I visited Russia for ten days in 2003, and it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Standing in Red Square, walking around Saint Petersburg, it was truly incredible.
One thing I noticed was how elaborate and beautiful some of the subway stations were in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The Soviets built incredible subway and train stations (some of them very far below ground). During the peak years in the Soviet Union, only 30 out of 1,000 citizens owned cars, so it was imperative to have a top-notch subway public transit system.
Even the more modern stations are pretty breathtaking. It’s a matter of priorities.
Here are some of the best.
1. Chernaya Rechka (Black River), Saint Petersburg.
Recently, 433 men named Nigel came together at a pub called The Fleece Inn in the middle of England to celebrate the heritage of that incredible first name.
Nigels from all over the UK came to the small village of Bretforton for the big bash. One Nigel flew in from Cyprus and one from Texas even crowdfunded a ticket to be able to make it to the event.
The idea was the brainchild of Nigel Smith, the landlord of The Fleece Inn where the festivities took place. Smith said it started off as “a slightly mad idea” and that he thought maybe a couple dozen Nigels would show up to have a few beers.
Smith added, “Nigels were kind of dying out. Those of us who are still around ought to celebrate the fact we are still around and very much comfortable with our Nigelness.”
The night features not only 433 chaps named Nigel, but also special drinks, including the Mad Nigel, Nige Ale, and a cider called Narky Nige.
Even the local MP showed up that night. His name: Nigel Huddleston. Of course.
The folks in Little Rock, Arkansas, might be on to something. In April 2019, the city launched its Bridge to Work program, paying homeless people $9.25 an hour to pick up litter off city streets.
Paul Atkins is a Pastor at the Canvas Community Church in Little Rock, and he’s been impressed with how successful the program has been so far. Atkins said 380 people have worked through the program, receiving paychecks and mental health and medical services. Some have even landed job interviews.
Atkins said, “We want to work with them on their next step. There are a lot of barriers that our people experience to go from homelessness and panhandling to full-time work. There’s a lot of steps in between.”
The people in the program work in groups of eight, but they usually leave one space open in case they encounter a panhandler or other homeless person who wants to join up and work with them.
NEW: The Bridge to Work program, which employs Little Rock's homeless to pick up litter around the city, has been extended for an additional year with $160,000 in funding. It was a unanimous vote at the city board meeting tonight #ARNewspic.twitter.com/kV2mBx5kFL
One of the team leaders in the program, Felecia Cooks, was initially worried it wouldn’t be entirely successful. She said:
“When I first started, from Day One, I couldn’t catch the vision, nor could I travel the journey. But, you know, we’ve taken out over 400-and-something persons. And let me tell you, that has been the most exciting thing that I’ve done in my life. The energy, just the positive (energy), the vision that Canvas Community Church has. You know, it’s just wonderful.
The Little Rock City Board is extending a program that pays minimum wage to homeless people who pick up litter https://t.co/gUciIQk8iE
The program was only supposed to last six months, but Little Rock’s mayor, Frank Scott Jr., said he will draft a resolution to extend the program through the end of September 2020 because it has been such a success.
Great idea! I’d like to see this in other cities across the country!
In this age of social media, you never know what’s gonna happen. Things are weird. Perhaps an everyday symbol will be co-opted by nefarious groups and turned into an emblem of hate? Does that seem far-fetched?
Well it shouldn’t because that’s exactly what happened with the ‘OK’ hand sign that we’ve all used countless times.
This is actually a problem for me – I use it a lot…
It seems like a harmless gesture, right? Well it was, but it’s not anymore. The Anti-Defamation League recently added the ‘OK’ hand gesture to its Hate Symbols Database. The hand sign has become associated with far-right and white supremacist groups on the Internet, causing its new classification.
The "OK" hand gesture has been co-opted by white supremacists — now it's been recognized as a hate symbol by the ADL https://t.co/Tqa7kYVqRw
Oren Segal of the Anti-Defamation League said, “Context is always key. More people than not will use the OK symbol as just ‘OK.’ But in those cases where there’s more underlining meaning, I think it’s important for people to understand that it could be used, and is being used, for hate as well.”
The ‘OK’ gesture has been pushed as a uniting symbol by far-right commentators and personalities in public and on message boards online. It originally started as a prank by users on the 4chan message board to flood social media outlets linking the hand sign to the white power movement, but it has since caught on and become a legitimate hate symbol.
'OK' Hand Sign Is Now Considered a Symbol of Hate, According to Anti-Defamation League https://t.co/0TuOWUCFRI
Oren Segal said, “Over the past couple years, we’ve seen that the hoax was essentially successful in being applied by actual white supremacists. In many ways, they took what was a trolling effort and added it to their list of symbols.”
As ridiculous as it might sound, it’s important to keep up to date on these kinds of developments when they are brought to light. With hate groups and hate crimes on the rise, we should all know the symbols of the far-right so we can be informed and aware at all times.
If you’re curious about what else is out there, take a look at ADL’s Hate Symbols Database to keep up to date.
Long gone are the days when a child’s only options were the standard Barbie and Ken. And dolls got even more inclusive recently when Mattel, the company that makes Barbies, launched a gender-neutral doll collection.
This new line of toys from Mattel is meant to erase existing preconceived notions about what gender means and how it is ingrained into us from a very young age. Kim Culmone, the Senior Vice President of Mattel Fashion Doll Design said, “Toys are a reflection of culture and as the world continues to celebrate the positive impact of inclusivity, we felt it was time to create a doll line free of labels.” The line is called Creatable World.
In our world, dolls are as limitless as the kids who play with them. Introducing #CreatableWorld, a doll line designed to keep labels out and invite everyone in. #AllWelcomeShop now: http://bit.ly/CWMattel
First off, the dolls come in a variety of skin colors. They can be styled with a variety of hairstyles, different clothes, and accessories such as sunglasses. TIME magazine noted that the “lips are not too full, the eyelashes not too long and fluttery, the jaw not too wide. There are no Barbie-like breasts or broad, Ken-like shoulders.”
A without labels means everyone is invited to play. Welcome to #CreatableWorld, where we let toys be toys so kids can be kids. #AllWelcome
In recent years, millennial parents have voiced their grievances about gender stereotypes in toys, and it seems like big companies such as Mattel are listening. The new, gender-neutral dolls are 11″ tall and they sell for $29.99 each. The official slogan for the new product is “A doll line designed to keep labels out and invite everyone in.”
It will be interesting to see how these products are received by the public and if other companies will follow Mattel’s lead. Stay tuned.
Some people believe that you have to have a lifetime of knowledge and experience to change the world, or even to try – but these 5 teenagers don’t have any time to listen to that kind of crap because they’re too busy actually changing the world.
From gun rights to climate change to terrorism, there’s no problem too daunting…and honestly maybe their lack of experience gives them just the right amount of idealism needed to actually get sh*t done.
I just wish – I truly wish – that their passion and activism hadn’t so often been sparked by personal trauma.
But if you have to go through something terrible, using your experience and pain to stop other people from going through the same thing seems like the healthiest way to deal.
Many of the teens who survived that day have gone on to support a campaign against gun violence, but 18-year-old Emma Gonzalez emerged a leader from the beginning. She co-founded the gun-control advocacy group Never Again MSD and, shortly after her classmates were buried, gave a powerful speech at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington D.C.
Since then, her work and others’ have encouraged lawmakers in Florida to pass a Public Safety Act, which raised the age to buy a firearm from 18 to 21 and instituted a three-day waiting period for most weapons. She is still working to prevent gun violence, and Never Again is going strong.
When he was only 15, Jack Andraka invented what appeared to be a new, cheap way to detect pancreatic cancer. He won $75k at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for the test, which he created after reading free science papers on the internet.
The test is still undergoing official studies, but if it works like he imagines, it could save lives and millions of dollars.
At the tender age of 11, Malala Yousafzai wrote and published a diary about her life under Taliban rule in Pakistan. Though the diary was anonymous, she began to speak publicly at home about her passion for girls’ education.
Three years later, when she was 14, a Taliban gunman shot her in the face on a bus to put a stop to her activism.
Amazingly, Malala survived the attack, and though she can never return home, she works tirelessly on behalf of underprivileged girls around the world.
In 2014, she became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and her passionate acceptance speech is one for the ages.
“This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change. I am here to stand up for their rights, to raise their voice. It is not time to pity them.”
Amika read an article about girls in the U.K. who couldn’t afford menstrual products and was astounded that there were so many in her home country living in such poverty.
When she was 17 she founded #FreePeriods, organized a protest of over 2,000, and demanded the government take appropriate action.
In response, the U.K. government announced in March of 2019 they would be funding free sanitary products in all English schools and universities.
This 16-year-old Swedish girl has dedicated her young life to being an activist for climate change activism across the world.
In 2018 she began striking – alone – on the steps of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm in an attempt to get them to take meaningful, immediate action.
Since her solitary striking began, more than 1 million teens have joined her by walking out of their classrooms around the world.
“Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago. We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with. We have to make our voices heard.”
She recently spoke at the UN, and it’s really worth watching:
These teens are an inspiration, for sure – they make 18-year-old me look like a lazy loafing loser.
Do you believe young people can make a real difference? How can you not?!
In the 18th century, a woman was accused of witchcraft. She died in prison while awaiting her trial, and since everyone in town was convinced of her guilt and feared her unnatural return from the dead, she was buried beneath a large, stone slab.
It happened in 1704, in a town called Torryburn on Scotland’s southwest coast. Her name was Lilias Adie, and she was accused by her neighbor of summoning Satan and casting spells.
This is a facial reconstruction, done by historians and scientists at the University of Dundee.
Lilias, a woman in her 60s, was tortured and interrogated in prison until she broke down and publicly confessed to her crimes, which included having sex with the devil himself.
The purpose of her treatment, aside from earning her confession (true or not) was to get the names of more “witches,” who would then be subjected to the same treatment.
Lilias, though, spent her time inventing elaborate ceremonies that involved only masked women – women she couldn’t identify, of course, so no glory for the investigators.
“I think she was a very clever and inventive person,” commented historian Louise Yeoman.
“The point of the interrogation and its cruelties was to get names. Lilias said that she couldn’t give the names of other women at the witches’ gatherings as they were masked like gentlewomen. She only gave names which were already known and kept coming up with good reasons for not identifying other women for this horrendous treatment – despite the fact it would probably mean there was no let-up for her.”
Around 1500 women were strangled and burned at the stake in Scotland between 1590 and 1706, all suspected “witches,” but Lilias Adie wasn’t one of them. She’s suspected to have committed suicide in prison, and she was subsequently buried between the high and low tide mark under a heavy, flat stone.
The fact that she killed herself, coupled with their belief in her supernatural powers, would have led people to believe she could and would return to haunt the living.
Her head and bones were dug up by locals around 100 years later, and her skull was sold to St. Andrew’s University Museum in the early 20th century – before the whole lot went missing again.
The town government is now searching for her remains so that she can finally be respectfully and peacefully laid to rest, says Kate Stewart, a councilor from WestFife and Coastal Villages.
“Lilias is not forgotten, she has never been forgotten. We need to get her back. This has been a great injustice and we need to reverse that.”
The modern people of Scotland, like many cultures around the world, now recognize the historical periods of hunting and burning “witches” as a shameful time in our collective histories.
“It’s important to recognize that Lilias Adie and the thousands of other men and women accused of witchcraft in early modern Scotland were not the evil people history has portrayed them to be, but were the innocent victims of unenlightened times. It’s time we recognized the injustice served upon them.”
So say we all.
At least, we should be, and it’s only fair that these people get the endings they always deserved – even if they’re coming a few centuries late.
The first sighting of the rumored monster swimming in Loch Ness dates back to the 6th century; since then, scientists and regular people alike have been searching for answers.
Sturgeons, trees, elephant trunks, dinosaurs and just about everything else you can think of has been blamed at one point or another, but one New Zealand scientist is claiming he’s come up with the most plausible answer – an oversized eel.
Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago made the assertion after a recent environmental DNA project analyzed the genetic material of everything living in the loch. Gemmell and his team collected 250 water samples from various spots in the lake – no small feat given that the lake is 23 miles long and 788 feet deep – and came up with 500 million gene sequences.
They then compared the sequenced DNA with global databases of known organism, and found nothing to suggest there’s anything new or unknown in the lake. Their findings also ruled out some previous guesses, like Greenland sharks, catfish, and sturgeon.
What they did find, however, were unusually high amounts of eel DNA.
“The remaining theory that we cannot refute based on the environmental DNA data obtained is that what people are seeing is a very large eel,” the project’s website reads. “Eels are very plentiful in Loch Ness, with eel DNA found at pretty much every location sampled – there are a lot of them.”
We also know that the British Isles are home to some pretty large eels. Conger eels can grow up to 10 feet or longer in length, and in 2001, two 7-foot eels were discovered on the loch’s shores. Gemmell and others maintain that an eel near the surface could be easily mistaken for the back of a larger, bulkier “monster.”
The evidence, while compelling, doesn’t prove anything conclusively, which means believers are still likely to traipse out to the lake in search of the elusive and enduring mystery of Nessie.
Jashika Khan and Mohammad Azajuddin are two children in Kolkata, India. The pair went viral for their impressive cartwheeling, and now they’re going to school to be full-time gymnasts.
A teacher took a video of Jashika, 11, and Mohammad, 12, doing their tumbling on the street on the way to school. Olympic gold medalist Nadia Comaneci retweeted the video, calling it “awesome.”
Their gymnastics journey could have ended with the tweet, but fortunately, the video caught the attention of India’s Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju. Jashika and Mohammad were soon called for trials at the Sports Authority of India, and the trainer, Manmeet Singh Goindi, said that he was impressed by what he saw.
“They are certainly talented and have the desire to achieve much,” he told The Telegraph.
Both children are going to be enrolled as full-time trainees. Manmeet explained:
“At SAI, not only will the children get food, lodging and proper education, they will also be trained under qualified gymnastics coaches. Plus, the right equipments will be made available to them. They will practice in proper indoor halls. No more will they have to jump around on the road and somersault on concrete, risking injuries.”
The video of Ali & Lovely, which went viral on social media and was even retweeted by Olympic star @nadiacomaneci10 who called them “awesome”, was shot by their teacher Shekhar Rao who trains underprivileged kids in Kolkata. @madhuparna_N reportshttps://t.co/A3vtmf5yio
Both Jashika and Mohammad are thrilled about the new opportunity. Jashika even says she wants to become a gymnast like Nadia in the future — and with talent like hers, it’s totally possible.
Every September 11, America takes a time-out from whatever else is going on to come together and remember the events of that tragic day.
We talk about the people in the buildings, the people on the planes, the first responders, the bystanders, the dogs who bravely searched in vain for survivors in the rubble.
We say never again, and we mean it.
But after September 11, the world had changed for another group of people – Muslims living in the United States.
So, as the day of remembrance passed, Muslims logged onto Twitter to claim their own narrative, using #AfterSeptember11 and #After911 to share how their lives have never been the same.
17. All were meant to pay for the actions of a few.
#AfterSeptember11 Suddenly any act of violence commited by a Muslim became terrorism meanwhile if by a Christian, it'd be mental-illness.
16. Communities should band together, not pull apart, in times of stress.
There’s an Indian restaurant in the town we lived where most of the employees were Sikh. It was absolutely empty for months after the attacks. We went almost every week.
I can’t tolerate the ‘us vs. them’ racist mentality. They may not have been Muslim, but it shouldn’t matter.
15. Most people are good people if you give them a chance.
#afterseptember11 I had a teacher tell my class that if he were president he would "bomb that whole part of the world off the map." I told a friend that bothered me because I had family there. She said "well he didn't mean people like you!" https://t.co/TINvrlJh1l
— Dr. Amanda H. Steinberg (she/her/hers) (@MENALibAHS) September 12, 2019
14. Good people shouldn’t have to answer for evil.
My very good friend at work, muslim woman, who wore the hijab, was told by a man at work that she should be banned from dressing like that after 9/11. I was floored. She was the most wonderful person. The epitome of what a true Muslim should be.
A Sikh couple & sons ran a gas station/convenience store nearby. For 20 yrs they gave out free school supplies, collected coats/toys for tots donations & ran a Thanksgiving food drive. #afterseptember11 they received so many death threats they boarded up & closed permanently.
My father was bullied and harassed by his co-workers to the point where he tried to kill himself. My brother was beaten up at the tender age of 5. 9/11 happened in USA but the impact was felt the world over #afterseptember11https://t.co/06epPjXQ0p
8. Imagine having to question your entire worldview as a child.
#after911 I found so much shame in my religion. I had a girl say that we couldnt date because, "in the end youre going to hell for being muslim." Kids my age made terrorist jokes daily and I had to just laugh them off.
#afterseptember11 Kids on the bus in 7th grade were calling Muslims terrorists & devil worshippers. One hispanic guy named Alex, stood up and told them loudly, “Shut the f** up Hind is on this bus, she is Muslim”. Thank you Alex. https://t.co/LJkS0RP56X
I was only 8. Most of the kids in school called me a terrorist & asked me if Bin laden was my uncle. Physically and verbally abused. Not having any friends made it alot harder.
(Hence why I say- if you don't know a Muslim or have a friend that is, u do now follow)
5. I wonder where kids are hearing crap like that, hmm?
#after911 a kid in my class asked me if my dad was a terrorist bc he knew my dad was from Iran. I was in 4th grade. And I hit him in the face with a textbook.
4. Those teachers should be ashamed of themselves.
Middle School: classmate of Middle Eastern descent. Sept 13th, gym class. Her clothes and shoes go missing. Only found the shoes after school hanging from an electrical wire with a sign that said "We don't want you here. Go home." Teachers never did anything. #afterseptember11https://t.co/SWxzq8yLYn
I'll never forget working at the U of Mich medical center.. A doctor friend of mine came to me and said "Mark now I know how bad black people have it in America" I said why? he said "Me and my family are getting harassed at the grocery store" He's from India.
My daughter had a Muslim friend at the time 9-11 happened, they were 8. I admit, I didn’t know what to say to the parents to help them, but I told my daughter to be an extra good friend because others might not be. I think she was the only white friend she had for a while.
I remember my one Muslim colleague crying the day after. He had a very hard time dealing with the fact that someone committed this heinous act in the name of Islam. A month later he was fired. For being a Muslim.
One thing that shouldn’t have changed after that day was how we treat our fellow Americans – all of them, regardless of race, religion, sex, whatever – so I hope hashtags like this can remind us of what makes us the greatest nation on earth.
Do you have a story to add? We’re all ears in the comments.