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Cockroaches are rising up in India, a turkey found his forever home, and a nearly naked woman is on a milk-stealing rampage in the UK.

Here is all of the wonderful, wild and weird news last week that made us say, “fuck yeah.”

Wonderful

The Indian government has fucked around and found it. For the past several weeks, the country’s Gen Z population has waged a passionate campaign against its Hindu National government after an Indian Supreme Court Justice was caught on the record comparing the nation’s young, unemployed population to cockroaches. Yes, you read that right: a public servant with incredible influence over laws that shape the lives of citizens called a group of the most vulnerable literal pests.

The protestors have dubbed themselves the Cockroach Janta Party and are demanding education reform, starting with the top officials who have played a role in fucking the upward mobility of India’s young adults from vulnerable economic backgrounds.

These absolute badasses have captured the world’s attention, and we are cheering them across the globe. Viva la Cockroaches!

Sometimes, kids give us hope, damnit. These little smarties from Michigan built robots that speak their Native Indigenous language.

Youth sports are fucking expensive. This sports library in Oakland is making sure that kids don’t need rich ass parents just to kick a ball around.

Wild

Chester fell off the back of a truck and hit the jackpot.

Julie is loving her new digs.

Punch turned one.

Weird

This is the beginning of a sick horror movie.

We thought this was a fake headline. Sadly, we live in a world in which a small population deems something so fucking stupid, necessary.

A nearly naked woman is stealing bottles of milk in a small UK town.

Dead Pets is the podcast that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Season 2 of the Dead Pets Podcast drops on July 16, wherever you listen to podcasts.

There is nothing like a good quote to soothe our crushing existential dread. As humankind has barreled through endless space, strapped to the third planet for millennia, we’ve accumulated knowledge of our condition — the condition of existing. 

As you contemplate life as we know it, we encourage you to lean on the hard-won wisdom of those who came before us. Here are 50 quotes and the five philosophers behind them to help you get your existential shit together, even in the bleakest of times. 

Editor’s Note: The following quotes have been published as written. Some of these philosophers are old as fuck, so the language may be outdated or incorrect.

Mary Astell

12 November 1666 – 11 May 1731

Mary Astell is widely known as a pioneering feminist but was a philosophy mommy in her own right. Her philosophical musings were centered around intellectual equality between men and women, and she thought marriage was a stupid fucking institution, the primary focus of which was to subjugate women. While she set out to make the case that a woman doesn’t need a man to live a fulfilling life, her reflections on self, happiness, and the mind apply to all, genitalia aside. 

The Span of Life is too short to be trifled away in unprofitable Matters.

We all agree that its fit to be as Happy as we can, and we need no Instructor to teach us this Knowledge, 'tis born with us, and is inseparable from our Being, but we very much need to be Inform'd what is the true Way to Happiness.

If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a State, how comes it to be so in a family?

Everyone knows that the mind will not be kept from contemplating what it loves in the midst of crowds and business.

Hence come those frequent absences, so observable in conversation; for whilst the body is confined to present company, the mind is flown to that which it delights in.

Whilst our Hearts are violently set upon anything, there is no convincing us that we shall ever be of another Mind.

We ought as much as we can to endeavor the Perfecting of our Beings, and that we be as happy as possibly we may.

He who will be just, must be forc'd to acknowledge, that neither Sex are always in the right.

Every Body has so good an Opinion of their own Understanding as to think their own way the best.

Tis very great pity that they who are so apt to over-rate themselves in smaller matters, shou'd, where it most concerns them to know, and stand upon their Value, be so insensible of their own worth.

To all the rest of his Absurdities, (for vice is always unreasonable,) he adds one more, who expects that Vertue from another which he won't practise himself.

Hypatia

350–415 AD

A philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer living in ancient Alexandria, Hypatia had a big, fat brain that led her to become one of the greatest thinkers in history (i.e., absolute badass). She lectured on the writers of philosophy bros, Plato and Aristotle, and while Hypatia was pagan, she taught both Christians and so-called heathens alike. During one of her lectures, a young pupil made advances on her, which she kindly rebutted. When he continued, she pulled out her bloody period rags and shouted, "This is what you really love, my young man, but you do not love beauty for its own sake.” (We’ve all been there, am I right, ladies?) Hypatia was eventually murdered by a mob of crazed Christians, her brutal death shocking the empire and solidifying opposition to Christianity among intellectuals of the time. Her writings often touch on the innate intelligence of the human mind and the intellectual corruption and confusion created by organized religion.

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel, the more truth we can comprehend. 

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

True Knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

The true measure of intelligence is the ability to adapt.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

The truth does not change because it is or is not believed by most people.

Understanding the things that surround us is the best preparation to understand the things that lie beyond.

Governing by chaining the mind out of fear or fear of punishment in another world is just as basic as using force.

Margaret Cavendish

1623–1673

Ah, another lady of philosophy with a great big brain betwixt her ears. Margaret Cavendish was a prolific writer who published under her own name when most women authors were forced to use a male pen name (her royal ties may have made publishing under her real name a shitload less risky, but still. We appreciate it.). She published more than a dozen original works, which she had her image carved into to affirm that the works were hers alone and that no one else (men) contributed. Her writings were leveraged as evidence that women were not, as was widely believed at the time, fucking idiots. Her philosophical ponderings embraced vitalism, and her take on nature, reason, and gender resonates today.

There is little difference between man and beast, but what ambition and glory makes.

I had rather die in the adventure of noble achievements, than live in obscure and sluggish security.

For Nature is so full of variety, that our weak Senses cannot perceive all the various sorts of her Creatures; neither is there any one object perceptible by all our Senses, no more then several objects are by one sense.

...that in former ages they had been as wise as they are in this present, nay, wiser; for, said they, many in this age do think their forefathers have been fools, by which they prove themselves to be such.

A judge, replied the Empress, is easy to be had, but to get an impartial judge, is a thing so difficult.

...fear and wonder makes gods.

I think a bad husband is far worse than no husband. 

One may be my very good friend, and yet not of my opinion.

For disorder obstructs: besides, it doth disgust life, distract the appetities, and yield no true relish to the senses.

And though I might have learnt more wit and advanced my understanding by living in a Court, yet being dull, fearful and bashful, I neither heeded what was said or practised, but just what belonged to my loyal duty and my own honest reputation.

Pain and Oblivion make mankind afraid to die; but all creatures are afraid of the one, none but mankind afraid of the other.

Jonathan Swift 

1667-1745

Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist and essayist known for his deadpan delivery and wit. You might recognize him as the author of the iconic book Gulliver’s Travels, a beloved political satire featuring an oddly terrifying scene of the teeny tiny Lilliputian people tying down the story's protagonist (the stuff of nightmares). While he never referred to himself as a philosopher, we’re going to impose the title on him posthumously. 

Swift’s writings total more than 100, and he grew into an extremely popular figure of his time. At one point, his close friends told everyone he was fucking crazy to repel hangers-on. Swift was a misanthrope who wrote often of the corruption, the abuse of reason and the dark side of human nature.

You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.

You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday.

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

Many a truth is told in jest.

Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.

As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life as not to receive new information from age and experience.

It is the talent of human nature to run from one extreme to another.

Laozi 

6th-5th Century

Considered the daddy of Taoism, Laozi. Not much is known about him, and it’s contested that he even existed, but some records of Chinese religious folklore claim he became an immortal hermit, which sounds fucking awesome. His seminal (and only) work, Tao Te Ching, is believed to be the product of many writers, with the figure of Laozi created and credited as its author later on. Either way, the writers of Laozi or whoever embodies the graceful directness of Taoism — nice and to the point.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

The past has no power to stop you from being present now.

 Only your grievance about the past can do that. What is grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion.

Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is to say ‘I don’t want to.’

Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear, and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream.

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.

Mastering others is strength;mastering yourself is true power.

Because one believes in oneself, one doesn't try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn't need others' approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Act without expectation.

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

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Like many of women’s achievements throughout history, the story of the women samurai is buried under the notion that only men did things notable enough to be written down.

A loooooong-ass time ago, Japan decided that having compulsory military service, which resulted in an army made up of farmers who would rather be tending their fields than storming into battle, wasn’t the best idea. At the same time, wealthy landowners in Japan needed skilled guards to protect their assets. You would think they would hire like a bouncer or two, but no. These guys built armies out of warriors for hire. Two of the most prominent landowning families with private armies decided to team up and take on the government. And wouldn’t you know it, they won! And so it was that the samurai class ruled Japan for the next 700 years.

Samurai not only had mad skills, but they had clout, too. They could hold public office, bear arms, and were socially superior to plebes. One couldn’t just become a samurai; one had to come from a samurai family. At age ten, children of the samurai class began their training in the art of all things badass—archery, sword fighting, horseback riding, and hand-to-hand combat.

They weren’t just skilled meatheads; they were also disciplined in military strategy, literature, and the arts.

Samurai adhered to a strict code called bushido, and fucking about was not an option. The tenets of bushido can be summed up as such: do not be an asshole.

All people from the samurai class were technically samurai. Women were trained in the martial arts, typically to defend their homes rather than take up arms on the battlefield. Whether girls were trained as warriors depended on the family and sometimes the region. In Aizu, a region in northern Japan, women samurai were trained in the military arts equally to the men and were sworn to protect their domain, lord, and families. These women were known as the onna-bugeisha.

Nakano Takeko

Nakano Takeko was just 21 years old when the Imperial forces invaded Aizu in 1868. She came from a highfalutin samurai family, and from the time she was 12, she was trained in martial arts, calligraphy, and Confucianism.

Before the Imperial invasion, she taught the women and children at Aizuwakamatsu Castle how to use her favorite weapon, the naginata, a long pole with a wicked-sharp blade on the end. It’s also said that she frequently caught and punished perverts who would sneak into the women’s bathroom areas.

When Imperial forces invaded Aizu in October 1868, Nakano, her mother, and her sister formed a unit of women warriors, retroactively named the Joshitai (female army). At first, the women were told by some bro of a commander that their presence in battle could be perceived as weakness. Nakano was like, “Dude,” and threatened suicide. A new, more progressive commander intervened and said, “No need for theatrics, arm for battle, ladies.”

The women cut their hair, put on men’s clothing, and gathered their swords and halberds. Their enemy was armed with guns. They were under no illusion that they would survive the battle. It’s said that Nakano killed half a dozen men before she was shot in the chest. Not wanting to give the enemy the satisfaction of taking her head as a trophy, she asked her 16-year-old sister to behead her. Her request was obliged, and her head was buried with honor under a pine tree near her family’s temple.

The surviving Joshitai retreated to the castle during a 30-day siege. Over the next month, the wounded turned into the dead, and food dwindled to nothing. When a 60-year-old woman—which back then was sooooo goddamn old she might as well have been 250 years old—left the shelter of the castle to find food for the women, she was confronted by an enemy soldier. She did what a woman in her situation would do: she killed him and went along her merry way to find some groceries.

Gozen Tomoe

It’s debated whether Gozen Tomoe ever existed, as accounts of her life in historical records are sparse. But for our purposes, she does exist, and the myth that shrouds her name is, in fact, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Tomoe was a key figure in the Genpei War (1180–1185), a clan war between the Taira and Minamoto. She served under Yoshinaka Minamoto (aka Kiso) and is said to have been quite a talented beheader of men. She ascended to leadership, and in 1183, she led thousands of men to victory over the Taira at Tonamiyama. Like. A. Boss.

Tomoe fought by Kiso’s side until the last year of the war. At his urging, she left during battle when it was clear things were not going to end so hot for them. Before she fled, she set her sights on one man on the enemy side, a renowned samurai named Moroshige Onda. She charged straight for him, ripped him off his horse, and BOOM! Chopped his head off in one clean swipe. Must we say it? Slay, queen.

Legend has it that Tomoe lived to the ripe old age of 90.

Hangaku Gozen

Gozen was the daughter of a well-known military commander, Jo Sukenga. She was among the league of warriors who defended Torisaka Castle. When it came to archery, she was the number one diva, almost never missing her target. During a three-month siege of the castle, she unleashed hundreds of arrows into the flesh of approaching soldiers. Absolute legend.

Aika Teruko

Teruko was the granddaughter of Kaihime, a total babe who was known as the most beautiful woman in Japan. Her father was the lord of Tatebayashi Castle, and she was trained in the military arts from a young age.

Teruko married warlord Yura Shigeru, a clan leader and lord of Kanayama Castle. After Shigeru died of illness in 1578, their son, Kunishige, took over command of the clan, and Teruko became a nun. But Kunishige was kind of a moron and really fumbled the bag with the whole leading-the-clan thing. Teruko stepped in and said, “Let mama do it.”

In 1584, when she was 71 years old, Teruko commanded 3,000 soldiers in defense of Kanayama Castle when enemy troops marched against it.

Read More Badass Stories

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The oceans might not be doomed, pigeons could cure cancer, and the Catholic Church is apparently not a fan of the X-Files.

Here is all of the wonderful, wild and weird news last week that made us say “fuck yeah.”

Wonderful

This shit-eating boat might save the oceans.

These complete strangers showed up to a Navy veteran’s funeral so he wouldn’t be buried alone.

This couple hit the jackpot, and now they spend their days helping others.

Wild

As if we needed another reason to love pigeons.

These cutie-patootie wildcats are staging the comeback of all comebacks.

A swatch of the ocean the size of France is now protected.

Weird

Somehow UFOs were a bridge too far for a church that literally believes in demons.

We support this level of petty.

A tourist attraction in New Zealand is closed because people are pooping in it.

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On a bright winter day in Munich in 1943, college student Sophie Scholl was beheaded for her efforts in The White Rose, growing resistance against the Nazi party. She was 21 years old and faced her death with the uncompromising resolve she poured into creating a network of dissent among German citizens horrified by the actions of their country’s leadership.

Sophie Scholl had absolute balls of steel, and her fearless actions continue to resonate today. Here is her story.

The Beginning

Sophie Scholl was born in 1921 in Forchtenberg, Germany, a small town overlooking the Kocher Valley in Southwest Germany. Sophie was the fourth of six kids in the Scholl family. Her parents were Magdelana and Robert Scholl. 

Sophie’s father, Robert — we will call him Daddy Scholl from this point forward — was a liberal politician and the mayor of their hometown. By all accounts, it sounds like the Scholls led an idyllic life, and Sophie has been described as a bright child who was always eager to learn. 

In 1932, Sophie joined the League of German Girls, which had a very benign, Girl Scouts-ish ring to it, but it was, in fact, a wing of the Nazi Party youth movement. But Sophie wasn’t the only one; at the time, most girls her age in Germany joined the League, and the true actions of the Nazi party weren’t widely known yet. Similarly, her older brother Hans joined the Hitler Youth, which sounds like the worst fucking club that has ever existed.

In the early 1930s, many viewed the rise of the party as a liberation movement to break the country free of the Treaty of Versailles, pull it out of economic depression, and restore Germany to its former glory. 

Daddy Scholl was an outspoken critic of the Nazi Party, as were many of the Scholls’ family friends. Eventually, Sophie and Hans dropped out of their respective little Nazi youth clubs and leaned further into their liberal roots, surrounding themselves with friends who were equally critical of the Third Reich.  

The Origins of The White Rose

In 1942, at 20 years old, Scholl enrolled in Munich University, where Hans was studying medicine, to study biology and philosophy.

It was on her first day in Munich that her brother introduced her to his cool friends, Alexander Schmorell and Christopher Probst. Sophie quickly fit right into the group of hot young bohemians. They did what hot, young bohemians do: talked about art and philosophy and made plans to go to the cinema, concerts, and restaurants. 

The group’s discussions eventually turned to the Nazi Party and how they could show opposition by connecting with other students and academics who shared their views.

They debated what the most effective form of resistance would be, one that aligned with their non-violent Christian ideals. They decided to anonymously document their dissenting views in leaflets and distribute them by mail. While this may seem like a benign act at the least, politically aggravating at most, it was a sure death sentence in Nazi Germany. These weren’t annoying college students cosplaying activism; these were young adults with absolute balls few would have the strength to carry. 

And so the foundation of what would become the White Rose was laid, with the four students resolved to move forward, accepting that they were putting their lives at great risk.

Shmorell borrowed a Remington typewriter from a friend, and the group began to write.

The introduction to their first leaflet read as follows:

“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today, every honest German is ashamed of his government.

Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes - crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure - reach the light of day?”

Hans spent 32 marks on a duplicating machine (we hereby submit our petition to rename copiers “duplicating machines”) and made 100 copies of the first leaflet. They sent them to addresses they picked from the phone book, most randomly, but some were intentionally sent to professors and academics. 

They wrote a second pamphlet — 

“Now the end is at hand. Now, it is our task to find one another again, to spread information from person to person, to keep a steady purpose, and to allow ourselves no rest until the last man is persuaded of the urgent need of his struggle against this system. 

A third pamphlet —

“The defeat of the Nazis must unconditionally be the first order of business; the greater necessity of this latter requirement will be discussed in one of our forthcoming leaflets.”

And a fourth —

“Every word that comes from Hitler’s mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan. His mouth is the foul-smelling maw of Hell, and his might is at bottom accursed.”

As they spread their message, mailing leaflets to random strangers, tucking pamphlets into phone booths, leaving them on park benches, and spreading them around cinemas in Munich, they hoped their words were reaching their fellow countrymen who also carried a big "fuck you, Hitler,” in their hearts.

The Soviet Front

That summer, Hans and Schmorell were called to serve as medics on the Soviet front. On July 23, Sophie saw them off, watching her brother and friends depart on a train that would take them through Poland and to the front lines in Russia.

Sophie returned home to Ulm. Her summer was bleak — she was conscripted to work for two months in a local arms factory. Most of the women Sophie worked with were Russian prisoners, and they performed labor Sophie described as “slave-like.” Daddy Scholl served four months in prison as punishment for speaking negatively of man-baby Hitler. Sophie worried about what her brother was enduring on the Soviet front, knowing that when he returned, they would again take up their campaign for resistance to the White Rose.

Sophie worried about what her brother was enduring on the Soviet front, knowing that when he returned, they would again take up their campaign for resistance to the White Rose.

The Soviet front only hardened Hans’ drive to stir opposition to the Third Reich. On the way to Russia, his unit’s train stopped in Warsaw. After nabbing a quick drink, Hans and Schmorel walked the streets, taking in the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto, where nearly half a million Jews lived in a 1.3 square mile area, cut off from the world. 

There is a story about Hans during this time that demonstrates that, despite how afraid he may have been, despite the threat of death if the wrong person suspected he was in any way opposed to the regime, he allowed his kindness and humanity to prevail. 

While walking to the back of the front lines, he saw a group of Russian women being made to break and carry rocks to make a road. The youngest was a young girl who was clearly weakened with exhaustion. Hans gave her his ration pouch, containing chocolate, nuts, and berries. She refused the ration and threw the pouch on the ground in disgust. Hans then picked a flower and handed it to her when he again handed the rations. He walked away, and as he wrote in his journal, he turned around, and his heart swelled to see her eating the rations, the flower in her hair.

When Hans and Schmorell returned to Munich in November of 1942, the group geared up and resumed their activities as The White Rose. 

They spent most nights gathered in either Hans or Sophie’s rented room, discussing how to move forward, and listening to foreign radio broadcasts of spies being caught in the upper echelons of the Nazi party. These reports inspired them and gave them proof that there were others out there. 

Find the Authors

As 1942 came to a close and a new year began, the group was re-energized, and Hans and Schmorell each began writing a draft of their fifth leaflet. This time, their message was punchier, more direct, lacking the philosophical and biblical musings of the early leaflets.

“It has become a mathematical certainty that Hitler is leading the German People into the abyss…Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, protection of the individual citizen against the arbitrary actions of the authoritarian states — these are the foundations of the New Europe.” 

This time, in step with protests and marches the group felt were reflective of their message reaching others, they produced between 8,000 and 10,000 copies, all on a duplication machine that had to be cranked by hand as copies churned out one by one. Distributing that large number of pamphlets was dangerous— the group again left them in telephone booths, cinemas, and park benches, as well as hiding them in the entrances and stairways of apartment blocks and beer halls. They each traveled alone to different cities in Germany and Austria, carrying hundreds of pamphlets in a suitcase stored in the overhead rack of a different compartment to distance themselves from suspicion. 

Distributing that large number of pamphlets was dangerous— the group again left them in telephone booths, cinemas, and park benches, as well as hiding them in the entrances and stairways of apartment blocks and beer halls.

At one point, Daddy Scholl got a hold of one of the leaflets, and although he supported the resistance, he worried for his son and daughter. When he asked Sophie if they had anything to do with it, she lied, “How can you even suspect that?”

Enter the villain of our story (besides Hitler). In Munich, Gestapo police officer Robert Mohr was presented with a copy of one of the pamphlets. His superior told him with alarm that the pamphlets were being found all over the city, calling for all Germans to stage a resistance against the Nazi Party. He was ordered to find the authors of the leaflets and make swift arrests. 

Mohr got to work, questioning stationery shops and post offices for any sign of suspicious activity, and through telephoning other Gestapo agencies, he found the leaflets had reached Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Vienna, Ulm, and Augsburg.

Meanwhile, the group worked on their sixth leaflet.

At this time, Sophie wasn’t with her friends but was at home in Ulm, helping her mother and father for ten days. In a letter to a friend, Sophie wrote, “My parents love something wonderful, one of the most beautiful things that has ever been given to me.”

She left home and returned to Munich on February 11. She found Hans and her friends in the middle of their work, having already made 3,000 copies of the sixth leaflet and churning out more. Sophie jumped in to address and stuff envelopes, and Hans went to a store to purchase 1,200 stamps. After he left, the store clerk quietly reported the purchase to the Gestapo.

Meanwhile, Probst had finished writing the seventh leaflet by hand and gave it to Hans, who put it in his jacket pocket.

February 18

Tuesday, February 18, 1943, was an idyllic winter day in Munich. Sophie skipped her first two classes of the day and instead prepared with her brother to distribute the 1,800 remaining sixth leaflets. They placed them in a suitcase– a large one for Hans, a smaller red one for Sophie. They left their apartment at 10:30 a.m. and walked 20 minutes to Ludwig Maximilian University. 

The building hall was empty as students were still in lectures. Sophie and Hans worked quickly, laying the leaflets at the feet of the statues, then moving swiftly through the lecture halls, leaving stacks of leaflets outside classroom doors, on window sills, and on the stairs themselves. As they were walking along the balcony looking down into the hall, Sophie had a moment — she grabbed the remaining leaflets in her fists and in one motion, flung them from the top floor of the university into the atrium below, when the lecture hall doors opened, and hundreds of students stepped into the hall as hundreds of leaflets fluttered to the ground below.

Jacob Schmidt, a maintenance man at the university and bootlicking Nazi asshole, saw the whole thing. 

University officials called the Munich Gestapo, where they were patched through to Officer Robert Mohr. Within minutes, the university was filled with officers. Mohr questioned Hans and Sophie in the office of a school official, and he doubted by their middle-class, educated appearance that they could be the ones behind The White Rose. However, it quickly became clear that they were, in fact, the culprits, and they ordered officers to take the pair to Gestapo headquarters. As they walked, Hans quietly slipped the draft of the seventh leaflet out of his jacket pocket, put it in his mouth, and attempted to swallow it. The officers spotted him, wrenched it from his mouth, and gave it to Mohr.

The Interrogation

That afternoon, Hans and Sophie were checked in, searched, fingerprinted, printed, and photographed at the Gestapo prison. Sophie was checked in by a woman named Else Gebel, herself a prisoner who was allowed to do clerical duties. Sophie later shared a cell with Else, who told her, “If you have a leaflet on you, destroy it now.”

The siblings were interrogated separately. Sophie was questioned about her father’s political views and why she opposed the Nazi party. 

She told Mohr, “I perceive the intellectual freedom of people to be limited in such a manner as contradicts everything inside of me.” When Mohr asked her about the events earlier in the day, she claimed she was going to go home to Ulm by train but decided to stop by the university first to see a friend. There, she said, she saw leaflets lying around, one pile on the edge of a balcony, which she gave a shove down into the hall below. Mohr sent Sophie back to her cell, where she was given soup, bread, and coffee. He was starting to think the calm young woman was telling the truth.

Back at the Scholls’ apartment, the Gestapo were finishing their search. They found a large amount of envelopes and stamps, a typewriter, and Sophie’s notebook, which contained the mailing list of The White Rose. They, too, found a paper with the same handwriting on it as the one on the leaflet draft Hans had tried to swallow. The officers knew the same person had written both: Christopher Probsts.

Hans and Sophie were integrated throughout the night, and despite being presented with evidence found at their apartment, Sophie stuck to her story. At 4 a.m., after hours of questioning, Hans broke. He told Mohr that he was ready to tell the whole truth. While Hans tried to take all responsibility, once Sophie discovered her brother had confessed, she quickly claimed her part in The White Rose, saying that she and Hans acted alone. However, through further interaction and investigation, the officers would come to know of Schmorell and Probst’s involvement. 

Sophie knew that her confession meant she would be executed; even still, like an absolute fucking gangster, she refused to give up the names of her collaborators. When Mohr impressed upon her that her punishment would be the most severe possible, she replied, “I believe I have done the best that I could for my nation. I, therefore, do not regret my conduct. I wish to take upon myself the consequences of these actions.” Legend. 

Meanwhile, Probst had been arrested, and he, too, took full responsibility for the White Rose. He pleaded for mercy, saying that he had a wife and three children to look after. But Sophie, Hans, and Probst were to be tried the following day, Monday, February 22, for high treason.

‘And I have to go.’

​​The next morning, as sunlight poured into their cell, Sophie said to her cellmate Else , “Such a beautiful sunny day. And I have to go. But what difference does my death make if our actions alert people?”

Sophie was escorted to the Palace of Justice in a separate police car from her brother and Probst. When the judge arrived, the entire courtroom, except for the members of the White Rose, sprang to their feet and declared, “Heil Hitler!” 

Sophie knew that her confession meant she would be executed; even still, like an absolute fucking gangster, she refused to give up the names of her collaborators.

When presented with the evidence, the judge began screaming at the three students, and Sophie, ever the badass, screamed back: “Somebody had to make a start! What we said and wrote is what many people are thinking. They just don’t dare say it out loud.” 

Outside the courtroom, Sophie, Hans’ parents, and their younger brother Wernen anxiously awaited the verdict. In the flurry of court resuming from lunch, Daddy Scholl slipped inside and demanded that he be allowed to defend his children. The judge ordered him removed, and as he was dragged by guards from the courtroom, he shouted, “There is a higher court before which we all must stand!” Pointing to his children, he cried, “They will go down in history!” 

The judge then read his verdict. “In the name of the German People, during a time of war, the accused have called for the downfall of the Reich in leaflets. They aided and abetted enemies of the Reich and demoralized armed forces. The accused are sentenced to death.”

Hans, also ever the badass, shouted at the judge, “Today you hang us, but soon you will be standing where I am now!’

The accused were escorted back to prison, where Hans and Sophie were allowed to meet with their parents in a small visitors’ room. The family said their goodbyes, Sophie only shedding tears after her parents left.

Sophie was executed by guillotine at 5 p.m. that day. In her cell, lying on the bed she had made that morning, was a copy of her indictment for high treason. She had written a single word on the back: “Freedom.”

If you’re not there already, get ready to ugly cry. After their deaths, a copy of the sixth leaflet was smuggled to England. During an airstrike in mid-1943, the Royal Air Force dropped millions of copies of the pamphlet across Germany, retitled The Manifesto of the Students of Munich.

More

What an incredible badass, huh? The story of Sophie Scholl and The White Rose is more than we could fit into our humble newsletter. Learn more about these fearless humans from our recommendations below.

Read

Check out the original White Rose leaflet, both in German and English, on the website for The White Rose Foundation, a nonprofit that upholds the resistance group’s memory and encourages democratic consciousness. 

At the Heart of the White Rose: Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl

Hans and Sophie’s writings were published in 2017 and offer a glimpse not only into their activities with The White Rose but also their inner thoughts about the war, musings on spirituality and their lives as young-20-somethings, underscoring the remarkable nature of their convictions that ultimately led to their deaths and inspired millions. 

Defying Hitler: The Germans Who Resisted Nazi Rule by Gordon Thomas

Defying Hitler details the underground network of German citizens who risked their lives to stand against the Third Reich. It’s full of remarkable stories of resistance, not the least of which is The White Rose. This book was a primary source for today’s newsletter — 10/10, highly recommend. 

Watch

The White Rose Young Germans Who Took on the Nazis on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum YouTube

See for yourself

If life ever takes you to Munich, go see the memorial to the brave students, which features replicas of White Rose leaflets are embedded in the pavement outside University of Munich.

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Across the globe, girls everywhere are eating dinner and pondering their existence.

The resulting food and musings are sometimes captured and deposited into a subreddit aptly named r/GirlDinnerDiaries.Some say r/GirlDinnerDiaries is the home of the female incel. Others say it’s where women share their deepest inner thoughts. Still others say it’s a simple subreddit of food pictures that lean more toward snack than meal, paired with reflections on life.

At Vulgar Advice, we say, “Girl dinner on, ladies.” We find these posts to be inspiring, so much so that we’re gonna get all poetry about it.

Introducing A r/GirlDinnerDiaries Poem, a new Vuglar Advice staple in which we create poems from the titles of posts in a subreddit that captures a state of womanhood not often discussed outside the anals of Reddit.

r/GirlDinnerDiaries: The Worst Day

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

A WWII vet finally goes to prom, a new reality show debuts, and Japan’s robot wolf supply runs low.

Here is all of the wonderful, wild and weird news last week that made us say “fuck yeah.”

Wonderful

First of all, this man looks amazing for a 100-year-old, and we want the name of his Botox injector. Second of all, the kids who arranged for him to attend their prom cause he never got to attend his after being drafted in WWII fucking rule.

Good news for everyone who has ever felt like the sad Zoloft ball!

A retired firefighter attended the college graduation of a baby he delivered during an emergency medical call 22 years ago. AWWWWWW!!

Wild

Hedgehogs have entered the villa.

In news-to-us, Ireland has an ancient rainforest, and it’s staging a comeback.

This is our ultimate fantasy.

Weird

Robot wolves were helping to keep Japan’s rampant bear problem under control, but the company that makes these American-Werewolf-in-London esque machines can’t keep up with orders.

Women in the dating pool were right all along: men are, in fact, coming up from the sewers.

In a picturesque English village, a retiree is facing jail time for waging a feud with her neighbors that Joe Exotic would be proud of.

This post is sponsored by the Dead Pets, the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures that have changed ours. Believe us, it’s not as depressing as it sounds. Click below to listen.

We all have a badass inside of us, waiting to be awakened. Badassness isn’t born in the big events, but is built little by little in the small day-to-day moments.

Here are five ways to be a badass this week.

1. Drink Some Goddamn Water

Can’t stop thinking about how we’re just specks of dust on a rock hurling through an infinite void, and life is long, but the days are short, and what is time anyway? Who invented it? Is there really a god? A panel of gods? Goddesses? Non-binary universe overlords? Who invented jobs? Why are we all just hamsters clocking in on the wheel just for a bigger hamster to toss us some pellets to satiate us for a while, only to do it all again the next day?

If that’s you, drink some fucking water and calm down. We will all be better for it.

2. Read a Book

We cannot deny how satisfying it is to feel the tickle of our brain cells bursting into flames from scrolling for hours; however, no dopamine splooge is worth not being able to read a whole sentence without your attention span yeeting off a cliff. But there ain’t nothing like reading an actual book with actual pages.

Reading something with a connected narrative that is a few hundred pages long engages parts of your brain that reading on a screen simply does not. Books transport you to new worlds, give you access to points of view otherwise unavailable, and can grab you by feels you never knew you had. Plus, reading a book is the easiest way to be less stupid.

There’s like, A LOT of books in the world, we’re sure you can find one you’ll like.

3. Go Outside

Drugs are amazing, but have you ever tried fresh air and sunlight? According to The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective by Cambridge University Press (1989), urban environments are constantly soliciting our attention, whether we realize it or not, called “hard fascination.” Natural environments solicit our attention while also drawing out feelings of pleasure, called “soft fascination.” This so-called soft fascination reduces the strain on our executive function and restores our ability to focus on shit that matters.

Go for a hike, or go to a park. Walk around the block. Sit on your porch. Touch grass, as the kids say.

4. Assume Stupidity, Not Malice

It’s been said a million different ways throughout history: “You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.” 1941 – Robert A. Heinlein

There likely isn’t malice behind whatever sends you into a rage. We typically give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, but not to others. Cut someone off in traffic? You didn’t see them! Sent files late? You forgot! Didn’t invite a friend? You didn’t think they’d want to go! You aren’t out to get other people, and they ain’t out to get you, John Wick. They’re just dumb. And so are you.

5. Listen

Listening is soooooooo underrated. When someone talks to you, shut your mouth up and shut your brain up. Ask questions about what they’re sharing, or just say, “Tell me more.” Making someone feel heard, even if it’s just about the goings-on of their day, is pretty fucking cool.

Feeling heard can bring out the best in people. When you become someone who not just hears, but listens, people will blossom around you, and will most likely do the same in return.

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Two besties ascend to an even higher level of bestie-dom, hedgehogs get their own highway in England, and a man pulled a truck with his genitals, not to show off or anything but for charity.​

Wonderful

A 28-year-old woman and her 87-year-old bestie wrote a book together, and she secretly used the proceeds to pay off his hearing aids. *Screaming, crying, throwing up*

72-year-old Alabama grandma Billie Dunn said “fuck you” to invisible limitations invented by society to keep the proletariat down, and graduated last week with a Bachelor of Science.

This guy couldn’t have been in a more perfect place when he had a cardiac arrest.

Wild

This owl has fostered hundreds of little baby owls and raised them as her own. YOU READ THAT RIGHT.

Another W for endangered species.​

In the most English countryside thing ever, the East Riding of Yorkshire Council is launching a highway for hedgehogs.

Weird

We’ve been there.

This man hauled a car with his wang for a good cause.

​There is no other way to put it: a man in Scotland was caught having sex with a trash can.

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Dodge was the last kitten left in a litter that was born in a barn on the rural edges of town. He looked like a little black ink spot with bright green eyes and a smear of white hair on his chest. He screamed on the drive home, staring at me while he dug his tiny claws into my chest as I held him close. When we got back to my apartment, he perched up on my knee, and we napped together, the first of a thousand naps we would take in the next two decades, always curled up around each other.

For the next 19 years, a little piece of my life was totally, utterly, and completely perfect, even when everything else was very much not so.

Dodge greeted me at the door of my first apartment each morning when I came home from my graveyard shift at the hospital, a little sprite eagerly waiting my arrival. He patiently sat in his place on the sink as I washed my face and brushed my teeth, then curled up on my lap as I wrote in my journals or watched a show on my laptop until sleep took us both over.

Even as a tiny, wobbly kitten, his green eyes conveyed a knowing beyond the confines of his small world.

One morning in the beginning, I lie in bed with my eyes closed, suspended between sleep and awake, trying to shift toward the former. Dodge was next to me, no bigger than a skinny potato, and he gently pressed his tiny paws onto my eyelids and kept them there.

At the onset of my life with Dodge, I was in a dark, desperate place. He led me out, day by day, until I didn’t know the way back. When I read, when I scrolled, when I wrote, he was always next to me, purring and gently staring. Often, he would close his eyes and lean his head into the back of my hand, and keep it there.

Over the years, Dodge and I developed a language of gazes, glances, tongue clicks, chin scratches, ear rubs, pets, gentle head pats, purrs, meows, and leaning into and curling around each other. Together, we formed a world for just the two of us.

When Dodge was seven, he got outside while I was away. By the time I got home, he hadn’t been seen in days. I was living at a family home, the landing pad for my siblings and me whenever life shifted, and we needed a place to land. It was my turn.

I stapled missing posters to telephone poles. I knocked on doors. I posted on neighborhood apps. I circled block after block, calling his name. I fell sick with the flu, but still looked for him, crying myself to sleep every time I returned to bed without him. After ten days, I thought that was it, our story together had ended.

On the eleventh night, I awoke from a feverish sleep to the unmistakable sound of his meow. It was faint, but I knew it was him. I leaped out of bed, put on socks, and was in the backyard in moments. Snow was falling, and my fever burned against the cold. I called to him, shouting his name and clicking my tongue to beckon him to me. I quietly climbed our neighbors’ fences, a feat I perfected as a teenager. I moved through backyard after backyard in the quiet winter night, desperate to find the small creature to which my heart belonged.

After an hour, my feet were soaked and stiffening. I retraced my steps and got back into bed, defeated and devastated all over again. I resigned to the likelihood that I hadn’t heard him at all, that the fever, the sleepless nights, the sick ache in my heart made me hear him in my dreams.

The next day, the neighbor living behind us knocked on our door to tell me he had found Dodge in his garage. I cried as I walked again in the snow, this time with him in my arms.

I was his person, but Dodge was a social prince. When we had company, he liked to sit among the people, floating from lap to lap and getting ample time with each person. He loved who I loved, trusted who I trusted. As I added more pets to our lives, he let his place be known and would always take his spot in my lap, even if it was occupied by the lumbering head of a dog.

Dodge was with me through relationships, break-ups, moves, deaths, career milestones — always, sitting in my lap, next to me. When I began writing for a living — my dream since I was a child — he developed a habit of lying on my desk and resting his head on my wrist as I wrote articles. I eventually got a tattoo of his face in the exact spot he would place his head, so that when he was gone, he would still be with me, coaxing me along as I typed.

When Dodge turned 15, I became gripped by anticipatory grief. He lived with kidney disease and a heart murmur. I was terrified of life beyond him. Sometimes, I would look at him and see his age: his legs lost patches of hair, and he lost weight. But always, he would bounce back into my little panther with the gleaming coat and bright eyes.

Five years ago, we moved into a house with a large back deck and little tree cover. Dodge was always an inside boy, but I slowly grew comfortable with letting him out to bask in the sun with our two dogs. He was never more beautiful than in the bright, unfiltered light, tilting his head up to the sky, absorbing the warmth of the sun’s beams.

In March of this year, I made a vet appointment for a check-up after noticing Dodge was eating less. As the week went on, he became wobbly, almost like he was a kitten who didn’t yet have his sea legs. By the time Friday came, he grew more tired, and my heart grew more panicked.

He spent the weekend wrapped in a blanket in my arms, sleeping with his head pressed against my chest. I tried to stay grounded, to relive the past 19 years again in every single second we had left.

On Saturday, my anxiety was peaking, and I needed to run, to shake it out of me and clear my mind. As the miles unfurled behind me, I imagined what the next few days would look like. The vet would probably tell me it was time; he was old, he wouldn’t bounce back. I would call Heaven at Home to make an appointment for the next day. I would pick out a special blanket to lay him on in my office, the place we spent the most time together. The Heaven at Home vet would come and give him the shot while I held him. We would make a playlist of gentle music and light candles, and I would lay him on the floor, surrounded by lilies. We would bring our other pets in one by one to sniff him, so they would understand why their brother was suddenly gone. That’s how it would go. It would be a ritual worthy of him, one built on the love he built within me.

On Sunday, my husband took photos of us. My hair was unwashed, and my face was swollen from days of steadily crying. But his head is lying on my chest, his chin tilted down, and both of us in our world together.

The next morning, Dodge crawled from under the bed when he heard me stirring before sunrise. I scooped him up, and he relaxed in my embrace, his tummy facing up, his bright green eyes blinking slowly at me.

I carried him down to my office, where he filled the space on my lap between my stomach and my computer as I typed. We had four hours together before his vet appointment. He sat with me as he had thousands of times before, the two of us in harmony.

At 7 a.m., I called my mom and asked her to drive me. If I got bad news, I told her, I don’t think I would be able to drive. As the hour went on, he weakened. When I got up to let my mom in the house, I heard a sound and ran back into my office. Dodge had fallen while trying to drink from a small dish of water I put out for him, and he couldn’t get up. I wailed and wrapped him in a towel, holding him so close, trying to absorb him into my body so he wouldn’t ever leave me.

He had always been upset in the car, but this time, he just lay in my arms and looked at me, calm as he had ever been. I sobbed and cried and choked on my tears, and my mom drove. The sun was absurdly bright, almost cruelly so.

When we got to the vet, she examined him gently and told me it was time.

There was no music, no ceremony, no ritual, no flowers, no candles. It was just him and me, as it had always been. I told him over and over that he was perfect, that he had made my life more perfect than I ever could have wanted, that he would always be the best part of me.

And then he was gone.

It’s been almost two months, and I’m learning how to live without Dodge’s physical presence, to carry him with me. I have moments where I can feel his warmth and his gaze, and I am calm. In other moments, his absence is overwhelming, and I am wandering again in the snowy night, looking for my little soulmate as I hear him calling to me, somewhere just beyond the dark.

This is the first edition of the Dead Pets Newsletter, an accompaniment to the Dead Pets Podcast. I started Dead Pets to prepare myself for Dodge’s death, and I am so glad I did. The stories I’ve collected and shared on the podcast have made my own grief softer, more bearable.

Dead Pets now stands as my ode to Dodge, to my perfect bodhisattva, the little prince who loved me when I didn’t know how to love myself.

In each episode, guests talk about a pet from their past and how they carry their pet with them after they are gone. Dead Pets is about the death of our pets and the immense grief it brings; but more than that, it’s about their lives and all the small moments of happiness and depth and love that accumulate to something greater than ourselves.

After every episode is recorded, edited, and published, the story keeps going for me. Every interview prompts new feelings, revelations, and epiphanies.

When Dodge died, people who had been on the podcast reached out to me with kind words and camaraderie. In the early days when the pain of losing him was raw agony, when the grief was cruelly isolating, it made all the difference in helping me feel less alone. With the podcast and this newsletter, I want to help others feel less alone in their grief, too.

What You Can Expect When You Subscribe

The Dead Pets Newsletter is $5 a month or $40 a year. I’ll be publishing once a month, sharing reflections and thoughts from each episode, my own grief journey from losing Dodge, news about the podcast, book reviews, and other resources on pet grief. If that sounds like something your heart needs, subscribe here.

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcast.

Pizza Hut sent out a Millennial dog whistle, German billionaires united to save a whale named Timmy, and a Taco Bell employee made it known that under no circumstances are water cups to be filled with Baja Blast. Here is all of the news last week that made us say “fuck yeah.”

Wonderful

If stories about lost pets being reunited with their families across vast expanses of time and space have no fans, then we are dead.

Pizza Hut is once again leveraging children’s insatiable desire for a personal pan pizza with the topping of their choice to improve literacy rates.​

When we were in middle school, we couldn’t operate a Razor scooter properly. These kids in Mississippi took over a school bus after their driver blacked out and saved the lives of their bus-kid peers.

Wild

Timmy the Humpback Whale *sob* was stuck in the shallows of the North Sea for weeks until two German millionaires said, “Nicht unter unserer Aufsicht!”

For the first time ever, an orangutan was caught on film crossing a rope bridge made to help the critically endangered great apes cross a busy road.

A stellar sea lion affectionately named Chonkers has been representing his species in San Francisco.

Weird

This was one of our fears as teenagers, just trying to save a buck on a soda after scrapping together all of our money for a precious chalupa and Baha Blast.

A Texas Chick-Fil-A employee was hoisted by his own mac and cheese petard.

​Another childhood fear resurrected.

Across the globe, girls everywhere are eating dinner and pondering their existence.

The resulting food and musings are sometimes captured and deposited into a subreddit aptly named r/GirlDinnerDiaries.Some say r/GirlDinnerDiaries is the home of the female incel. Others say it’s where women share their deepest inner thoughts. Still others say it’s a simple subreddit of food pictures that lean more toward snack than meal, paired with reflections on life.

At Vulgar Advice, we say, “Girl dinner on, ladies.” We find these posts to be inspiring, so much so that we’re gonna get all poetry about it.

Introducing A r/GirlDinnerDiaries Poem, a new Vuglar Advice staple in which we create poems from the titles of posts in a subreddit that captures a state of womanhood not often discussed.

r/GirlDinnerDiaries: A Love Story

This post is sponsored by the Dead Pets, the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures that have changed ours. Believe us, it’s not as depressing as it sounds. Click below to listen.

We love Tiny Desk, obviously. Live on KEXP is a different beast in the same forest of in-studio performances filmed and disseminated on YouTube for the music-hungry masses. While Tiny Desk feels like you are in someone’s living room, Live on KEXP feels like you are in someone’s basement at a house show that will become a local legend.

For nigh-on 30 years, the Seattle radio station has been dutifully introducing musicians the world over, and the result is a vault of thousands of live performances for you to enjoy.

​While Tiny Desk is light and airy, musicians pared down to their essence, KEXP is guttural and loud, with musicians pouring their fucking lungs out against the studio’s signature glittering backdrop.​

Here are the best KEXP live performances to lift you up when you feel like ass. ​

Dakha Brakha

Dakha Brakha is a Ukrainian quartet that, at first glance, looks like they would play some lovely, gentle folk music that might lull you peacefully to sleep. Barrely a minute into their performance, you will see how totally wrong you were. Dhaka Brakha is a hypnotic cacophony of powerful harmonies, with cellos, accordions, goblet drums, harmonica, digeridoo, and more.

​Instead of lulling you to sleep, Dakha Brakha will awaken something deep inside of you.

HAM

Music that comes out of Iceland is SO Iceland. Think Björk, Sigur Rós, Mum, Aurora — they all sound like fairies that gestated in the Earth’s core before sprouting through volcanic soil. HAM is no different. If Icelandic metal isn’t your thing, it might be after this. These guys have been ripping since 1988, and their sound is reminiscent of medieval dungeons, in the best way.

HAM’s KEXP set was filmed at Iceland Airwaves music festival, and it kicks off with a warning of what is to come, with lead singer Óttarr Proppé declaring to the crowd: “We are HAM, and we are going to play a few songs about friendship and love and hate!”

Sylvan Esso

Electropop duo Sylvan Esso casts a spell that we want to be under at all times.

Amelia Meath’s delicate, soothing vocals are fortified by Nick Sanborn’s synthesizer. The pair perform songs from their self-titled debut album, a synthy lullaby that makes us feel like we are being rocked to sleep in a dreamy soundwave.

Charles Bradley

Charles Bradley’s voice will reach into your chest, grab your heart, and give it a squeeze that will fill your body with both chills and the warm fuzzies. The funk and soul legend is backed by The Extraordinaires for his 2016 KEXP Live performance. The performance is typical of Bradley, who is armed with a voice that could awaken long-sleeping gods, change geography, summon the rain, and knock your fucking socks off.​

People who were fortunate enough to see Bradley live before his death in 2017 describe it as a transcendent experience, and this one is no exception.

IDLES

IDLES holds a spot on our best Tiny Desk list, too. The lead singer’s energy will blast you in the face, reach around the back of your head, and get that thang banging. The band fills the space with a chaotic energy that pushes against the ceiling and walls, straining to contain them. Lead singer Joseph Talbot growls and pushes his vocals through gritted teeth, each word coming out like a sharp bullet as the band berates your ears by ripping on their instruments like nobody’s business.

Stay tuned for part two.

This post is sponsored by the Dead Pets, the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures that have changed ours. Click below to listen.

Drugs are amazing, but have you ever come home after a long ass day at work to a dog that is so fucking excited to see you they’re literally shaking? Has a cat that is uninterested in every single person on Earth ever sat on your lap and purred?

Pets are a goddamn bottomless pit of joy. Taking care of another being gives you purpose, structure, and worth. At the very least, if you have a dog, you have to go outside every single day. If you have a cat, they will sit on your fucking laptop and force you to unplug.

You could have a legendarily shitty day, and it will be made better by a cuddle with your pet. Bonding with an animal and keeping them fed, sheltered, and happy is not only deeply gratifying; it will also add years to your life and increase your chance of recovering from major health events like heart attack and stroke.

Researchers have long put forth the benefits of having pets. Pet owners have lower blood pressure, increased mobility, are less lonely and stressed, and have a higher self-image than weirdos who don’t have pets. But scientists haven’t quite figured out if pets make people happier and healthier, or if happy, healthy people tend to have pets. To that we say: who gives a fuck.

No one adopts a pet thinking, “This little guy is going to lower my blood pressure and increase my chances of surviving a stroke if I ever have one!” We adopt them because something in our hearts tells us it’s time. The real benefit of getting a pet is this: part of your life will be completely and utterly perfect.

Your bond with your pet will be a pocket of magic in your world. You will be shocked at your capacity to love more and more; and when you think it would be totally impossible for you to love any more, you just fucking do.

Pets are love unfiltered. They don’t have opinions about our life choices, our intelligence or lack of, how we dress, what we eat, our career choices, or our education level. All they require of us is us.

Well-mustached French poet and journalist Anatole France said it best: Until one has loved an animal, part of one’s soul remains unawakened.

Bodhisattvas

A wise man once told us that our pets are Bodhisattvas — beings in Buddhism who have achieved enlightenment but delay entering nirvana to help others reach their own enlightenment. Our pets are selfless guides who innately carry all that we lack: the ability to be present, to accept, draw boundaries, to love without limits or conditions, to surrender to boundless joy.

Amidst all of that is the inevitable: their lives are just a fraction of ours. Losing them is an ineffable agony. When they leave us, our souls ache in the face of their absence. With time, the ache will soften, and your heart will be wider and deeper, and you’ll marvel that you were ever so lucky to have had a thousand joyful moments with your very own Bodhisattva. And you will be better for it.

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcast.

The Amazon is staging a comeback tour; the shitty boyfriend to end all shitty boyfriends is found guilty; and science finally does the right thing and launches a study about farts. Here is all of the news last week that made us say “fuck yeah.”

Wonderful

We love stories about incredible fucking old badass people finally getting their dues.

This absolute unit of a good Samaritan saved a mother and three children from our worst nightmare.

New Mexico is using money from a fat ass oil and gas windfall to make life easier for regular shmegular folks.

Wild

Bug of the Year is exactly the kind of competition we want to bet money on.

One year after conservationists kicked out the riff raff, the Marshall Islands are booming.
If you are a fellow millennial who will always and forever be worried about the Amazon rainforest, worry not.

Weird

Scooby Doo walked so the Thai police could run.

Imagine if he never put the dishes in the dishwasher the right way, always left his stupid fucking little beard hairs in the sink when he shaved, left his clothes on the floor, and then left her on the mountain. MEN.

Scientists at the University of Maryland have launched an extremely serious and not at all funny mass study about farts. The name of the study isn’t even remotely silly: Human Atlas Flatus. Yes, the data is collected exactly how you hope it would be: with high-tech underwear that counts your farts.

This post is sponsored by the Dead Pets, the podcast about pet grief that celebrates the lives of the creatures that have changed ours. Click below to listen to this week’s episode.

Times are weird. The seasons are changing, the magic of the holidays has officially fucked off, the snow is melting away to mud, and we are all stuck in the middle of the in-between. During this time of year, we more often than not feel like hot dog shit in a blender.

Among the many activities we force ourselves to engage in to lift the spirits is cracking a beer, sparking a joint (or both), and watching one of the following feel-good cinematic masterpieces.

Here are five more movies that we are pretty sure will brighten your mood when you feel like shit.

Second Hand Lions

It’s the summer of 1962, and Walter’s floozy of a mother sends him to live with his wild and crazy uncles, Hub and Garth — played by Robert Duvall and Michael Caine in full zaddy mode. Rumor has it that the old bachelors are sitting on a fortune amassed from their lifetime of adventures. They spend their time shooing away people who come sniffing around for their gold by shooting shotguns at them from their porch.

The men spend their time regaling Walter with tales of the adventures from before and after WWII. Planting a field of corn leads them to a retired circus lion who becomes Walter’s pet and ultimately serves a greater purpose when his mom turns up with her grifter boyfriend in search of the uncles’ wealth.

Cool Runnings

Cool Runnings is the best sports movie ever made. Don’t agree? Drop a pin, we’re coming to fucking fight you.

It’s 1987, and Jamaican sprinter Derice Bannock’s Olympic dreams are dashed during time trials. Desperate to make it to the Olympic stage, Bannock tracks down an old friend of his dead father’s, disgraced bobsled champion Irv Blitzer, and convinces him to form a team to compete in the upcoming Winter Olympics in Calgary.

Bannock and teammates Sanka, Yul, and Junior train under Blitzer and qualify to represent Jamaica in the winter games, even though none of them have even seen a flake of snow. It’s the ultimate underdog story. If you’ve seen it, don’t even pretend you don’t bawl your eyes out when they pick up that bobsled.

Best in Show

In a perfect lambasting of the highfalutin, ridiculous world of prestigious dog shows, Best in Show follows five dogs and their owners on their journey to compete in the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show in Philadelphia.

Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara play Gerry and Cookie Fleck, who have high hopes for their Wheaten Terrier Winkey. Their journey includes an overzealous former lover and being forced to sleep in the storage room of the hotel.

Michael Hitchcock and Parker Posey play a high-strung J.Crew and Starbucks-loving couple who can’t get to the bottom of their Weimaraner’s neurosis, but suspect it has to do with it walking in on them having sex (or at least that’s what they tell the dog’s therapist).

Jennifer Coolidge plays a young wife to a 90-year-old sugar daddy who is determined to make her standard poodle a star with the help of a very butch dog trainer.

Bait shop owner Harlan Pepper waxes poetic about his family’s lineage of hounds as he prepares his bloodhound Hubert for greatness, and finally, gay couple Scott Donlan and Stefan Vanderhoof and their Shih Tzu Ms. Agnes round out the competition.

Office Space

Who hasn’t wanted to rob their evil corporate overlords and beat the life out of the office copy machine that never works when you need it to? Office Space is an evergreen tale of three workplace besties who set out to rob the IT company they work for.

Peter goes to a hypnotherapy session to find relief from the stress of his dead-end job, but the hypnotist dies of a sudden heart attack before he can snap Peter out of it. His new don’t-give-a-single-fuck attitude impresses the higher-ups as the company ruthlessly downsizes. When his friends are laid off, they sic a virus on the company’s accounting system that diverts fractions of pennies into a bank account over a long period of time. Of course, it goes terribly awry.

Hot Fuzz

We never don't want to watch a Simon Pegg and Nick Frost joint. Police officer Nicholas Angel is reassigned from the hard streets of London to the sleepy village of Sandford. Angel's hard-nosed policing is a poor match for the laid-back community and his barely competent colleagues. After responding to calls that include a runaway swan and a land-bound sea mine, Angel struggles with the slower pace of his new life. And then the bodies start turning up. Hot Fuzz literally has everything: a community theatre performance of Romeo and Juliet, the 1988 movie, murder by church steeple, and sweet elderly villagers wielding an armory.

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This post is sponsored by the Dead Pets, the podcast that celebrates the lives of the creatures that have changed ours. Click below to listen to this week’s episode.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: words are the shit.

You wouldn’t believe how many words there are to describe the most nuanced of feelings and the most imperceptible of moments. Here are 41 of our favorite words we’re pretty sure you haven’t heard of before.

1. Ombrophile - A person who loves rain; someone who finds joy and peace in rainy weather.

2. Oleilu - The awareness of how few days are memorable; a reflection on the scarcity of truly significant moments in life.

3. Shibui - A Japanese aesthetic concept describing simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty; elegant simplicity.

4. Foilsick - Frustrated by something you could have easily predicted or prevented; exasperated at your own lack of foresight.

5. Meliorism - The belief that the world can be made better through human effort; optimism about improvement.

6. Eccendentesiant - Someone who fakes a smile; a person pretending to be happy.

7. Nyctophile - A person who loves night or darkness; someone who feels most alive after dark.

8. Liminal - Relating to a transitional or in-between state; occupying a threshold or boundary space.

9. Chrysalism - The tranquility and peace felt during a thunderstorm when you’re safely indoors; the amniotic comfort of being inside during bad weather.

10. Eremitism - The practice or state of living as a hermit; withdrawal from society for solitude.

11. Petrichor - The pleasant, earthy smell that accompanies rain after a dry spell; the scent of rain on dry ground.

12. Dendrophile - A person who loves trees and forests; someone who feels a deep connection to wooded areas.

13. Humepenthe - Something that drives away sorrow or eases pain; a remedy for sadness (from Greek mythology).

14. Alamort - Half-dead from exhaustion, sorrow, or illness; deeply dejected or sorrowful.

15. Clishmaclaver - Idle gossip or foolish talk; meaningless chatter.

16. Alexithymia - The inability to identify and describe one’s own emotions; difficulty recognizing feelings.

17. Aesthete - A person who has or affects to have a special appreciation of art and beauty; someone devoted to aesthetic pursuits.

18. Onism - The awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience; the frustration of being stuck in one body in one place at one time.

19. Nefelibata - A cloud walker; someone who lives in the clouds of their own imagination, detached from reality; a dreamer.

20. Ineffable - Too great or extreme to be expressed in words; indescribable or unspeakable.

21. Adronitis - Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone; impatience with the slow pace of building relationships.

22. Solivagant - A solitary wanderer; someone who travels or wanders alone.

23. Casimir - Someone who prevents a fight, argument, or conflict; a peacemaker.

24. Oblioscend - To forget things as you age; the process of forgetting due to aging.

25. Latibule - A hiding place; a safe refuge or sanctuary where one can retreat.

26. Valemor - The awareness that any given moment might be the last time you see someone; treasuring encounters knowing they may not repeat.

27. Psithurism - The sound of wind rustling through trees; the whisper of leaves.

28. Pithered - Confused, bewildered, or flustered; in a state of mild distress or agitation.

29. Tuirse - The sadness or emptiness felt after a long conversation or event has ended; post-connection melancholy.

30. Anhedonia - The inability to feel pleasure; loss of interest in previously enjoyable activities.

31. Sobremar - To be above the sea; metaphorically, to rise above difficulties or remain afloat in troubles.

32. Cingulomania - A strong desire to hold someone in your arms; the urge to embrace.

33. Callow - Inexperienced and immature; lacking adult sophistication or worldliness.

34. Nelipot - Someone who walks barefoot; a person who goes without shoes.

35. Firgun - A Hebrew word describing genuine, unselfish joy at another person’s success or good fortune.

36. Mireluna - The moon’s reflection on water; moonlight dancing on a water’s surface.

37. Philophobia - The fear of falling in love or emotional attachment; anxiety about forming deep connections.

38. Forwallowe - To wither or fade; to waste away or deteriorate (archaic).

39. Groke - To gaze longingly at someone while they’re eating, hoping they’ll share their food.

40. Immure - To enclose or confine within walls; to imprison or entrap.

41. Cordiform - Heart-shaped; having the form or shape of a heart.

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Coming December 4, 2025.

Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcast.

Last week, a really, really old woman dominated her competition; a 90s icon is downgraded in the best way; and a penis controversy shook the world of ski jumping.

Here’s all the news last week that made us say, “Fuck yeah!”

Wonderful

Diana Beasly, aged 92, did what she does best and fucking destroyed the competition at the UK national Scrabble tournament.

These men have found solace in the Costco food court, and ya know what? Good for them!

This is the Jetsons utopia we long for.

Wild

Perhaps the ocean isn’t going to die and take us all with it after all.

90s endangered species icon, the Giant Panda, is officially off the list.

A plant thought to be extinct was like, “whatsup, bitches!”

Weird

In the right hands, anything is a weapon.

Male ski jumpers competing in the upcoming Winter Olympics are injecting their dicks with hyaluronic acid.

Surely this is a sign of the end of times.

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Coming December 4, 2025.

Russian beefcake Shavarsh Karapetyan was a swimming superstar bound for greatness at the 1976 Montreal Olympics when internal politics cock-blocked him from the team and shut him out of his gold medal dreams.

Thankfully for 37 fortunate souls bound for a watery grave, fate had something greater in store for the 23-year-old athlete.

This is the badass story of Shavarsh Karapetyan.

In 1953, Karapetyan was born in Kirovakan, Armenia. By the looks of him, he came out of his mama a full-grown-ass man. After eight years of schooling, Mother Russia felt that was enough for the young comrade and sent him off to auto-mechanic school.

Meanwhile, Karapetyan became an accomplished finswimmer. If you’re like, “What the fuck is finswimming?,” welcome to the club, we’ve done the Googling for you. Finswimming is a sport in which athletes make themselves as fish-like as possible by wearing a monofin and a mask, holding their breath for insane lengths of time, and propelling themselves through the water like freak shark people. It looks cool as shit, and you should totally YouTube it.

By the time he was 23, Karapetyan was one of the world’s best finswimmers, bagging 17 world championships, 13 European championships, and 7 USSR championships, and broke 11 world records. He was also *ahem* not too hard on the eyes.

Karapetyan was considered a shoo-in to represent the USSR at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal when politics shut him out of the team. Soviet Coach Liparit Almasakyan stood on business for Karapetyan and backed out of coaching the team. Instead, he was like, “Fuck your politics, I’ll train Karapetyan and make him into even more of a beast.”

On September 16, 1976, as part of an absolutely fucking brutal training regimen Almasakyan designed for Karapetyan, the young athlete was running 12 miles around Yerevan Lake with 44-pound weights on his back. Almasakyan and Karapetyan’s brother, Kamo, followed close behind.

As he neared the end of his run, a trolleybus on a nearby road veered off course and plummeted downhill and into the cold waters of the lake, rapidly swallowed by its dark waters. Ninety-two people were inside as it sank 33 feet to the bottom of the lake.

Fucking badass that he was, Karapetyan’s response was immediate, diving into the waters while shouting instructions to Almasakyan and Kamo to stand by.

On his first dive, Karapetyan kicked the glass out of one of the trolleybus’s windows to create an exit for the drowning passengers. He dove into the water 38 more times, resurfacing with a rescued passenger and passing them to Almasakyan and Kamo, who helped them to shore.

Each time he went down, he swam through shards of broken glass and was nearly blind in the dark, murky lake waters as he felt for passengers. On his last dive, Karapetyan came to the surface to realize he had grabbed a cushion, not a person, and his heart broke.

“I could have saved a life instead. That seat still haunts me in my nightmares,” he told the media years later.

Karapetyan pulled 37 people from the water that day, and others were able to swim out on their own from the window he broke. It’s reported that only 20 survived the ordeal.

Karapetyan sustained severe cuts from the broken glass, and came down with sepsis and double pneumonia for his efforts. He was hospitalized for 45 days while recovering.

Incredible shit, huh?

What’s more, is that the story remained largely under wraps, as the Soviet government didn’t really want people to know about how fucking shitty their public transit was, so they kept it out of the media. Witnesses and survivors talked, however, and the story of Karapetyan’s absolutely fucking baller rescue efforts became something of an urban legend until 1982, when a newspaper published the first media story about the crash.

When asked about his selfless act of badassery that could have cost him his life, he replied, “I was simply closer to the crash than anyone else.” We love a humble King.

After the rescue, Karapetyan never fully returned as the finswimmer he once was and eventually hung up his fins.

But, he did make it to the Olympics. At the 2014 opening ceremony in Sochi, Karapetyan carried the Olympic torch.

We’re not crying, you’re crying!

Read More Badass Stories

SPONSORED | Dead Pets is the podcast that celebrates the lives of the creatures who have changed ours. Coming December 4, 2025.

Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcast.

Wonderful

We’ve decided to start off 2026 by crying hysterically first out of utter sadness for this poor horse and then for joy at the town that came together to save it.

We can’t help it, we love stories like this. Get used to it, K?

Finland is ensuring its children don’t grow up to be fucking dumbasses who are blinded by outrage at news stories that aren’t exactly true.

Wild

This fence in Australia that keeps predators from eating these cute little critters has resulted in a major species comeback.

Congrats to this mountain gorilla mamma, who gave birth to twins last week.

While this headline sounds like the opening to a “walk into a bar joke,” we’re stoked to see more migratory species getting global protection.

Weird

Like, literally just let her live.

A sex shop in Toronto received an official government letter about an excess of butt-plugs being sent to a U.S naval base in Bahrain.

We envy this journalist who got to use the words “beloved,” “walrus,” and “penis” in one headline.