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Lena Dunham Defends Taylor Swift's Right Not To Speak Out Against Trump

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Lena Dunham, like most of Hollywood, made it beyond clear she was rooting for Hillary Clinton to win last year’s presidential election.


But while Dunham was out there writing op-eds, giving speeches and appearing in awkward rap parodies in an attempt to support her candidate, her pal Taylor Swift remained suspiciously silent, leading to increasingly loud backlash.


In new interview with Rolling Stone, however, the “Girls” star defended Swift’s decision to keep her political beliefs to herself.


“I just think everyone has to do it their way,” Dunham told the magazine when asked if she thought the backlash against Swift was unfair. “When I was lesser known, I was like, ‘Who could not share their opinion?’ Then I found out that when you talk about politics, people straight up tweet you the floor plan of your house and say they’re coming to your house. You have to fucking watch it because people are nuts.” 


Swift still hasn’t publicly said if she supported one of the two major presidential candidates. But on election day, she posted a photo of herself outside a polling station with the caption, “go out and VOTE.”


More recently, Swift said on Twitter that she supported the Women’s March, although caught flack for that, too, since she didn’t participate herself. 






Nevertheless, in the eyes of some, Swift’s unwillingness to demonstrate or support a candidate is especially suspect considering the degree to which she pushed her “feminist awakening” while promoting her most recent album, “1989.” 


A singer best known for her songs about failed relationships, Swift’s sudden transformation into a champion for sisterhood who name-dropped feminism in nearly every interview she did caught some off guard.


Critics were quick to point out that Swift’s transformation into a feminist icon could have been used as a marketing tool at a time when feminism was becoming a buzzword among young women and on the internet.


But considering she had no trouble talking about feminism when she needed to promote an album, her sudden silence regarding actual politics certainly speaks louder than any soundbite she could provide. 

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Museums Share Their Creepiest Possessions In Twitter Challenge

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If dolls, ghouls or stuffed animals scare you, now is the time to look away.


Museums around the world challenged one another on Wednesday to rustle up their creepiest and most unconventional items and share them on Twitter.


The challenge, dubbed “Museum 101,” led to a chilling collection of scary oddities ― including dolls, which proved to be especially popular:






























”Museum 101” was named after a place called “Room 101” that’s featured in George Orwell’s book 1984, according to website Culture Themes, which put on the event.


That space stores things that people fear or don’t like. The website notes that Room 101 is actually more about torture, but “Museum 101” organizers are staying away from that angle.


This doesn’t mean, however, that the oddities steer clear of death or disembodied parts, as you can see below:






























The art of taxidermy may be the thing that sends shivers down your spine. If that’s the case, plenty of museums were eager to show off their collection of furry friends, some of which can be seen below:






















There are those miscellaneous finds, too.


From spooky pictures to masks, toys and even a ghost, museums appeared to cover all the bases. Some highlights included a painted whale eardrum (see directly below) and a velvet and silk mask once worn by gentlewomen as early as the 1500s.


































Have something to add? Join in on the fun by Tweeting out your museum oddity using the hashtag #Museum101.


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This Paralyzed Veteran's Love Story Began In The VA Hospital

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Sgt. Nick Mendes, a veteran who was paralyzed from the neck down by an IED in Afghanistan in 2011, found love in an unexpected place — a Veterans Affairs hospital. 


Mendes had been at the VA hospital in Long Beach, California for five months when he met Wendy Eichler, a medical caregiver who specialized in paralyzed patients. 


The pair hit it off, and Eichler began visiting Mendes during her off hours and continued to see him when he was released from the hospital. Their friendship turned into a romantic relationship and they soon fell in love.


The two are the subjects of a new documentary by filmmaker Julie Cohen called “American Veteran.”



“I thought she was hot,” Mendes says of his wife in a short trailer for the upcoming documentary. “But at the same time I just got blown up, so I was trying to focus on me.” 


The couple married on Sept 28, 2014, about three and a half years after Mendes’ injury.



According to Cohen, there is a secret to the couple’s happiness. 


“Any married person — and I’ve been happily married for 17 years myself — will tell you that a mutual sense of humor is important,” she told The Huffington Post. “That’s particularly true of Nick and Wendy and fortunately they’re both very funny people who are quick to laugh at pretty much anything.” 


Plus, they’re open minded when it comes to sex.


“A lot of assumptions I had in my head about what it’s like to be paralyzed from the neck down were wrong,” Cohen told HuffPost. “Starting with the assumption that sex is out of the question. As Wendy put it: ‘When it comes to sex, you find a way and you make it work.’”



“American Veteran” will be screened five times in New York in early March as part of the ReelAbilities Film Festival, which promotes awareness and appreciation for the disability community through film, and will then travel to a number of other cities through the ReelAbilities tour.


Check the festival’s website for more info.

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To Protest Trump's Travel Ban, Museum Will Temporarily Remove All Work By Immigrant Artists

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Museums around the country have responded in big and small ways to President Donald Trump’s highly contested travel ban, which bars immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations and indefinitely blocks Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. 


The Davis Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts is just the latest.


On Wednesday, the museum announced that it will be de-installing or shrouding all artwork by immigrants, as well as any art given to the museum by immigrants.


The decision to remove the work is meant “to highlight the invaluable contributions that immigrants from all over the world have made on our society and culture,” the museum wrote in a press statement. Echoing the American Association of Museum Director’s statement on Trump’s executive order, the Davis Museum describes the deinstallation ― dubbed “Art-Less” ― as a “protest” that will take place from Thursday, Feb. 16, until Tuesday, Feb. 21.


The Davis Museum will be taking down or hiding 120 works of art in total, including paintings, bronze and wood sculptures and ceremonial masks from European, American, African, contemporary and modern collections. The initiative will amount to a censoring of 20 percent of the objects on view in the Museum’s permanent collections galleries. The impact of “Art-Less” on the African galleries will be particularly stark ― nearly 80 percent of the galleries’ objects were donated by the Klejman family, who immigrated to the U.S. from Poland after World War II.



“Every permanent collections gallery will be affected by the subtraction of works created by or given to the Museum by an immigrant to the United States,” Claire Whitner, assistant director of curatorial affairs and senior curator of collections, explained in the statement.


The museum will note the removal or obfuscation of works with labels that read “made by an immigrant” or “given by an immigrant.” (Work that cannot be removed will also be draped in black cloth.) In fact, the Davis encourages other “sympathetic institutions” to download the labels in an effort to broaden the “Art-Less” initiative


One of the “subtracted” works will be a recognizable portrait of George Washington that was painted by the Swedish-born artist Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller. Wertmüller immigrated to the U.S. in the 1790s. His oil painting was given to the Davis Museum by the Munn family, who also emigrated from Sweden after World War II. 



The decision to remove work from its collection might seem counterproductive to some, but the Davis Museum seems to believe that the temporary absence of art will highlight how reliant art museums are on immigrants artists and benefactors. 


The “Art-Less” protest comes after the Museum of Modern Art’s decision to hang more art by artists from Muslim-majority nations on its walls. MoMA’s Chief Curator of Drawings and Prints Christophe Cherix described the endeavor as a “clear reaction” to Trump’s travel ban that was meant to express “solidarity with artists from different countries.”


The Museum of the City of New York has similarly taken action, staging an exhibition called “Muslim in New York” that pays tribute to the legacy of Muslim life in the city’s five boroughs.

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Emilia Clarke's New Hair May Be For A Secret Not So Far, Far Away

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Mother of Dragons! Khaleesi, aka Emilia Clarke, has a bangin’ new look, and it has us questioning everything. 


Here’s what Clarke used to look like: 



And here’s Khaleesi now:



Clarke must own some dragons because that new ‘do is fire.


The actress showed off her dramatic new bangs and bob at a pre-BAFTA party over the weekend ...



And she showed the look off again on Instagram:




People are already speculating about what Sophie Turner’s BAFTA bruises mean for her “Game of Thrones” character, so does Clarke’s new look hint at the future of her character, Dany?


Probably not. First off, Clarke wears a wig on the show, and she’s already wrapped filming for Season 7 anyway. She celebrated the event by lip-syncing to R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” ... as Mothers of Dragons are known to do.




The ‘do may mean something about her “Star Wars” role, however.


As Allure points out, the hairstyle could have something to do with the actress’ role in the upcoming Han Solo movie. The movie just started production, conveniently around the same time Clarke wrapped “Game of Thrones,” so it’s totally possible.


The “Star Wars” movie, which focuses on a young Han Solo, is set for release in 2018.


Of course, Clarke could just be trying out a new hairdo. Khaleesi does what she likes.


Either way, her hair is so hot it’d make a dragon wanna retire, man.




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Restaurants Will Test If The U.S. Can Stomach 'A Day Without Immigrants'

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Restaurant owners across the country are hoping the way to the nation’s conscience is through its stomach as they prepare to close their businesses in solidarity with immigrants on Thursday.


The restaurateurs are doing their part to support the grassroots movement dubbed “A Day Without Immigrants,” which asks immigrants not to go to work, open their businesses or buy any products for a full day on Feb. 16. The goal is to impress on President Donald Trump the importance of immigration.


“I’m happy about it,” said Benjamin Miller, co-owner of El Compadre and South Philly Barbacoa restaurants in Philadelphia. “[I’m] glad to see that chefs are stepping up and taking agency and using their power to advocate for people who are more vulnerable. The most we as chefs risk are fines, but these people risk losing their families. They have a lot more to lose.”


Miller’s wife and business partner, Cristina Martinez, is especially invested in the cause because she is an undocumented immigrant currently unable to apply for a green card, despite being married to a U.S. citizen. The couple will close El Compadre on Thursday. (Their other restaurant opens only on weekends.)


It’s no surprise that restaurateurs are taking a stand against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has led to an uptick in raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities. An estimated 1.2 million undocumented immigrants work in food preparation and serving jobs in the United States, according to 2012 Pew Research Center data.


Some high-profile names in the restaurant business have signed on to the effort, including Spanish-born chef José Andrés, who was sued by Trump after he pulled out of plans to open a restaurant in the new Trump hotel in Washington, D.C. Andrés announced on Twitter that he will be closing all five of his D.C. area restaurants on Thursday in solidarity.






The Blue Ribbon restaurant group has also vowed to close seven of its restaurants in New York City.


“This is not a casual decision,” Blue Ribbon partner Eric Bromberg told Eater New York, adding that closing their doors will definitely impact their bottomline. “But there are times in life when money isn’t the most important thing.”


Two other notable chefs with Philadelphia locations, Stephen Starr and Ecuadorian-American Jose Garces, have not said they will shut down for the day, but they are promising not to fire or otherwise punish any employee who decides to participate in “A Day Without Immigrants.” 


“We recognize the immigrant community is an essential part of the hospitality industry. ... We support the right for hospitality industry employees to have their voices heard,” Garces said in a statement to HuffPost. “We are in close communication with any employees who plan to participate Thursday and doing our best to mitigate against any potential impact to our guests’ experience. We will not take any adverse action with any employee who chooses to participate.”


Any decision not to open even for a day is particularly difficult for those who own small businesses. Melissa Silva-Diaz, CEO and owner of the El Burrito Mercado in St. Paul, Minnesota, decided to close her family-owned eatery on Thursday after hearing about the day of protest from customers and workers.


“We had employees and a couple of customers send us the image of ‘Un Día Sin Inmigrantes,’” Silva-Diaz, whose parents are from Aguascalientes, Mexico, said on Wednesday. “I began to ask around and I asked employees, and some said they were planning on not working. That triggered a conversation. We had a meeting yesterday. We had a healthy discussion about it. I asked each individually what they wanted to do. I reached out to other businesses. Everyone was talking about it. Then we took a vote and unanimously we decided to do it.”


She acknowledged that many of her customers aren’t happy about the decision. But she said, “That’s what we want to do, to bring people awareness and get them talking.”



Juan Ramirez, manager of Taquerias Los Jaliscienses in Austin, Texas, understands firsthand the struggles that many undocumented immigrants face. The 54-year-old worked in the fields harvesting potatoes and wheat when he arrived from Mexico decades ago and gained legal status after the Reagan administration granted a major amnesty in 1986.


“I feel we are nothing without immigrants,” Ramirez said. “We are all in the same boat. Why not row together to move forward?”


Ramirez said that his Austin restaurant will be closed on Thursday and that he supports his employees 100 percent. He also noted that many workers were concerned about having enough money to pay their bills, yet they were willing to make the sacrifice.


While mobilizing around immigrants is nothing new, Miller noted, the Trump administration’s immigration directives have lit a fire under the community.


“This is part of a movement that has a long history,” the Philly restaurant owner said. “I feel like this subject is not just about Trump. There were plenty of deportations under Obama. ... This political climate is mobilizing more people.”


Miller also hopes consumers will do their part to ensure that “A Day Without Immigrants” makes a strong statement. 


“As a patron tomorrow, don’t go to restaurants,” Miller said, addressing all Americans. “Don’t spend money in restaurants. If you go to a restaurant and it’s closed, don’t go to another one. Stay home tomorrow. Cook for yourself. Show solidarity with immigrants. Restaurants not participating, they will feel the impact that immigrants make every day.”

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'Vinyl Cafe' Radio Show Host Stuart McLean Dead At 68

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OTTAWA (Reuters) - Stuart McLean, a Canadian humorist and broadcaster best known for his popular syndicated comic radio show The Vinyl Cafe, died on Wednesday at the age of 68, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp said.


Although the CBC did not immediately give a cause of death, doctors had been treating McLean for melanoma since late 2015. In a December 2016 blog post to fans, he said the treatment had not been totally successful.



The Vinyl Cafe, a weekly CBC show broadcast in both Canada and the United States, started in 1994 and focused on the life and misadventures of Dave, owner of a small record store, and his wife Morley.


McLean, who began his career as a journalist making CBC radio documentaries, wrote a series of best-selling books based on the show. He started taking The Vinyl Cafe on the road in 2008, traveling to both Canada and the UInitd States.


“Stuart was an exceptional storyteller who has left an indelible mark on CBC Radio and countless communities across Canada,” Susan Marjetti, executive director of CBC Radio, said in a statement.





McLean was awarded the Order of Canada in 2011 “for his contributions to Canadian culture as a storyteller and broadcaster.” He won Canada’s Leacock medal for humor three times, most recently in 2007.


Fans, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to social media to remember McLean:












































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The 'Boyfriends Of Instagram' Are The Real MVPs Of Social Media

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In the age of personal brands and Instagram, it has become an integral part of modern life to show the world just how much fun you’re having. And one community aims to honor the men behind the lens who make that happen.


Enter, the “Boyfriends of Instagram.”



Maaaaaaaaaaaaaate #boyfriendsofinstagram #surfsupbro

A post shared by Boyfriends Of Instagram (@boyfriends_of_insta) on




”Boyfriends of Instagram” is both a Facebook page and Instagram account which posts photos of ― you guessed it ― boyfriends taking pictures of their significant others and their friends.


The community pages were created by two men from Sydney, Australia who want to remain anonymous, according to The Daily Dot. They originally created the pages to focus on boyfriends snapping pictures of girlfriends, but their submissions have grown to include anyone who’s taking a picture of anybody else.


Their Instagram and Facebook pages have a combined total of more than 45,000 followers, proving that getting that perfect Instagram angle is pretty relatable these days. 


Whether these unwitting photographers are taking a knee or sprawled across the floor, most of us (boyfriend, girlfriend or just a damn good friend) can’t deny that we’ve totally been there for ― for the sake of our loved ones’ next profile picture.











And don’t let the snarky and sometimes condescending captions on “Boys of Instagram” fool you.


Anyone who takes the time to indulge their friends’ in a personal brand-promoting photo shoot is a true friend indeed. 


Check out these selfless MVPs below and be sure to take notes. You never know when you’ll be asked, “Can you take a picture of us, please?”



...Oi nah, what's doing m8 #boyfriendsofinstagram #instagramboyfriend #kook

A post shared by Boyfriends Of Instagram (@boyfriends_of_insta) on











You ain't got the angles Ye... #boyfriendsofinstagram #kimye

A post shared by Boyfriends Of Instagram (@boyfriends_of_insta) on















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Spider vs. Snake Is All Your Worst Phobias In One Horrible Video

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Think a spider can’t take on a snake? Think again.


North Vic Engines, which performs engine reconditioning, shared a video of a redback spider battling a snake caught in its web at the company’s location in Cobram, Australia. 


We had a visit today from a baby snake,” the company wrote on Facebook. “Lucky our pet redback found it and killed it for us!”


Some commenters claimed the snake appeared to be have been caught on a hook, but the company said there was no hook, just “a piece of fluff or something” that looked like one. It also posted a video of another snake ensnared in a redback web.


If the video wasn’t staged, then at the very least North Vic Engines might want to call pest control, especially since this has happened before. 


“We had exactly this situation happen about this time last year, and yes, the spider won that time too,” Brenton Maher, who filmed the battle, told Australia’s Herald Sun newspaper. “It’s pretty common around here in the country. We have spiders and snakes and it’s pretty normal.”


Redback spiders are an Australian relative of the black widow and have a similar appearance and markings, according to the Australian Museum. They tend to prey on bugs, including crickets and other spiders, and can even ensnare small lizards in their webs. As the video showed, snakes weren’t safe, either. 


The spider’s bite is also toxic to humans, with venom that can act “directly on the nerves, resulting in release and subsequent depletion of neurotransmitters.” Although redback spider bites may cause serious illness and even death, no fatalities have been reported since the introduction of an anti-venom, the museum said. The anti-venom is used roughly 250 times per year, usually when someone accidentally sticks a hand into a redback web. 


 


(h/t Mashable)

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Philadelphia Dance Center Invited Dads To Ballet Class And The Results Will Warm Your Heart

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A dance school in Philadelphia celebrated Valentine’s Day a bit differently this week and invited parents to join their kids’ classes.


The school asked moms to participate in students’ hip hop classes on the day before or after Valentine’s Day. Dads were invited to spend the evening of Feb. 14 dancing ballet with their daughters. 


And the results were nothing short of heartwarming.





Philadelphia Dance Center posted videos and photos of the night to their Facebook page, not expecting the clips to go viral. Within days, a video of dads pointing their toes and lifting their legs to “Waltz of the Flowers” from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite” racked up more than 9.8 million views.


Another video, viewed more than 400,000 times, showed dads learning how to pirouette across the floor.





The night was a huge success, both on the internet and in real life. After receiving such a big response from Facebook users who liked, shared and commented on the posts, Philadelphia Dance Center posted a message of gratitude to its Facebook Page.





”Thank you for recognizing the beauty, love, and joy that dance can bring into the world,” the message read. “It just proves that art, love and family are the international language. ❤”




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Street Artist Bambi Mocks Donald Trump With 'Lie Lie Land' Parody

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Street artist Bambi uses Hollywood to take aim at President Donald Trump in her latest piece.


The anonymous artist painted the “Lie Lie Land” stencil — a parody of the promotional posters for the multi Golden Globes-winning movie “La La Land” — in Islington, north London, England, on Wednesday afternoon.


But instead of Ryan Gosling dancing with Emma Stone in the image, she switched it up to show Trump twirling with the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Theresa May.





The idea for the piece came about after seeing the movie’s posters “pasted everywhere in London,” Bambi told The Huffington Post via email Thursday.


“A happy couple dancing without a care in the world, this film was released during a dark political time in our world,” she said.


It follows her similar Trump-themed piece “Make America Sane Again,” which she painted in Camden, London, just days after his inauguration as president:





For more anti-Trump street art, click here.


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See Hillary Clinton Get A Standing Ovation Before 'Sunset Boulevard' On Broadway

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With one look, Hillary Clinton brought the Palace Theatre to its feet. 


At a showing of Broadway’s “Sunset Boulevard” Wednesday night, the former Democratic presidential candidate prompted applause and cheers from audience members as she took her seat among them. 


Several Twitter users and reporters in the theater took note of the enthusiastic response.






Since her shocking loss in the 2016 election, Clinton has caught a few Broadway shows, including “In Transit,” “The Humans” and “The Color Purple,” where she was also treated to warm welcomes. Her appearance at “The Color Purple” with husband Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea marked the revival’s last performance, but the former candidate received several ovations of her own.


Her reception stands in sharp contrast to the somber message about diversity the cast of “Hamilton” delivered to current Vice President Mike Pence when he caught a performance in late November.


At New York’s Palace Theatre, Clinton gamely waved to supporters and posed for photos. 














“Sunset Boulevard,” starring Glenn Close in the same role that earned her a Tony two decades ago, opened Monday to rave reviews and has already been extended through June, per Deadline. The musical features scores by Andrew Lloyd Weber as it tells the story of Norma Desmond, an aging star who dreams of renewed fame. 


After the show, Clinton took a trip backstage to meet the cast. 



... Including its star, Close, who spoofed Clinton at the 2016 Tony Awards in June. (A long, long time ago.)



The former candidate has kept a relatively low profile since her November loss. In a taped video that opened the 2017 MAKERS conference in California earlier this month, however, she reiterated her belief in the values that shaped her campaign.


“Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that, yes, the future is female,” she said. 

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After Ban, Syrian Refugee Will Get To Attend The Oscars For Nominated Documentary

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A Syrian refugee featured in an Oscar-nominated documentary short will be able to attend the Hollywood ceremony after all. 


The film, “Watani: My Homeland,” chronicles the perilous story of one family’s decision to leave their home in Syria for a Turkish refugee camp and, eventually, Germany. An executive order signed by President Trump prevented all Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days, but the ban is currently on hold.


Hala Kamil fled Aleppo with her four children after her husband, Abu Ali Slaibeh, was captured by militants from the self-titled Islamic State in late 2013. Filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen previously told The Huffington Post he began meeting with the family before Slaibeh’s capture, making over 25 trips to Syria in total to document the family’s struggle and eventual admittance to Germany. 


Kamil’s husband is presumed dead. In different times, the couple used to watch the Oscars together.


“Abu Ali and I would stay up late every year to watch the Oscars live on television. Sipping coffee together as we always did, we’d try to recall the names of all the famous actors and actresses as they graced the red carpet, in complete awe of this huge event,” Kamil said in a statement obtained by The Huffington Post about the news that she’d be able to attend the ceremony.



Although she feels “incredibly proud and happy” about representing the film, Kamil called the news “bittersweet.” She hopes attending the Oscars can help her spread a peaceful message about refugees from all over the world, and particularly Syria, “a country that has been burnt alive.”


“All this destruction and displacement needs the concerted effort of the whole world working together, to help these people back to their roots, the roots they hold so dear,” she wrote. “We need people to understand that we are not terrorists despite what the media and the politicians might say, all we are is human.”


In August, Kamil appeared at the United Nations in New York alongside celebrities including Natalie Dormer to highlight the plight of refugees worldwide. Her children, Hammoudi, Helen, Farah and Sara, joined her onstage.


In a video filmed in Germany late last year, Kamil worried she might never see Aleppo again.


“I miss my family, I miss my home, I miss my garden,” she said. “I want sometimes to be in my garden to drink coffee with my husband. But now, I lost this dream.”


The Oscars will air Sunday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Lin-Manuel Miranda Is Too Busy Planning His Oscars Date With Mom To Worry About MacPEGOTing

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He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2015. He won a Pulitzer Prize for “HamiltonAn American Musical” in 2016. He took home an Emmy for his work on the song “Bigger” for the 67th Tony Awards. He won Grammys for both the “In the Heights” and “Hamilton” soundtracks. And he’s been awarded a total of three Tonys for those two shows, as well.  


Now all Lin-Manuel Miranda has to do is take home the Oscar for Best Original Song at this year’s ceremony and he will MacPEGOT, an honor yet to be accomplished by any performer in the biz. 


When reminded of this remarkable feat during a recent phone conversation with The Huffington Post, Miranda ― who’s nominated for his song “How Far I’ll Go” from Disney’s “Moana” ― laughed and insisted, “That’s not a thing! That’s crazy.”


“Obviously, you can’t worry about that,” he continued. “I think the term EGOT was coined by someone who didn’t win any of the things, right? So I think once you start trying to win awards, you immediately stop winning them, that is my feeling about it [laughs]. But I’m really proud of my work. I’m really proud to be in this company. But I have no control over whether we win. I’m just excited to take my mom to the Oscars, since I watched it with her so many times.” 


Miranda is up against big Oscar contender “La La Land” and two of the film’s songs, “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” and “City of Stars,” as well as “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” from “Trolls” and “The Empty Chair” from “Jim: The James Foley Story.” 


“It’s the Mad Libs of a category,” Miranda said. “I’m lucky enough to be nominated for Tonys, and those are your peers ― they’re generally people you know and you go, ‘Oh my gosh, yay! Alan Menken is nominated again!’ Or whoever your co-nominee is. But to be in a category with Justin Timberlake and Sting is crazy. And I’ve known Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for many years, and I’m thrilled with their success. This is going to be a huge year for them between ‘La La Land’ and ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ which is just cleaning up on Broadway.” 










Miranda has always been a huge fan of the Oscars and has taped the ceremony every year since “The Little Mermaid” ― the movie that made him want to be “in this game” ― won Best Score and Best Song in 1990. Although he says it’s a “real thrill” to be attending the award show, he’s very anxious to be in the room where it happens.


“I’ll be so nervous. Anything other than just sitting in the audience nervously will be hard for me,” he told HuffPost of the possibility of being a part of a performance of “How Far I’ll Go.” (It was confirmed on Thursday that Miranda will be singing a duet of the song with “Moana” star Auli’i Cravalho.) “I’m there for the party. I’m there to really just soak it all up. You grow up watching the Oscars so to actually be there, I’m really excited.” 


During the process of writing, staging and starring in his musical (have you heard of it?) “Hamilton,” Miranda also took on the job of songwriter for “Moana,” which follows a Polynesian princess who sails out on a daring mission with demigod Maui to fulfill her ancestors’ unfinished quest. Let’s just say it was a tough balancing act.



“Having an excuse to sort of shut out the world, which had gotten very loud in that year, to help create this young woman’s journey -- I mean, it kind of saved my life."
Lin-Manuel Miranda


“It was pretty surreal,” he said of working on both projects at once. “The ‘Moana’ team was pretty cool when I was still making changes to ‘Hamilton’ ― they kind of left me alone for that stretch of time. Then once we opened, it became a part of my routine. Honestly, [working on ‘Moana’] was one of the things that kept me sane during the ‘Hamilton’ phenomenon. Articles are being written and my heroes are showing up to see the show, but I knew I had music due every Tuesday and Thursday ― I’d have a Skype meeting with the creative team of ‘Moana’ ― so it forced me to clear up my day; it forced me to say no to parties and to say no to the things that you can get caught up in and forget why you are where you are.”


The 37-year-old spent two days a week writing music and lyrics for “Moana,” living “a bit of a monastic life” in between “Hamilton” performances in order to “sail around with Moana and Maui in my mind.”


“Having an excuse to sort of shut out the world, which had gotten very loud in that year, to help create this young woman’s journey ― I mean, it kind of saved my life,” Miranda admitted. 


Eventually, Miranda and co-composers Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’I headed to California for numerous off-site meetings, where they’d watch screenings of the film and have a real say in how the story was being told. 


“You’re not sitting with execs in a tower. You’re sitting with people who are making all the other movies in the studio’s pipeline. You’re getting notes from Jennifer Lee, the director of ‘Frozen,’ and from the people who make the things – your fellow artists,” Miranda said, explaining that there were many iterations of “How Far I’ll Go” before he landed on the ultimate version.


“This is not the story of a young woman who gets where she is in one week; this is the story of a young woman who loves where she is and loves her people and loves her island, and she hears this voice anyway. She hears this voice saying, ‘Go, go, go!’ So that’s when it really started to take shape. Once we embraced the complexity, the song really took off into its final form.”





The pressure to deliver a Disney hit ― reminiscent of “Part of Your World” from “The Little Mermaid” or “Colors of the Wind” from “Pocahontas” ― was palpable for Miranda, who soaked up every bit of information he could from “Frozen” songwriters Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. He wanted his lyrics to be conversational but still “elevated and beautiful.”


“[But] once you sit down at a piano, you have to forget about all of that,” he said. “You have to just put yourself in Moana’s shoes or Maui’s shoes [...] and live inside their skin and talk to yourself to reveal the truth, and then you write it down. In that terms, it was just like writing ‘Hamilton’ or ‘In the Heights.’ You just have to act your way through it until it feels real.” 


And real it felt, as Miranda could possibly win an Oscar for his work on the beloved tune. (And, again, MacPEGOT.)







Despite all these goings-on in his life, Miranda hasn’t slowed down. Although his run as Alexander Hamilton on Broadway has ended, the actor is currently in rehearsals for “Mary Poppins Returns,” which he’s starring in alongside Emily Blunt.


“It’s a giant ‘effing musical,” he said. “I feel really comfortable because coming from the theater, I know it’s a luxury to have a lot of rehearsal, but you don’t always get that when you’re making a movie. So for me, it feels like a theater project that we’re getting to put on film. I keep joking like, ‘When do we start previews? I can’t wait!’ I am dancing harder than I have danced since ‘In the Heights,’ because I didn’t dance that much in ‘Hamilton,’ and so getting to do that has been really fun, exciting, liberating. It’s been really good.”


If (and we mean IF) Miranda doesn’t win the Oscar this time around, it’s pretty clear he’ll be in the running again soon enough. You know, because he’s Lin-Manuel Miranda


The Oscars air on Sunday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. on ABC. 

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All-Women Motorcycle Crew Turns Feminism Up A Gear

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When photographer Akasha Rabut moved to New Orleans in 2010, she was taken by the city’s traditions ― the parades, especially. While photographing one, she noticed two women on motorcycles and decided to introduce herself. Their names were Tru and Love; immediately, Rabut was enamored. 


The pair invited her to a meeting for their all-women motorcycle crew, Caramel Curves, which took place in a member’s nail salon. Rabut took the women’s portraits, and has been doing so ever since.


“I love the feminism and femininity that these women bring to the masculine world of motorcycle clubs,” Rabut told The Huffington Post, taking care not to conflate the two terms.


Her shots of the crew include images of riders enveloped in billowy, hot-pink smoke. In some portraits, their camaraderie is clear as they laugh together wearing matching checkered jackets. In others, the pride they take in their pastime is on display as they pose on their bikes, showing off their high heels.


“These women are comfortable riding their bikes in heels and love to emphasize that they can do anything a man can do, only better and in heels,” Rabut said. “I think they do a really good job at combating the stereotype that biking is a masculine hobby.”


The women of the Caramel Curves rock lipstick and dangly earrings, bauble-y bracelets and gelled hair. They’ve got tattoos and ripped up jeans, too, fusing aesthetics to send a message about blurred gender lines.


“They have just as much, if not more, passion than most men that ride,” Rabut said. “Riding bikes gives them a sense freedom and an outlet in the world. I hope that viewers, especially female viewers, feel empowered by these images.”


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Artist Addresses The Racist History Of Photographing Men Of Color

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In her series “Brown,” Erica Deeman photographs men of the African diaspora against a brown backdrop. The straightforward series addresses the omission of black men from the tradition of formal portraiture, revealing the simple power of a photographic depiction. 


The project came about while Deeman was mulling over the idea of expectations and the discriminatory frameworks that underlie our assumptions. “I am biracial,” Deeman told The Huffington Post as an example, “and I’ve found that the expectation is that my father is black and my mother is white, but it’s actually the other way around.”


The artist then began thinking about men of color and the ways that they have historically been pictured in front of the camera ― the ugly history of physiognomy, and the mugshot, came to mind. Deeman then wondered, if she created images depicting black men in a more dignified light, would they have the power to shatter expectations with no firm footing in reality?



Deeman, who is based in San Francisco, recruited strangers to serve as subjects for a series of portraits, the only requirements being that they were of the African diaspora and identified as male. Every man is depicted shirtless, from the shoulders up, staring slightly off-camera.


The repetitive formula alludes to the history of portraiture, specifically the stately renderings of patrons, nobility and the aristocratic elite that take up so much space on museum walls. “Men of color historically were not granted the opportunity to appear sympathetic in portraits,” Deeman said. “That was restricted to the bourgeois.”


The portraits also allude to the ways photography has been used to criminalize and oppress people of color. “I think photography is problematic because so many people see it as the truth,” Deeman explained. “It has made people buy into physiognomy and eugenics and all of that. I always joke that the photograph was the biggest lie that was ever made.”



Physiognomy is a pseudoscientific field that argues one’s character can be determined from his or her appearance, especially facial features. “It was used to justify racism,” Deeman said, “by elevating European features and criminalizing everyone else.” Mug shots, whose aesthetics turn human beings into indexable felons, offer another example of photography invading our subconscious presumptions. 


“The mug shot is this very stark presentation,” Deeman said. “Formulaic in its style. People are placed against a blue backdrop or white backdrop, the flash is always the same, everything is the same within the context of the image. I wanted to make something with a formula, but challenge that aesthetic.”


In lieu of a blue or white backdrop, for example, she opted for a coffee-colored hue, a color that nearly matches her own skin tone. “It’s about placing myself within the image,” she said. “The color represents me.”



Deeman’s work highlights the immense power of a simple ritual, a subject and photographer conspiring to create a portrait. For much of photography’s history, men of color were denied access to self-portraits that truly represented themselves as complex individuals. Deeman hopes to rupture this tradition. “We are together in this place, making this photograph,” she said. “In these photos, I’m saying: ‘This is how I think you should be seen, and this is how you should be seen.’”


The artist hopes her work can open up a broader narrative for men of color. She does not want to influence her audience’s perception of her subjects, but rather leave space for the viewer to construct complex hypotheses regarding these strangers’ personalities. Through the project, Deeman hopes people will examine their own expectations a bit more critically.


“With the administration that we have right now, there are extreme limits on everybody who is not seen as ‘traditionally American,’” Deeman said. “I think that this body of work can challenge some of the stereotypes that some people want to revert back to.”


“Erica Deeman: Brown” will be on view at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco from March 24 until April 28.


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Sara Bareilles To Step Into Leading Role Of Broadway's Feminist Musical 'Waitress'

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Pop singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles can officially add “waitress” to her list of occupations. Also, “Broadway actress.”


Bareilles announced on Instagram today that she will join the cast of the musical “Waitress” in the starring role of Jenna Hunterson, a gifted pie maker and rampant daydreamer who questions her unhappy marriage after an unexpected pregnancy. The musical, based on a 2007 film by Adrienne Shelly, was described on Vulture as “clearly, passionately, and for the most part delightfully a feminist musical.”




”I’m just beside myself!” she wrote on Instagram alongside her debut date and a joke: “My first show is MARCH 31. Panic attacks available now.”


The announcement marks Bareilles’ Broadway debut, yet she’s surely familiar with the show itself, given that she wrote the lyrics and composed the music. 



Bareilles will succeed Jessie Mueller, who has played Jenna since “Waitress” opened last spring, and was notably transcendent in the role. Bareilles has some big shoes to fill; she plans to work with an acting coach and hit the gym to increase her physical stamina in preparation. 


“It’s something I’ve been quietly mulling over since the show began,” Bareilles told The New York Times. “So I’m making the big jump, and it feels like a completion of sorts, a coming full circle with this project ... To me this feels like a very holistic return to where I started, even though it’s been a really long time.” 






Good luck, Sara, we want to see you be brave! 


Bareilles will star as Jenna for 10 weeks from March 31 to June 11. Get your tickets on the musical’s website.

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Early-Blooming Cherry Trees Have Made This Town A Colorful Wonderland

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The Japanese town that’s home to a special variety of early-blooming cherry blossoms is bursting with the gorgeous pink blossoms this week.



The early blooming cherry blossoms started to bloom 河津桜満開

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Kawazu, which is about a 3-hour train ride from Tokyo, is known for the Kawazu sakura cherry blossoms. They start blooming in February, around a month before most of the cherry blossoms in the rest of Japan.


The town has about 8,000 of the trees, and their yearly cherry blossom festival usually attracts around a million people, according to Kawazu’s official website.



河津桜キレイでした〜

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Obviously, people are taking pictures.



*:..。♡*゚ 春うらら♡ *

A post shared by yumi♡ (@yumihr) on




A lot of pictures.



#河津桜 #伊豆 #uniztravel #travel #japan

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How can you visit a place like this and not Instagram it?



Sakura #kawazu #kawazusakura #sakura #japan #travel #instatravel #flowers

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This year’s festival is underway through March 10, so there’s still technically time to go. Otherwise, you can just enjoy the awesome photos like the rest of us.

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13-Year-Old Girl Composes Song Based On Hillary Clinton's Concession Speech

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Following her defeat in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton delivered a powerful concession speech in which she addressed “all the little girls watching.” Now, a group of students at SOL-LA Music Academy in Santa Monica have turned part of the speech into a song.


“To All The Little Girls” is the product of a music theory assignment in a class comprised of all girls. Teacher Mary Ann Cummins passed out an excerpt from Clinton’s speech and asked her students to write a song based on the words. 


On Jan. 20, 13-year-old Isolde Fair posted a video of the class performing the song she composed on YouTube, where it has reached over 50,000 views. 


Even HRC herself saw the video, and on Wednesday, she tweeted it out to her 13 million followers.   






“Thanks to Isolde Fair & her classmates for this inspiring song. I’m with YOU,” Clinton wrote.


The video features girls ages 8 to 19 playing instruments and singing the song, with Fair taking the lead.



“The message is that all girls (and women) should never doubt that they are valuable and powerful and can have their dreams come true,” the young composer wrote in the YouTube description.


“Thank you to everyone who made this video with me, to all the teachers and parents who helped us, and thank you for watching it,” she added.

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Sensitivity Readers Are A New Front Line In Helping Authors With Their Craft

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What’s a well-meaning contemporary author seeking to portray a diverse world in her fiction to do? Several recent articles suggest a surprising answer: Hire a sensitivity reader to edit the manuscript.


In an excellent reported piece for Slate last week, Katy Waldman sketches out the uses and potential drawbacks of the practice. Sensitivity readers function as primary readers of a work in progress ― but while a traditional editor would read with a view for overall quality, a sensitivity reader focuses on the accuracy and potential offensiveness of a specific minority group’s portrayal. To ensure a Korean-American family is being depicted sensitively and authentically, an author might hire a Korean-American reader; to vet the characterization of a protagonist who uses a wheelchair, an author might hire a reader with the same disability.


Authors who’ve employed sensitive readers spoke to Waldman and Washington Post writer Everdeen Mason, offering uniformly cautious-sounding reasons for their use. “I was nervous to write a character like this to begin with, because what if I get it wrong? I could do some major damage,” said Susan Dennard, who commissioned a reader for a young adult novel about a transgender character. Waldman spoke to a YA author who was spooked by backlash to her first novel, which some readers criticized as playing into stereotypes of gay and lesbian teens; she hired a number of sensitivity readers for her next book to avoid a similar outcome.


The level of controversy manifested over clichéd and offensive characters in fiction has seemingly skyrocketed with the growing access readers and authors have to each other. Whereas, once upon a time, a variety of staid white men with typewriters might have published reviews of a new novel, today authors can easily find unfiltered feedback from a universe of fans ― on GoodReads, on Amazon, on Twitter and on the ever-proliferating blogosphere. Even professional book-reviewing has grown more diverse, with the rise of the internet.


In recent years, the increasing public scrutiny on the whiteness, straightness and heteronormativity of the publishing world has both demonstrated to many writers that there’s a thirst for more diverse characters among readers and also heightened backlash toward authors who stumble in their portrayals of underrepresented groups. Though authors can typically count on a good editor to smooth gnarled prose or to push them to strengthen the overall story, when it comes to convincingly portraying a minority experience in print, they’re often on their own.


Authors are always limited by their experience and capacity for research, of course. Writing well and convincingly about a life vastly different from one’s own is a particular challenge. In the past, though, authors who fell short were aided in mediocrity by the vast majority of editors and reviewers coming from a similarly homogenous class as the authors themselves.


Write a painfully stereotypical Native American character? Chances are your editor would be white ― and almost definitely not Native ― and wouldn’t notice anything amiss about the depiction. Upon publication, predominantly white reviewers would easily miss any flaws or offensive notes in the book. While Native readers might grumble, they’d stand little chance of getting through to the author and publisher on a meaningful scale. 


Of course, whenever white creators are critiqued for politically incorrect or offensive work, defensiveness kicks in. National Review columnist Katherine Timpf huffed that sensitivity readers were “an assault on art” who would reduce fiction to depictions of “nice sensitivity training.” Slate and Washington Post commenters were skeptical as well, largely dismissing the practice as political-correctness run amok. Critics point to the risk of diluting the visions of creative geniuses with nitpicking edits, leaving us with sanitized, dull tales of well-behaved people. 



Let’s be real: A blind misrepresentation of a minority culture is a failing of craft as much as an underdeveloped protagonist or poor pacing.



This is only true, though, if you assume several things: That the availability of sensitivity readers is equivalent to mandated bowdlerizing of texts (it’s not), that sensitivity readers will demand the removal of all poor behavior from characters (there’s no evidence of this), and that sensitivity reading marks a substantial change from the time-honored practice of editors suggesting improvements to written works.


But is sensitivity reading a truly new thing? There’s really no meaningful difference between the content editing any reputable publisher would offer and sensitivity reading ― except that most agents and editors, to this day, are white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied women. The average editor at a publishing house isn’t personally familiar with the experiences of an American bisexual child of Chinese immigrants, or a black teenager, or a deaf woman. An editor can and will alert their author that an odd coincidence reads as ridiculously contrived, or that a character’s dialogue seems stiff and unrealistic; that’s part of helping a writer hone their craft and polish their book. What, then, if the book’s flaw lies in a cultural detail misrepresented, or a glaringly dated stereotype of a person of color? Unless the editor has more fluency in a given culture than the author, the editing process could skip right over that weakness. 


For writers and editors, a balance always must be sought between resolving weaknesses and eviscerating the original vision. A powerful or convincing editor can push an author to entirely change the scope of a book, or can essentially rewrite a work. Editor Gordon Lish, rather famously, wreaked such significant changes on famed author Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” that many believe the genius found in the short story belongs more to Lish than to Carver. Despite the risk of obtrusiveness, writers continue to seek out editors, and readers continue to read books polished by editors, because the benefit of publishing a vetted, tightened-up text outweighs the risk of a pure artistic concept being tainted by criticism.







Editors have long been a protective measure for writers and publishers, a compromise between total authorial independence and the vulnerability of publishing a text marred by one’s own blind spots and occasional linguistic infelicities. They aren’t perfect ― plenty of authors clash with their editors and even reject edits, and an editor might happen to love an element of the book that reviewers and readers find weak ― but they give authors a clear, outside perspective on where their book has succeeded or failed. Sensitivity readers are simply another iteration of this practice, and, to some degree, a Band-Aid over the ongoing problem of homogenous publishing houses that publish books by a disproportionately white group of people. 


Let’s be real: A blind misrepresentation of a minority culture is a failing of craft as much as an underdeveloped protagonist or poor pacing. Writers aren’t wrong or weak for seeking out smart editors and sensitivity readers to call their attention to oversights: They’re smart. A sensitivity reader is no substitute for good research and submersion in diverse media, as one YA author noted on Twitter, but neither is an editor a substitute for careful writing ― they just give authors another opportunity to catch mistakes and fix them before going public. This is good for both the authors, who put out tighter work, and for readers, who get to read and enjoy better books.


The need for sensitivity readers could be diminished by a more diverse publishing industry and, most importantly, by more diverse authors getting book deals for stories about their own diverse experiences. Though publishers have responded to demand for a less whitewashed slate of books, oftentimes the diversity is added within books written by white authors. 


As one author put it, on Twitter:






Reflecting the diversity of America within the publishing industry itself won’t necessarily rid us of the demand for sensitivity readers, however. Authors will always want to write outside of their experience and will always benefit from feedback from the marginalized communities they’re writing about.


The term “sensitivity reader,” in a PC-allergic, trigger-warning-resistant era like this one, might sound precious and sanitary. But every reader who can offer expert, informed feedback to an author has a place in the literary world.


They’re trying to make books better, not safer ― and there’s nothing wrong with that.

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