Billie Eilish slammed the state of Texas over its recent controversial abortion law while performing at Austin City Limits over the weekend.
The Grammy-winning artist took the stage at the show to perform some of her hits. However, she stopped at one point to discuss politics and pulled no punches when it came to denouncing the abortion law.
The star admitted that she almost didn’t attend the show as an act of protest about the law, which went into effect on Sept. 1 after being upheld in a 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is the strictest abortion law in the country. Critics say many women don’t yet know they’re pregnant at six weeks – around the time when a fetal heartbeat can first be detected – and the law makes no exceptions for rape or incest. It also allows citizens to sue providers of anyone helping women get an abortion.
“I’m sick and tired of old men,” Eilish said (via Yahoo Entertainment). “Shut the f— up about our bodies.”
BILLIE EILISH ADDRESSES INTERNET TROLLS: ‘THEY WOULD NEVER SAY THAT TO YOU IN REAL LIFE’
Singer Billie Eilish spoke out against Texas’ controversial abortion law. (Nicholas Hunt/WireImage via Getty Images)
The outburst was clearly planned as the words “Bans Off Our Bodies” flashed on the screen behind her.
Eilish continued: “When they made that s— a law, I almost didn’t want to do the show, because I wanted to punish this f—ing place for allowing that to happen here. But then, I remembered that it’s you guys that are the f—ing victims, and you deserve everything in the world.”
BILLIE EILISH RECALLS ‘HORRIBLE BODY RELATIONSHIP’ THAT LED TO HER SIGNATURE BAGGY CLOTHES STYLE
Billie Eilish said she almost didn’t perform at Austin City Limits due to the state of Texas’ abortion law. (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
She concluded with a sort of call to action by calling on concertgoers to “tell them to shut the f— up” before raising her middle finger, prompting a not insignificant number of people in the crowd to do the same.
According to Austin360, Eilish also took on the subject of climate change. However, her notes on this subject were a bit blunter.
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“If you don’t think global warming exists, you’re a f—ing loser,” she told the crowd.
Billie Eilish spoke out against climate change deniers. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for iHeartMedia via Getty Images)
Yahoo notes that Eilish previously joined the myriad of critics speaking out against the Texas law, taking to her Instagram Story last month to write that she is I’m so f—ing tired.”
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She added: “Makes me sick how many men say nothing when it comes to women’s rights.”
Caffeine, the main active ingredient in coffee, has a well-justified reputation for being an energy booster. But caffeine is also a drug, which means that it can affect each of us differently, depending on our consumption habits and our genes.
“The paradox of caffeine is that in the short term, it helps with attention and alertness. It helps with some cognitive tasks, and it helps with energy levels,” said Mark Stein, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, who has studied the impact of caffeine on people with A.D.H.D. “But the cumulative effect — or the long-term impact — has the opposite effect.”
Part of the paradoxical effects of caffeine results from its effects on what researchers refer to as “sleep pressure,” which fuels how sleepy we become as the day wears on. From the moment we wake up, our bodies have a biological clock that drives us to go back to sleep later in the day.
Seth Blackshaw, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University who studies sleep, said that researchers are still learning about how sleep pressure builds up in the body, but that over the course of the day, our cells and tissues use and burn energy in the form of a molecule called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. As that ATP gets expended — as we think, exercise, run errands or sit on conference calls — our cells generate a chemical called adenosine as a byproduct. That adenosine goes on to bind to receptors in the brain, making us more sleepy.
Chemically, caffeine looks similar enough to adenosine on the molecular level that it occupies those binding sites, preventing adenosine from binding to those brain receptors. As a result, caffeine works to temporarily suppress sleep pressure, making us feel more awake. Meanwhile, adenosine continues to build up in the body.
“Once caffeine wears off, you get a very high level of sleep pressure, and you have to pay it back,” Dr. Blackshaw said. In fact, the only way to relieve and reset an elevated level of sleep pressure is with sleep.
Compounding the issue is that the more we drink caffeine, the more we build up our body’s tolerance to it. Our liver adapts by making proteins that break down caffeine faster, and the adenosine receptors in our brain multiply, so that they can continue to be sensitive to adenosine levels to regulate our sleep cycle.
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Ultimately, continued or increased caffeine consumption negatively impacts sleep, which will also make us feel more tired, said Dr. Stein.
“If you’re sleeping less and you’re stressed, and you rely on caffeine to improve it, it’s just a perfect storm for a short-term solution that’s going to make things much worse in the long term,” he said. “You’re going to be adding more shots to your espresso, but the negative impact on your sleep is going to continue, and that is cumulative.”
Caffeine may also cause spikes in blood sugar or lead to dehydration — both of which can make us feel more tired, said Christina Pierpaoli Parker, a clinical researcher studying sleep at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
If you’re feeling an afternoon slump even after a cup of coffee, the solution may be to consume less of it, scientists say. Don’t drink it every day, or go cold turkey for a few days so that your body can clear any caffeine in your system, and then gradually add it back to your routine. Ideally, drinking coffee “should be fun and useful, and really give you a boost when you need it,” Dr. Blackshaw said.
In the meantime, if you feel like caffeine is no longer giving you an energy spurt, experts recommend taking a nap, getting some exercise or sitting outside and getting some exposure to natural light, which can add a boost of energy — naturally.
“Monitor your sleep and make sure you’re sleeping well,” Dr. Stein said. “Adequate sleep and physical activity are the first-line interventions for attention problems and sleepiness. Caffeine is a useful adjunct, but you don’t want to become dependent on it.”
Wudan Yan is an independent journalist in Seattle, covering science and society.
Picture the United States struggling to deal with a deadly pandemic.
State and local officials enact a slate of social-distancing measures, gathering bans, closure orders and mask mandates in an effort to stem the tide of cases and deaths.
The public responds with widespread compliance mixed with more than a hint of grumbling, pushback and even outright defiance. As the days turn into weeks turn into months, the strictures become harder to tolerate.
Theater and dance hall owners complain about their financial losses.
Clergy bemoan church closures while offices, factories and in some cases even saloons are allowed to remain open.
Officials argue whether children are safer in classrooms or at home.
Many citizens refuse to don face masks while in public, some complaining that they’re uncomfortable and others arguing that the government has no right to infringe on their civil liberties.
As familiar as it all may sound in 2021, these are real descriptions of the U.S. during the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic. In my research as a historian of medicine, I’ve seen again and again the many ways our current pandemic has mirrored the one experienced by our forebears a century ago.
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its second year, many people want to know when life will go back to how it was before the coronavirus. History, of course, isn’t an exact template for what the future holds. But the way Americans emerged from the earlier pandemic could suggest what post-pandemic life will be like this time around.
Sick and tired, ready for pandemic’s end
Like COVID-19, the 1918 influenza pandemic hit hard and fast, going from a handful of reported cases in a few cities to a nationwide outbreak within a few weeks. Many communities issued several rounds of various closure orders – corresponding to the ebbs and flows of their epidemics – in an attempt to keep the disease in check.
These social-distancing orders worked to reduce cases and deaths. Just as today, however, they often proved difficult to maintain. By the late autumn, just weeks after the social-distancing orders went into effect, the pandemic seemed to be coming to an end as the number of new infections declined.
People clamored to return to their normal lives. Businesses pressed officials to be allowed to reopen. Believing the pandemic was over, state and local authorities began rescinding public health edicts. The nation turned its efforts to addressing the devastation influenza had wrought.
For the friends, families and co-workers of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who had died, post-pandemic life was filled with sadness and grief. Many of those still recovering from their bouts with the malady required support and care as they recuperated.
At a time when there was no federal or state safety net, charitable organizations sprang into action to provide resources for families who had lost their breadwinners, or to take in the countless children left orphaned by the disease.
For the vast majority of Americans, though, life after the pandemic seemed to be a headlong rush to normalcy. Starved for weeks of their nights on the town, sporting events, religious services, classroom interactions and family gatherings, many were eager to return to their old lives.
Taking their cues from officials who had – somewhat prematurely – declared an end to the pandemic, Americans overwhelmingly hurried to return to their pre-pandemic routines. They packed into movie theaters and dance halls, crowded in stores and shops, and gathered with friends and family.
Officials had warned the nation that cases and deaths likely would continue for months to come. The burden of public health, however, now rested not on policy but rather on individual responsibility.
Predictably, the pandemic wore on, stretching into a third deadly wave that lasted through the spring of 1919, with a fourth wave hitting in the winter of 1920. Some officials blamed the resurgence on careless Americans. Others downplayed the new cases or turned their attention to more routine public health matters, including other diseases, restaurant inspections and sanitation.
Despite the persistence of the pandemic, influenza quickly became old news. Once a regular feature of front pages, reportage rapidly dwindled to small, sporadic clippings buried in the backs of the nation’s newspapers. The nation carried on, inured to the toll the pandemic had taken and the deaths yet to come. People were largely unwilling to return to socially and economically disruptive public health measures.
It’s hard to hang in there
Our predecessors might be forgiven for not staying the course longer. First, the nation was eager to celebrate the recent end of World War I, an event that perhaps loomed larger in the lives of Americans than even the pandemic.
Second, death from disease was a much larger part of life in the early 20th century, and scourges such as diphtheria, measles, tuberculosis, typhoid, whooping cough, scarlet fever and pneumonia each routinely killed tens of thousands of Americans every year. Moreover, neither the cause nor the epidemiology of influenza was well understood, and many experts remained unconvinced that social distancing measures had any measurable impact.
Finally, there were no effective flu vaccines to rescue the world from the ravages of the disease. In fact, the influenza virus would not be discovered for another 15 years, and a safe and effective vaccine was not available for the general population until 1945. Given the limited information they had and the tools at their disposal, Americans perhaps endured the public health restrictions for as long as they reasonably could.
A century later, and a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is understandable that people now are all too eager to return to their old lives. The end of this pandemic inevitably will come, as it has with every previous one humankind has experienced.
If we have anything to learn from the history of the 1918 influenza pandemic, as well as our experience thus far with COVID-19, however, it is that a premature return to pre-pandemic life risks more cases and more deaths.
And today’s Americans have significant advantages over those of a century ago. We have a much better understanding of virology and epidemiology. We know that social distancing and masking work to help save lives. Most critically, we have multiple safe and effective vaccines that are being deployed, with the pace of vaccinations increasingly weekly.
Sticking with all these coronavirus-fighting factors or easing off on them could mean the difference between a new disease surge and a quicker end to the pandemic. COVID-19 is much more transmissible than influenza, and several troubling SARS-CoV-2 variants are already spreading around the globe. The deadly third wave of influenza in 1919 shows what can happen when people prematurely relax their guard.
J. Alexander Navarro, Assistant Director of the Center for the History of Medicine, University of Michigan
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
Picture the United States struggling to deal with a deadly pandemic.
State and local officials enact a slate of social-distancing measures, gathering bans, closure orders and mask mandates in an effort to stem the tide of cases and deaths.
The public responds with widespread compliance mixed with more than a hint of grumbling, pushback and even outright defiance. As the days turn into weeks turn into months, the strictures become harder to tolerate.
Theater and dance hall owners complain about their financial losses.
Clergy bemoan church closures while offices, factories and in some cases even saloons are allowed to remain open.
Officials argue whether children are safer in classrooms or at home.
No mask, no service on streetcar in 1918. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Many citizens refuse to don face masks while in public, some complaining that they’re uncomfortable and others arguing that the government has no right to infringe on their civil liberties.
As familiar as it all may sound in 2021, these are real descriptions of the U.S. during the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic. In my research as a historian of medicine, I’ve seen again and again the many ways our current pandemic has mirrored the one experienced by our forebears a century ago.
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its second year, many people want to know when life will go back to how it was before the coronavirus. History, of course, isn’t an exact template for what the future holds. But the way Americans emerged from the earlier pandemic could suggest what post-pandemic life will be like this time around.
Sick and tired, ready for pandemic’s end
Like COVID-19, the 1918 influenza pandemic hit hard and fast, going from a handful of reported cases in a few cities to a nationwide outbreak within a few weeks. Many communities issued several rounds of various closure orders – corresponding to the ebbs and flows of their epidemics – in an attempt to keep the disease in check.
These social-distancing orders worked to reduce cases and deaths. Just as today, however, they often proved difficult to maintain. By the late autumn, just weeks after the social-distancing orders went into effect, the pandemic seemed to be coming to an end as the number of new infections declined.
People were ready to be done with masks as soon as it looked like the flu was receding. PhotoQuest/Archive Photos via Getty Images
People clamored to return to their normal lives. Businesses pressed officials to be allowed to reopen. Believing the pandemic was over, state and local authorities began rescinding public health edicts. The nation turned its efforts to addressing the devastation influenza had wrought.
For the friends, families and co-workers of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who had died, post-pandemic life was filled with sadness and grief. Many of those still recovering from their bouts with the malady required support and care as they recuperated.
At a time when there was no federal or state safety net, charitable organizations sprang into action to provide resources for families who had lost their breadwinners, or to take in the countless children left orphaned by the disease.
For the vast majority of Americans, though, life after the pandemic seemed to be a headlong rush to normalcy. Starved for weeks of their nights on the town, sporting events, religious services, classroom interactions and family gatherings, many were eager to return to their old lives.
Taking their cues from officials who had – somewhat prematurely – declared an end to the pandemic, Americans overwhelmingly hurried to return to their pre-pandemic routines. They packed into movie theaters and dance halls, crowded in stores and shops, and gathered with friends and family.
Officials had warned the nation that cases and deaths likely would continue for months to come. The burden of public health, however, now rested not on policy but rather on individual responsibility.
Predictably, the pandemic wore on, stretching into a third deadly wave that lasted through the spring of 1919, with a fourth wave hitting in the winter of 1920. Some officials blamed the resurgence on careless Americans. Others downplayed the new cases or turned their attention to more routine public health matters, including other diseases, restaurant inspections and sanitation.
Despite the persistence of the pandemic, influenza quickly became old news. Once a regular feature of front pages, reportage rapidly dwindled to small, sporadic clippings buried in the backs of the nation’s newspapers. The nation carried on, inured to the toll the pandemic had taken and the deaths yet to come. People were largely unwilling to return to socially and economically disruptive public health measures.
No matter the era, aspects of daily life go on even during a pandemic. Chicago History Museum/Archive Photos via Getty Images
It’s hard to hang in there
Our predecessors might be forgiven for not staying the course longer. First, the nation was eager to celebrate the recent end of World War I, an event that perhaps loomed larger in the lives of Americans than even the pandemic.
Second, death from disease was a much larger part of life in the early 20th century, and scourges such as diphtheria, measles, tuberculosis, typhoid, whooping cough, scarlet fever and pneumonia each routinely killed tens of thousands of Americans every year. Moreover, neither the cause nor the epidemiology of influenza was well understood, and many experts remained unconvinced that social distancing measures had any measurable impact.
Finally, there were no effective flu vaccines to rescue the world from the ravages of the disease. In fact, the influenza virus would not be discovered for another 15 years, and a safe and effective vaccine was not available for the general population until 1945. Given the limited information they had and the tools at their disposal, Americans perhaps endured the public health restrictions for as long as they reasonably could.
A century later, and a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is understandable that people now are all too eager to return to their old lives. The end of this pandemic inevitably will come, as it has with every previous one humankind has experienced.
If we have anything to learn from the history of the 1918 influenza pandemic, as well as our experience thus far with COVID-19, however, it is that a premature return to pre-pandemic life risks more cases and more deaths.
And today’s Americans have significant advantages over those of a century ago. We have a much better understanding of virology and epidemiology. We know that social distancing and masking work to help save lives. Most critically, we have multiple safe and effective vaccines that are being deployed, with the pace of vaccinations increasingly weekly.
Sticking with all these coronavirus-fighting factors or easing off on them could mean the difference between a new disease surge and a quicker end to the pandemic. COVID-19 is much more transmissible than influenza, and several troubling SARS-CoV-2 variants are already spreading around the globe. The deadly third wave of influenza in 1919 shows what can happen when people prematurely relax their guard.
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At the stroke of midnight, it’ll be March, the time of year where Knicks fans are usually glued to tankathon.com while waiting for another season to mercifully end. This year, however, Knicks fans will wake tomorrow to a team currently in fourth place in the Eastern Conference at 18-17. Sure, the NBA schedule has been pushed back, but we’re above .500 after 35 games for the first time in eight years.
Sunday’s contest with the lowly Detroit Pistons reeked of a trap game, with the Knicks on the second night of a back-to-back following a 48-minute war with the Pacers one night earlier. The first half was butt-ugly, though the good guys walked away with a 48-37 advantage thanks to some timely three-point shooting.
In recent weeks, this club has struggled coming out of halftime. That was not the case Sunday, however, as Julius Randle and RJ Barrett dominated the Pistons while the Knicks stretched their lead past 20 points.
Julius toyed with the Pistons in the second half, canning jab-step jumpers like prime Melo.
Coming into tonight, I thought RJ Barrett would be a big key for the Knicks, as the one pair of young legs in the starting lineup. He certainly stepped up for the Knicks, with 21 points on 8-13 shooting.
Let’s also give some credit to Nerlens Noel, who was a beast yet again, playing huge minutes with Taj Gibson out.
I’ll say it again: We’re above .500 folks. Recap to come.
Getting your hands on the latest, greatest gadget is always a bit of challenge, but the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are on another level. Since the products’ launch in late 2020, thousands of game fans have found buying into the new generation of game consoles to be little more than an exercise in frustration. The consoles are almost perpetually out of stock. When stores do have inventory, they sell out within minutes.
Worse still, it’s been this way for months — and it’s no mystery why. Resellers have made a cottage industry out of deploying small armies of shopping bots to purchase high-demand items to later resell at a higher price. If you can find a PS5 in store, you’d pay $499 for a version with a disc drive. Buy it from a scalper online, and it can set you back as much as $999.
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It’s an issue that plagues game console sales, high-end computer parts and even the sneaker industry. It’s also a practice almost universally hated by average consumers.
Yet the resellers are tired of being seen as the bad guys. According to a new piece in Forbes, many scalpers see the backlash to reselling as unjustified. “All we are acting as is a middleman for a limited-quantity item,” one reseller told the publication. “Essentially every business resells their products.” The scalper, identified only as Jordan, said nobody complains when a grocery store buys milk from a farmer and resells it for twice as much.
Walmart
That’s true, but at the same time, there aren’t entire groups like Jordan’s dedicated to monitoring all milk shipments and buying up stock before the average consumer can. Specifically, Jordan tells Forbes he runs a private “cook group” that advises scalpers on how to best acquire in-demand items like the PlayStation 5. The group monitors hundreds of sites for inventory restock and sends its users, complete with their armies of bots, to snap up as many consoles as possible.
This takes thousands of consoles off the open market, ultimately making it even harder for average buyers to get their hands on the new generation of gaming hardware. Still, Jordan and other scalpers see themselves as a plus in the equation.
“The whole group came about near the start of the first UK lockdown and it makes me so happy that I can help people make some extra money for themselves,” Jordan told Forbes. “We do a lot for charity as well,” he added, noting that some of the fees he charges to members of his scalping group go to a local food bank.
For many average gamers, however, these rationalizations probably don’t mean much. The PS5 and Xbox Series X are still nearly impossible to find at their retail price points, and sellers like Walmart say they’re constantly trying to deflect bot purchases in favor of legitimate customers.
Unfortunately, the problem probably is not going away anytime soon. Bot-powered resellers have become a fact of life for high-demand products. And if the Forbes piece is any indication, scalpers behind those operations don’t seem to feel bad about it at all.
