Joy
Dog mom shares a funny video of the 'chores' her pitbull pup thinks she’s doing
"We didn't want a freeloader."
03.26.24
via Stiv XTZ/Pexels
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.
The mom says Rhubarb has chores because “we didn’t raise a freeloader.”
No freeloaders on my watch 🙅🏻♀️
@rhubarbthedoggo No freeloaders on my watch 🙅🏻♀️ #pittiesoftiktok #dogtiktokers #dogsoftiktok #pitbulllove #pibblelove #pibbles #pibblemixesoftiktok #pitbullmix #dogfluencers #doggotiktoker #dogmomsoftiktok #dogmomlife #dogmoms #dogtiktokviral #dogmomma #prettypitty #prettypittie #prettypitties #dogrelatable #relatabledogmom #relatabledog
Here are 5 “chores” that Rhubarb has mastered.
1. Makes sure the laundry doesn't get cold
Translation: Sits on top of the clean laundry, ready to be folded.
2. Unlicensed therapist
Translation: Gives us kisses when we're tired or feeling down.
3. Supervise repairs
Translation: She gets in the way when you're in a compromised, uncomfortable position with a wrench in your hand.
4. Alerts us when there's an intruder
Translation: Stands at the window and barks furiously at the mailman.
5. Keeps mum's spot warm
Translation: Lays in her spot on her favorite chair in the living room.
The video inspired some funny responses in the comments.
“He’s carrying that household on his back. Give him a raise,” Tatiana, Esq. wrote. “Obviously the most valuable member of the household,” DJTrainor51 added.
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Family
Father has 'unique' idea to give his name to daughter, but mom says it's the 'worst ever'
Honestly, maybe she's right on this one.
03.28.24
Representative Image from Canva
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.
For context, the couple initially thought they were having a boy and were going to go the traditional route by carrying over the husband’s name. Easy Peasy. Except they were having a girl instead. And here is where our saga begins.
“See, when we first started talking about names, the ‘boy name’ was immediately decided: Stuart Jr., after my husband,” she wrote. “No problem there, it’s a classic name and carries family meaning. But, for a girl, things got murky.”
Apparently the woman’s husband thought he had come up with the perfect solve for their situation. Read on.
“My husband suggested Stuarta,. No, you’re not having a stroke,” she continued. “Apparently, his logic is that since Stuart ends in ‘t,’ we can just add an ‘a’ to make it feminine.”
Sure, okay. Some names can lean feminine or masculine depending on some letter tweaks, like Robert/Roberta, Eric/Erica, Carl/Carla, etc. But I think we can all agree that this trick doesn’t work in all cases. And that was how the wife felt.
“I tried explaining why that doesn’t quite work, how it sounds more like a furniture brand than a human name, how she’d be endlessly correcting people and explaining its origin,” she lamented.
AITA for rejecting the worst name ever for our offspring?
byu/Beginning_Date1924 inAmItheAsshole
But, alas, “He’s adamant though, says it ‘honors’ him while giving our daughter a unique name.”
In trying to respect his wishes, she even suggested some feminine name alternatives that sounded like Stuart, this still honoring his name. But he would not budge.
At a loss, the woman concluded, “I love my husband dearly, and I understand wanting to honor family. But I can’t imagine subjecting our daughter to a lifetime of awkward stares and endless questions about her ‘unusual’ name. I also worry about potential bullying and the impact it could have on her self-esteem.”She also asked the forum if they had any additional name suggestions, but for goodness sake no other “-ta” names. “The man clearly has a theme, and I need to gently steer him away from it, not fuel the fire!” she joked.
To no one’s surprise, everyone in the comments section thought “Stuarta” was dreadful.
“It sounds like a word your cousin tried to use in Scrabble during the holidays of 1997 just to try and win the game — they didn’t,” one person wrote.
Another added, “Stuarta sounds like a pharmaceutical product. I can hear the commercials now. ‘In some cases, Stuarta can cause headaches, rashes and even death.’ It doesn’t have a decent nickname. And no, adding an ‘a’ doesn't make it feminine in all cases; this is one of them. I’d go for Stuart as a middle name.”
Others felt it unfair that the woman’s husband was so hellbent on being the one honored in the first place—especially if the child is already taking his surname. Others argued that naming a child after a parent, any parent, robs them of their individuality.
“WTF should any child HAVE to be named after him in some way? I get the tradition thing but this is just weird behavior. The name should be about the child, not him alone. It's not only selfish, but arrogant to insist children must be named after him.”
“I always believed that if you want your child to have their own personality, their own name is the best place to start.”
Lastly, folks pointed out that regardless of how adamant the husband is about Stuarta, both parents have to be on board with the baby name: “Remind him that baby names need a yes from both parents or it’s a no. You both need to be able to live with whatever you go with. Even if that means both of you are missing out on the one you want most.” Case closed.
Hopefully the husband comes to his senses and all gets resolved before we have a little Stuarta in the world. But if not, let’s be kind to her regardless.
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Ever wonder why people 100 years ago died so much younger? It's these 14 reasons.
1796. That's when we invented vaccines.
03.27.24
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.
Wellness involves a lot of personal choices and the tradeoff between personal liberty and shared public good.
Measles is the starkest example. There were about 61 cases of measles in all of 2012, but in just the first seven months of 2014, there have been nearly 600.
As this chart shows, vaccinations are not like taxes rates or even freedom of speech. The impact of one's personal health choices can have a significant impact on the population around them, in their communities and even on a national level. It makes that trade-off all the more complicated and one not easily distilled into one convenient political or religious ideology.
Obviously, the topic of vaccinations has become immensely more complicated since the onset of COVID-19 in 2020. But history teaches us valuable lessons and information is power. No matter how you feel about vaccines today, this chart is a reminder that medical science can be used for incredible good. Without breakthrough vaccinations in the past, many of us would likely not be here to have the debate about our personal choices now and into the future.
This article originally appeared on 11.21.14 and this infographic is based on data from 2012.
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Joy
Cruise ship lawyer shares the one 'secret' code word you never want to hear on a ship
It gets called a few times a month.
03.27.24
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.
"Here's a secret most cruise lines don't want you to know," Aronfeld begins his video. "About 1 to 2 passengers a month are reported as missing or, man overboard, major cruise lines." He adds that even though ships have radar systems that can detect when something has fallen off the boat there are a lot of false alarms caused by garbage, luggage and even deckchairs that people have thrown off the ship.
@cruiseshiplawyer #cruiseship #cruisecrew #passenger #cruising #maritime #lawyersoftiktok #lawyer #manoverboard
Further, after someone goes over the rail, the ship continues to move, so it is nearly impossible to find the overboard passenger who is probably seriously injured from the fall. "The truth is that by the time a passenger is reported missing and has gone overboard, there is likely no chance that passenger will survive and no chance that the ship will ever find them," Aronfeld says.
Aronfeld concluded the video by sharing the secret code that cruise lines use when someone has gone overboard. "Code Oscar. Code Oscar. That's how you know that a passenger has been reported as having gone overboard," Aronfeld said.
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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.
03.27.24
Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels
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.
In the recording of the conversation, we can hear authorities and responders quickly putting out a call to stop traffic onto the bridge and assessing what construction crew might be working on the bridge. No one knew that the entire bridge was going to collapse into the harbor, only that a possibility for collision was present. As one officer plans to drive onto the bridge to alert the construction workers, a voice announces, "The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever, everybody ... the whole bridge just collapsed."
Listen:
It had to have been surreal to witness the bridge collapsing in its entirety. In the initial news reports it was unclear how much warning had been received, and at first it was feared that passengers traveling across the bridge may have fallen into the water. But as we gained a clearer picture of the moments before the accident, it's clear that the everyday workers in the harbor and the first responders who were nearby to receive instruction did everything they could, and their calm professionalism and quick actions saved lives.
As we go about our daily lives, it's easy to forget that there are countless workers who are chugging away behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly. Our systems of transportation, our supply chains, the safety of our roads and bridges—all of these things require people to be on the job, doing what needs to be done, establishing, maintaining and following protocols that keep all the moving parts harmonized. When it's done well, we don't even notice it—their work becomes invisible.
But when something goes wrong, when a wrench gets thrown into the system—like a massive, unsteerable cargo ship about to crash into a bridge—we see how valuable those systems are and how regulation and oversight of such systems is so important.
2/ Police dispatched with just a few crisp phrases\u2014ship has lost steering, close the bridge to traffic\u2014and race to do just that.\n\nNo time for confusion. No time for \u2026 \u2018What do you mean, close the bridge? Who says?\u2019\n\n4 minutes, alert to collapse.\n\nBridge successfully closed\u2026\n\n\u2014>— (@)
As Charles Fishman pointed out on X, "A system worked—a government system. All those people just ordinary frontline workers in anonymous, sometimes invisible jobs. Maritime radio operators. Police/fire dispatchers. Bridge police & state police. All working 11p to 7a o’night shift."
"All day, every day—that happens & we don’t see it," he added.
Of course, the construction crew members who lost their lives, along with the two crew who were rescued from the water, will be remembered as biggest loss as the daunting bridge rebuilding process gets underway. The Key Bridge collapse is an unfathomable tragedy, but one that could have been even more tragic had it not been for the systems and people working as they're supposed to. Kudos to those life-saving heroes.
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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.
03.27.24
Courtesy of University of Idaho
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.
Idaho band members even reached out to Yale band members via social media to get tips and asked the spirit squad for suggestions for making their "Vandogs" performance the best it could be. Yale also sent spirit gear with the big yellow Y for Yale for them to wear.
The Idaho Vandals called themselves the "Vandogs" for two NCAA tournament games.
Courtesy of University of Idaho
“Everyone was really enthusiastic about covering for the Yale students who couldn’t make it,” Martin told the Yale Daily News. “Universities help universities, and bands help bands.”
That genuine act of sportsmanship and camaraderie touched people across the nation, much to the delight of the students.
“'Look Mom, I’m on ESPN,’” Martin told The Spokesman-Review, quoting his students. “You’re a farm kid in the middle of a farm town. How often do you get that? Never.”
And people loved seeing it as well.
"Kudos to the University of Idaho band! Band kids are the greatest!" wrote one commenter.
"Awesome job Idaho..this is a perfect example of true sportsmanship!!" shared another.
"This is such a great show of collegiate athletics and why they are important! Well done!" shared another.
It's hard not to catch the energy of the tournament, as the Vandogs found out.
"It was awesome watching them play," Idaho grad student Cody Barrick, who plays the tenor saxophone, told ESPN. "We were right on our feet with everyone else at the end there cheering them on for sure."
And as it turned out, the pep in Yale's step did seem to be extra "on" during that first game. The Bulldogs went into the tournament as an underdog, with #4 Auburn being their first competitor, but they pulled off a dramatic upset that moved them to the next round.
So not only did Idaho's band play for them that first Friday game, but they also drove the 90 miles to Spokane again the following Sunday night for Yale's second round game against San Diego State.
The Bulldogs were eliminated from the tournament in that game, but memories were made for life. And Martin says the Vandals would do it anytime, for any school, a testament to the program.
“If you choose the Vandal band, you know that it’s going to come through,” he told the Spokesman-Review. “It always has. That’s the tradition. There was no doubt that we would come through for them.”
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