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Why we really shouldn't laugh at those naked Donald Trump statues.

'When they go low, we go high.'

There are a lot — and I mean A LOT — of valid reasons to criticize Donald Trump.

There's the fact that he mocked a disabled reporter. There's when he said that women who have abortions should be "punished." There's his belief that the concept of climate change was "created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."

There's his insistence that President Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and might be a secret Muslim. There's his long history of misogyny. There's his praise of Saddam Hussein. There's the fact that he has a history of borrowing memes from white supremacists. There's his plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and put a (temporary) ban on Muslims from entering the country.


And, well, you get the idea.

Slate lists 183 things (and counting) Donald Trump has said or done that they believe make him "unfit to be president." In any case, maybe you support him or maybe you don't. The point is that there are some really valid concerns people have about putting the man in the White House.

Huuuuuuge reasons to criticize him. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

On the morning of Aug. 18, 2016, statues of this potential president-to-be popped up around the country. Naked statues.

In New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Seattle, the statues mysteriously appeared overnight in public areas.

Attributed to anarchist art collective, Indecline, the series is titled "The Emperor Has No Balls," a play on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes." As the title suggests, each statue is missing a certain part of its anatomy (and also represents a nearby body part as being on the small side of things).

Bystanders photograph and pose with a statue meant to resemble a naked Donald Trump in Union Square Park in New York. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

Even in removing the statue, the New York Parks Department had a bit of fun at Trump's expense. "NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small," said parks spokesman Sam Biederman in a statement.

At first glance, it's pretty funny, right? It takes one of Trump's deepest insecurities and puts it on full display to the world.

This is the man, remember, who used his platform during one of the Republican primary debates to defend the size of his hands.

"Look at those hands, are they small hands?" said Trump in response to a comment by rival Sen. Marco Rubio days earlier. "And, he referred to my hands — 'if they're small, something else must be small.' I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee."

"Look at those hands, are they small hands?" Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

While the commotion over the size of Trump's hands began as a joke written in a 1988 issue of the now-defunct Spy magazine (they called him a "short-fingered vulgarian"), it's haunted him ever since. In 2011, seemingly unprompted, he brought the insult up in an interview with the New York Post, saying, "My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body."

So clearly this is something that gets to him. As he's someone who has a tendency to attack others for their appearance (he once went on a two-minute rant against Rosie O'Donnell in which he called her "disgusting," "a loser," and repeatedly mocked her weight), it seems like he should be fair game for his own appearance-based criticism, right? Well...

In times like this, It's important to remember the message Michelle Obama delivered during her powerful speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

During a section devoted to how she and her husband set out to raise their daughters, Sasha and Malia, the first lady touched on an important life lesson: how to deal with a bully.

GIF from CNN/YouTube.

Mocking someone for their appearance? Yeah, that's something a bully would do.

On Facebook, writer Ijeoma Oluo called out the folks who are reveling in Trump's appearance-based public humiliation, echoing that same sentiment. "I hate how often I have to say this, but if we are truly committed to fighting toxic masculinity, cis-hegemony and body-shaming we cannot tie Trump's sexist, racist, ableist, Islamophobic, classist bullshit to his dick size," she writes.

I hate how often I have to say this, but if we are truly committed to fighting toxic masculinity, cis-hegemony and...

Posted by Ijeoma Oluo on Thursday, August 18, 2016

Is Donald Trump a bully? Yes, yes he is.

But do we have to stoop to his level in order to criticize him? No, we don't.

"When they go low, we go high." Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

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Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.

Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.

“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.

NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.

“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.

Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.

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Democracy

This Map Reveals The True Value Of $100 In Each State

Your purchasing power can swing by 30% from state to state.

Image by Tax Foundation.

Map represents the value of 100 dollars.

As the cost of living in large cities continues to rise, more and more people are realizing that the value of a dollar in the United States is a very relative concept. For decades, cost of living indices have sought to address and benchmark the inconsistencies in what money will buy, but they are often so specific as to prevent a holistic picture or the ability to "browse" the data based on geographic location.

The Tax Foundation addressed many of these shortcomings using the most recent (2015) Bureau of Economic Analysis data to provide a familiar map of the United States overlaid with the relative value of what $100 is "worth" in each state. Granted, going state-by-state still introduces a fair amount of "smoothing" into the process — $100 will go farther in Los Angeles than in Fresno, for instance — but it does provide insight into where the value lies.

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Family

Woman bakes cheeky curse word pies for her grandma and it becomes a quirky holiday tradition

2023's pie is an homage to her favorite word to use while stuck in traffic.

Canva

You never know where a holiday tradition will come from.

Tried-and-true holiday traditions certainly have their merit, but there’s something quite special, magical even, about discovering personal rituals that commemorate one’s unique life. In my household, for instance, nothing quite rings in the Christmas spirit like sipping my partner’s delicious coquito and putting up a cardboard gingerbread house for my cats.

The beauty of creating customized holiday traditions is that they can be as festive, sentimental, or as silly as you want them to be. And you never know how one small moment can become the catalyst for a tradition that sparks joy year after year.

For Jess Lydon, that tradition is baking expletive-laden pies for Thanksgiving. (This is your profanity warning—the images below contain swear words.)

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Education

3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

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Peter Bence's piano cover of "Africa" by Toto

Peter Bence’s performance of “Africa” by Toto has over 17 million views on YouTube because of his creative reimagining of the song and, well, just about everyone loves “Africa.”

Bence is a Hungarian composer and producer who has become a viral sensation for his Michael Jackson, Queen, Sia, and Beatles covers. He has over 1.1 million followers on YouTube and has toured the globe, playing in more than 40 countries across four continents.

His performance of “Africa'' is unique because it opens with him creating a rhythm track and looping it by strategically tapping the piano and rubbing its strings to create the sound of shakers and congo drums.

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Joy

Family posts a very chill note to neighbors explaining why their dog is on the roof

“We appreciate your concern but please do not knock on our door.."

via Reddit

Meet Huckleberry the dog.

If you were taking a stroll through a quiet neighborhood and happened to catch a glance of this majestic sight, you might bat an eye. You might do a double take. If you were (somewhat understandably) concerned about this surprising roof-dog's welfare, you might even approach the homeowners to tell them, "Uh, I'm not sure if you know...but there's a...dog...on your ROOF."

Well, the family inside is aware that there's often a dog on their roof. It's their pet Golden, Huckleberry, and he just sorta likes it up there.

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Family

12 hilariously relatable comics about life as a new mom.

Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

Some good not so good moments with babies.



Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

Illustrator Ingebritt ter Veld and Corinne de Vries, who works for Hippe-Birth Cards, a webshop for birth announcements, had babies shortly after one another.

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