If you saw a skunk in peril, would you risk your own smell-wellbeing to save him?
This man, Hero of the Year, saved a skunk from surefire death by helping him remove a soda can from his head.
“Skunk?” he says softly, a few moments after watching the creature bobble around in circles with a can for a head. You already know by the tone of his voice this is a guy wearing a beard and some flannel, but not like, because it’s trendy. “Please don’t spray me, I’m not gonna hurt ya,” he pleads, stepping closer. You can hear the fear in his voice. He’s trying not to cry, almost?
“Come on over here. I’ll take that off your head. Please don’t be scared,” he continues. And you know what? The skunk DOES come on over there, slow and clumsy. It’s like the animal knows that this man is the nicest human on the planet and it’s lucky to have stumbled into this nightmare in his vicinity. “Don’t be upset, I’ll take that off your head now,” he says, grabbing the can firmly. The skunk reacts appropriately, with an “Oh shit, something ELSE has a hold on my freaking head now” attempt to scuttle backwards. “Come on baby, you can do this,” the man soothes at 1:34. At this point I have completely melted inside.
After a few tense seconds locked in mutual fear and desperation, the can pops off and the skunk is free.
“In response to comments, I don’t think the can was litter or from recycling, but rather a fat drippings can from a BBQ,” the video uploader writes in the description. This raccoon was just trying to get at that delicious coagulated pork fat coating the inside of the can. Totally understandable.
The video was recorded near Orillia, Ontario, which explains some of the overwhelming patience and kindness displayed here. In the U.S., we’re too busy drunkenly invading Canada on rafts, drunkenly turning pickup trucks into pools, or drunkenly fucking shit up on commuter trains to save innocent creatures.
However you feel about this year’s political climate, presidential debate and however you may consider the viability of either party’s nominee, one thing was confirmed with Monday night’s debate: You’re tuning in.
Historic #Debate Numbers: – Estimated 100+ million watched – 6.7 million tweets sent – 18.7 million engaged on Facebook pic.twitter.com/8gj1ZyV7np
As social media insinuates itself further into our everyday lives in so many ways—dating, eating, vacationing—inevitably its impact would be seen through the political sector. You might assume I’m referring to those Facebook and Twitter numbers above. But you’d be incorrect.
Because how did some people really watch last night’s debates? Through Snapchat filters.
Last night, I slept the sleep of someone unburdened by the current state of American politics. Beginning at 7 p.m., I instilled a total Presidential Debate Blackout. No one was allowed to text or call me about the Hillary vs. Trump showdown. Twitter and Facebook were off limits completely.
I didn’t have a “good reason” for the blackout. It’s not like I have a doctor’s note to keep my blood pressure down and refrain from vigorous political discourse. I’m not apolitical, nor am I someone who hates both options — actually, I really, really like one of them and detest the other with the fire of a thousand burning suns. Being the owner of a uterus and a believer in human decency, I have some literal skin in this game. But debates strike me as gaudy entertainment and fresh fodder for HOT TAKES, and not much more. But like, Democracy, right?
finally the whole country will watch as a woman stands politely listening to a loud man's bad ideas about the field she spent her life in
Not watching was as easy as deciding that the world would be the same tomorrow. Nothing world-altering was likely to happen live on that stage, under the watchful eye of Lester Don Holt, Jr. I knew I could catch up on the event selectively in the light of day.
It’s now a little after 9 a.m., and the most I know about the debate is that it happened and no one died. Someone sent me a video with the caption “debate recap,” and I know without watching it that it’ll most likely be someone recording their television with a Snapchat filter over the candidates’ faces.
Here’s what I did instead of tuning in:
Went for a run.
Made popcorn and ate it.
Mixed the last bits of some pistachio and chocolate gelato pints together with some raw cookie dough and ate that. Unfortunately I wasn’t employing Tip #3 here, but it was still pretty good.
Made some space in my phone to update Vine, which led to finding this:
https://vine.co/v/5vgQqmmgFj0
Bought my first website domain. In the process, took the time to learn what ICANN and WHO-IS are and made a better registrar choice as a result. This almost feels like more of a win for my political conscience than watching the circus. Edward Snowden would be proud?
Opened Tweetdeck out of habit. It looked like this:
Closed Tweetdeck.
Decided I want to take a train trip from Chicago to LA.
Realized that’d be a 40+ hour trip. Decided to rent a car instead or do literally anything else. Close all train-related tabs.
Watched the last episode of Transparent. This is the first episode that didn’t make me cry. Awesome!
My boyfriend called me around 11 p.m. I missed it, but texted back: “If you’re calling me because you’re hype about the debate, please don’t.” He called his mom, instead.
So here it is, the morning after. Like a drool-faced blackout mistake, I’m rolling over in my social media bed and staring into the face of, “What happened last night?” Here’s the video I couldn’t bring myself to open this morning. This is probably all I need to know about the debate.
Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t seem like a very fun dinner guest to host. This is to say nothing of whether Tyson is an important or influential cultural totem; no doubt he’s both. But is his conversation threads the right choice whilst chewing a roasted squab drizzled with some port wine sauce? Because sometimes it seems like the world’s biggest astrophysicist can also be the world’s biggest downer.
In 5-billion yrs the Sun will expand & engulf our orbit as the charred ember that was once Earth vaporizes. Have a nice day.
“Have a nice day”? Seriously, guy? Sure, I’ll have a fine week actually as thoughts currently reverberate over the meaninglessness of human creation and ingenuity if one day all of it’s going to crumble into ashes. The city of Pompeii appears to us not as a warning, but as prophecy.
At times like this, Woody Allen speaks for us all.
This isn’t the first time Tyson has (not-so) gently reminded us of humanity’s possible larger futility in the universe. About two years ago he was on All In with Chris Hayes to promote his show Cosmos. Hayes poked Tyson, asking what his shortlist of unresolved questions regarding the universe was. The conversation tumbled into questions of alien lifeforms and Tyson eventually said the following:
“My great fear is that we’ve in fact been visited by intelligent aliens, but they chose not to make contact, on the conclusion that there’s no sign of intelligent life on Earth.”
Essentially, he goes on, perhaps aliens did contact us and continue to do so, but we lack the technological advancements possible to receive their message. Our modern iteration of humanity has existed for approximately 200,000 years. A long time. However, we did not detect the presence of radio waves until about 200 years ago. So is it that radical a thought to consider we have not yet detected the medium for a message long conveyed to us?
Furthermore, our use of radio waves to broadcast some of our earliest TV programming means that’s the message we’ve been sending to the rest of the known universe. A bunch of aliens could currently be mocking us, judging from cultural representations like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners. Just think about it: We make fun of us now for that shit!
This isn’t the first time Tyson has (not-so) gently reminded us of humanity’s possible larger futility in the universe.
You think placing the Michael Jordan meme on someone is clever? Imagine the trash talk aliens are producing about us right now over The Honeymooners. Oh wait, Tyson would interject, we can’t! Because we’re too fucking stupid to understand their superior intelligence!
Okay. I’m not saying these aren’t important questions. In some ways, these are the only questions worth pursuing. But again: is this appropriate dinner party banter? I mean, is this even appropriate pizza party banter? Are we having any fun at all, here?
This is saying nothing of the simulation theory. In layman’s terms, this is similar to the “reality” of The Matrix, except in that world, “humans” could exist outside the simulation. You might dismiss it offhand because that seems preposterous. “I think, therefore I am,” right….right?
Well, some of our country’s most prized minds believe in the simulation theory, or at the very least, the likelihood of it. Minds like Elon Musk, and, wouldn’t you know it, Neil deGrasse Tyson! Recent studies regarding cosmic rays and the upper limits of the energy they produce are an anomaly when compared to similar scientific phenomena. As Tyson says in Chuck Klosterman’s book But What if We’re Wrong?
“It was suggested that if we were a simulation, you’d have to put in a limit to something that goes on within it. And this cutoff could be the program’s pre-calculated limit for energy level of these cosmic rays. We could be up against that boundary. It’s an intriguing thought that we’re all just one big simulation.”
I must say: If I were eating pizza right now, and someone told me this, I wouldn’t want to be eating pizza anymore.
But then, in this hypothetical, my dinner part guest Neil deGrasse Tyson would offer me an Olive Garden breadstick. (I’m what you’d call a great pizza party host, opting to deliver the pricier, but more delicious breadsticks for my guests.) I’d reply, firmly but politely, “No thanks,” because “My now-dried mouth formed due to examining my own futility is not currently compatible with that scrumptious, puffy Olive Garden breadstick. It’d stick like glue in my mouth.” Then my buddy Ty Ty would reply, “Oh silly friend. It couldn’t possibly taste like the protein bonds formed from boiled horse collagen. This is just bread!”
And before I could even one-up Ty Ty, reminding him that, “Synthetic glue has long replaced animal-based glue product, like we don’t even send horses to the glue factory anymore,” he’d already be off, dismantling the mystery and wonder of some other dinner party guest.
Probably some young couple marveling at the rainbow appearing on the horizon, due to a recent rainfall. “Jimmy, aren’t rainbows just magical?” Jimmy’s partner would ask.
Tyson would then inform that person, “Rainbows aren’t magical, but merely the amalgamation of refracted sunlight through multiple rain drops. Actually, the phenomena produces a whole circle of what we refer to as ‘a rainbow.’ However, since we’re stuck on Earth, we can only ever see a half-band of the entire spectrum of a rainbow.” Then, not noticing the deadpan, glum expression of his listener, Tyson would continue, “I guess we can only ever see half the beauty of anything! Okay, who wants another beer?”
No one, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Because you’re not allowed at our dinner parties forever more.
Good news: Arrests for marijuana possession fell in 2015 to the lowest level since 1996, according to the FBI.
Bad news: There were 574,641 arrests made for simple possession in 2015, which still means that someone is busted every minute in the U.S. for carrying around cannabis.
Let’s get back to the good news first. The FBI’s Crime in the United States report, released Monday, reveals that marijuana possession arrests are down 7 percent from 2014. Even more encouraging, arrests are down almost 25 percent from the zenith of 775,138 in 2007.
In a nutshell, the data suggests that law enforcement across the country are dedicating less resources and energy in going after casual cannabis consumers and are focusing on violent crime.
As more states turn their back on federal laws surrounding the war on drugs and opt for a more modern approach to drug policy, these numbers are likely to decrease at an even faster rate. This November, at least nine states will consider either legalizing marijuana for medical use of full-on recreational legalization.
According to the Drug Policy Alliance, the nation’s leading organization promoting drug policies that are grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights:
Black and Latino people are arrested at vastly disproportionate rates, even though white people use and sell marijuana at similar rates. A marijuana arrest is no small matter – the arrest creates a permanent criminal record that can easily be found by employers, landlords, schools, credit agencies and banks. Additionally, the huge number of marijuana arrests every year usurps scarce law enforcement, criminal justice and treatment resources at enormous cost to taxpayers.
According to the ACLU, “enforcing marijuana laws costs us about $3.6 billion a year, yet the War on Marijuana has failed to diminish the use or availability of marijuana.”
