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Music savant Kodi Lee gives a completely new version of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' on 'AGT'

Lee gave "America's Got Talent" audiences chills with his haunting cover.

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America's Got Talent/Youtube

Kodi Lee has become an "AGT" fan favorite with his next level skills


Since 2019, Kodi Lee has wowed “America’s Got Talent” audiences with his next-level musical skills. That goes for whether he’s performing touching original works or putting his own personal touch on well-known songs.

For “America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League,” the music savant was guided by his mentor Howie Mandel to cover “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.

It’s hard to imagine a version of this fan-favorite tune you haven’t already heard before, since the song has been covered quite a few times. But once again Lee delivered something epic and completely unique.

Even though judges Mel B and Heidi Klum still prefer Lee’s original songs, all applauded his haunting and emotional piano rendition of the rock-n-roll anthem.

Simon Cowell even said “You use these words ‘Star Quality’ a lot, but you genuinely, Kodi, over the years we’ve got to know you, you’ve just got better as an artist. You’ve never given up, and the Finals just wouldn’t be the same without you in it this year.”

Other viewers applauded Lee for one-of-a-kind performance, agreeing that he did freddie Mercury proud.

One wrote, “‘You can do whatever you want to do in my music, just don't make it boring’ -Freddie. What a magical performance.”

Another added, “Kodi has an amazingly rare talent to be able to sing across different musical genres. He owns them all!!!”

Last but not least, I think this comment sums up the general consensus pretty well: "This version is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. It’s truly a masterpiece. Kodi is an amazing gift to our world. He continues to change the world just by being himself."

Watch below. And enjoy.

This article originally appeared on 2.13.24

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Education

Mom shares how her first grader's homework on the second day of school broke his spirit

"It's breaking their spirit and it robs them of what little fun and family time they have when they come home after a long day of school."

Photo credit: Cassi Nelson/Facebook

How much homework is too much homework?

Debates about homework are nothing new, but the ability of parents to find support for homework woes from thousands of other parents is a fairly recent phenomenon.

A mom named Cassi Nelson shared a post about her first grader's homework and it quickly went viral. Nelson shared that her son had come home from his second day of school with four pages of homework, which she showed him tearfully working on at their kitchen counter.

"He already doesn’t get home from school until 4pm," she wrote. "Then he had to sit still for another hour plus to complete more work. I had to clear out the kitchen so he could focus. His little legs kept bouncing up and down, he was bursting with so much energy just wanting to go play. Then he broke my heart when he looked up at me with his big teary doe eyes and asked…. 'Mommy when you were little did you get distracted a lot too?!' Yes sweet baby, mommy sure did too! I don’t know how ppl expect little children to sit at school all day long and then ALSO come home to sit and do MORE work too…."

Nelson tells Upworthy that she was "shocked" that kindergarteners and first graders have homework, much less the amount they were expected to do. "We didn't have homework like this when we were in these younger grades."

Expert opinion and research is somewhat mixed on the homework front, but there isn't any conclusive evidence that homework is universally beneficial for students and too much homework can actually be harmful. As a standard, the National Education Association (NEA) and the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) support a limit on homework of “10 minutes of homework per grade level."

With that as a guide, a first grader shouldn't have more than 10 minutes of homework on any given school day, but it's not unusual for young kids to have two or three times the recommended limit of homework. That can be stressful for both kids and parents, cutting into valuable family time and limiting kids' time to decompress, play and freely engage in imaginative activity.

As Nelson concluded, "It’s breaking their spirit and it robs them of what little fun and family time they have when they come home after a long day of school."

Most parents and even most teachers in the comments agreed with her that four pages of homework is too much for a first grader, especially on only the second day of school:

"Poor little man. Children below a certain grade should not be given homework! Small children have a hard time sitting still for a long period of time yet alone expected to sit and do hours of homework, for what??? They are SMALL CHILDREN! Let them snack, play, laugh and all the other fun things when they get home. You are only a child once, they don't need that taken away from them. Let them embrace their inner creativity, imagination, recipes, etc."

"This breaks my spirit. Our schools are huge scams. You're exactly right Cassi. Homework is ridiculous. Kids til the age of 10 primarily learn through real life situations and play scenarios."

"I hate that for him! My little one has ADHD and doing homework after sitting in class all day is very stressful to him and makes him hate school. They are in school for 7 hours they shouldn’t have homework. That definitely takes away any kind of family time and that’s why kids never spend time with parents anymore because they have all this homework to do after being gone all day.I feel that if it can’t be done in the 7 hours they have the kids then it should wait until the next school day."

"I don’t make them do homework at home when they are that little. It’s not fair!They are at school allllll day! And it’s already sooooo much for their little bodies and brains! I’ve never had a teacher upset about it either.. and even if I did oh well!"

"That breaks my heart. 4 pages is absolutely ridiculous for young kids. My daughter is going into 2nd grade next month, the 2 years in school it was always 1 page of homework sometimes back and front if it was math. And to read."

"I was in this boat with my son…conversation with the principal and teachers helped dramatically!! It’s too much and we have to advocate for them."

Nelson was blown away by the response to her post, which has been shared on Facebook over 89,000 times. "I NEVER thought me sharing my thoughts openly about how my heart hurt watching my little guy struggle would connect to so many others worldwide going through the same thing," she says.

Many parents shared that excessive homework is one of the reasons they decided to homeschool their children, which Nelson took to heart. The week after sharing her viral homework post, she shared that they had had their first day of homeschooling. It was "A HUGE SUCCESS!!!!" she wrote, with her son getting far more work done in a far shorter amount of time, sitting for classes for just 1 hour and 45 minutes total.

Nelson tells Upworthy she was totally intimidated to try homeschooling. "I seriously thought there was no way," she says. "But I knew I had to set my fear aside and just take the leap for my kids. I told myself I'd figure it out one way or another. And here we are three days in and it's been the easiest and best choice I've ever made."

Homeschooling is not going to the right solution for every family, however, so the question of homework remains an important issue for kids, parents, teachers and schools to work out.

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The 6 discontinued food and drink products that people are demanding come back immediately

Why did they ever go away?

Photo Credit: Goleh|Wikimedia

6 nostalgic products people demand make a come back

There's something from nearly everyone's childhood that simply no longer exist, whether it be a toy, television show or snack. But it seems to be that the snacks are what causes people to feel most upset when that nostalgia kicks in. Maybe it's because as you age you no longer play with toys and aren't very interested in tween shows from the 80s or 90s, those sorts of things are expected to go away.

Foods and snacks on the other hand really crank up the fond memories because they're things you can taste and smell. You remember them with all of your senses. So when someone asked what discontinued food do you still mourn, more than 30k people had something to add to the list. Here are some of the most requested:

1. SoBe Drinks

The "lizard drink" 90s kids just couldn't get enough of. Technically, you can still find the drinks in very few places, they're just extremely difficult to locate and have been since early 2021 according to Mashed. One person wrote in the Reddit thread that Washington state has them in select areas, prompting one person to reply, "please tell me where you've seen it, I live in Western WA and have not seen it in years. I am willing to drive literally hours for a sobe." Apparently grocery stores in Kenmore, Washington carry the 90s drink or you can buy them in bulk from the PepsiCo website supposedly.

2. McDonald's Box Cookies

In a far, far away time in the late 1900s, McDonald's used to carry delicious little boxes of cookies with McDonald's characters on the boxes. They came in similar boxes to old school animal crackers but the formula for those cookies were nothing short of delicious. Then the restaurant giant stopped carrying them after the mid 90s before bringing them back in the 2000s but in a small bag. They're gone again, now everyone has the sads.

"Those McDonaldland cookies were the only thing that got me through my first pregnancy. Just the smell of them would make the morning sickness fade. I miss them," one person shares.


3. Flintstones Push-Ups

Those push-ups were delicious and clearly orange was the superior flavor. Even though the ice cream treat was designed to be contained in the tube, you always wound up sticky with orange juices running down your arm and face. The paper tube was notorious for starting to disintegrate before you were able to get to the bottom. One person admitted that the treat was the one thing she knew would make her feel better while sick, "I was sick last week and my boyfriend asked what he could get me and I blurted out..."push-pops." I had no idea where it came from, but my soul knew. It remembered."

4. Orbitz drink

The drink that looked like a lava lamp with little flavored beads that bursted like boba. Orbitz wasn't around very long and maybe the fact that it did look like a decorative lamp had something to do with it but still people miss the non-carbonated drink. It came onto the market in 1996 and was gone by 1998. Someone suggested with the popularity of boba, Clearly Canadian may be able to pull off a comeback for the nostalgic drink, "Yes! I thought of the "lava lamp drinks". I think these would do better now with the popularity of boba. They were just too far ahead of their time."


Photo credit: Wikimedia

5. Carnation Instant Breakfast Bars

Apparently people have strong feelings about the discontinuation about these bars with more than one person cursing Nestle for the demise of the bar. Someone enthusiastically agrees the bars should've stayed around, "I'm not the only one!!!!!!!!!! Those things were amazing. They tasted good and were actually filling. Whoever decided to stop making those was a moron. They really need to bring those back."

6. Yogos

These delicious balls of childhood memories were apparently a choking hazard but it didn't stop people from eating them. Was it the risk of aspiration that caused the company to pull the plug on the yogurt covered treat? "My kid almost choked to death on one of these back in like 03-04. They were real good tho...," one person shares. According to commenters Costco has a dupe called Yoggies that tastes similarly to Yogos.


Y’all remember YoGos, or am I the only one?
byu/i_love_travel_ insnacking

Some other popular mentions were Altoids Tangerine Sours, Blue Pepsi, Crystal Pepsi and Fruit Stripe Gum. People are demanding that some of these things return so they can continue their nostalgic journey with the real thing in hand. While there's no plans to petition companies, at least people know they're not alone in their longing for long lost snacks.

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Education

A school assignment asked for 3 benefits of slavery. This kid gave the only good answer.

The school assignment was intended to spark debate and discussion — but isn't that part of the problem?

Trameka Brown-Berry/Facebook

A school assignment asked for 3 "good" reasons for slavery.



It's not uncommon for parents to puzzle over their kids' homework.

Sometimes, it's just been too long since they've done long division for them to be of any help. Or teaching methods have just changed too dramatically since they were in school.

And other times, kids bring home something truly inexplicable.

Trameka Brown-Berry was looking over her 4th-grade son Jerome's homework when her jaw hit the floor.

"Give 3 'good' reasons for slavery and 3 bad reasons," the prompt began.

You read that right. Good reasons ... FOR SLAVERY.

Lest anyone think there's no way a school would actually give an assignment like this, Brown-Berry posted photo proof to Facebook.



In the section reserved for "good reasons," (again, for slavery), Jerome wrote, "I feel there is no good reason for slavery thats why I did not write."

Yep. That about covers it.

The school assignment was intended to spark debate and discussion — but isn't that part of the problem?

The assignment was real. In the year 2018. Unbelievable.

The shockingly offensive assignment deserved to be thrown in the trash. But young Jerome dutifully filled it out anyway.

His response was pretty much perfect.

We're a country founded on freedom of speech and debating ideas, which often leads us into situations where "both sides" are represented. But it can only go so far.

There's no meaningful dialogue to be had about the perceived merits of stripping human beings of their basic living rights. No one is required to make an effort to "understand the other side," when the other side is bigoted and hateful.

In a follow-up post, Brown-Berry writes that the school has since apologized for the assignment and committed to offering better diversity and sensitivity training for its teachers.

But what's done is done, and the incident illuminates the remarkable racial inequalities that still exist in our country. After all, Brown-Berry told the Chicago Tribune, "You wouldn't ask someone to list three good reasons for rape or three good reasons for the Holocaust."

At the very end of the assignment, Jerome brought it home with a bang: "I am proud to be black because we are strong and brave ... "

Good for Jerome for shutting down the thoughtless assignment with strength and amazing eloquence.


This article originally appeared on 01.12.18

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Gen Xers share the 13 times 'extremely wrong' Gen Zers tried to lecture them about history

Whatever, you weren't even alive for 9/11.

via LAPD/Wikimedia Commons, Reagan White House Photographs/Wikimedia Commons and rds323/Wikimedia Commons

Ronald Regan, the Twin Towers and OJ Simpson.

A funny thing happens when you get older: you have to listen to younger people recall historical moments that you lived through, but they didn’t. It gets worse when some of these young whipper-snappers think they know more about the event than those alive when it happened.

Gen Xers, those born approximately between 1965 and 1980, lived through many pivotal moments in history, including the end of the Vietnam War, the Challenger disaster, the War on Terror, the AIDS epidemic, the contested 2000 election, 9/11, the election of Barack Obama, the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, the death of Kurt Cobain and the OJ Simpson murder trial.

So, it’s funny for people in their 40s and 50s to be lectured by a Gen Zer (those born between 1997 and 2012) about moments they saw firsthand. A few years back, an X user named SameOldStay brought the issue to the attention of many Gen Xers in a viral tweet.


Recently, a group of Redditors on the Gen X forum took up the cause. People started sharing the times when young people tried to lecture them about historical moments that they never lived through but most likely heard about on TikTok.

1. Don't tell me about 9/11

"I was an airline pilot on 9/11 flying from Atlanta to LaGuardia. Don't f**k with me, younglings."

"A younger Millennial once insisted to me that we dial 911 for emergencies in honor of the victims of 9/11."

2. Gen Z OJ takes

"My oldest kid told me how OJ Simpson may not have killed his ex-wife, and the matching DNA was likely his son Jason. Listen here, I didn’t watch court TV for 6 weeks and read 20 books on the case to have you lecture me about a 10-second TikTok clip that 'solved' the crime of the century!! You don’t even know who Kato is!"

3. Rose-colored glasses

“'In 1986, you could work part-time at a yogurt shop in LaJolla, CA and afford a 3 bedroom home on the ocean.' No. Parts of this country have always been super expensive to live in."

"I admit to getting tired of hearing how easy it was for me to get through college and such 25ish years ago. I also remember the 70s and 80s, and amazingly, my parents could not afford a giant house with one person working as a coffee shop attendant."

"Every generation has some hardships, and today's young people have been screwed over in some ways, but they go way overboard with how easy it was for everyone before them."

4. Why are they arguing?

"I teach middle school and have had this happen. Kids are arguing with me, and I’m like, 'See this little crack in the floorboard? I was literally standing on it RIGHT HERE while watching this happen LIVE on TV.'"

"Younger people, kids, and most people in general now, have super easy, fast access to information, right or wrong. They usually don't ask people who've actually lived through it, they just swipe and click and choose the information that is more shocking or in line with whatever ideas they already have about the event."



5. Culture isn't that homogenous

"The most common one I see is from younger writers proclaiming that 'The entire country was up in arms about [insert major event]'... I was there, the reality is that most of the country didn't really care either way, but a few hundred protestors made a lot of noise."

"It’s the same with the past. Like the roaring ‘20s. Everyone thinks the flappers and the whole F. Scott Fitzgerald vibe was everywhere when all of that was actually a smaller set of people."

6. The Iraq war

"Someone was explaining how we had to invade Iraq to find the people who did 9/11. It was just too much for me to even try."

"Close, close friend of mine was killed in Iraq (with me there). At the funeral, his son accepted the flag the military presents to the next of kin. The photo became really famous. Had a Gen Zer tell the picture was staged by the military as military propaganda (without realizing how dumb the thought of the military spreading pictures of crying 7-year-olds in an attempt to improve their image, is). I tried showing them pictures, etc to show the family is real. She responded by saying I was one of 'those.'"

7. Nuclear bomb drills

"I've had people tell me I'm making up the nuclear bomb drills we did in elementary school in the 80s."

8. History-challenged

"I was chaperoning my daughter’s trip to Washington DC. The Millennial tour guide said he was going to take the kids to see the Challenger Space Shuttle."

9. No, Communism isn't great

"Imagine being a person who grew up in former soviet union listening to young people talk about the benefits of communism."



10. Haunted Mansion history

"I was chaperoning a trip to Disney, and one of the teens confidently told me The Haunted Mansion ride was based on the movie with Eddie Murphy. She was wondering why Eddie Murphy didn’t appear in the ride. The other Gen Xer I was with explained the ride came first, like Pirates of the Caribbean."

11. AIDS was very, very, very bad

"I had someone tell me that AIDS wasn’t a big deal because well 'they had drugs for that.' I literally said to them I need you to shut up right now because you’re looking like the most stupid person in the planet right now. Pulled out old Google and showed them how many people died, why, and how horrid it was. Like I had friends who died."

12. The attitude is the problem

"This happened to me yesterday. It wasn't so much that this zygote was wrong, it was how obnoxiously arrogant and condescending he was about it."

13. Y2K wasn't a big deal

"My favorite is the retconned Y2K they had to ‘live through.'"

"Yeah, I don't recall Y2K being taken seriously by the masses."

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Pop Culture

Jennifer Garner's 'nerdy farm facts' about pumpkins is delightfully educational

The overalls 😍

@jennifer.garner/Instagram

Jennifer Garner can talk about pumpkins with us all day, everyday.

Move over PSLs. The new mark of fall is Jennifer Garner sharing “nerdy farm facts” from her very own pumpkin patch.

In an adorable video posted to her Instagram, the “13 Going on 30” actress sported dungarees and a sun hat while holding a large yellow flower (spoiler alert: it’s a soon-to-be pumpkin) and educating us all on how pumpkins grow.

“This flower is both male and female. There’s a pistol inside and it needs the pollen,” she said. “Do you know who takes care of that? Bees! Thank you for the bees!”

Continuing her delightful and informative spiel, Garner tried to hold up the flower to show where the pollen from said bees might fall inside it. However, the wind kept the flower from exposing itself in such a way.

“Oh…she’s shy…” Garner quipped.

Once pollen does reach inside the pistol, “the miracle continues.” Garner then held the flower sideways to show what looked like the botanical version of a pregnant belly, and said, “This is when you get the email that says, ‘Congratulations, Mama Pumpkin. Your baby is the size of a large grape.'"

As Garner explained, this is when the seedling “keeps growing and growing,” to the point where the flower portion will eventually “curl and dry off.”

Picking up a full formed pumpkin still growing on a vine, she added that, “it’s like a little umbilical cord, it’s crazy.”

Cut to Garner holding up two small green pumpkins, joking that they are “a nice size b.”

Watch Jennifer Garner’s ‘Nerdy Farm Facts’ video now:

Down in the comments, viewers were bee-yond happy with Garner’s pumpkin presentation.

“🎃 🐝 This cracks me up (and so informative!),” one person wrote.

Another echoed, “Well done! Thank you for educating us 🐝👏🎃🙌. You’re the best 😂!!

Still another suggested that Garner start her own “children's educational show 👍”

A few also mentioned that those little blossoms are delicious in quesadillas. Recipe courtesy of Homesick Texan below:

Squash Blossom Quesadilla Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 poblano pepper
  • 24 squash blossoms, stems and stamens removed.
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 half medium-yellow onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon dried epazote (can substitute with 1/4 fresh cilantro)
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 1/2 pounds (6 cups) Oaxacan, Monterey Jack, or Muenster cheese, grated
  • 12 corn or flour tortillas
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • Salsa verde, for serving

Instructions

  1. Put the poblano under the broiler for about 10 minutes, turning once until it blackens. Place in a plastic bag, close it and let it sit for about 20 minutes. After this time has passed, take poblano out of the bag, peel it (skin should shred off easily), remove stem and seeds and dice.
  2. Gently wash the squash blossoms (there might be bugs inside) and remove stems and stamens. Roughly chop.
  3. Heat skillet to medium and add the olive oil. Add onions and diced poblano and cook for about 5 minutes or until onions are translucent.
  4. Add garlic, epazote, squash blossoms, salt, and pepper and sauté for 10 minutes or until all the liquid from the flowers has evaporated. Remove from heat and set squash-blossom filling aside. Taste and adjust seasonings, if needed.
  5. In a skillet heated to medium, melt a tablespoon of butter. Add a tortilla and cook it on one side until it puffs (about 30 seconds). Flip tortilla over and sprinkle over entire surface 1/4 cup of squash blossom filling and 1/2 cup of grated cheese.
  6. Top with another tortilla, and after cheese has melted and the 2 tortillas stick together (a couple of minutes), flip quesadilla and cook for a couple of minutes more or until lightly browned.
  7. Repeat for the remainder of the filling and tortillas. Serve warm with salsa verde on the side, if you like.

Sounds like a great recipe for Garner to try on her “Pretend Cooking Show.” It’s sure to be utterly wholesome and entertaining, just like everything else she does.

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