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A Cop Stops A Black Man For Walking With His Hands In His Pockets. Reasonableness Happens Next.

A police officer had reports of a suspicious black man walking down the street with his hands in his pockets. Seriously.

What happened next was probably the best possible outcome in the situation. The officer pulled out his phone and recorded too. And then they had a civil discussion about the ridiculousness of the situation. Had they not both filmed, it could have turned out differently. But recent research found, in Rialto, California, for example, that using body cams decreased citizen complaints by 88% and use of force dropped 59%. If every interaction were as calm as this one, imagine the amount of trust that could be earned on both sides.

All he did was walk down the street while black. In the cold. With his hands in his pockets. Because of the aforementioned cold. The police were called because of that. Wrap your brain around that. It's ridiculous. B Mckean, the guy behind the camera, was rightfully frustrated with the whole situation. He has to deal with things I don't have to deal with every single day.


Respect is a two-way street. This officer actually listened and took the call with the amount of skepticism it deserved.

UPDATE: Since this was published, there's been a news development. Charges were not brought against the police officer who was implicated in Eric Garner's death after being filmed using a banned choke hold. Had he been wearing a camera himself, he might have shown some restraint. But sadly, cameras will not fix everything. They are only one tool in a larger overhaul we need in how we police and communicate as a country.

We need to have independent prosecutors who aren't connected to police. Our district attorneys shouldn't have to — nor are they often able to — judge the case with an impartial ear. They rely on those police for help in other cases. Neither the officers nor the prosecutor should be put into an adversarial position with each other. It helps keep everything on the up and up. And seeking a special prosecutor leaves less doubt about whatever conclusion they come to. Recusal is a good thing that keeps things transparent.

We also need to change police priorities. Most of the cases that the officer in questions dealt with involved low-level misdemeanors for things like smoking pot (which is now legal in some states). And the officer had a history of being aggressive. If his superiors had better priorities, he might not ever have had cause to interact with Eric Garner in the first place.

Fixing the state we’re in right now obviously has to involve more than just adding cameras and independent prosecutors. What else can help us fix this cycle we're trapped in?

But I digress.

Thankfully, B McKean and the officer in this video both handled the situation professionally and courteously (even with the awkward high-five.) We need more officers behaving this way. This was a tiny step in the right direction, but it really should be the status quo. We need more trust and respect from those in power for those folks who aren't in power. Otherwise those who aren't will never be able to give the police any trust or respect. And we'll be back where we started.

So more cameras for everyone, more transparency for everyone, and better police and citizen relations for all.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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