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'You aren't listening': Philadelphia Eagles player greeted press with signs and silence.

After the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles were uninvited from their scheduled visit to the White House in early June 2018, star safety Malcolm Jenkins decided to try something different when asked by the media about player protests.

He greeted them with silence — instead answering questions with a series of signs.

"YOU AREN'T LISTENING," he wrote in all caps. And to be fair, there's good reason to believe they aren't.

Nearly two years after Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest police brutality, some people still don't get the message, wrongly believing that the gesture was intended as a show of disrespect toward the national anthem, the flag, the military, the police, or some combination thereof.

For almost a year now, President Donald Trump has been railing against the league and players who have dared to participate in protests under this false pretense.

It's no wonder that Jenkins — who devotes his free time to visiting prisons, working to improve police-community engagement, and speaking with lawmakers about racial injustice — is sick of having to answer basic questions of what these protests are all about.

Rodney McLeod, Malcolm Jenkins, and Chris Long stand during the national anthem at an October 2017 game. No member of the team kneeled in protest during the 2017 season. Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images.

With poster board and a marker, Jenkins got his message out, focusing on the issues.

"More than 60% of people in prison are people of color," read one of his signs. "Nearly 200,000 juveniles enter the adult criminal system each year, most for non-violent crimes. #StopSchoolPipelineToPrison," read another.

Image from Malcolm Jenkins/Twitter.

On other cards, he played up the off-field work he, his teammates, and friends do to support their causes: the million dollars Kaepernick has given to charity, Chris Long's massive donation to education, and Ben Watson's and Demario Davis' work for voting rights with Louisiana House Bill 265.

Image from Malcolm Jenkins/Twitter.

There's a lot of injustice in the world, and Jenkins is using his platform to try to help. His attitude should be one to emulate, not scorn.

The day of the scheduled White House visit, Jenkins outlined some of his frustrations with the media's tendency to frame NFL players as "anti-America, anti-flag and anti-military."

"It takes empathy and time to listen to others' experiences that may be different than your own,"he wrote. "It takes courage to stand up for the TRUTH even if it's not a popular one."

He's putting in the work to try to help people who don't have it so easy. He's using his voice (or, in this case, his marker) to lift up the concerns of people society often ignores. He's doing the work we'd all be proud to see our family, neighbors, and elected officials doing.

So why is Jenkins being slammed as ungrateful and spoiled?

Maybe he's right: People aren't listening. It's time they started. We could all learn a lot from his example.

Joy

'90s kid shares the 10 lies that everyone's parent told them

"Don't swallow that gum. If you do, it'll take 7 years to come out."

via 90sKid4lyfe/TikTok (used with permission)

90sKidforLife shares 10 lies everyone's parents told in the era.


Children believe everything their parents tell them. So when parents lie to prevent their kids to stop them from doing something dumb, the mistruth can take on a life of its own. The lie can get passed on from generation to generation until it becomes a zombie lie that has a life of its own.

Justin, known as 90sKid4Lyfe on TikTok and Instagram, put together a list of 10 lies that parents told their kids in the ‘90s, and the Gen X kids in the comments thought it was spot on.

“Why was I told EVERY ONE of these?” Brittany, the most popular commenter, wrote. “I heard all of these plus the classic ‘If you keep making that face, it will get stuck like that,’” Amanda added. After just four days of being posted, it has already been seen 250,000 times.

Parents were always lying #90s #90skids #parenting

@90skid4lyfe

Parents were always lying #90s #90skids #parenting

Here are Justin’s 10 lies '90s parents told their kids:

1. "You can't drink coffee. It'll stunt your growth."

2. "If you pee in the pool, it's gonna turn blue."

3. "Chocolate milk comes from brown cows."

4. "If you eat those watermelon seeds, you'll grow a watermelon in your stomach."

5. "Don't swallow that gum. If you do, it'll take 7 years to come out."

6. "I told you we can't drive with the interior light on. ... It's illegal."

7. "Sitting that close to the TV is going to ruin your vision."

8. "If you keep cracking your knuckles, you're gonna get arthritis."

8. "You just ate, you gotta wait 30 minutes before you can swim."

10. "If you get a tattoo, you won't find a job."


This article originally appeared on 4.26.24

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Joy

Couple astonished after finding 57-year-old lost wedding footage through Facebook

What an incredible coincidence.

via Canva

An 8 mm film reel.

Aileen and Bill Turnbull, 77, were married in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1967 and filmed leaving the church on 8mm film equipment borrowed from one of Bill’s coworkers. After the footage was developed, the couple watched it on a borrowed projector. When they returned the projector, they forgot to remove the film from the reel and it wound up in storage at the coworker’s place. The couple looked for the footage over the years, and it never turned up. They assumed it got mixed up with some of their other belongings.

In 1981, the Turnbulls moved to Brisbane, Australia.

Decades later, Terry Cheyne of Aberdeen was told by his uncle that he needed to come by and pick up his reels of 8mm military footage taken in the ‘70s that he had stored at his place. “When I left the Navy, my uncle told me he was downsizing, so I went to rescue my films and just threw them in a cupboard for years and years,” he told Claire and Pete on the Original 106 Breakfast Show.

Years later, Terry had his 8mm reels transferred to DVD and was puzzled to find that among the converted film was wedding footage of a couple he didn’t know. “Everyone had passed away and I’m the oldest in the family, so I had nobody to ask who it was,” he told the Original 106 Breakfast Show.

After retiring last year, he decided to try to find out who the couple was, so he posted a screenshot of the footage on Facebook. Six months later, it was reposted to a Facebook page for people from Mastrick, Scotland.



Five minutes after joining the Facebook page, Aileen, who grew up in Mastrick, saw the photo of herself and her husband. “I was absolutely amazed, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “If I hadn’t done it, there’s no way I would have seen the photograph Terry put in.”

The couple later realized that Terry's uncle had lent them the projector to watch their wedding footage all those years ago. The footage got mixed up with Terry’s old 8mm film and transferred alongside the old Navy footage. Terry sent the couple a link so they could watch the long-lost footage.



"It just seems strange for me to see my mother and my father, not just in a photograph but there actually moving and walking," Aileen told BBC Scotland. “And my husband, he saw his grandmother and his grandfather, who was 100 when he died. I watched it again today, I could still recognize everybody. To look back and see these people was just absolutely amazing—I still can't believe it really.”

The story of the Turnbull’s wedding footage shows how much technology has changed in the past 57 years. In 1967, the average person couldn’t get ahold of a VHS camera and there were no smartphones or digital cameras to capture video. So, people used 8mm film stock, most of which was silent. To watch the footage, you had to use a projector and the film was fragile. It could quickly burn up if left too long in front of the projector lamp and was easy to snap and pull apart.

Terry hopes to meet the couple one day if they return to Aberdeen on vacation. "I've just been glad to help Aileen and Bill," Terry told the BBC. "They are delighted 57 years later. It's a very happy ending."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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Family

Mom took heat for cleaning her teen's bedroom. Her response was a lesson in grace.

She won the #CleanTok controversy.

@organizedchaos4/TikTok

"It costs you nothing, and it creates this ripple effect of kindness."

The corner of the internet devoted to grime and muck being scrubbed away to oh-so satisfying perfection, otherwise known as #CleanTok, is mostly wholesome, cathartic fun. But every once in a while, controversy comes in.

For a mom named Audrey (who clearly has a passion for cleaning hacks, given her TikTok handle of @organizedchaos4), that moment came after she filmed herself doing a deep clean on her 12-year-old daughter’s room. Several people chimed in to accuse her of spoiling her kid, essentially.

Granted, Audrey admitted that she had posted the video “hoping that the trolls would get those thumbs a-movin’.” So when they did indeed come after her, she was ready.

“I surprised my daughter by cleaning her room for her. She's been getting herself up for 6 a.m. practices, she gets herself to school, she's out of the house before the rest of us have even woken up,” Audrey says in the clip.

“Keep in mind she's 12. In return for all that she's been doing, I thought it would be a nice treat if I just did a quick speed clean of her room. It was no big deal.”

Audrey goes on to say that the point of her follow-up video was to reiterate the importance of “extending grace.”


@organizedchaos4 When we throw empathy out the window, we throw grace out the window. If you saw the video and your first reaction was to say, “why isn’t she doing it herself?” Ask yourself, “have I EVER left a room messy because I was overwhelmed, tired, busy?” If so, then you are in no position to judge a child for the same thing. #grace #kindness #help #parenting #cleaning #kids #mom ♬ original sound - Organized Chaos | Audrey


That's what I did for my daughter. She had fallen behind on her room and I helped her.,” she says. “It costs you nothing, and it creates this ripple effect of kindness. We all have setbacks, we all have failures, we all make mistakes and if you say you don't you're lying. By extending grace we are spreading kindness, we are spreading compassion. If you can't extend grace to your own children then there's no way you're going to extend it to anyone else in the world and that's a scary world to live in.”

Audrey then argues that being kind to others often makes it “easier” to be kind to ourselves, which is “vital for our mental health.”

She then concludes, “so if you watched the video yesterday or you're watching this one today and you're thinking negative thoughts, ask yourself, ‘Am I quick to judge, be resentful, be negative or am I quick to extend grace or ask yourself have I ever stumbled and wish grace had been extended to me?’”

Down in the comments, we see that Audreynis certainly not alone in her thinking.

“Kindness costs nothing and provides everything,” one person wrote.

“This will only inspire your daughter to keep working hard and give back when she has a chance to, and know she can rely on you when she struggles,” added another.

Several other moms even chimed in about doing something similar for their kids.

“Exactly I did the same thing for my 23-year-old daughter who works full-time and is a full-time college student. She’s 100% independent. I just want to take some off stress off her plate,” one mom shared

Another said, “I do this for my daughter still, and it's her house.”

As with all things in parenting, balance is key. Of course we don’t want to instill laziness, but at the same time, kids can’t be expected to overachieve in all areas, at all times. Adults can’t even manage this without a little help. Sounds like this is truly a case of a good kid acting as responsibly as humanly possible, and a mom just wanting to help out where she can, all why'll teaching her the world can be a safe place. Hard to see anything wrong with that.

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Therapist strikes a chord by explaining why we worry about people being mad at us

Her "truth bomb" is setting people free.

Photo credit: Canva

This makes so much sense.

Millennials and their deeply embedded, multifaceted, personality-defining anxiety have become prime fodder for making fun of online by both older and younger generations (seriously though, why must we be such easy targets?! We’re the nice ones!).

One prime example of this is the constant fear millennials have over someone being angry or upset with them. Yeesh, even writing this sends shivers down my aging spine.

Luckily, for the very few of us that aren’t currently going to therapy—or already working through too many other issues—there’s a now viral TikTok explaining why we are the way we are.

Getting right to the point, therapist Maggie Nick explains:

“Why are you so f-ing terrified of making someone mad? Why do you say, ‘Are you mad at me?’ all the time?’ I’ll tell you—it’s a truth bomb, so hold my hand while I tell you this: It’s because nobody’s ever been mad at you, and still made you feel like they love you at the same time.”

When you've had a moment to collect yourself, read on.


@maggiewithperspectacles This is Relational Shame Trauma in action 💛 And healing our Inner Child is about comforting the parts of us who’ve never experienced someone being mad at us + still loving us 💛 Follow me for more ✨Inner Child Rehab✨ #innerchildrehab #innerchildhealing #maggiewithperspectacles ♬ original sound - Maggie Nick, LCSW


Nick then breaks down the common ways parents of bygone generations reacted when they were upset with children, and how those reactions are deeply connected with our fear response to upsetting someone now as adults.

“When our parents got mad, they made us feel like they didn’t love us — with their words, with their actions,” she says. “Your experience of people being mad at you is that they give you silent treatment. They withdraw and withhold love, attention, affections, a willingness to care for you when they’re mad at you. It’s our parents’ thing. ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed,’ like disappointment isn’t a f-ing shame grenade.”

There are, of course, even harsher phrases many parents have used. And one particularly deep cutting one that Nick notes is “I love you, but I don’t like you right now.”

“When we are an attachment figure to a child and we drop something like that on their developing brain, they’re not going to be able to critically think and see the nuance there. They’re going to hear, ‘You don’t love me.’ And when we’re mad and say that, you really don’t love me,” she points out.

Boy, does that make sense. When you’re a kid, not being liked by your parent is devastating, even if they begrudgingly add the disclaimer of “I love you” at the beginning. Add to that being able to detect an intensely negative energy coming from a parent, and it’s a recipe for shame.

Bottom line that Nick concludes with:

“Your lived experience with anger is that it doesn’t go well for you. That person loves you one minute, and then when they get mad, they don’t give a sh*t about you. You have no value or worth to them. They not only don’t love you, they’re disgusted by you… that’s been your experience with anger. So of course you’re terrified to make people mad.”

Holy moly. This certainly gave viewers an aha-moment.

“Oh wow!! Thai explains a lot!!! No one has ever explained this to me. Over 40 and just learned something new,” one person wrote.

“Why do all of these hit me so hard in such a healing/revelatory way? Wow. Thank you. I needed to hear this,” added another.

Another simply said, “My childhood explained.”

What’s really great about this is not only that we now have a working knowledge on why anger can be so triggering, we are reminded of the importance of using non-violent communication when it’s us who are angry—especially at kids. Just another way to heal and break the cycle.

Nick has even more eye-opening video where that came from, addressing other issues like equating needing a rest with laziness, people pleasing, earning love through success, even how to end conversations (hint: it’s surprisingly easy). You can find all these, and more, by checking her out on TikTok.

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Planet

Remember when 'Cosmos' host Carl Sagan debunked flat Earthers with a piece of cardboard?

The science doesn't lie.

via YouTube

Over the past few years, there has been a growing number of people who believe the Earth is flat. A recent YouGov survey of more than 8,000 Americans found that as many as one in six are "not entirely certain the world is round."

Maybe there wouldn't be so much scientific illiteracy in this world if we still had Carl Sagan around.

Sagan hosted the original version of TV's "Cosmos" in 1980. It would be revived in 2014 with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson at the helm.

In the first episode of "Cosmos," Sagan easily proved the Earth was a sphere using a piece of cardboard, some sticks, and the work of an ancient Libyan-Greek scholar, Eratosthenes.

Carl Sagan explains how Eratostenes knows the earth is curvewww.youtube.com

"How could it be, that at the same moment, a stick in Syene would cast no shadow and a stick in Alexandria, 800 km to the north, would cast a very definite shadow? Sagan asked.

"The only answer was that the surface of the Earth is curved," he added. "Not only that but the greater the curvature, the bigger the difference in the length of the shadows."

Considering the distance between the two cities and the lengths of the shadows they produced, Eratosthenes was able to determine that the Earth had a seven-degree curve. He used that calculation to speculate the Earth was 25,000 miles in circumference.

These days we know that the earth is 24,860 in circumference, so Eratosthenes was 140 miles off, not bad for over 2,000 years ago.


This article originally appeared on 7.22.20

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