+
A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM UPWORTHY
We are a small, independent media company on a mission to share the best of humanity with the world.
If you think the work we do matters, pre-ordering a copy of our first book would make a huge difference in helping us succeed.
GOOD PEOPLE Book
upworthy
Democracy

I did a roundtable with the Vice President about abortion. Here are 4 things that surprised me.

The conversation was important, but in some ways the experience was nothing like I expected it to be.

Annie Reneau, Joy Reid, Kamala Harris
TheReidOut/Twitter

Upworthy associate editor Annie Reneau chatting with Joy Reid and Kamala Harris in an MSNBC roundtable

It's been a very weird week.

I'm a writer and editor—not a medical professional, legal expert or political activist in any way—so imagine my surprise when I got a message from Vice President Kamala Harris's senior advisor inviting me to join a roundtable discussion on MSNBC for the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. I thought someone might be pranking me, but nope. The invite was real.

Apparently, someone had read an op-ed I'd written years ago about how it's possible to be morally pro-life but politically pro-choice and felt that my voice would add something to the discussion. The panelists included the lead plaintiffs in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization and the Texas Abortion Ban lawsuits, two activists involved in the fight for reproductive rights, a Texas OB-GYN who has seen the implications of the Dobbs decision in his own practice…and me.

I felt remarkably average among these experts on the issue, but I think that was the point. My view represents millions of average American voters who may feel conflicted about where they stand on abortion morally and legally and are trying to reconcile their personal or religious beliefs with what they think our laws should be. Additionally, as someone with no political affiliation or loyalty to any party, I could speak about grappling with this issue without any partisan pressure or influence.

I'd like to point out that I'm wary of most politicians and well aware of biases in the media, so despite feeling honored to be asked, I was a bit hesitant to participate. I certainly didn't want to contribute to the partisan divide if I could help it. But because abortion is such a complex and nuanced issue, dedicating an entire hour of prime time to a discussion about it sounded like a good way to help people gain a better, broader understanding. So less than 24 hours after being asked, I was on a plane to Dallas to join the roundtable, which filmed the next day.

The full roundtable discussion is worth watching (and can be found on Peacock, with clips available on MSNBC), but I wanted to pull back the curtain and offer a peek behind the scenes because there were some things about the experience that genuinely surprised me.

1. I had no idea ahead of time what questions they were going to ask

I assumed participants in these kinds of events would be prepped ahead of time with what questions they would be asking and have ample time to prepare. This was not the case for me, and according to the fellow panelists I chatted with, it wasn't for them, either. I used my travel time to prepare a few talking points I felt I could address somewhat intelligently based on my op-ed (since that's what prompted the invite), but all I knew before arriving for the taping was that we were going to be discussing the Dobbs decision.

The only preparation we got was about 30 seconds before each segment was filmed. Joy Reid briefly explained how that segment would be structured with something like, "Okay, in this segment, we're going to talk about [some element of the abortion issue]. I'm going to ask [panelist] about [XYZ] and then pivot to [panelist] to talk about [XYZ]. But feel free to chime in if you want to respond to something. We really want this to be a conversation."

That was it. The entire prep. I was surprised—but also delighted—by how unscripted it was. No one asked me to make any specific points. I didn't feel any expectation or pressure to even agree with what was being said. Obviously, they knew where I stood based on what I'd written, but they had no idea what I was actually going to say ahead of time.

2. The conversations on-screen were no different than the ones being had off-screen by all parties involved

I think people who are skeptical of media may think that things said for the camera aren't as genuine as one would hope. Maybe that's the case sometimes, but that wasn't my experience at all here. In the green room and during the commercial breaks while filming, the conversation about the issue continued just as it did on screen, just without a host guiding it. The genuine sincerity of the discussion filled me with hope.

For instance, the OB-GYN panelist I was chatting with in the green room told me that in his 30 years of practice, he'd never had a patient come to the decision to terminate a pregnancy lightly, and we talked about the importance of keeping compassion and empathy central to the conversation about abortion. That was just our casual conversation. In the hours I was there, I overheard people from the crew to the other panelists to Joy Reid and the VP talking behind the scenes about all the things we talked about on screen. There was nothing contrived or fake about what you see in the roundtable discussion.

3. There was no atmosphere of eliteness

Despite the presence of Secret Service agents everywhere and despite being a high-profile cable news show involving the Vice President, the whole thing after going through the metal detectors felt mostly…normal.

All the people I interacted with, from the folks arranging my travel to the people headlining the show, were so down-to-earth. Everyone was genuinely nice and repeatedly expressed their gratitude to all of us for being there. I kept thinking, "Wait, aren't I the one who's supposed to feel grateful for this opportunity?" I didn't expect to feel so at ease. There was an air of professionalism, of course, but not at all a stuffy or high-pressured one.

I mean, I chatted with Joy Reid about her hot flashes while we were waiting for Kamala Harris to arrive, for goodness sake. It was obviously a serious and highly organized event with lots of moving parts, but it also felt casual and relaxed, which made it easy not to feel too nervous.

4. I came home to an immediate example of why this issue is so important

The night after I came home from Dallas, I had friends over for dinner. One of them works with pregnant women and told me about a mom who was in her second trimester and very ill. Her bloodwork looked horrible and her health was going downhill fast. It turned out she had a very rare fetal anomaly that was creating her health problem, and she needed to terminate the pregnancy or risk a dire outcome. The anomaly meant there ultimately wasn't going to be a way to save the fetus.

Her previous OB-GYN who had delivered her other children was in Idaho, and though he wanted to help her, he couldn't, because what she needed was an abortion. She wasn't at death's door yet (though technically could crash at any time), so despite the obvious need to end the pregnancy, his hands were tied by Idaho abortion laws. She then had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get to a provider in Washington who could help her, all while her health continued to be in danger.

There are countless stories like this that illustrate the very real implications of the Dobbs decision on real people, including people who don't actually want an abortion but need one. There's a tendency to try to make this issue black-and-white, but it's not. There are unique circumstances surrounding every pregnancy and every childbirth, and real women are harmed when lawmakers insert themselves into healthcare decisions with no medical expertise or training.

It's vital that we keep the moral debates separate from the legal debates on this issue. Pregnancy is a healthcare issue, deserving of medical privacy. No lawmaker needs to be in the room when a woman and a doctor are making decisions about her healthcare. People can debate the morality of those decisions all day long, but keep the law out of it.

I wasn't necessarily surprised, but I was happy to see first-hand how, at the highest levels of this unfortunately politically-charged issue, the concern behind the debate isn't about politics, but about the real people negatively impacted by the court's decision.


From Your Site Articles
reproductive rights
Pop Culture

Here’s a paycheck for a McDonald’s worker. And here's my jaw dropping to the floor.

So we've all heard the numbers, but what does that mean in reality? Here's one year's wages — yes, *full-time* wages. Woo.

Making a little over 10,000 for a yearly salary.


I've written tons of things about minimum wage, backed up by fact-checkers and economists and scholarly studies. All of them point to raising the minimum wage as a solution to lifting people out of poverty and getting folks off of public assistance. It's slowly happening, and there's much more to be done.

But when it comes right down to it, where the rubber meets the road is what it means for everyday workers who have to live with those wages. I honestly don't know how they do it.

Ask yourself: Could I live on this small of a full-time paycheck? I know what my answer is.

(And note that the minimum wage in many parts of the county is STILL $7.25, so it would be even less than this).

paychecks, McDonalds, corporate power, broken system

One year of work at McDonalds grossed this worker $13,811.18.

assets.rebelmouse.io

This story was written by Brandon Weber and was originally appeared on 02.26.15

From Your Site Articles
Family

Mom’s blistering rant on how men are responsible for all unwanted pregnancies is on the nose

“ALL unwanted pregnancies are caused by the irresponsible ejaculations of men. Period. Don't believe me? Let me walk you through it."

Gabrielle Blair/Twitter

Mom has something to say... strongly say.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, are a conservative group who aren't known for being vocal about sex.

But best selling author, blogger, and mother of six, Gabrielle Blair, has kicked that stereotype to the curb with a pointed thread on reducing unwanted pregnancies. And her sights are set directly at men.

She wrote a Cliff's Notes version of her thread on her blog:

If you want to stop abortion, you need to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And men are 100% responsible for unwanted pregnancies. No for real, they are. Perhaps you are thinking: IT TAKES TWO! And yes, it does take two for _intentional_ pregnancies.

But ALL unwanted pregnancies are caused by the irresponsible ejaculations of men. Period. Don't believe me? Let me walk you through it. Let's start with this: women can only get pregnant about 2 days each month. And that's for a limited number of years.

Here's the whole thread. It's long, but totally worth the read.

Blair's controversial tweet storm have been liked hundreds of thousands of time, with the original tweet earning nearly 200,000 likes since it was posted on Thursday, September, 13.

The reactions have earned her both praise and scorn.

Most of the scorn was from men.

But Blair wouldn't budge.

For other men, the tweet thread was a real eye-opener.

Women everywhere applauded Blair's bold thread.

This article originally appeared on 02.22.19

From Your Site Articles
women
Pop Culture

What is 'Generation Jones'? The unique qualities of the not-quite-Gen-X-baby-boomers.

This "microgeneration" had a different upbringing than their fellow boomers.

Photo Credits: Michelle Obama, US Department of Education, Lawrence Jackson

Generation Jones includes Michelle Obama, George Clooney, Kamala Harris, Keanu Reeves and more.

We hear a lot about the major generation categories—boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z and the up-and-coming Gen Alpha. But there are folks who don't quite fit into those boxes. These in-betweeners, sometimes called "cuspers," are members of microgenerations that straddle two of the biggies.

"Xennial" is the nickname for those who fall on the cusp of Gen X and millennial, but there's also a lesser-known microgeneration that straddles Gen X and baby boomers. The folks born from 1954 to 1965 are known as Generation Jones, and they've been thrust into the spotlight as people try to figure out what generation to consider 59-year-old Vice President Kamala Harris.

Like President Obama before her, Harris is a Gen Joneser—not exactly a classic baby boomer but not quite Gen X. Born in October 1964, Harris falls just a few months shy of official Gen X territory. But what exactly differentiates Gen Jones from the boomers and Gen Xers that flank it?

"Generation Jones" was coined by writer, television producer and social commentator Jonathan Pontell to describe the decade of Americans who grew up in the '60s and '70s. As Pontell wrote of Gen Jonesers in Politico:

"We fill the space between Woodstock and Lollapalooza, between the Paris student riots and the anti-globalisation protests, and between Dylan going electric and Nirvana going unplugged. Jonesers have a unique identity separate from Boomers and GenXers. An avalanche of attitudinal and behavioural data corroborates this distinction."

Pontell describes Jonesers as "practical idealists" who were "forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part." They are the younger siblings of the boomer civil rights and anti-war activists who grew up witnessing and being moved by the passion of those movements but were met with a fatigued culture by the time they themselves came of age. Sometimes, they're described as the cool older siblings of Gen X. Unlike their older boomer counterparts, most Jonesers were not raised by WWII veteran fathers and were too young to be drafted into Vietnam, leaving them in between on military experience.

Gen Jones gets its name from the competitive "keeping up with the Joneses" spirit that spawned during their populous birth years, but also from the term "jonesin'," meaning an intense craving, that they coined—a drug reference but also a reflection of the yearning to make a difference that their "unrequited idealism" left them with. According to Pontell, their competitiveness and identity as a "generation aching to act" may make Jonesers particularly effective leaders:

"What makes us Jonesers also makes us uniquely positioned to bring about a new era in international affairs. Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren’t engaged in that era’s ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while boomers argued over issues. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide. We can lead."

Time will tell whether the United States will end up with another Generation Jones leader, but with President Biden withdrawing his candidacy, it has now become a distinct possibility.

Of note in discussions over Kamala Harris's generational status is the fact that generations aren't just calculated by birth year but by a person's cultural reality. Some have made the argument that Harris is culturally more Gen X than boomer, though there doesn't seem to be any record of her claiming any particular generation as her own. However, a swath of Gen Z has staked their own claim on her as "brat"—a term singer Charli XCX thrust into the political arena with a post on X that read "kamala IS brat." That may be nonsensical to most older folks, but for Gen Z, it's a glowing endorsement from one of the top Gen Z musicians of the moment.

From Your Site Articles
generations
Identity

When a man asks people to translate a hate message he's received, their response is unforgettable

Reading the words would be one thing. Having to think about what they mean is almost too intense.

All images via Lietuvos žmogaus teisių centras/YouTube


As part of an experiment, a man asks for help translating a Facebook message he has received.

There's a man in Lithuania who speaks only English. The message is in Lithuanian. He can't read it, so he asks some locals to translate it for him.

As he asks one person after another to translate the message for him, two things become obvious.

1. He's received a message full of hate speech.

2. Translating it for him is breaking people's hearts.

It's nearly more than these people can bear.

There's a sudden, powerful connection between the translators and the man they're translating for. They want to protect him, telling him not to bother with the message.

They apologize for the message.

They look like they want to cry.

Words hurt.

Most of us would never think of saying such horrible things. This video shows people realizing in their gut what it must feel like when those words are pointed at them — it's all right on their faces. And so is their compassion.

The Facebook message is horrible, but their empathy is beautiful. The video's emotional power is what makes it unique, and so worth watching and passing around.

Here it is.

The video's in English, subtitled in Lithuanian. Just watch the faces.

This article originally appeared on 04.10.15

From Your Site Articles
Science

Researchers dumped tons of coffee waste into a forest. This is what it looks like now.

30 dump truck loads and two years later, the forest looks totally different.

assets.rebelmouse.io

One of the biggest problems with coffee production is that it generates an incredible amount of waste. Once coffee beans are separated from cherries, about 45% of the entire biomass is discarded.

So for every pound of roasted coffee we enjoy, an equivalent amount of coffee pulp is discarded into massive landfills across the globe. That means that approximately 10 million tons of coffee pulp is discarded into the environment every year.


When disposed of improperly, the waste can cause serious damage soil and water sources.

However, a new study published in the British Ecological Society journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence has found that coffee pulp isn't just a nuisance to be discarded. It can have an incredibly positive impact on regrowing deforested areas of the planet.

via British Ecological Society

In 2018, researchers from ETH-Zurich and the University of Hawaii spread 30 dump trucks worth of coffee pulp over a roughly 100' x 130' area of degraded land in Costa Rica. The experiment took place on a former coffee farm that underwent rapid deforestation in the 1950s.

The coffee pulp was spread three-feet thick over the entire area.

Another plot of land near the coffee pulp dump was left alone to act as a control for the experiment.

"The results were dramatic." Dr. Rebecca Cole, lead author of the study, said. "The area treated with a thick layer of coffee pulp turned into a small forest in only two years while the control plot remained dominated by non-native pasture grasses."

In just two years, the area treated with coffee pulp had an 80% canopy cover, compared to just 20% of the control area. So, the coffee-pulp-treated area grew four times more rapidly. Like a jolt of caffeine, it reinvigorated biological activity in the area.

The canopy was also four times taller than that of the control.

Before and after images of the forest

The forest experienced a radical, positive change

via British Ecological Society

The coffee-treated area also eliminated an invasive species of grass that took over the land and prevented forest succession. Its elimination allowed for other native species to take over and recolonize the area.

"This case study suggests that agricultural by-products can be used to speed up forest recovery on degraded tropical lands. In situations where processing these by-products incurs a cost to agricultural industries, using them for restoration to meet global reforestation objectives can represent a 'win-win' scenario," Dr. Cole said.

If the results are repeatable it's a win-win for coffee drinkers and the environment.

Researchers believe that coffee treatments can be a cost-effective way to reforest degraded land. They may also work to reverse the effects of climate change by supporting the growth of forests across the globe.

The 2016 Paris Agreement made reforestation an important part of the fight against climate change. The agreement incentivizes developing countries to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, promote forest conservation and sustainable management, and enhance forest carbon stocks in developing countries.

"We hope our study is a jumping off point for other researchers and industries to take a look at how they might make their production more efficient by creating links to the global restoration movement," Dr. Cole said.


This article originally appeared on 03.29.21

From Your Site Articles
climate change
Trending Stories