. He was honored in 2012 with a lifetime achievement award by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and was knighted in 2015.

Hurt used to joke that no actor died as often as he did in his roles. He put together a jokey collage of his 40 screen deaths on his YouTube page. 

“I can’t say I worry about mortality, but it’s impossible to get to my age and not have a little contemplation of it,” Hurt said in a 2015 Guardian interview. “We’re all just passing time, and occupy our chair very briefly.”

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Donald Trump’s first television interview as president has received a glorious “Spinal Tap” makeover.

BuzzFeed editor Jesse McLaren dubbed audio from the satirical 1984 rockumentary’s iconic “Eleven” scene over Wednesday’s footage of Trump discussing the size of the crowds at his inauguration with ABC News anchor David Muir.

And the resulting clip, which McLaren posted to Twitter on Thursday, is hilarious:

McLaren said the inspiration for the parody came from filmmaker BenDavid Grabinski, who posted a joke on the same theme to Twitter.

Watch the clip above, and see the scene from the original movie below:

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Set to marry a British man, a Filipina bride-to-be struggles with her feelings for a former girlfriend in “Jane’s Wedding,” director Cole Stamm’s 2014 short film. 

Stamm, who co-wrote 2013’s “Riddle” starring Val Kilmer, said he was inspired by a real-life woman he met in the Philippines. The woman, who was also named Jane, worked as a housekeeper in a Manila hostel. Although Jane identified as sexually fluid, she told Stamm that she planned to marry a man “so that she could have children to take care of her when she got older.”

“I found this fluidity to be really interesting and started observing the LGBT culture more and more, eventually going with Jane to the slum where she sometimes lived called Paranaque, where I met all of her queer friends, including her girlfriend,” Stamm, who originally hails from North Carolina and now resides in Los Angeles, told The Huffington Post.

He had praise for the actress Angeli Bayani, who portrays Jane. “Angeli is really brave and imaginative with lots of technical skill. I gave her some brief notes about the character and watched her transform completely into the tomboyish Jane character within seconds during the audition,” he said. “The transition from Angeli to Jane was seamless.”

You can catch a sneak peek at “Jane’s Wedding” above, then head to Viddsee, which curates and shares powerful short films, to watch the full-length clip. 

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, responding on Saturday to reports that filmmaker Asghar Farhadi could miss the the 89th Academy Awards due to President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking millions of people from several majority-Muslim countries, called Farhadi’s possible absence “extremely troubling.”

Farhadi, who won an Oscar in 2012 for his film “A Separation,” was born and lives in Iran, one of seven nations from which Trump has barred immigrants and visitors to the U.S. for at least 90 days. The Academy Awards air Feb. 26. 

In a statement provided to The Huffington Post on Saturday, an Academy spokesperson said that the group stands for the “human rights of all people” regardless of borders or religion. Farhadi, meanwhile, has yet to comment on the matter.

“The Academy celebrates achievement in the art of filmmaking, which seeks to transcend borders and speak to audiences around the world, regardless of national, ethnic, or religious differences,” the statement reads. “As supporters of filmmakers ― and the human rights of all people ― around the globe, we find it extremely troubling that Asghar Farhadi, the director of the Oscar-winning film from Iran ‘A Separation,’ along with the cast and crew of this year’s Oscar-nominated film ‘The Salesman,’ could be barred from entering the country because of their religion or country of origin.”

Farhadi is nominated again this year in the best foreign language film category for “The Salesman,” which follows an Iranian couple starring in a local production of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.”

Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, a nonprofit that promotes diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran, was the first to speak out on Farhadi’s possible banning. The Tribeca Film Festival, which awarded Farhadi Best Narrative Feature in 2009 for his film “About Elly,” issued a similar statement, calling the situation “heartbreaking and unacceptable.”

One of the stars of “The Salesman,” Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, spoke out earlier this week in anticipation of Trump’s executive order about boycotting this year’s ceremony.

“Trump’s visa ban for Iranians and others is a racist move and unacceptable,” she wrote on social media in Arabic and English. “Whether this will include a cultural event or not, I won’t attend the #AcademyAwards 2017 in protest.”

In his 2012 Oscar acceptance speech for “A Separation,” Farhadi emphasized that the divide between the U.S. and Iran is fueled by politicians, not the people. He spoke about what the Academy’s recognition meant to Iranians watching at home. 

“At this time, many Iranians all over the world are watching us and I imagine them to be very happy,” he said. “They are happy not just because of an important award or a film or a filmmaker, but because at the time when talk of war, intimidation and aggression is exchanged between politicians, the name of their country Iran is spoken here through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics.”

“I proudly offer this award to the people of my country,” he went on, “a people who respect all cultures and civilizations despite hostility and resentment.”

In response to Trump’s executive order, the Iranian Foreign Ministry released a statement on Saturday that prohibits U.S. citizens from entering the country. Calling Trump’s ban an “open affront against the Muslim world and the Iranian nation in particular,” the action signals a further deterioration of ties between the two nations. 

The Huffington Post has reached out to Farhadi’s representatives and will update this post accordingly. 

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The red carpet at Sunday’s SAG Awards was surprisingly tame given the weekend’s political turbulence. Janelle Monáe spoke eloquently of the inclusive stories told in “Moonlight” and “Hidden Figures,” Natalie Portman noted her familiarity with the national unrest depicted in “Jackie,” and Taraji P. Henson mentioned the need for “unity.” But Simon Helberg and his wife, actress Jocelyn Towne, took on President Donald Trump’s immigration barricade head-on.

Helberg, a nominee for “The Big Bang Theory,” carried a sign that read “REFUGEES WELCOME,” while Towne had the words “LET THEM IN” scrawled across her chest. Both are references to Trump’s executive order blocking refugees fleeing the Syrian Civil War. 

Helberg and Towne join a chorus of celebrities who have spoken out against Trump’s anti-immigration actions over the past 48 hours. 

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus kept the political mood alive at the SAG Awards on Sunday, calling Donald Trump’s executive order blocking Muslims and refugees “un-American.” 

Louis-Dreyfus, who won Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series, skipped the standard thank-yous to address Trump’s recent political actions. She started on a lighthearted note: “Whether the Russians did or did not hack the voting of tonight’s SAG awards, I look out at the million or probably even a million and a half people in this room, and I say this award is legitimate and I won. I’m the winner. The winner is me. Landslide!”

The “Veep” actress then spoke of her own experiences as the daughter of an immigrant. “My father fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France, and I am an American patriot, and I love this country,” she said. “I am horrified by its blemishes, and this immigrant ban is a blemish, and it is un-American.”

The actress closed with the Writer’s Guild’s statement against the executive order, saying, “Our guilds are unions of storytellers who have always welcomed those from other nations, and of varying beliefs, who wish to share their creativity with America. We are grateful to them, we stand with them, we will fight for them.”

Louis-Dreyfus is one of many stars who spoke out against Trump’s anti-immigration actions over the weekend. 

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Celebrities initially came out to the 2017 Screen Actors Guild Awards to celebrate the amazing performances television and film had to offer this year. But, thankfully, they ended up using the stage to spread a message of hope in a time of sorrow. 

Actors, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the cast of “Orange Is the New Black,” took the time to call out President Donald Trump’s executive order, aiming to block the entry of Syrian refugees and impose a de facto ban on travelers coming from several Muslim-majority countries.

The first to take on the issue was Ashton Kutcher, who opened the award show with a pro-immigration message that had the crowd roaring. 

“Good evening, fellow SAG-AFTRA members, and everyone at home, and everyone in airports that belong in my America,” he said. “You are a part of the fabric of who we are. And we love you and we welcome you.”

After his on-air statement, Kutcher took to Twitter to explain why he felt the need to speak out. 

“If standing for the America that doesn’t discriminate makes me a left wing actor who is out of touch. Fuck it,” he tweeted. “As an American I respect my president but I do not respect this policy. #ABetterWay. I believe in protecting borders. I believe is enabling safety and security but we do so with honor. We are Americans. #ABetterWay. This isn’t no nonsense policy this is no sense policy. #ABetterWay.” 

Earlier on Sunday, Kutcher shared his outrage over what is happening in the country on social media, explaining that his wife, Mila Kunis, came to America on a refugee visa.

Let’s hope more public figures spread the word and try to make a difference. 

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Viola Davis took home the Screen Actors Guild Award on Sunday for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for her stunning work in “Fences,” but not before she delivered a few powerful words onstage. 

Davis, whose portrayal of Rose Maxson in the film has earned her an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award, made sure to take a moment to thank August Wilson, the black playwright who wrote “Fences.” In doing so, she praised him for placing a man of color at the center of the narrative, making sure his story was told. 

“What August did so beautifully is he honored the average man who happened to be a man of color,” Davis said. “Sometimes we don’t have to shake the world and move the world and create anything that is going to be in the history book. The fact that we breathe and live a life and was a god to our children. Just that means that we have a story and it deserves to be told.”

Davis, who was nominated for the SAG Award alongside Naomie Harris for “Moonlight,” Nicole Kidman for “Lion,” Octavia Spencer for “Hidden Figures” and Michelle Williams for “Manchester by the Sea,” didn’t stop there. She went on to explain that Wilson’s work resonates with her because she sees characters in the film as a reflection of her own family members and others who look like them. 

“We deserve to be in the canon, in the center of any narrative, and that’s what August did,” she said. “He elevated my father, my mother, my uncles who had eighth and fifth grade educations and he encapsulated them in history. Thank you, August. Thank you.”

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Challenging Meryl Streep for best speech of the season, Mahershala Ali delivered passionate words about his Muslim faith at Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards. Winning for his performance in “Moonlight,” Ali spoke of the need to avoid persecuting those who are different, a timely topic given Donald Trump’s recent executive order banning Muslims and Syrian refugees from entering America. 

“My mother is an ordained minister,” Ali said. “I’m a Muslim. She didn’t do backflips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I tell you now ― you put things to the side, and I’m able to see her and she’s able to see me. We love each other. The love has grown.”

Watch Ali’s full speech below. You won’t regret it. 

Here’s the full transcript:

I think what I’ve learned from working on “Moonlight” is we see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves. And what I was so grateful about in having the opportunity to play Juan was playing a gentleman who saw a young man folding into himself as a result of the persecution of his community and taking that opportunity to uplift him and to tell him he mattered, that he was OK, and accept him. I hope that we do a better job of that.

We kind of get caught up in the minutia and the details that make us all different, I think there’s two ways of seeing that. There’s an opportunity to see the texture of that person, the characteristics that make them unique, and then there’s the opportunity to go to war about it, and to say that that person is different than me and I don’t like you, so let’s battle.

My mother is an ordained minister. I’m a Muslim. She didn’t do backflips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I tell you now ― you put things to the side, and I’m able to see her and she’s able to see me. We love each other. The love has grown. And that stuff is minutia. It’s not that important.

I’m going to thank Tarell Alvin McCraney for his courage. I’m going to thank Barry Jenkins just for your insight, your brilliance and your direction, and just the collaboration, that opportunity, I’ll always hold that close to me. I want to thank my fellow cast mates. Any one of those young men could be up here holding this, I’m telling you. It’s beautiful work. Plan B, A24, thank you. Peace and blessings be upon you.

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God bless Dolly Parton.

In the midst of a politically dour Screen Actors Guild Awards, the country legend came through with more than enough pep for all of us. 

“Greetings from Dollywood, Hollywood,” she said, taking the stage to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to her “9 to 5” co-star Lily Tomlin. “I almost didn’t get in. Seriously, I didn’t. They were holding me backstage, they kept wanting to see my I.D.’s. Well, I think they wanted to see I.D.’s ― maybe it was just double D’s. I’m glad to get that off my chest. Of course, Jane and Lily are not my only two famous girlfriends.”

Parton then cupped her boobs, winked and chuckled. 

Oh Dolly, we love you. 

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Taraji P. Henson spoke with conviction Sunday night after it was announced that “Hidden Figures” won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. 

The film, which has received much acclaim including an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, tells the little-known stories of three black women ― Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson ― who played pivotal roles in NASA’s successful attempt to put astronaut John Glenn into orbit. Henson, who portrayed Johnson, accepted the award alongside her castmates and delivered a stirring speech about the movie’s purpose.

“This film is about unity,” Henson said. “The shoulders of the women that we stand on are three American heroes: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. Without them, we would not know how to reach the stars.”

“These women did not complain about the problems, the circumstances, the issues,” she continued. “They focused on solutions. Therefore, these brave women helped put men into space.” 

Henson spoke with full confidence as she concluded with a message of unity and understanding. 

“This story is about what happens when we put our differences aside, and we come together as a human race,” she concluded. “We win. Love wins every time ... They are hidden figures no more!”

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Imagine “Hidden Figures” winning Best Picture. Imagine seeing such unbridled joy on the faces of Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe, the first women to headline a No. 1 movie for two consecutive weeks since 2011. 

It could happen! “Hidden Figures” won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture on Sunday, bolstering its path to Best Picture. 

After “Moonlight” swept the Gotham Awards in November, I optimistically wondered whether Barry Jenkins’ movie could also land the Oscars’ top honor. It seemed like the socially conscious antidote to the charming levity of “La La Land,” our presumed front-runner throughout the season. Then the pastel musical swept the Golden Globes and become one of the most-nominated films in Academy Award history. It seemed unstoppable.

And yet, the last movie in the SAG Awards’ 23-year history to win Best Picture without being nominated for SAG’s Best Ensemble accolade was “Braveheart,” way back in 1996. “La La Land” would only be the second. So now I’m going to swap my “Moonlight” postulation for a “Hidden Figures” what-if. 

What if “Hidden Figures” wins Best Picture next month? 

I’m a “La La Land” fan who is resistant to most of the movie’s so-called backlash, but Hollywood has the chance to honor a story that speaks to our country’s inclusive values. It’s clear from the fiery SAG speeches that the industry opposes the Trump administration’s hateful rhetoric and policymaking, and honoring a movie like “Hidden Figures” or “Moonlight” is a tiny way to promote diversity as a tenant of American culture. 

The massive box-office haul for “Hidden Figures” helps this hypothetical seem like less of a pipe dream. Theodore Melfi’s dramedy about three black, female NASA mathematicians during the 1960s Space Race crossed the impressive $100 million threshold in domestic grosses this weekend. “La La Land” did too, actually, but it took a much longer rollout to accomplish the same feat. 

One strike against a potential “Hidden Figures” victory is the Producers Guild of America, which handed “La La Land” its top prize on Saturday. The PGA is another helpful Oscar precursor, but keep in mind the actors’ branch represents the largest contingency of the Academy’s nearly 7,000 (newly diversified) voters. 

Of course, Oscar campaigns are largely about narratives, and “La La Land” still has the benefit of being the well-made escapist fare that many desire right now, as well as a love letter to the navel-gazing Hollywood. But if enough Academy voters want to make a statement about the need for inclusive storytelling in Trump’s America, “Hidden Figures” could be their ticket. Even though “La La Land” remains the front-runner, this SAG recognition bodes well. 

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