Puberty for adults: Brains On, LAist (5/14)

Thursday, May 14th, 2026, 7:00-8:15  pm at The Crawford (474 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena 91105).

Get tickets priced from FREE to $25. Join Molly Bloom, host and creator of the kids' podcast company Brains On Universe, for a live panel about puberty. Featured guests include

• Dr. Cara Natterson, pediatrician, author, and founder of Less Awkward, a company designed to make puberty a less awkward and more joyful experience
• Dr. Christopher Miller, a clinical psychologist and the founder of The Boys’ Institute for Growth (BIG), which educates boys about puberty and facilitates healthy conversations between boys and their trusted adults.

The evening will feature a moderated discussion followed by a live Q&A designed to help parents prepare kids ages 7–11 for the changes ahead. More

• Brains On Universe presents…Puberty! (The podcast) | LAist

If only dating could be easy (video)

Why does dating in America have to be hard? Why can't it be easy? If only there were a way to be natural, like Zen, going with the flow (Tao), and just talking based on chemistry and attraction rather than secret agendas and mind games. Ah, but 'tis not so. It's a minefield, and all we can do is learn to be authentic with our virtue intact and in integrity.... Hey, what's your name, Baby? Like the shirt. Come here often? Was it something I said?

• Stevie Emerson; PUA YouTube; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Forget Trump, New Right under Vance

Ever since former Pres. DJ became the GOP presidential nominee in 2016, there has been a small but loud group of so-called Republicans in the media and the halls of power who have fervently dreamed of the day when Trump loses his hold on the party.

Until the vice-presidential debate, these MSNBC "conservative" pundits and figures such as former Rep. Liz Cheney and Mormon Sen. Mitt Romney could have hoped that if Trump face-plants this year, the GOP will finally come back to its senses and put them back in charge.

Ohio Senator JD Vance put that theory squarely to bed onstage in New York City.

• WHY VANCE EASILY BEAT WALZ IN DEBATE, SOFTENING HIS IMAGE IN THE PROCESS

Though polling varies, by most accounts, Sen. Vance scored a win over Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (not to mention the biased CBS moderators) with his command of the issues and a surprising affability that even seemed to have Walz charmed at times.

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks during the vice-presidential debate at CBS Studios on October 1, 2024, in New York, N.Y. Most pundits agree he defeated his opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Getty Images © Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

But it was the substance, not the style of Sen. Vance’s answers that should worry the Never Trump crowd. Because Sen. Vance, for maybe the first time, is a major political figure who is not Donald Trump, but who can explain and embody Trump’s populism even in the loftiest forums.

The cover of Time magazine this week acknowledged this with a portrait of Vance and the words, "The New Right" which is, in fact, another term for the changes that Trump has wrought in the GOP.

Trumpian populism, or the New Right, has four essential pillars erected by dumb Donald J. Trump:

1. anti-globalism,
2. a strong border,
3. energy independence, and
4. taking the fight to wokeness.

On all four, JD Vance made the case. The Ohio senator spoke of... More

• RIP Never Trump GOP. Vance’s dominant debate is beginning of the end (Fox News via MSN)
• David French: At the end of the debate, Vance's whole facade came off
• Vance now says Trump won the 2020 election then doubles down on the lie in a new interview
• David Marcus, Fox News via MSN.com, 10/3/24; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Kami 'n Mindy make Indian food (TDS)

What a disgusting PHONY Kamala is. Don't think so? In another video she goes to a white girl's house in Iowa to make cookies and fawns and exclaims how uncanny it is that the teen's family writes recipes down on pieces of scrap paper -- just like the ancient lineage of Harrises do. That's all she can to say to get the spotlight off her. Point at a trivial nothing to try to make it seem like a point of commonality? And we thought Hillary was a socially awkward charlatan.

Kamala hunts for VP (as if Kelly hasn't already been selected) and Trump drags Mindy into his racist drama

(The Daily Show) Aug. 1, 2024: Ronny Chieng tackles DJ Trump's continued attacks on Kamala's changing racial identity, this time citing...Mindy Kaling's Instagram? JD Vance handles his own race problems with a lukewarm defense of his East Indian wife against white supremacists, and Ronny runs down Harris's options for a running mate, who, as Desi Lydic explains, absolutely cannot be a woman, no f'n way, nothing doing, no one is showing up Momala or she'll be darned and put out to dry. #DailyShow #RonnyChieng #KamalaHarris

Leslie Jones on voting for Trump

Dotard: Joe Biden is licensed to fall (video)

Sheldon S., Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

A strong case can be made for body doubles, plastic surgery, hair pieces, and then there's...

.

Who's moving in, Esther? - My name's Kamala

Cackling Kamala Harris is starting to look pretty good right about now. Even the Trumpet says he'd end the U.S. Proxy War in Ukraine right away if given a chance to refuse to step down again in a repeat of Jan. 6th. But this Biden, yikes, a dotard in his dotage. And there's more than one of them, but the looks of it, so what excuse does he have really?

‘License to fall’: Joe Biden mocked in James Bond parody

Actor Struan Rodgers impersonates Biden

(Sky News Australia) Sept 12, 2023: Sky News Host Rita Panahi has questioned why the oldest U.S. president is being “treated like a baby” and brought his age into question. Concerns have been raised about enfeebled U.S. Pres. Biden’s age after a series of his blunders and pratfalls were mocked in a James Bond parody trailer. “We’ve had a glimpse into the … routine the Biden White House has been running with,” Ms. Panahi said. “Who is commander in chief? Because it ain’t this guy. Nowadays, his staff don’t even let him finish before they abruptly end a press conference.”

• VIDEO: Why does Biden keep lying and making things up?

Awkwardly Zen Zooms (4/7)

Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Seven, Jen, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Awkwardly Z., Ari, Amber, Valorie Lewis, Sophia (Zen Zoom - Friday)

A safe place for your spiritual path - Be awkwardly you! (Awkwardly Zen | Meetup Pro)

Organizer Ari (Awkwardly Zen)

Join Awkwardly Zen for one of its Awkwardly Zen Zooms. It's an open forum where it's safe to speak openly about our spiritual journeys.

No questions are weird. No story is judged. Speak freely and support others as they wander down their path. Like Vegas, all discussions on these Zen Zooms stay on these Zen Zooms.

• Opinions of guests are not necessarily the opinion of Awkwardly Zen. Also, we are not doctors, so we do not diagnose, cure, or recommend medical treatments.
• One may hear about techniques that have worked for other people, but they are not intended to replace proper medical care. Always bear in mind the maxim, "You do you, Boo."

Ari on Zoom from on high in Denver, Colorado

This is a FREE event that takes place every Friday. If another time works better, please check the Meetup page to find more available times.

ZEN ZOOMS has 16 locations across the world that meet regularly to spread love and light (Awkwardly Zen).

• Zen Zoom - Friday - A Safe Place to Discuss Your Spiritual Journey, April 7, 2023, 10:00 AM | Meetup
• Coming soon to Kalmykia, Buddhist Europe

Awkwardly Zen is a worldwide endeavor with 16 locations so far, and it's growing.

.

[*Except for NSA, NSC, CIA, cell phone company which collects data and "gives" it to police and quasi-government alphabet agencies to skirt the law against their direct collection. The AI is watching. It's not spying; it's just domestic surveillance and the deployment of photographic comparison technology or analogous collateral obfuscatory euphemisms. That's right, go back to sleep. Your phone is spying on everything you do anyway and you're too addicted to put it down, so don't try to start complaining about it now (lol).]

High price of our FEAR of loneliness

High price we pay for our FEAR of loneliness

(School of Life, 1/1/20) We often make some very peculiar and regrettable choices on the basis of a hidden and unmentioned fear: that of being alone.

But once we realize that there isn't, in fact, anything to fear about being on our own, we'll be liberated to make some far healthier decisions.

The price I've had to pay for being desperate

“It’s not hard to understand the fear of being alone: the empty apartment after work, the eeriness of Sunday afternoons, the sense of exclusion during the holidays… We know the agonies of being on our own very well. What is far less well understood, and less eloquently or frequently described, is the enormously high price exacted on the other side of the equation. The fear, or more often simply the phobia, of being alone is perhaps responsible for more unhappy relationships, more throttling of psychological development, more claustrophobia, and more pent-up misery than almost any other: It is – by any reckoning – one of the single greatest contributors to human misery and the driver of some of our weightiest and most unfortunate decisions. If only we were able to get the costs of what is for the most part a simple misapprehension clear in our minds, we might save ourselves a substantial portion of our lives…”

• Sign up to new newsletter and get 10% off first online order of a book, product, or class: bit.ly/2LayJ9F

For gifts and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: bit.ly/2PSno3S. Website has classes, articles, and products to help visitors lead a more fulfilled life: bit.ly/34NnCgB.

FURTHER READING

Read more on this and other subjects at: bit.ly/2tEYiMX

MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE

Visit in person the London HQ: bit.ly/35ThepC. Watch more films on SELF in this playlist: bit.ly/TSOLself.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Feel free to follow: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with: Natalia Ramos nataliarama.com. Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions valeproductions.co.uk.

"My Dad Wrote a PORNO" - Trump? (audio)

Jamie Morton (comedy.co.uk); Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Wait, daddy! - Hey, Ivan, I paid for your sex reassignment surgery. I'll grab your... It's mine.

 

Wait, Trump did what?!

Kathy Griffin could give the Don head...

Can you imagine? We can. The filth! The obscenity! Trump could call it Grab 'Em By the P..., Confessions of a Serial Harasser, Molester and Pee Lover, or Have You Been Eating Cheetos or Poppa? because of the synthetic orange powder all over Ivan(ka) and Barron.* Fifty Shades of Orange?

(*Don's predatory incest is plausible enough to have been a joke on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this weekend that everyone understood).

You made the bargain, Don. - I did, Steve.

Trump's favorite son is his daughter Ivan(ka) who was possibly born with an anomaly and is transgender and has gone through a great deal of feminizing plastic surgery, rhinoplasty and breast augmentation to look more like a convincing transgender female, having been born a tall boy with an anomaly. What about her three children? Fake pregnancy, not hers. "Podesta the Molesta" probably extends invitations to Jared and other Trump courtiers to eat pizza.
 

Now why would effeminate Jared Kushner be allowed to marry into the family and its fortune? Jared understood and was willing to accept their "special relationship" and the fact that Father Donald would need constant access to Ivan(ka).

Surely, Kushner's in it for the money and to avenge his crooked father's shame. The only one unresponsive to sexual attention is long-suffering Melania, who reports say was a call girl, so she would understand philandering and her trophy status, the good wife.

I'm a man, I'm all man. Just ask my sons.

Dick Gregory says Pres. Donald Trump is a pedophile and gay. That would explains why gays are just about the only group he never talks against. He's a cruel and sexist bully who loves to mock and belittle and demean everyone else in perverse ways. But not gays, the favorite target of heterosexual males.

This would explain why he's banning all transgenders from serving in the military. Maybe he's trying to keep them from harm

My Dad Wrote A Porno returns with erotic vengeance

Epsom Hall (avclub.com)

Brianna Wellen

When Jamie Morton first started reading his father’s erotic fiction out loud to his friends on the podcast My Dad Wrote A Porno, it almost seemed cruel.

The book, Belinda Blinked, follows a sales representative for a business called Pots And Pans who finds herself using her feminine wiles across the world to secure clients.

The chapters are filled with outrageous sex scenes described with such anatomically correct terms that the result is more hilarious than salacious. 

Not written by Don Trump.

But poking fun at an old man’s hard work, his passion project, wouldn’t have made for a sustainable podcast -- so it was lucky that Morton’s father (known by his pen name, Rocky Flintstone) basked in the exposure given to his novel and continued writing for the listening audience.

Morton and his friends James Cooper and Alice Levine are now on the third book in the series, and by the second chapter it’s clear that Flintstone has not only imagined new sexual acts.

He truly found his voice as an entertainer and author without losing any of the charm of the podcast’s original gimmick. Don’t forget to look up the Belinda drinking game before listening. More

My Dad Wrote A Porno

A series in which Jamie Morton reads out chapters from the erotic books his 60 year-old dad has written. He's joined by his friends James Cooper and Alice Levine. More

• New to the show? Start at Series 1, Episode 1
• Suicides in India up due to climate change

Awkward Family Photos (top blog)

PLAY VIDEO

No matter who took the photo — the guy at the mall, the expensive photographer — sometimes, nothing can be done to make you look good. And it doesn't matter if you burned the photo and buried the negatives. Thanks to scanners, your friends/enemies, and the Internet, no one is safe from the bad photo. Enter AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. The website is less than a month old, but is already racking up more than 2 million visitors a day. More>>