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20 badass, hilarious, and surprising ways people have fought Nazis.

For as long as there have been Nazis, people have been fighting Nazis.

Kicking Nazi ass is not only American as apple pie, it is the basis of our greatest foreign policy triumph, the subject of our most satisfying movies, and the reason the History Channel still exists.

From 1939 until 1945, the United States, British, and Soviet militaries tried to solve the Nazi problem by dropping bombs on them from various airplanes.


[rebelmouse-image 19530681 dam="1" original_size="700x441" caption="The OG Antifa. Photo by U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]The OG Antifa. Photo by U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons.

Sending explosives plummeting from way high up directly onto Nazis down below worked pretty well for a while. Nearly 2 million tons of bombs were dropped on Germany and German-occupied territories during World War II, killing hundreds of thousands of Nazis.

Unfortunately, this method also wound up killing a lot of civilians, prisoners of war, resistance fighters, house cats, and random guys named Gerhard who happened to be standing near Nazis at the time. It also turns out to be super inappropriate for peacetime. Not to mention, it didn't totally work because here we are in 2017: There are still Nazis. And we're still arguing about how to fight them.

When tiki torch-wielding fascists come to town, are "many sides" to blame when fists start to fly? How free is free speech when one side is calling for the extermination of the other? Should violence be answered with more violence? Nazis aren't known to respond to reason, but vigilantism icks most of us out. And who gets to define who is and is not a Nazi anyway? Is there some kind of Google form?

If history teaches us anything, it's that Nazis don't go away unless someone fights back. And violence isn't the only way (although, reviewing the record, it turns out to be one of the main ways) to resist them.

Here are 20 alternate, yet no less effective, ways people have fought against, and mostly defeated, Nazis throughout history:

1. A town in Germany refused to let neo-Nazis win by turning their marches into involuntary walkathons.

Every year for decades, neo-Nazis marched through the German town of Wunsiedel. Every year, residents tried to ignore them or counter-march, neither of which worked. In 2014, however, the town's anti-fascist majority finally got to the Nazis by raising some serious money off their parade. For every kilometer the Nazis walked, business owners and donors in the town pledged cash to the EXIT Germany Initiative, an NGO that de-Nazifies Nazis.

Hundreds turned out to cheer the Nazis on as they subverted their own agenda step by step. The approach was so successful that it spread to other be-Nazi'd communities around the world. More importantly, it made about 200 Nazis feel really (and appropriately) dumb.

Of course, when it comes to confronting fascists, not everyone has the wit of a poet and the patience of a saint. Which is why...

2. An unknown activist straight-up punched prominent white supremacist Richard Spencer in the face.

Perhaps the most famous of all the methods of anti-Nazi combat was famously deployed by an anonymous Black Bloc protester against white nationalist icon Richard Spencer on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration. While Spencer denies being a Nazi, he has been known to throw off a suspiciously Nuremberg Rally-esque speech every now and again, complete with shouty paeans to ethnic solidarity and athletic audience heils.

The masked anarchist in question decided to punch him just to be safe.

It is important to note that, as repellant as modern-day Nazis (whether full-on or pseudo-) may be, this writer in no way endorses violence, which is Not The Answer and Never Funny. Indeed, no part of Richard Bertrand Spencer getting decked in the temple is remotely amusing. Not the fact that the punch lands just as Spencer is about to launch into a serious analysis of the symbolism of his cartoon frog lapel pin. Not one of the dozens of remixes showing the protester's fist connecting with Spencer's face at the exact moment the beat drops in a popular song. Not Spencer whining about being humiliated online forever.

Not one bit.

3. In 2015, a guy in South Carolina made KKK marchers look silly by playing a jaunty tuba song while they marched down the street.

When it comes to giving Nazism that down-home spin, no one beats the Ku Klux Klan, a group that takes fascism, smothers it in white gravy, and serves it with a side of cheesy grits and a red-white-and-blue garnish. Back when South Carolina was debating removing the Confederate flag from its state capitol grounds in 2015, a group of klansmen tried to dissuade them by spending the morning of July 18 marching menacingly down the streets of Columbia.

Menacingly, that is, until a man named Matt Buck decided to follow them with a tuba and make them look ridiculous.

"I didn't really know how to show my opposition," Buck told Charleston City Paper following his savage sousaphone-ing of the group. "So that was my way of doing it."

4. A Jewish partisan in the Polish backcountry inconvenienced a group of Nazis by burning down a bridge they were using during WWII.

For many of the brutalized, pissed-off civilians trapped behind German lines during World War II, nothing beat skulking around the woods making life difficult for as many Nazis as possible. One such skulker, Gertrude Boyarski, recalled in a 2013 interview with the Jewish Partisan Education Fund how she gleefully set a bridge — used heavily by the local Nazis — on fire as a holiday present to the Russian government.

Illustration by Tom Eichacker.

The Nazis shot at her for her trouble, (Nazis basically have two settings: off and shooting) but thankfully missed and proceeded to not have a bridge.

5. A group of Czech musicians drowned out neo-Nazi protesters with an impromptu concert.

At a rally in Brno, Czech Republic, in May 2017, 150 marching neo-Nazis were upstaged by nearly twice the number of counter-protesters holding a spontaneous open-air open mic at the same time.

Posted by BRNO Blokuje on Monday, May 1, 2017

Fun fact: An impromptu anti-Nazi music festival is the one situation where it's OK to root for a guy in a fedora playing acoustic guitar.

6. A band of concentration camp prisoners blew up one of Hitler's death factories.

On Oct. 7, 1944, a group of prisoners at Auschwitz revolted against the camp's guards, killing several by detonating a pile of gunpowder (which they'd been smuggling for months) in one of the camp's crematoria, destroying it.

The Nazis ultimately shot and hanged them all, as Nazis are wont to do, but eternal respect for a group of fighters willing to sacrifice their lives under the most inhuman conditions to inconvenience Nazis, even for a moment.

7. After WWII, Germany fought Nazis with bureaucracy, fining them for their political views.

Here in the land of the free, separated from the most dangerous Nazi stuff by two very large oceans, we mostly let Nazis say what they want. Being a Nazi — so long as you don't round up and kill anyone (hard for Nazis!) — is more or less protected by the First Amendment.  

In other countries, particularly those that have had a more up close and personal relationship with Nazis, things are a little different.

The Reichstag building in Berlin. Photo by Tobias Schwarz/Getty Images.

Take Germany, for instance. Nazis have been a bit of an issue in Germany in the past — so the country up and made saying Nazi things illegal. Penalties can include an arrest and a fine, which two Chinese tourists found out the hard way this summer, after deploying "heil Hitler" salutes in front of the historic Reichstag building in Germany.

It's not very free speech-y. It's also only enforced sometimes. To that end...

8. A gang of German counter-protesters formed a blockade, preventing neo-Nazi marchers from getting where they were trying to go.

In August 2017, a group of about 500 German neo-Nazis attempted to march to the former site of Spandau prison, where former mega-Nazi Rudolph Hess died by suicide 30 years earlier. They got about half a mile in before they were "forced to turn back" by counter-protesters blockading their route.

While it may seem surprising that a group of violence-extollin' Nazis let a few civilians stand between them and the ultimate triumph of the Aryan master race, it does make a certain sense. Historically speaking, other than perpetrating the mass murder of millions, giving up is what Nazis do best.

9. During the war, a secret cadre of German communists sabotaged Nazi warships.

Nazis on land are bad. Put Nazis on the high seas and you're asking for a swift torpedo to the national welfare. That's why, despite incredible risk and over the likely objections of everyone who wanted their heads to remain bullet-free, Bernhard Bästlein and Franz Jacob spent the early years of World War II organizing Hamburg shipyard workers to resist Nazi rule and slow down production.

Most members of the group were arrested and executed before they could accomplish much, but the principle they died for — never letting a Nazi get on a boat with guns — lives on.

10. A Swedish woman became an icon when she hit a group of skinheads with her handbag.

In 1985, a group of skinheads set out to terrorize the Swedish town of Vaxjo. They hoped to cow the locals into silence. Instead, a local woman, Danuta Danielsson, whose mother had survived Auschwitz decades earlier, ran up to one of the demonstrators and smacked him with her purse.

The photo of Danielsson's pocketbook strike became so legendary that, in 2014, a Swedish artist proposed building a monument to the swatting. The town, however, declined, fearing such a statue would glorify violence.  

[rebelmouse-image 19530684 dam="1" original_size="700x441" caption="Thwack. Photo by Hans Runesson/Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]Thwack. Photo by Hans Runesson/Wikimedia Commons.

Thus, the debate over who is worse, Nazis or the people who hit them with soft household objects continued to infinity.

11. A team of Israeli secret agents tackled Adolf Eichmann when he got off the bus from work and extradited him to face trial for war crimes.

The practical downside to committing a bunch of crimes against humanity means somebody might sneak up on you when you least expect it and make you pay for them. That's what happened to Eichmann one evening in May 1960. The infamous Nazi functionary had facilitated the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, resulting in the murder of up to 400,000 people. Since the war, he'd been living in Argentina under the name Ricardo Klement.

Or at least he was until Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel, pulled up in front of his house, stuffed him in a car, tied his hands and feet, and snuck him onto a commercial flight back to Israel, where he was, unsurprisingly, found guilty of crimes against  humanity and eventually hanged.

The world is complicated, however, and most Nazis aren't as notorious as Eichmann. To try to push past that...

12. A relentless Nazi hunter tracked down a most-wanted Nazi war criminal in his retirement community.

Consider the case of Gerhard Sommer. The top man on the Wiesenthal Center's 2015 "Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals" list, the former SS officer allegedly helped murder over 500 men, women, and children in the Italian village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema as the Germans retreated through the area in August 1944. Despite overwhelming evidence placing Sommer at the scene, prosecutors in Germany recently declared the 93-year-old unfit for trial, citing advanced dementia.

Soon after, Nazi hunter Jurgen Kolb decided to track him down in his nursing home.

Thankfully, Kolb took a few reporters from Cracked — a magazine known for its sneakily ambitious journalism — along for the ride. He told them he believes that Sommer is faking his dementia. The group followed a string of clues, ultimately locating the aged accused war criminal in a senior citizens facility.

"All we can do now is update where he is living and that he's still alive," Jurgen told the reporters in an interview. Still, in the grand scheme of making Nazis' lives bad, ensuring one spends the rest of his life looking over his shoulder ain't a terrible consolation prize.

13. A ballet dancer brought to Auschwitz reportedly killed a Nazi officer after distracting him by stripping.

On Oct. 23, 1943, a group of female prisoners, including Polish Jewish dancer Franceska Mann, were brought to a room adjacent to the Auschwitz gas chambers and ordered to disrobe.

What happened next is unclear. Some accounts claim that Mann stripped off her clothes "provocatively," distracting the guards. Most accounts claim that Mann proceeded to grab an officer's gun, shooting him dead and wounding another guard before the Nazis were able to regroup and return fire, killing the prisoners.

Regardless of how it happened, some of the Nazis who were trying to murder them got dead first.

Of course, over the next two years, Nazis continued to try to kill people all over Europe. Which is why it turned out great that...

14. A British spy stole Nazi military secrets, delaying production of dangerous weapons.

Jeannie Rousseau de Clarens had two things going for her when the Nazis invaded France: She spoke fluent German and she was a tiny lady. After leveraging her size and gender to convince a bunch of Nazi officers she couldn't possibly be a threat, she managed to convince them to tell her where they were building their cool new rocket weapon, and she relayed that information to British intelligence. The Brits proceeded to drop bombs on those places, delaying production of the V-1 and V-2 rockets and saving countless lives.

Unlike many of the Nazis she hoodwinked, Rousseau de Clarens lived to the ripe old age of 98, being small and rejoicing in humiliating Nazis till the end.  

15. A 70-year-old German woman denies neo-Nazis a public platform by scratching out and painting over their graffiti.

Since the 1980s, Berlin resident Irmela Schramm has been waging a one-woman battle against swastikas, far-right propaganda, and fascist slogans scrawled on public property.

Her weapons? Nail polish remover, a scraper, and spray paint. The goal? To shut neo-Nazis the hell up.

Photo by John MacDougall/Getty Images.

"People tell me I am intolerant, that I don't respect the far-right's freedom of speech," she told CNN. "But I say: Freedom of speech has limits. It ends where hatred and contempt for humanity begins."

Nazis, however, don't always express their "hatred and contempt for humanity" in passive-aggressive artwork, which is why...

16. Vidal Sassoon and a group of Jewish war veterans engaged post-WWII Nazis in guerilla-style street fights.

Late-1940s England had a problem. Despite suffering through a six-year-long, knock-down drag-out brawl with Hitler and co., the country was somehow, against all odds, still full of Nazis. For obvious reasons, British Nazi leader Oswald Mosley (in Britain, even Nazis are named like third-tier Harry Potter villains) spent the later war years hiding out in Ireland. The year after it wrapped, however, a group of Mosley's followers began begging him to return to London to get the old civilian-threatening, Jew-slandering, immigrant-hating band back together.

In response, a band of British Jewish ex-servicemen, who had fought tooth and nail through Europe only to return to this baby fascist BS, began organizing to disrupt their rallies and shout down their propaganda — but mostly to beat the living crap out of them in the middle of the road.

One of those enthusiastically participating in the crap-beating was the group's most WTF member, Vidal Sassoon. Before he became famous for that bottle of two-in-one conditioner that's been sitting, three-quarters empty, in your mom's shower stall since 1993, the Jewish-British Sassoon was infamous for putting the hurt on British Nazis. The world-renowned hairdresser described the aftermath of one such brawl in a 2008 interview with the BBC.

"I'll never forget one morning I walked in and I had a hell of a bruise — it had been a difficult night the night before — and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?'" Sassoon recalled. "And I said, 'Oh, nothing, madam, I just fell over a hairpin.'"

Apparently, "I kicked some Nazis teeth in. Your move, Pert Plus," would have been a tad gauche for the polite stylist. Nonetheless, credit where due.

17. A world-famous comedian literally danced on Hitler's grave.

Illustration by Tom Eichacker.

In 1958, Groucho Marx decided to spend a little bit of that sweet founding-father-of-modern-film-comedy cash to take his friend, daughter, and family babysitter Judith Dwan Hallet to Dornum, Germany, to visit the graves of his grandparents. The group arrived at the cemetery only to discover that the area where they were buried, the Jewish section, had been destroyed.

A few days later, Marx asked his chauffeur to drive the travelers to the ruins of the bunker where Hitler had died.

Hallet described what happened next in a 2012 interview with MentalFloss:

"When they arrived, Hallet said, it was as if the war had happened the day before. Nothing had been cleaned up or repaired; piles of rubble made the landscape look positively post-apocalyptic. The ruins of the Führerbunker were about 20 feet tall, but Groucho climbed to the top and proceeded to perform what Hallet called 'a frenetic Charleston, for at least a minute or two, in a gesture of defiance.' When he was done, the legendary comedian requested that they leave Germany the next morning."

"The fun was gone," Hallet concluded, bafflingly denying the obvious reality that nothing, not bingo, not Yahtzee, not an indoor water slide, not a three week Disney World vacation, not a marathon of every single Marx Brothers movie ever made could be more fun than doing the jaybird step on the smoldering remains of the guy who basically invented Nazis.

18. An American suburb used Nazi rallies to gin up public support for anti-Nazi monuments.

The infamous 1977 neo-Nazi march through the predominately Jewish town of Skokie, Illinois, did not only inspire a fierce debate over the scope of the First Amendment. It also inspired an iconic "Blues Brothers" scene.

It also also inspired residents to make sure as many people as possible were as informed as possible about who Nazis really are. Fallout from the march led members of the community to band together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois, which helped complete the town's Holocaust Museum and Education Center in 2011.

19. Thousands of Holocaust survivors shame and resist Nazi ideology every day just by continuing to exist.

In the course of a half-decade, Nazis managed to systematically murder 12 million human beings. And yet, thanks to a timely military defeat, helped along by many of the acts listed above, many of the people Nazis tried to kill not only survived, but kept on surviving for decades after the fact. As of 2016, there were only about 100,000 Holocaust survivors left living. Still, that's 100,000 more than Nazis hoped there would be nearly 70 years after their extermination plan failed.

[rebelmouse-image 19530687 dam="1" original_size="700x476" caption="Students participate in the March of the Living in Poland. Photo by Yossi Zeliger/Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]Students participate in the March of the Living in Poland. Photo by Yossi Zeliger/Wikimedia Commons.

These survivors wound up becoming the key adopters of perhaps the most crucial Nazi fighting method of all:

20. Survivors and their descendants keep telling the truth about who Nazis really are and why it's important to stop them before it's too late.

Being a Nazi in 2017 requires believing, against all evidence, that the Nazis weren't all bad. For modern-day aspiring Goebbles, Hesses, and Goerings to accomplish that, minimizing the Holocaust or pretending it never happened, is plan A, B, and Z. With each passing of a survivor, that becomes easier.

With each person who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust telling their story or person teaching in their memory, it becomes harder to deny.

"It puts the responsibility on us, the next generation, the children of survivors, the grandchildren of survivors, to become as articulate as we can be in maintaining this memory and the mandate that comes with it," Michael Zank, 58, the director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University, told Time in 2016.

Thankfully, you don't have to look very hard to find folks maintaining the memory. There's the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which has an extensive, thorough education program on its website. Or the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, which chronicles the activities of the Jewish guerillas who fought Nazis behind enemy lines and teaches tactics for resisting fascism. Or the annual March of the Living or Classrooms Without Borders, which takes educators and students to Poland to meet with survivors and learn about Nazi atrocities firsthand.

It's not as flashy as an outdoor concert, a street brawl, or a handbag slap, but it's necessary. Because, inevitably...

Sooner or later, everyone who witnessed the atrocities the Nazis unleashed on the world will be gone.

Whether their ideology dies first or becomes human history's most ill-conceived reboot, that's up to the rest of us.

When it comes to fighting Nazis, you rarely get to pick the time and place.

For those of us alive in 2017, it's becoming clearer that's here and now.

Who's got a tuba?

Illustration by Tom Eichacker.

Planet

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via Pixabay

One of the most wonderful things about having a dog is how attached they become to their owners. I work from home and my Jack Russel terrier, Scout, lies next to me on his bed for most of the day. The only time he leaves my office is for a sip of water or to go outside and sun his belly on the porch.

That's why whenever I leave the house and can't take Scout with me, I wonder, "Does he miss me? Is he sad that he's alone?" Studies show that our dogs miss us the moment we leave the house and that feeling slowly intensifies until we are gone for about four hours and they have a "plateau of melancholy." That's why the longer you're away, the more excited your dog is when you return home.

The moment I pull up in my car Scout begins to howl like a wolf trying to contact someone who's miles away. It's like, "Dude, I'm 30 feet away. Give me a second to grab the groceries out of the trunk."

Researchers from the Universities of Pisa and Perugia, Italy have found that if you give your dog some affection before you leave the house they'll have less anxiety while you're away.

They conducted experiments with 10 dogs between the ages of one and 11 without attachment issues. The group was composed of seven mixed-breed dogs, one Labrador retriever, one Hovawart, and one Chihuahua.

Participants in the study walked their leashed dogs into a fenced area where they were greeted by a researcher who took their dog's heart rate. In the first test, after the owners walked their dogs into the area, they talked with a researcher for one minute then left without giving the dog any special attention.

In the second test, the dog owners petted the dog during their interaction with the researcher.

In both tests, the owners left the fenced area and hid far enough away so that the dog couldn't smell them.

After the owners left, the dogs looked for them for about three minutes on average. After the owners returned, the researchers measured the dogs' levels of the stress hormone cortisol as well as their heart rates.

The researchers found that whether the dogs were petted or not, their cortisol levels were unchanged. But their heart rate showed a marked decrease if the owners petted them before leaving. Researchers later watched videos of the dogs and found that the ones that were petted showed " behaviors indicative of calmness for a longer period while waiting for the owner's return."

Next time I'm ready to leave the house and Scout follows me to the front door after saying, "Sorry bud, you can't go with me on this trip," I'll kneel down and give him a little extra love and attention.

Maybe that way he won't howl like the house is on fire when I pull up in my car after a trip to the grocery store.

This article originally appeared four years ago.

Health

25-year-old U.S. mom is shocked after receiving an astronomical bill from baby's NICU stay

For starters, the hospital charged it cost $4,337 every time they moved the baby's room.

A woman looks at a massive medical bill.

Twenty-five-year-old Janice Hernandez, who goes by @JaniceHeartss on TikTok, has her hands and heart full after her baby, born in late October, was diagnosed with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). PWS is a rare genetic condition that leads to physical, mental, and behavioral problems. A key feature of Prader-Willi syndrome is a sense of always being hungry. It also results in poor muscle tone, distinct facial features, and a poor sucking reflex. It can also lead to behavioral problems down the line.

To make things worse for Hernandez, after her baby spent 7 weeks in the NICU, she received a bill in the mail, and it’s the cost of two to three houses in some parts of the United States. “I just got the bill for my daughter's NICU stay,” she said in a video with over 3.5 million views. "Do you guys wanna know how much it is? Do you wanna converse or have a conversation about the price? $738,360 freaking dollars. Almost a million dollars.”

That’s right, $738,360 freaking dollars.

@janiceheartss

Anyone actually pay their medical debt ooooorrrrrrrrr??? #nicumama #nicubaby #nicuwarrior

Hernandez then looked at the itemized bill and found she was charged astronomical amounts for everyday items and services. “For example, I noticed on the bill that there is a little tiny tube of Aquafor that they gave me that I actually still have $25. $25 for a tiny tube of Aquaphor that I thought the nurse was just giving me to be cute and give it for free. No, ma'am, they made sure to charge every single little thing,” Hernandez continued.

In a follow-up video, she shared that it cost $4,337 every time the staff switched her baby’s room. “Imagine if I didn't have insurance," she said according to Daily Mail, I'd have to pay all of this. 'Here in America, just to breathe costs money, and so, of course, when you step foot into a hospital, they start charging you automatically.”

How much money do Americans owe in medical debt?

Hernandez’s piece struck a chord with many Americans who have also received huge medical bills. A 2021 study found that Americans owe at least $220 billion in medical debt. Approximately 14 million people (6% of adults) owe at least $1,000, and 3 million (1% of adults) owe more than $10,000.

"Damn, how long was she in for? Our daughter was in the NICU for three weeks, and ours was $147k," Kristina asked in the comments. "My son died in the NICU after 4.5 months, and our bill was $6 million," Kaori added. "They charged me $2500 a night for the nursery that my baby never even went to. They also didn’t have a nursery," another user wrote.

Many people who live in developed countries where healthcare is free found the three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar bill astonishing. "In Saudi Arabia, all medical bills are covered by the government," one user wrote. "As a Canadian, I genuinely can not understand this," another added. "Genuine question from someone not located in the US: How on Earth do people pay these massive costs? What happens if you need medical care but have no insurance? Do you just not get treated?" Lola K asked.

media1.giphy.com

In another follow-up video, Hernandez shared that she got an update from her insurance company, and her daughter’s stay may not be fully covered. Insurance said it would pay $442,2918.75 of the $739,416.00 bill, leaving her owing $302,741.51. But she hopes that insurance will eventually kick in more. “They don't know if they're gonna be able to cover it yet,” Hernandez said. “It literally says pending or not payable. Charges that are either not covered or need more review by us.”

@janiceheartss

Replying to @Roman BIGGGG update! Guess it’s time for more waiting 🚶‍♀️🚶‍♀️#hospitalbill #insurance #nicu #hospital

Peter Dinklage on "Game of Thrones?

When it comes to actors doing accents across the pond, some Americans are known for their great British accents, such as Natalie Portman ("The Other Boleyn Girl"), Robert Downey, Jr. ("Sherlock Homes"), and Meryl Streep ("The Iron Lady").

Some have taken a lot of heat for their cartoonish or just plain weird-sounding British accents, Dick Van Dyke ("Mary Poppins"), Kevin Costner ("Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves") and Keanu Reeves ("Bram Stoker's Dracula").

Some actors, such as Tom Hardy (“The Drop”) and Hugh Laurie (“House”), have American accents so good that people have no idea they are British.

Benedict Townsend, a London-based comedian and host of the “Scroll Deep” podcast, says there is one word that American actors playing characters with a British accent never get right. And no, it’s not the word “Schedule,” which British people pronounce the entire first 3 letters, and Americans boil down to 2. And it’s not “aluminum,” which British and American people seem to pronounce every stinking letter differently.

@benedicttown

The one word American actors aways get wrong when doing an English accent

What word do American actors always get wrong when they do British accents?

“There is one word that is a dead giveaway that an English character in a movie or a TV show is being played by an American. One word that always trips them up. And once you notice it, you can't stop noticing it,” Townsend says. “You would see this lot in ‘Game of Thrones’ and the word that would always trip them up was ‘daughter.’”

Townsend adds that when British people say “daughter,” they pronounce it like the word “door” or “door-tah.” Meanwhile, Americans, even when they are putting on a British accent, say it like “dah-ter.”

“So top tip if you are an actor trying to do an English accent, daughter like a door. Like you're opening a door,” Townsend says.



What word do British actors always get wrong when doing American accents?

Some American commenters returned the favor by sharing the word that British actors never get right when using American accents: “Anything.”

"I can always tell a Brit playing an American by the word anything. An American would say en-ee-thing. Brits say it ena-thing,” Dreaming_of_Gaea wrote. "The dead giveaway for English people playing Americans: ‘Anything.’ Brits always say ‘EH-nuh-thin,’” marliemagill added.

"I can always tell an actor is English playing an American when they say ‘anything.’ English people always say it like ‘enny-thin,’” mkmason wrote.



What is the cot-caught merger?

One commenter noted that the problem goes back to the cot-caught merger, when Americans in the western US and Canadians began to merge different sounds into one. People on the East Coast and in Britain pronounce them as different sounds.

“Depending on where you live, you might be thinking one of two things right now: Of course, ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ sound exactly the same! or There’s no way that ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ sound the same!” Laura McGrath writes at DoYouReadMe. “As a result, although the different spellings remain, the vowel sounds in the words cot/caught, nod/gnawed, stock/stalk are identical for some English speakers and not for others.”

American actors owe Townsend a debt of gratitude for pointing out the one thing that even the best can’t seem to get right. He should also give the commenters a tip of the cap for sharing the big word that British people have trouble with when doing an American accent. Now, if we could just get through to Ewan McGregor and tell him that even though he is fantastic in so many films, his American accent still needs a lot of work.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Conflict between parents and grandparents is hard to avoid. A lot of the time, it comes down to generational differences. When our parents were raising us, there weren't smartphones and there was no Disney+ or Netflix (well, at least not the streaming version). In general, kids had more freedom and less supervision in the 80s and 90s. Parenting styles like gentle parenting or conscious parenting weren't things people thought about as frequently. Again, there was no Instagram shoving it in your face over and over! In some cases, research and data gathered over time have shown us a better way, even though previous generations of parents were doing the best with the information they had.

So it's natural for grandparents to have, um, opinions about how their grandchildren are being raised at times. According to the AARP, most disagreements center on how children are disciplined, what they eat, and how much screen time they get. The sad thing is that when these conflicts become too common, or escalate too far, grandparents can start to miss out on time with their grandkids. There's got to be a way to avoid or mediate these conflicts before they get to that point.

One grandma just laid out her three simple rules for new grandparents who want better relationships with their kids and grandkids.

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Maria, who goes by MomMom Maria online, took to Instagram to offer the blunt advice for new or expecting grandmas — though they can definitely apply to any grandparent.

Rule number one. You are not the parent.

"That is crucial. You're not this child's parent," Maria says in a selfie-style video filmed in her car. "You're privileged to be a grandmother. You're not the mother."

It sounds obvious, but Maria's absolutely right about this one. The parents get to make the decisions on how their kids are raised, how they are disciplined, what they eat, what they can and can't watch on TV, and more. As a grandparent you're not the decision-maker and you're not the one who's ultimately responsible. You can have your own thoughts and opinions, but you don't really get a say. Harsh but true!

Rule number two: Respect the parents' boundaries.

"And guess what? You don't have to understand them," says Maria. "'I don't understand why she doesn't want us to kiss the baby!' You don't have to understand, respect their boundaries."

Conflict doesn't have to come from disagreements about parenting. Some parents butt heads with grandparents over their kids being spoiled and showered with gifts (and other junk that parents then have to find a place for in crowded houses). It can be tough for grandparents to understand or agree with a boundary like "Please don't buy them anything without asking me first," but Maria argues that grandparents must respect boundaries even if they don't understand or agree with them.

Number three, a corollary to rule number two: It's not about you.

"You're not a victim," Maria says. “You're not a pushover. You're just being respectful of their role as parents and realizing that your role is a grandmother. I love it."

Just because you're keeping critical thoughts and opinions and disagreements on how the children are being parented to yourself doesn't mean you're being weak. That's just being respectful of the parents' boundaries and decisions. It's a good thing that you're working to ensure a positive relationship with your children and grandchildren! That's an investment that will reap more and more dividends as the kids get older.

Maria's tips united people from across the aisle — both parents and grandparents agreed the guidelines could make for better relationships.

Maria's video struck a cord with a huge audience of over 300,000 viewers on Instagram. Most were fully on board with the 'new rules.'

"Grandmother to a 7-month-old and two-week-old. Absolutely agree. And I remember how it was when I was a young mother and my MIL made unsolicited comments," one fellow grandma chimed in.

"And remember things have changed since you were a mom: swaddling, no blankets, back sleeping, etc. Just nod and say ok!" offered another user.

Another user mentioned that she'd had a similar conversation with their therapist, who said: "grandparents are used to being *the* parents in the room. They often times don’t know how to or otherwise refuse to fall into a secondary role.” ... "And that hit hard," the user added. "I think a lot of these grandparents are not understanding that they don’t get to parent our kids. They need to step back and let us parent. It’s time for them to relax and step into that secondary role."

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But not everyone agreed with Maria's advice. Some grandparents, in particular, resented the fact that they should feel privileged just to be involved in a child's life at all, or they lamented not feeling connected to the family when their wisdom and experience wasn't being valued.

"I had one child. He grew up , got married, and is now a dad. I have one grandson," one person commented. "They live on the other side of the country. I keep my mouth shut about EVERYTHING. I text to get permission to call or be lucky enough to FT. I don’t send my grandson ANYTHING , not even so much as a cookie, unless I get their permission first. I struggle to have any conversation with him or his wife because I am not a part of their life. I keep my mouth shut, offer no opinions on anything . It is very hard to be so disconnected from them and it hurts but there is nothing I can do about."

Another commenter was upset by feeling like they knew better, but not being able to voice it:

"This is so hard to do as a GP. I want all organic. . Parents do not care. I want no sugar. They give lots of sugar . I want no screen time . Parents do lots of screen time . I want no cell phone scrolling. Parents scrolll constantly in front of baby. I’m trying so hard to not say anything."

Parents aren't "always right" when it comes to these conflicts, for the record. Ideally, there would be open and honest communication, and a relationship where grandparents' experience and wisdom was valued and taken into consideration, while also allowing space and boundaries for the parents to make the final decisions. Of course, communication is hard. It takes a lot of work and it requires multiple different parties to manage their emotions and egos. Learning to communicate about boundaries, rules, and differences in philosophy takes time — but Maria's three rules are a pretty good starting point for new grandparents who want to get off on the right foot.

Pets

The biggest fan of Kendrick Lamar's halftime show is a cockatoo, and he is rocking out

Even if you couldn't care less about this Lamar & Drake beef, this is so fun to watch.

NFL/Youtube, @banditthecockatoo/TikTok

Bandit is a Lamar fan through and through.

While there were certainly many folks at home bopping along to Kendrick Lamar’s epic halftime show, no one did it quite like an internet famous white cockatoo named Bandit—who seriously needs to be hired as one of Lamar’s back-up dancers post haste.

In the video below, we get to see the entire journey Bandit takes while listening to the performance— curiosity, intrigue, trying to find the beat, feather-raised excitement as he attempts his own dance moves, followed by full on hand banging, the works!

One thing is abundantly clear. In this infamous feud between Lamar and Drake, Bandit is definitely “Team Lamar.” Watch:

Of course, this spurred a lot of fun comments from viewers, especially folks referencing said feud.

“Even animals are feeling this diss track,” one person wrote, while another said “He’s feeling the power of KDot!” referencing one of Lamar’s earlier stage names.

Another commented, “I was waiting for him to yell MUSSSSSSTARRRRD!” which Lamar himself yelled in the song "TV Off" as a nod to Mustard, his co-producer, which also became a rather famous internet meme.

While Bandit had no actuarial awareness of the diss lyrics Lamar was spitting out, he, like many avians in the parrot family, was responding to the rhythm and beat of the music. Much about how and why these birds react to music remains a bit of a mystery, but they do seem to have their individual preferences. While Bandit clearly enjoys hip hop and rap, another might prefer classical music. One funny thing to note however—it’s been said that on the whole, parrots aren’t electronica fans. So no raves for them.

Of course, cockatoos and parrots can have eclectic tastes too! As we can see below, Bandit also has a soft spot for Billy Idol.

This charming bird has been a TikTok star for years now, entering his 300K followers with dance moves, food antics, and his own beef with “mean ol’ dad,” who has the audacity to touch his stuff. But Upworthy has encountered other cheeky cockatoos before, including one that maniacally chased its family around the house and a feathered anarchist who made headlines after uprooting anti-bird spikes.

All of these stories make sense, considering the cockatoos general penchant for attention seeking, which can lead to erratic and destructive behavior when ignored. But, as we can see, they are also incredibly intelligent, playful, and loyal to boot, making them excellent pets…as well as entertaining content creators, apparently. So bird parents, keep those video comin’.