All Posts Tagged as 'Environment'

Actress and 'Defund the police' activist Alyssa Milano was quick to call cops when she believed an armed gunman was on her Bell Canyon property on Sunday morning.

The call ignited a response that included seven Ventura County Sheriffs' vehicles, one K-9 unit, a police helicopter and one Los Angeles Fire Department team that sat down the street on standby.

In July, the left leaning activist Alyssa tweeted out to her 3.7 million followers a link, urging them to sign the 'People's Budget L.A.' that demands a 90 percent reduction in police funding.

One neighbor says, 'She can tweet those things because at the end of the day she lives behind gates in a gated community. She knows the police will come to save her. But what about all those people who don't have that luxury and live in unsafe neighborhoods? She obviously doesn't care.

'She uses her platform in hypocritical ways. Why not send your husband into the yard to find out what is actually going on before you call the police? I would guesstimate the response today from law enforcement cost tax payers thousands of dollars.'

Kristie Higgs, 44, had been employed at Farmor’s School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, for seven years, but was sacked for gross misconduct in 2018 over Facebook rants about LGBT+ inclusive education.

In one post, sharing a petition from anti-LGBT+ lobbying group CitizenGo, Higgs accused schools of “BRAINWASHING OUR CHILDREN” [sic] through inclusive relationships education, claiming: “[This] means, for example, that children will be taught that all relationships are equally valid and ‘normal’, so that same-sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and that gender is a matter of choice, not biology, so that it’s up to them what sex they are.”

Higgs described inclusive education as a “vicious form of totalitarianism”, adding: “Please sign this petition, they have already started to brainwash our innocent wonderfully created children and it’s happening in our local primary school now.”

But this week, Higgs announced that she would be taking legal action against Farmor’s School, claiming that she was subjected to discrimination and harassment on the grounds of her religious beliefs.

People have scrutinized Sandy’s leadership style in the past. Playing favorites to some, micro-managing others, but now Sandy might have crossed the line. And if you thought she had already crossed the line, wait for it. She erased that line, drew three more lines, and crossed those too. In a now-public Cameo for a fan, Sandy seemingly outed Malia as a lesbian. As far as I know, Malia does not identify as gay or bisexual. But that isn’t our business, RIGHT SANDY?

The video clip shows Sandy in what appears to be a very animated mood. She was joking about the Cameo recipient’s wife and then, with no context of the subject changing, Sandy says, “Malia… I think she’s secretly gay, to be honest. That’s my opinion. Everybody in production thinks that.” Honey, are you okay? Is this an inside joke? Is Malia in on this joke? Or did this woman just make an extremely stupid error because she thought it was humorous? Oh, but it was nice of Sandy to drag Bravo production to the bottom with her.

Dear How to Do It,

I’m a 36-year-old single straight woman, and I really didn’t think this was going to be an issue until later in life. I’m a very sexual person (just reading about sex in your column is enough to turn me on) and I’d like to get married one day, but for the past few years, I haven’t even been able to manage halfway decent sex, much less great sex or a relationship. The problem I keep experiencing in the dating world is the same: men with all kinds of erection issues.

The most recent guy could get hard but would lose it after a few thrusts, saying sex doesn’t do it for him these days (he preferred mutual masturbation or blow jobs). Guy No. 2 was good in bed but refused any touching outside of that 20 minutes. Guy No. 3 required 20 minutes of me going down on his flaccid penis before possibly getting hard enough to have intercourse for three minutes (most of the time, he wouldn’t get hard at all). Guy No. 4 hadn’t had sex in years so he’d either come in 30 seconds or he’d stick it in and barely move so he could last five minutes (I could have worked with him sexually, but we broke up for other reasons). Guy No. 5 completely ignored his problem, continuing to thrust even after I told him he was soft (I suspect he had a porn addiction).

The list goes on. I’ve barely had any good sex in the past six years. I don’t know what to do. These guys are all my age or younger. I try to be patient and understanding, asking if there’s something they’d like me to do or offering up a menu of things they might like, but most just shrug awkwardly and avoid talking about it. None of them sound like they’ve made any effort to get help. I get that it can be embarrassing and men might feel ashamed, but these guys keep cropping up in my dating pool. I can orgasm on my own, but I crave and miss sex, and I know I wouldn’t be happy in a relationship without it. So I’m stuck in a lonely, sexually frustrated land and I can’t get out. Any suggestions?

—Elusive Wood

Spooky season is almost upon us -- and this year it will be a little bit spookier.

The night sky on Halloween will be illuminated by a blue moon, the second full moon in a month. The relatively rare occurrence happens once every two and a half years on average, according to NASA's National Space Science Data Center.
Every month has a full moon, but because the lunar cycle and the calendar year aren't perfectly synched, about every three years we wind up with two in the same calendar month.

On top of the ongoing threat of the coronavirus pandemic, which is limiting the ways families and professionals can live, work and take care of each other, many people are now contending with environmental threats like wildfires and hurricanes. And that’s with everything else going on in 2020.

The understandable physical stress all this causes makes doing work, at times, impossible. Lara Hogan is a management coach based in Portland, Oregon, which in the second week of September recorded the worst air quality in the world among major cities as fires raged nearby. Towards the end of that week, Hogan was feeling lightheaded, experiencing a “weird cough,” and could not focus on her job, she said.

“It was much harder to do that work, like thinking, speaking, answering questions, normal stuff,” Hogan said. She asked herself, “Can I do a good job for the people I’m trying to support?”

The Covai Trans Kitchen opened in the Coimbatore district when Sangeetha, president of the Transgender Association of Coimbatore, noticed the impact of the pandemic on the area’s already struggling trans community.

To help tackle joblessness due to COVID-19, a problem that has hit the trans community especially hard, the 32-seater restaurant has a fully trans staff.

Sangeetha told Indian Express: “Catering is our primary business. But due to Covid-19, many of the restaurants where our community members were working had been closed. They were jobless.

“So, we thought we should open a small kitchen that would beneficial to everyone.

Dear Prudence,

I come from a state where people are generally kind and not very confrontational. I’ve also lived in cities where people are far more gruff and are very boisterous when they think someone is trying to take advantage of them. Because of this, I’ve developed a much thicker skin than most people back home. I’ve been confronting people not wearing their masks correctly in stores (masks are mandatory in my city). It stresses me out so much and has me wondering if I’m being a “Karen.” I ask to speak to managers and write strongly worded letters somewhat frequently. It got to the point recently where I realized I act like the world owes me. I’ve never yelled at a manager over store policy, but I’ve always tried to “get stuff” when things haven’t gone my way. I don’t want to be like this, but I can’t shake the very negative feelings I’ve developed when I feel like I’ve been taken advantage of. I saw so many other people letting people know when they made the smallest mistake. Sometimes people seemed genuinely sorry for what they did or were a bit oblivious. Sometimes they got really hostile. Should I always be trying to make sure that people correct their mistakes, or should I let small things go? Is it a Karen move to always ask people to correct their mistakes?

—Always Disgusted in Tunbridge Wells

A Toronto-area mom received an anonymous note accusing her of making her neighbourhood “ghetto” because she had a mural painted on her garage door.

Earlier this week, Sapna Shah, who lives in South Etobicoke, said on Facebook she received a “nasty message” in response to the mural, which shows rolling golden hills and some constellations.

Shah posted the note, which said (in all caps), “You just devalued all of the homes in this area with that hideous graffiti at the front of your house. It has made the entire neighbourhood look like a low income ghetto.”

“Every visitor we have will now have to drive by that shit on the way to us like they’re driving through the hood,” the note said.

It’s a lesson in reading, writing and reefer.

Florida moms and dads have been spotted smoking weed, drinking and walking around half-naked in the background of their kids’ online classes, frustrated teachers said at a school board meeting.

“Parents, please make sure that you have on proper clothing when you are walking behind your child’s computer because we’ve seen them in their drawers, their bras, and everything else,” Boca Raton Elementary teacher Edith Pride vented Wednesday, according to KATV.

In BuzzFeed News’ first story on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, two anonymous former employees recalled their roles being eliminated after they had taken medical and bereavement leaves. Employees at multiple Telepictures shows tell THR they feared asking their bosses to take a sick day — and rarely did. "I was always told by [my boss], 'Never take a sick day, even if you’re sick,' " one former Ellen employee from the 2010s says. "I saw other people literally vomit in the bathroom because they were so sick, but they feared for their jobs." Two former TMZ employees from the 2010s recall supervisors frowning upon staffers’ leaving the office for doctors’ appointments on weekdays. The same was true at The Rosie O’Donnell Show, one former crewmember recalls, saying that taking a sick day was "tantamount to getting let go." A representative of WarnerMedia says that "all employees get sick time" and that Ellen staffers have been reminded of the leave policy.

The disruption to schools caused by the coronavirus pandemic constitutes a “global education emergency” that threatens to derail the education of at least 24 million students projected to drop out of school as a result, said Henrietta Fore, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund.

“At the height of Covid-19,” 192 countries shuttered schools, leaving 1.6 billion students without in-person learning, Fore said on a press call hosted by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. She added that now, more than 870 million students, “or half the world’s student population in 51 countries,” are still unable to return to school.

“The longer children remain out of school, the less likely they are to return,” she said. “That’s why we are urging governments to prioritize reopening schools when restrictions are lifted.”

She added that beyond education, schools around the world provide many students with a source of nutrition and immunizations.

“At least 24 million children are projected to drop out of school due to Covid-19,” she said.

A Massachusetts man was woken up by a bear nudging his foot after falling asleep in his backyard.

Even in a community outwardly campaigning for inclusion and acceptance, exclusion and judgement still exist on a personal level. Now, Bright Light Bright Light is shedding a light on his experience with that phenomenon within the LGBTQ community.

“Feeling like I belonged within the gay community I think has been a bit of a struggle," he said. "The LGBTQ+ community is such a vast umbrella; everyone is so different and trying to work out where you belong within that is hard. It kind of presumes that everybody queer gets on with each other, which they don’t, and that everyone is alike, which they’re not.”

Thomas also said that he wasn't considered "body-appropriate" to some in the community, which made him constantly feel like he was an outsider within a space built for him. “It doesn’t matter because those people don’t matter," he explained. "But I found that a huge struggle -- feeling invisible or not welcome in queer spaces -- even more heart-breaking than not being welcome in heterosexual spaces, because these spaces are there for everybody that needs them.”