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'Are you kidding me?': Amy Poehler derails silly Q and A to talk about dire issues.

'Are you kidding me?': Amy Poehler derails silly Q and A to talk about dire issues.

Some (most?) days, it feels like the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

No one gets along anymore (or at least it feels that way). Social media is like a bad ex who loves toying with our moods. The news cycle is downright exhausting. Oh! And climate change is literally destroying our planet faster than ever before.

Thank you, K.C. Green, for blessing us with this all-too-real meme.

It can be ... a lot. So escapism can be a good thing! Read a silly book, binge on your favorite sit-com, walk in circles until you forget who the president is. Whatever works for you.

Some days, though, it's honestly too difficult to focus on anything trivial when it feels like there's so much on the line.

Amy Poehler gets the feeling.

Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images.

Poehler did a question and answer session for The Hollywood Reporter's "40(ish) Most Powerful People in Comedy" feature.  

And the interview went spectacularly well or terribly wrong, depending on how you see it.

In response to eight lighthearted questions posed to the comedian, Poehler flipped the script, answering most of them with sobering realities about the current state of affairs.

"Who cares?" Poehler answered as a way to start things off when asked about her most memorable heckler. "The whole world is on fire."

Image via The Hollywood Reporter.

College comedy audiences are "kids that are afraid they will be shot in their own schools," she continued. "What has happened to us?"

"Let's not forget over 4,600 people have died in Puerto Rico," she chimed in when asked about her guilty pleasure.

"A giant whale just died in Thailand after eating 80 plastic bags," she answered instead of detailing her "dream product endorsement."

Can anyone blame Poehler for getting real in her interview?

Things do feel particularly bad right now. But we don't have to accept the status quo.

  • Concerned for whales and other ocean life? Support organizations fighting to get plastic out of our oceans.
  • Alarmed our elected leaders don't seem to care about the people of Puerto Rico? You can help, even if Washington is failing them.
  • Sick and tired of senseless gun violence? Do something about it.
  • Also, vote. Vote, vote, vote. Make sure you're registered!
  • And lastly — and this one is especially crucial — don't forget to laugh along the way. You deserve it.

Our whole world may feel like it's burning, but — believe it or not — there's a lot of good happening too.

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Pursuit is creating a revolution of diversity in tech

Courtesy of Tiffany Obi
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With the COVID-19 pandemic upending her community, Brooklyn-based singer Tiffany Obi turned to healing those who had lost loved ones the way she knew best — through music.

Obi quickly ran into one glaring issue as she began performing solo at memorials. Many of the venues where she performed didn't have the proper equipment for her to play a recorded song to accompany her singing. Often called on to perform the day before a service, Obi couldn't find any pianists to play with her on such short notice.

As she looked at the empty piano at a recent performance, Obi's had a revelation.

"Music just makes everything better," Obi said. "If there was an app to bring musicians together on short notice, we could bring so much joy to the people at those memorials."

Using the coding skills she gained at Pursuit — a rigorous, four-year intensive program that trains adults from underserved backgrounds and no prior experience in programming — Obi turned this market gap into the very first app she created.

She worked alongside four other Pursuit Fellows to build In Tune, an app that connects musicians in close proximity to foster opportunities for collaboration.

When she learned about and applied to Pursuit, Obi was eager to be a part of Pursuit's vision to empower their Fellows to build successful careers in tech. Pursuit's Fellows are representative of the community they want to build: 50% women, 70% Black or Latinx, 40% immigrant, 60% non-Bachelor's degree holders, and more than 50% are public assistance recipients.

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We're 11 days out from the election. So, let's talk about Hillary Clinton. No, seriously.

Gage Skidmore

Yesterday I was perusing comments on an Upworthy article about Joe Biden comforting the son of a Parkland shooting victim and immediately had flashbacks to the lead-up of the 2016 election. In describing former vice President Biden, some commenters were using the words "criminal," "corrupt," and "pedophile—exactly the same words people used to describe Hillary Clinton in 2016.

I remember being baffled so many people were so convinced of Clinton's evil schemes that they genuinely saw the documented serial liar and cheat that she was running against as the lesser of two evils. I mean, sure, if you believe that a career politician had spent years being paid off by powerful people and was trafficking children to suck their blood in her free time, just about anything looks like a better alternative.

But none of that was true.

It's been four years and Hillary Clinton has been found guilty of exactly none of the criminal activity she was being accused of. Trump spent every campaign rally leading chants of "Lock her up!" under the guise that she was going to go to jail after the election. He's been president for nearly four years now, and where is Clinton? Not in jail—she's comfy at home, occasionally trolling Trump on Twitter and doing podcasts.

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Husband-wife pastor team built a network of support across Houston

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Glenda moved to Houston from Ohio just before the pandemic hit. She didn't know that COVID-19-related delays would make it difficult to get her Texas driver's license and apply for unemployment benefits. She quickly found herself in an impossible situation — stranded in a strange place without money for food, gas, or a job to provide what she needed.

Alone, hungry, and scared, Glenda dialed 2-1-1 for help. The person on the other end of the line directed her to the Houston-based nonprofit Bread of Life, founded by St. John's United Methodist pastors Rudy and Juanita Rasmus.

For nearly 30 years, Bread of Life has been at the forefront of HIV/AIDS prevention, eliminating food insecurity, providing permanent housing to formerly homeless individuals and disaster relief.

Glenda sat in her car for 20 minutes outside of the building, trying to muster up the courage to get out and ask for help. She'd never been in this situation before, and she was terrified.

When she finally got out, she encountered Eva Thibaudeau, who happened to be walking down the street at the exact same time. Thibaudeau is the CEO of Temenos CDC, a nonprofit multi-unit housing development also founded by the Rasmuses, with a mission to serve Midtown Houston's homeless population.

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Man shares two lessons he learned from disrupting a racist joke in a group of white people

Paul Scanlon/Facebook

Racist jokes are one of the more frustrating manifestations of racism. Jokes in general are meant to be a shared experience, a connection over a mutual sense of humor, a rush of feel-good chemicals that bond us to those around us through laughter.

So when you mix jokes with racism, the result is that racism becomes something light and fun, as opposed to the horrendous bane that it really is.

The harm done with racist humor isn't just the emotional hurt they can cause. When a group of white people shares jokes at the expense of a marginalized or oppressed racial group, the power of white supremacy is actually reinforced—not only because of the "punching down" nature of such humor, but because of the group dynamics that work in favor of maintaining the status quo.

British author and motivational speaker Paul Scanlon shared a story about interrupting a racist joke at a table of white people at an event in the U.S, and the lessons he drew from it illustrate this idea beautifully. Watch:

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Vote with your dollar: 8 products that help combat climate change

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With the election quickly approaching, the importance of voting and sending in your ballot on time is essential. But there is another way you can vote everyday - by being intentional with each dollar you spend. Support companies and products that uphold your values and help create a more sustainable world. An easy move is swapping out everyday items that are often thrown away after one use or improperly disposed of.

Package Free Shop has created products to help fight climate change one cotton swab at a time! Founded by Lauren Singer, otherwise known as, "the girl with the jar" (she initially went viral for fitting 8 years of all of the waste she's created in one mason jar). Package Free is an ecosystem of brands on a mission to make the world less trashy.

Here are eight of our favorite everyday swaps:

1. Friendsheep Dryer Balls - Replace traditional dryer sheets with these dryer balls that are made without chemicals and conserve energy. Not only do these also reduce dry time by 20% but they're so cute and come in an assortment of patterns!

Package Free Shop

2. Last Swab - Replacement for single use plastic cotton swabs. Nearly 25.5 billion single use swabs are produced and discarded every year in the U.S., but not this one. It lasts up to 1,000 uses as it's able to be cleaned with soap and water. It also comes in a biodegradable, corn based case so you can use it on the go!

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