upworthy

'Is there no line you won't cross?' Check out this sportscaster's epic rant.

That was intense.

UPDATE 4/22/15: the NFL announced that Hardy will be suspended for the first 10 games of the season.

The NFL found that Hardy had used physical force against his ex-girlfriend on at least four separate occasions. Hardy is expected to appeal the suspension.

Here's what sportscaster Dale Hansen had to say a few months ago before the NFL took action:

Dale Hansen is a Dallas sportscaster known for speaking his mind and saying awesome things.

In the past, he's taken a stand against racism and homophobia in the sports world. True to form, he recently took on another monster topic: domestic violence in professional football.

His latest "unplugged" rant took on his hometown team, the Dallas Cowboys, for signing a player accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend.

The player's name is Greg Hardy, and he's one of the best players in all of football. On the field, he's been known to do stuff like this:

(He's the guy in the dark jersey making the tackle.)

Hansen took the Cowboys to task for signing Hardy, using the situation to highlight the team's history of providing a home to players with questionable pasts.

(Running back Joseph Randle was arrested on drug charges in February 2015, former wide receiver Sam Hurd was sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug trafficking in 2013, and defensive tackle Josh Brent was charged with intoxication manslaughter in 2012.)

(Running back Joseph Randle also was arrested for theft in 2014.)

Last year, audio from a 911 call about Hardy and ex-girlfriend Nicole Holder was released to the public.

On the 911 call, Hardy told the operator that Holder hit him with a shoe. In her request for a restraining order, Holder described the encounter like this:

(Trigger warning: description of domestic abuse)

"Hardy picked me up and threw me into the tile tub area in his bathroom. I have bruises from head to toe, including my head, neck, back, shoulders, arms, legs, elbow and feet. Hardy pulled me from the tub by my hair, screaming at me that he was going to kill me, break my arms and other threats that I completely believe. He drug me across the bathroom and out into the bedroom. Hardy choked me with both hands around my throat while I was lying on the floor. Hardy picked me up over his head and threw me onto a couch covered in assault rifles and/or shotguns. I landed on those weapons."

Those are some brutal accusations.

Charges against Hardy were dropped after Holder chose not to cooperate with prosecutors, as is often the case because victims would rather not make a scene and are pressured into letting the situation be handled quietly.


The whole ordeal came just as the NFL was recovering from the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal.

The NFL has taken steps to improve their domestic violence problem. They've put a huge emphasis on the idea that teams and players will stand silently "no more."

It's hypocritical of teams to say they care about football's domestic violence problem and then go around signing accused abusers to multi-million dollar contracts.

Dale Hansen wasn't having it, and in calling them out, he said what so many of us in the audience have been thinking. Teams need to put their money where their mouth is and distance themselves from off-field abusers.


Until then, there will always be the amazing Dale Hansen.

Badge
Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund
WPHF
Identity

How one woman is breaking barriers to amplify women's voices in peace building across Southern Africa

True

Vimbai Kapurura is the Executive Director of Women Unlimited, a grassroots women’s rights organization working to promote the rights and leadership of women, girls, and marginalized groups in Eswatini and southern Africa. With support from the Rapid Response Window of the United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), she’s advocating to have more female voices in national peace building spaces to ensure women’s rights and demands are included.

“Women are peacebuilders. We are peacemakers. We have a critical role to play in crisis situations and we are very much better placed to play a peacebuilding role in any country.”

In the face of the growing political turmoil in Eswatini, where calls for the establishment of a national dialogue remain seemingly unanswered, Vimbai and her organization are stepping up, raising their voice and bringing forward innovative solutions to promote peace and stability across the country. WPHF is supporting them to amplify women’s voices and mainstream gender perspectives into relevant decision-making mechanisms.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

“We are the cradle of life. We are changemakers, movers, shakers of any area of development. We want to be engaged and involved in any area of the value chain, the complete value chain. We want to be there.”

As part of its project with WPHF, Women Unlimited – with technical support from Cordaid, one of the INGO partners of the RRW – has trained several local women-led civil society organizations in conflict resolution, conflict prevention and mediation processes, as well as carried out educational and awareness raising campaigns on the value of women’s participation in peace processes, targeting both women and men across the country.

“WPHF has really helped us a lot. Not only has the funding allowed us to engage more women in peacebuilding processes, but it’s also supported us to underscore the need for female leadership in these spaces, where we’re often left aside.”

In Eswatini, where women and girls face deep-rooted patriarchy from a very young age, undermining their confidence, autonomy and leadership, Vimbai has become an outspoken advocate for women’s equal representation in decision-making roles at all levels, from community-level and regional committees to national and global peace building spaces.

“If you gather many women toward on common goal, you are guaranteed that that goal is going to be achieved. Let us come together and be the change we want to see. No one will do it for us. But together, we can.”

A tireless leader and activist who’s influenced the lives of many women and girls in Eswatini, Vimbai is a firm believer in women’s capacity, tenacity, and adaptability to lead and drive transformative change in their communities. When she thinks about peace, she dreams about women coming together, taking up space, and walking side by side for a more peaceful and gender-equal world in which harmful stereotypes and cultural practices are left behind.

Follow, engage, and amplify the work of Vimbai's organization!

Joy

Man uses the shoe aisle to explain a troubling economic trend in middle-class American life

"The thing is, most people don’t want longevity anymore. They want new."

via Canva/Photos

Remember things being built to last?

It’s been proven that over the past few years, Americans have been dealing with shrinkflation, where food companies reduce the sizes of their products while the price remains the same at the grocery store. You see this in fast food restaurants when you pick up a burger and feel like your hand has grown a few inches, and at the supermarket when you buy a box of cookies, it weighs less than it did a few weeks ago. Companies use this strategy when they think you’ll be less likely to notice a dip in quantity than a hike in the price.

Another big trend in retail is fast fashion. People are buying cheaper garments made from low-quality materials. These products last about as long as the trend, so people throw them away and buy the next hot thing. This can be a real problem because fast fashion harms the environment and leads to exploitative labor practices.

A TikToker named Tom (@SideMoneyTom), popular for making videos about consumer products, recently went viral for a video where he called out shoe manufacturers for dropping their quality while keeping prices high. “So many of you guys want to shoot the messenger, but look, it's not my fault shoes are made out of Styrofoam and oil now,” Tom says in a TikTok with over 528,000 views. “It's literally every shoe you look at now. It's not even just the cheap ones. I can find hundred dollar plus pairs of shoes all day long with glue squeezing out of their Styrofoam cracks.”

@sidemoneytom

Replying to @Oscar Magaña shoes are done #fyp #shoes #foryou

Tom notes that recently, shoes have been made with foam soles instead of rubber. Both have pros and cons. Foam is a little more comfortable, but rubber lasts a lot longer. Rubber shoes keep shape and support over time and are much more durable. Conversely, foam shoes compress over time, losing their support and comfort. When companies sell cheaper shoes that wear out more quickly, they make much more money because you must keep replacing them.

In the video, Tom adds that many companies that used to have shoes made with rubber heels, such as Carhartt and Timberland, have switched to foam. This is an interesting choice for brands that pride themselves on selling durable products.

Cora Harrington, a writer and lingerie expert, says that companies aren't entirely to blame. Americans don’t want to pay higher prices. “People don’t exactly want to pay more for all that stuff,” Harrington told Vox. "So what has to happen if everything is more expensive and the customers still want to pay the same price, something has to be cut and that’s often going to be the quality of the garment.”

“There is an entire generation of consumers at this point that doesn’t actually know what high-quality clothing feels like and looks like,” Harrington continues. “It gets easier, I think, for consumers to just not know any better.”

@sidemoneytom

Replying to @donkles #shoes #fyp #sketchers #nike

Many commenters have noticed the decline in shoe quality and praised Tom for pointing it out. "I am so happy I’m not the only one who is baffled by shoes being made of styrofoam and then being upcharged for them," one commenter wrote. "When shoes started being named some version of 'Air Light Cloud float,' my thought was it was because they went from quality rubber to cheap foam and less materials,” another commenter added.

Tom believes the decline in shoe quality is an example of a more significant trend affecting American consumers' products: quality is decreasing while prices remain the same. “The quality of everything is going to hell, and the prices are going up," Tom concludes his video. "The problem is, so many of us have just become used to it that we keep buying it, and we basically allow them to dumb down the quality of everything. Everything in our lives. These shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. Start thinking about it in your life. What are you gonna allow to be garbage quality?

From Your Site Articles
economics
Badge
O Organics
O Organics
Popular

Dad's heartfelt lunch message shows how simple, everyday acts can change lives

You can make a huge difference by using O Organics.

via Meg Sullivan (used with permission) and Canva/Photos

A volunteer hands out food in a food bank and Meg Sullivan shares her dad's kind gesture.

When we consider people who have had a positive impact on the world, we often think of those who have made grand gestures to improve the lives of others, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Greta Thunberg, or Mahatma Gandhi. Unfortunately, that type of effort is out of reach for the average person.

However, O Organics would like to remind everyone that they can positively impact the world through small, consistent acts of kindness that add up over time. Much like how a small creek can create a valley over the years, we can change lives through small, consistent acts of kindness.

O Organics is dedicated to the well-being of all by nourishing people everywhere with delicious organic foods grown by producers who meet USDA-certified organic farming standards.

Upworthy's Instagram page recently posted a touching example of everyday kindness. Meg Sullivan shared how her father, Tom, peeled oranges for her lunch just about every day from kindergarten through high school. But on the final day of her senior year of high school, he sent his 17-year-old daughter unpeeled oranges with a touching note about how she’d have to start peeling them for herself.



“It’s Time Baby Girl,” he wrote on a wikiHow printout on how to peel an orange with a drawing of himself crying. For the father, this daily ritual was about more than just making lunch; it was about showing that he cared by going the extra mile. “I could have put money on her lunch account,” Tom told Today.com. “But it’s one of those little things I thought was important, that she knows somebody’s taking the time to take care of her.”

The small, daily gesture taught Megan an essential lesson in kindness.

The post reminded people how their fathers’ small acts of kindness meant so much to them. “My dad peeled my oranges until I graduated high school, too. Now, I peel my daughter’s oranges and will for the next 7 plus years,” Katie wrote in the comments. “Love this. My dad peeled mine, too. When I moved out, he gave me an orange peeler gadget,” Mary added.

o organics, albertson's giving backO Organics has a wide array of foods and flavors covering almost everything on your shopping list.via Albertson's

Did you know that every time you go to the supermarket, you can also change the world through small gestures? O Organics not only allows you to feed your family delicious and nutritious organic food, but each purchase also gives back to help people and communities facing food insecurity.

Through contributions from customers like you, O Organics donates up to 28 million meals annually. The company’s contribution is essential when, according to the USDA, 47.4 million Americans live in food-insecure households.

O Organics has a wide array of foods and flavors covering almost everything on your shopping list. “Over the years, we have made organic foods more accessible by expanding O Organics to every aisle across our stores, making it possible for health and budget-conscious families to incorporate organic food into every meal,” Jennifer Saenz, EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer at Albertsons, one of many stores where you can find O Organics products, said in a statement.

O Organics now offers over 1500 items, from dairy products such as eggs and milk to packaged meats and breakfast staples such as cereal bars, granola and oatmeal. You can also enjoy affordable organic produce with O Organics’ fresh salads and fruit.

Everybody wants to make the world a better place. With O Organics, you can feed your family healthy, organic food every time you go to the market while paying it forward by contributing to the company’s efforts to end food insecurity nationwide. That’s a small, daily gesture that can amount to incredible change.

From Your Site Articles
o organics
Joy

Funny music video perfectly parodies aging millennial cringe, wide-brimmed hats and all

Sorry, millennials, you had your time. Here's what you did with it.

via KyleGordonIsGreat/YouTube

Kyle Gordon and friends singing "We Will Never Die."

Every generation has that moment when fashion, music, and attitudes suddenly go out of style and begin to look a bit embarrassing. Baby boomers (1946 to 1964) had to deal with the death of the disco scene and the subsequent years when polyester suits and the Bee Gees were the butt of a joke that neve felt like it would end. (That is, until the Gen X-led disco revival of the mid-’90s.)

Gen Xers (1965 to 1980) had to quietly pack up their flannel shirts and Doc Martens when the grunge era gave way to the nu-metal and the pop resurgence that took over in the late ‘90s. However, everything that was old is new once again, and Gen Z would come to embrace all things grunge. Now, you’ll see as many Nirvana shirts at a high school as you did in 1992.

Sorry, millennials (1981 to 1996), it’s your time in the barrel, and the signature styles and songs you embraced a decade ago are starting to look, as Gen Zers (1997 to 2002) would say, a bit cringey and cheugy. If you haven’t embraced the inevitable yet, this is a warning to please pack up your wide-brimmed hat, take all of the word art off of your walls, and remove “We are Young” by Fun from your Spotify playlist, at least for the next decade or so. Time waits for no one, and sorry, millennials, it’s time to leave your “whoop” in the past.


To put the final nail in the millennial coffin, comedian Kyle Gordon (with the help of Kody Redwing and the Broken Hearst) has taken dead aim at peak cheugy with his song “We Will Never Die” and filmed in Brooklyn in a neighborhood that looks straight out of “Girls.” All that is missing is Lena Dunham. The video takes dead aim at this 2012 Fun anthem “We are Young” and the millenial catchphrases, styles, and attitudes that defined the era.

Warning: You may find the amount of people wearing super skinny jeans with flannel tops or jean jackets disturbing,

- YouTubeyoutu.be

The video is also filled with a list of catchphrases that are beginning to sound a bit passe:

“Yup, we did a thing.”

“Adulting”

“Said no one, ever.”

“Not today, Satan.”

“Ur my spirit animal.”

“Spread kindness like confetti.”

“Free hugs.”


Gordon’s song has all the hallmarks of a 2012 anthem with a big group of people singing “Hoooo-oh-oh-oh-owe-owee-ooh,” in the hook, a mandolin that pops up for no reason, and a plodding rhythm track that sounds like it was lifted straight from Mumford and Sons. Sadly, whoever played that mandolin will probably be out of work for some time, unless he moves to Nashville, because, just like the banjo, the instrument is no longer needed in pop music.

It has to be sad for some millennials to see their glory days have now become the subject of satire. But, if his story has shown us anything, it’s that once generation trends go out of style and are mocked for about 15 years, some high schoolers will find them nostalgic and they will come back in style again. So, after Gen Z is done mocking millennials for being chuegy, a Generation Alpha (2010 to 2024) kid will eventually see a wide-brimmed hat and a piece of artwork with something cheeky written in chevron font at a thrift store and say, “Hey! That looks cool.” Then, they will throw some LMFAO on Spotify and feel pretty cool, just like their mom did in 2011.

From Your Site Articles
millennials
Climate Change

Doctor warns that having this in your bathroom is a huge red flag for your health

People mistake it for mold.

via Canva/Photos

A woman feeling sick in her bathroom.

It’s easy to tell if mold is growing in your bathroom: you notice the black stuff growing on the caulk that lines your bathtub or near the bottom of the hot and cold water handles on your sink. But have you ever seen a ring of pink slime accumulating around your sink drain or on the bottom of your shower curtain? Most people think it’s mold, but it’s actually something worse.

U.K.-based surgeon Dr. Karan Rajan explained the pink slime phenomenon in a TikTok video that’s received over 640,000 views. “You've seen this pink slime lurking in your bathroom, it's not mold, it's bacteria,” Dr. Rajan says. “Specifically one called Serratia marcescens. And it vomits hot pink all over your bathroom.”

Yes, that’s not soap that has turned a bubble-gum color on the bottom of your shower curtain or Pepto Bismol that didn’t go down the drain. It’s bacteria vomit.

@dr.karanr

Pink slime

The interesting thing about this bacteria is that the products you use to clean your body in the shower or wash your hands in the sink are what it loves to eat. Pink slime feeds on fat and mineral deposits from soap scum and shampoo.

If you’ve found some pink slime in your home before, you know it’s much grosser than you originally thought. But is it dangerous? “[To] the average person, it's pretty harmless, even if you come into contact with it, but you still wanna avoid getting in your eyes or open wounds,” Dr. Raja warns. “However, it can cause gut, urine, or chest infections in those who are immunocompromised.”

"OMG this reappears in our tub every few weeks. I was wondering what it was!?" someone wrote in the comments on the TikTok post. "I always wondered. The pink slime and my bleach bottle are in a constant battle," another added.

The bigger problem of pink slime is that it may be a symptom of a more significant issue. “If your home has enough damp for pink slime to consistently develop, you could actually be growing other things as well, like actual household molds, which could be causing respiratory issues or allergies,” Dr. Rajan says.

serratia marcescensSerratia marcescens up close.via Bjorn S./Wikimedia Commons

How to clean pink slime (Serratia marcescens)

Here is how to clean and sanitize your bathroom of pink slime, thanks to This Old House.

  1. Wear safety glasses, a mask, and gloves
  2. Combine 2 tablespoons of dish soap with one quarter cup of baking soda
  3. Apply the mixture to the bacteria and scrub thoroughly with a nylon brush
  4. Rinse away the loosened bacteria
  5. Spray the affected area with 1:1 warm water and bleach solution
  6. Let sit for ten minutes, then scrub again
  7. Dry with a microfiber towel

How to prevent pink slime from growing in your bathroom

How do you keep pink slime from growing in your home in the first place? The key is to keep your bathroom dry. “The first rule of Pink Slime Club is to keep the bacteria forming in the first place. By curbing its growth, you'll be preventing other dangerous molds from forming,” Dr. Rajan says. “Keep your shower dry and well-ventilated, put on an exhaust fan or open a window after showering to keep humidity levels low, and regularly clean and disinfect your bathroom. It's filthier than you think.”

From Your Site Articles
bathrooms
Joy

Toronto man went on 121 unique runs just to make a stickman dance in his running app

You have to see this.

Images courtesy of Duncan McCabe (@duncan77mccabe)/TikTok

Using the Strava app for animation is next level.

Some people run for exercise. Some people run for fun. Some people do both, but one Toronto runner has taken exercise and fun to the next level in a way only made possible with modern technology and a whole lot of creativity.

Like many runners, Duncan McCabe uses an app to track his runs. Strava is a popular app for this purpose, as it allows you to visually see your routes and keeps a running log of them. McCabe took advantage of both features, going for 121 runs over 10 months and logging over 1,100km (683 miles) to create an animation that is utterly mind-blowing.

Carefully planning out each route as a frame in a stop-motion video, McCabe made a stickman out of his runs and put them all together to make it dance. And not just a little wiggle—the stickman does specific dances, walks, and even flips its hat.

Check this out:

@duncan77mccabe

Strava art animation through the streets of Toronto! This took me 121 runs from January to October 2024. #strava #running #toronto #purplehat #active #run #Canada #motivation #madden25 #ncaa #purple #hat #sofitukker #sofi #tukker


People have been understandably blown away by the animation.

"At first I was like wtf, and then I was WTF. 😳"

"This is one of the coolest, most unique creative things I've seen on the internet!!"

"I hate running, but love a campy craft project. This has motivation potential."

"The level of planning for this is 🤯🫶🏼"

"When he started walking my mind was blown 🤯👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼"

Duncan has shared that the walking was his favorite part of the video to make. "I got goosebumps when I had the idea of him walking down the road," he wrote in a comment. "I just needed to run the 1,100km before I could see the finished product."

He also explained how he got the diagonal lines, which appear to go straight through buildings instead of along possible running routes.

"I had to pause then unpause the route when I got around the corner," he wrote. "Which works, but I don’t get credit for running those KMs. So it may say I ran 9km but some days but it could be closer to 10 or 11."

There was a little editing in the video post-production for the hat flip, as all segments have to connect in Strava and the hat flip visual required there to be empty space between the head and the hat. A miniscule detail in the large scheme of things, so absolutely no shade. Even Strava commented on the video on TikTok: "10/10 Strava art-ing. Kudos!"

So how did McCabe decide to create this kind of video in the first place? He didn't start with the dancing man. He actually started with animals. Here's a video he made in 2023:

@duncan77mccabe

I turned my summer runs into Strava app animations. 🦖🦒🦝🐳🦈 #Toronto #running #strava #run #stravarun #stravaart #summer #dinosaur #raccoon #giraffe #whale #narwhal #shark #foryou #tiktokchallenge #tiktok #funny #fun #tiktokcomedy #comedyvideo #adventure #lol #fitness #workout #healthy #motivation #lifestyle #animals #animalsoftiktok #video


“I love working with video," McCabe told The Guardian. "And over the years I’ve come to appreciate that one of the most powerful and underused tools is the passage of time. And motion is just time unfolding.”

Some people don't believe that he actually did it. Skeptics have tried to explain away his results.

"They say that instead of running four times a week, I flew a drone, lied to my friends and family in the hopes that a novel idea takes off,” he said. “Because that’s oddly more satisfying than accepting I just ran a lot for a long time.”

McCabe doesn't even enjoy running that much, but he does it for the art of it, creatively using the pause and unpause feature to connect different points to create a diagonal line and committing to each route even in terrible weather. “Every second of animation requires one and a half marathons worth of effort,” he told Yahoo Canada. "It’s not a very effective way to make animation, but it’s the one I wanted to do.”

The video and its virality even earned him a spot on The Kelly Clarkson Show, where he said he was looking forward to doing a similar video. "Exactly what? Still working that out, but I'm motivated for whatever it is," he said.

Serious kudos. Can't wait to see what comes next.

You can follow Duncan McCabe on TikTok and Instagram.

From Your Site Articles
joy
Humor

High school teacher gives his students a pop quiz on 90s slang words and it was 'on fleek'

Can these Gen Zers decode what "home skillet" and "phat" mean?

@austinmartinez113/TikTok

This was da bomb. No cap.

Complain all you want about “that’s sus” and “no cap,” but slang from our teen days was just as, as the kids say, cringe. Sure, they may remain joyful little linguistic time capsules of our youth, but do you really think anyone who didn’t grow up with 00s era Alicia Keys and Usher would have the same appreciation for the term “my boo”? No!

This is, after all, how teen slang works. It helps young adults form their own identity, incorporating bits and bobs from the pop culture they consume, the music they listen to, the way they observe the world around them. In short, it’s theirs to own. So no matter how much it works for that generation, others simply will not get it. Or worse, they’ll try to be hip and use it…we all know how that works out.

That said, one high school teacher is offering millennials a chance to once again be on the inside of the joke as he quizzed his perplexed Gen z student on colloquialisms of our youth. In a video posted to TikTok, Austin Martinez offered his class “extra credit” to define words used during his middle school and high school years.”

“We will give you a word of a phrase. We will also use it in a sentence. All you need to do is write a two or three word definition for what you think that means,” he told them.

@austinmartinez113 Do my HS students know slang from the 90s and early 2000s?? Let’s see! #millennial #slang ♬ original sound - Austin Martinez


Get ready to have a long lost (and likely wide brimmed hat wearing) part of your soul to be reawakened once again. Because here are the words:

“Tool”

“Home skillet”

“Deets”

“Phat”

“Swag”

“Da bomb”

“411”

“Talk to the hand”

“Holla”

“Haterade”

“As if”

*Holding hands in the shape of the letter W* -the kids thought this meant “I love you.” Aw.

“Totes”

“Bling”

“Noob”

“All that” -for this Martinez even referenced the movie She’s All That, as well as the TV show All That. And when he began a quote from one of the show’s popular skits, “welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger…” some kids could actually finish the quote! Extra extra credit to them.

“On fleek”

“Boo-yah”

“Sike”

“Scrub” -obviously, Martinez has no choice but to use “I don’t want not scrub, scrub is the guy that can’t get no lovin’ from me,” as his sentence. And again, some kids could sing along! As Martinez wrote in the comments, maybe “we’re not that old!”

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Martinez could easily do a round two with “cool beans,” “sick,” “word,” "Outtie 5000,” just to name a few. Hopefully he will. And hopefully he’ll post his students’ answers so we can have a laugh.

And the funny thing is, some of the words on Martinez’s OG list don’t technically belong to millennials either. “Sike,” or “psyche,” for instance, was definitely used in previous generations to let someone know that they had just been fooled. All this to say—there are bound to be some millennial phrases that stand the test of time. Which, I mean, if ultra low rise jeans can make a comeback, why can’t “home skillet”?

From Your Site Articles
teachers
Trending Stories