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The &#8220;Call Her Daddy&#8221; podcast empire is built on intellectual deceit, teaching that promiscuity is freedom and that a woman’s prime years should be spent mastering how to manipulate men sexually instead of discerning dating and marriage. It’s no wonder that the company’s internal dynamics reflect the toxicity of the propaganda that’s been peddled since the beginning.
Several young women who once idolized Alex Cooper and her vision for a feminist media company are now disillusioned after working for her directly. In an incriminating report published by <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/story/alex-coopers-mean-girl-problem?srsltid=AfmBOorY6lCSPQ3a8w4vrU2eSaMbdjgpciSDP2v1nIx24u9E--4wTpgk">Vanity Fair</a>, sources that include over 20 former and current employees of the Unwell Network, the parent organization of popular podcast &#8220;Call Her Daddy,&#8221; revealed that the sisterhood was not at all what it was marketed to be. While maintaining a public boss-babe image, Cooper allegedly deferred to her domineering husband on business matters and managing personnel. Instead of encouragement, verbal abuse and boundary-crossing were what the female staff said they experienced. 
But why would they expect to get professional nurturing from Cooper? Right from <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6WeScBow0GCkh4eCN0Uw9f">episode one</a>, titled “Sext Me So I Know It’s Real,” Cooper sets up a relationship with her listeners that is sabotage masquerading as mentorship. To be fair, the show&#8217;s description says of its cohosts: “In their 20s, the two exploit the f*ck out of their lives, making you feel a hell of a lot better about yours.” It was a bit like reality TV but with some self-awareness, in which the actors know they are making fools of themselves for your entertainment value. No doubt they drummed up the provocative outbursts — such as “you’re just a hole” — to generate more buzz. 
But at what point does it go from being titillatingly weird content that’s hard to tune out of — like Alex Jones for sex and dating — to ideas you start to take seriously and internalize? Cooper often spoke in a paternalistic way, literally, to her loyal fans with her signature opening catchphrase, “What is up daddy gang, it is your founding father!”
After co-host Sofia Franklyn’s unceremonious exit from the podcast following the pair’s separation from Barstool Sports, Cooper tried to adapt the show into something more sophisticated, in theory. She appeared to be aiming for a millennial version of &#8220;The Ellen DeGeneres Show,&#8221; giving hot celebrities the safe space to spill their secrets. In reality, the only thing that changed was the aesthetics — boucle chairs and a proper microphone instead of a fratty corner office set-up. The same problematic topics persisted, whether it was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSThWkhtYqw">threesomes</a>, blackmail in the context of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foJ6Li8_fXg">orgies and escorts</a>, or the joys of single parenthood from a wealthy guest for whom the cost of childcare is immaterial. It mainly only matured in the sense that the horrible advice was in glossier packaging. But even if Cooper thought she had achieved the rebrand of the century, that doesn’t excuse the degenerate level she stooped to to get the show to take off. 
When the show declared in an early episode, “If you’re a 5 or 6, die for that d*ck,” the implication was that women of average attractiveness by contemporary standards should overcompensate with their bedroom skills to keep a partner&#8217;s interest. Cooper and Franklyn provided a lesson on how to go through a significant other’s phone in search of evidence of impropriety. In another episode, they warned their audience that if they’re not performing oral sex on their man, “someone else is.” For practical application, they described in the seminal “Gluck Gluck 9009” episode a technique that is “every man&#8217;s kryptonite.” 
Does this sound like a cute trust circle or like a cult leader stoking fear in women that their sexual prowess is their only hope of keeping a man’s attention, which is likely divided among other women anyway? 
Some of their advice is just laughably contradictory, but no less insidious. In episode 24, they talked about “how to cheat or catch a cheater.” How can you advance both positions simultaneously? You wouldn’t need to learn how to catch a cheater, which they imply is nefarious enough that it’s worth doing detective work to uncover, if cheating were in short supply in our culture. But here they were, giving step-by-step instructions on how to commit infidelity. This hamster wheel logic, like most of the show’s themes, was the opposite of empowering.
In episode 28, the hosts addressed faking pregnancies. The show had a baseline premise that most men are only seeking out sexual satisfaction, so the smartest strategy women can adopt is to weaponize their sexual nature to maximize their own pleasure and make mischief along the way. In the creators’ worldview, living among men is not about friendship or courtship but a game where there are only winners and losers. And winning, in the spirit of Samantha Jones in &#8220;Sex and the City,&#8221; meant achieving the best sex and then discarding the man before he could discard you. 
It’s hard to quantify the aggregate harm such a message has on the trust between young women and men in society today. If I were a young man, knowing that so many young women are disciples of a show that explicitly tells them men can’t be trusted so they have to be played, I would stay far, far away. 
Then there’s the matter of the message just not comporting with scientific reality, that women chemically bond to men during sex, making casual affairs almost impossible. Cooper and Franklyn seemed to acknowledge this truth, while insisting to women that they had to figure out how to fight it, in <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0SW2sFSepDwCXOKRJHWksm">episode 30</a> where they “discuss the tricky art of how to not catch feelings…” What if you’re supposed to catch feelings for the person you’re intimate with, according to biology? The most prudent advice is to secure commitment as the price of that intimacy, so that the woman is not left with the bag, emotionally.
Some of the disgruntled Unwell staff reported that their interactions with Cooper’s husband were suggestive and uncomfortable. Again, how is this unusual, given the show’s history? In episode 23 titled, “Cuckolding, Everyone’s Doing It,” Cooper and Franklyn shared “a technology hack to help you get away with murder or better yet, cheating!” If anything, Kaplan was just being consistent, taking cues from the show’s legitimization of <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@callherdaddy/video/7508828899451620654">open relationships</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujo2BHqx0PY">polyamory</a>. Their entire business model was trafficking in engagement on raunchy stories that do the opposite of dignifying women or men. The show didn’t inspire better behavior on the part of either gender; it brought both down to new lows.
A common conservative argument since Cooper got married and pregnant has been that she pursued the most tried-and-true paths to sustained human happiness while offering her audience garbage dressed up as candy, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/alex-cooper-told-women-to-delay-settling-down-now-shes-having-the-fairytale-ending">epitome</a> of a luxury belief. Cooper defends: What’s wrong with “having fun” in your 20s and then settling down in your 30s? But &#8220;Call Her Daddy&#8221; was not merely about having fun; it perpetuated a degrading hookup culture that leaves scars more than it builds character. Gender relations and happiness levels were <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-sexual-history-affect-marital-happiness">better</a> when sex was still something reserved for a one-and-only, something sacred. Based on the Vanity Fair story, it seems the couple behind Unwell is surrounded by <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/alex-coopers-reported-marriage-woes-spotlight-trend-stars-sleeping-apart-from-bette-midler-kaley-cuoco">moral and marital trouble</a>. I imagine it’s hard to be a part of an operation like that without it finding you. 
They made their bed; now they have to lie in it. 
***
Caroline Downey is a columnist and video personality at National Review. She is also a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum and a 2025-2026 Novak fellow with the Fund for American Studies.

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***
When most people think of Girl Scouts, they picture campouts and merit badges, or girl power and lifelong friendships. They always think of the slightly overpriced yet maddeningly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cold-sidewalks-vs-tiktok-fame-what-the-cookie-craze-isnt-teaching">delicious cookies</a>. 
But what they may not immediately realize is that, like most American institutions, the Girl Scouts were infected by the radical Left&#8217;s agenda decades ago. That rot has spread through the entire organization top to bottom, making it impossible to escape.
It’s frustrating to any conservative who has fond memories of joining Girl Scouts as a child and wants to share that same experience with her children and grandchildren. But the true nature of Girl Scouts becomes shockingly apparent during the month of June, which is when the scouts take an opportunity to spread lessons on LGBT pride and DEI principles.
This Pride month, it&#8217;s worth asking if you actually know what your daughter&#8217;s Girl Scout troop is doing.
Patti Garibay knows the truth about the organization better than most following years of volunteering and leading young girls. Garibay, a mom of three daughters, didn&#8217;t set out to start a competing scouting organization. She was happy to be a Girl Scout leader, where she led three troops, served as an area delegate, and helped organize new troops across northern Cincinnati. She bled green, as she puts it.
&#8220;I absolutely loved it,&#8221; she told The Daily Wire during a recent interview. &#8220;I loved the female empowerment, the leadership, the life skills, all the things that were so beautiful about Girl Scouts, patriotism, things like this.&#8221;
But that all changed in 1993 when she discovered that the organization was <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1993/10/25/girl-scouts-take-god-out-of-pledge/">removing its reference to God</a> in the Girl Scout promise. As a Christian, Garibay was upset by this, but as a volunteer, she was also alarmed. Where had the decision come from, she wondered, and why was no one informed?
&#8220;I was an area delegate,&#8221; she said. &#8220;That&#8217;s supposed to be a person that was chosen by their peers to represent and to really know what was going on in the Girl Scouts regarding governance. But yet I knew nothing about it.&#8221;
Garibay attempted to make changes by telling the public the truth about what was happening in the organization. But by 1995, she&#8217;d given up and launched <a href="http://americanheritagegirls.org">American Heritage Girls</a>.
Today, Girl Scouts USA publishes an official <a href="https://www.girlscouts.org/content/dam/gsusa/forms-and-documents/activity-zone/all-ages-levels/multicultural/LGBTQIActivities.pdf">LGBTQ+ Pride Month</a> fun patch program — available for Daisy scouts (kindergartners and first graders) on up. Fun patches are optional and are at the discretion of troop leaders to present.
Girls can earn a rainbow patch by completing activities including making rainbow flags &#8220;to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month,&#8221; watching documentaries on LGBTQ history &#8220;such as the Stonewall Uprising,&#8221; memorizing poetry by LGBTQ poets, reading children&#8217;s books such as “I Am Jazz” and “Love Makes a Family,” visiting the National Women&#8217;s History Museum website to study LGBTQ historical figures, and participating in the Gay, Lesbian &amp; Straight Education Network (Glisten)&#8217;s No Name-Calling Week. The patch guide calls it an effort &#8220;to disrupt anti-LGBTQ+ harassment and bias-based bullying.&#8221;
Another suggestion is for the girls to don their uniforms and &#8220;attend an LGBTQ+ Pride celebration in June with your family or troop.&#8221;
&#8220;As a Girl Scout, even when I was a leader, I was not allowed to march in uniform for a pro-life parade,&#8221; Garibay told me. &#8220;But now they&#8217;re saying march in uniforms for your LGBTQ+ Pride Month parade.&#8221;
The patch program is national and comes straight from Girl Scouts USA. But individual councils have developed their own supplemental materials that go even further.
The Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes, for example, maintains an official <a href="https://vc.gsnwgl.org/troop-management/working-with-girls/inclusion/lgbtqia/">LGBTQIA+ training page</a> for troop leaders that informs volunteers, &#8220;Asking for and using correct pronouns is a way to treat everyone with respect.&#8221; 
The page also answers the question of who can participate in troops, camp, and other activities. Normal boys cannot. But the list of who is welcome includes &#8220;gender identity girl &amp; sex assigned at birth male,&#8221; which means a male who identifies as a girl is welcome to participate in Girl Scout activities, including overnight camp.
On overnight arrangements, the council guidance is explicit: &#8220;Girl Scouts who are LGBTQ+ can share a room and all facilities with other Girl Scouts. Unless a Girl Scout states otherwise, no separate sleeping arrangements are necessary. There is no need to &#8216;out&#8217; or discuss a Girl Scout&#8217;s gender identity with other youth or adults.&#8221;
As the rest of the world wakes up to the dangers of allowing men into women’s spaces, it appears Girl Scouts is still clinging firmly to the radical stances of years past. A biological male who identifies as female can share a cabin, changing area, and showers with your daughter. 
It’s worth reiterating that this isn’t one woke council on the West Coast. The rules come directly from the national organization in charge of the entire operation. 
The same national organization that once asked girls to promise their duty to God and country now publishes guides instructing troop leaders to familiarize themselves with Glisten terminology and celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31) and National Coming Out Day (October 11) alongside Pride Month.
The council recommends volunteers complete the Safe Zone Project, a DEI-laden, heavily pro-LGBT curriculum that includes materials called &#8220;The Genderbread Person&#8221; and &#8220;Privilege for Sale.&#8221;
And while the organization still technically permits the word &#8220;God&#8221; in the Girl Scout Promise, a substitute &#8220;in accordance with a person&#8217;s own spiritual beliefs&#8221; is explicitly allowed. As Garibay observed: &#8220;If you kick God out, you&#8217;re also going to kick out His laws and His truths and His worldview. And sure enough, that&#8217;s exactly what had happened.&#8221;
Just like in Boy Scouts, which recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/boy-scouts-now-officially-scouting-america-champion-dei-principles">rebranded to Scouting America</a>, membership has been on the decline for decades. According to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/boy-scouts-girl-scouts-membership-drop/">CBS News</a>, Girl Scout membership stood at around 2.8 million in 2003. By 2021, it had fallen to just over a million, which is a 60% drop. Some of those numbers increased following the pandemic, but it’s nowhere near what it used to be. 
Many parents who want their girls to experience what Girl Scouts used to be — a place to develop faith, character, life skills, and true female empowerment — are joining American Heritage Girls instead. 
The organization, which operates in all 50 states and has attracted over 1 million girls since its inception, is going strong. American Heritage Girls recently launched the <a href="https://info.americanheritagegirls.org/raising-godly-girls-guide-to-gender-identity">free e-book</a> &#8220;Raising Godly Girls&#8221; and produces a three-times-weekly podcast and free downloadable guides on gender, identity, resilience, mental health, and, this summer, body image in direct opposition to the woke LGBT garbage the Girl Scouts are promoting.
&#8220;American Heritage Girls tells girls the truth, and girls are hungry for it,&#8221; Garibay said. &#8220;She tells girls that they&#8217;re created female on purpose, that their femininity is a gift we&#8217;re celebrating, and that God doesn&#8217;t make mistakes. We&#8217;re not pretending biology is a social construct or that we&#8217;re assigned something at birth by a doctor in a medical coat. We give girls a biblical framework for their identity before someone else hands them a very different one at camp or in a classroom or at a troop meeting.&#8221;
It’s working, the founder says. &#8220;If parents don&#8217;t arm their kiddos with a solid framework, somebody else will fill that vacuum. I think we&#8217;ve seen that in so many youth organizations today.&#8221;
The Girl Scout cookies are great, but it’s impossible to ignore that they come with a heaping side of unwanted indoctrination. Conservatives should stay vigilant and not make the mistake of assuming the best parts of our childhood have remained unchanged, no matter how nostalgic it makes us.

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As America celebrates its big birthday this summer — writing from across the pond to wish you &#8220;happy Semiquincentennial,&#8221; I must say you look remarkably good for your age — it is worth taking a moment to consider that such a milestone anniversary is being ignored by this summer’s crop of blockbuster movies. Aside from the &#8220;blink-and-you’ll-miss-it&#8221; three-day limited <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-movie-tells-the-story-todays-schools-wont">release</a> of Hillsdale’s documentary &#8220;Revolutionary America,&#8221; and the Revolutionary War-adjacent &#8220;Young Washington,&#8221; which depicts the nation’s first president learning his soldiering as a British subject in the French and Indian War, our movie theaters this summer will be free of tricorn hats and flintlock pistols. Which is rather a shame when you think about it, given the significance of this year. 
That wasn’t the case back in 1986, when to mark America’s less catchy 210th birthday, Alan Alda wrote, directed, and starred in &#8220;Sweet Liberty,&#8221; a charming little film about an idealistic history professor watching with growing dismay as a Hollywood film crew arrives in his small town and proceeds to turn his book on an obscure Revolutionary War battle into a trashy crowd-pleaser. Seeing how little the film’s director and screenwriter care about historical accuracy, Alda’s character offers to rewrite the screenplay to keep the film’s story at least a little closer to actual historical events. He ends up falling in love with the actress played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who is cast as the loyal wife of a patriotic hero off fighting elsewhere. Michael Caine stars as a philandering British movie star playing the film’s token baddie, a Redcoat general trying to seduce Pfeiffer’s character while her husband is away fighting.
The movie itself, though not a classic, is similar in tone to other movies Alda wrote and directed in the &#8217;80s, sort of Woody Allen-lite comedies about relationships and middle-class neuroses. But Alda’s charm as an actor, along with the cast he assembled for &#8220;Sweet Liberty,&#8221; makes this film eminently watchable, especially at the moment.
The film satirizes those historians who look to the past and cannot help but idealize it, and it honors the uncompromising truthfulness we should bring to our depictions of the past. It also savagely mocks Hollywood’s self-importance and sense of reckless entitlement. Surrounded by a film crew that cares only about making a brainless popcorn movie, which the director sums up as containing three plot-points: &#8220;defying authority, the destruction of property, and people taking their clothes off,&#8221; Alda’s appalled historian finds unlikely allies in the local band of historical reenactors hired as extras to beef up the film’s battle scenes. 
These reenactors are the comic relief of the movie in their earnest fussing over costumes and obsession with the 14 different firing positions on a musket, but they are also its beating heart through their reverence for the country’s past. &#8220;Sweet Liberty&#8221; ends with Alda and the reenactors rebelling against the bullying Hollywood movie machine, along with its condescending professional stuntmen, all of whom are playing Redcoats, by changing the film’s final battle scene so that it correctly retells the historical events. 
Another thing the film does, though Alda could not have known it at the time, is anticipate the kind of creative environment from which Mel Gibson’s bombastic blockbuster &#8220;The Patriot&#8221; sprang. Now, as a British historian, I am sure it may appear that I am writing from a place of &#8220;unconscious bias&#8221; in my objection to &#8220;The Patriot.&#8221; But I assure you my reasons are professional and not (purely) patriotic. Scores of distinguished American historians joined British voices in crying foul over the film’s largely invented depictions of the Redcoats as murderous Nazis. It should be noted that the screenwriter, Robert Rodat, had just been Oscar-nominated for his screenplay for &#8220;Saving Private Ryan&#8221; and was essentially told to repeat the formula for the Revolutionary War. For all its stirring imagery — who can forget Mel Gibson brandishing his tomahawk — the film turned out to be exactly the kind of historically illiterate crowd-pleaser &#8220;Sweet Liberty&#8221; had parodied.
One of the most telling things about &#8220;Sweet Liberty,&#8221; however, is the snapshot it gives us of the culture scene 40 years ago, when Hollywood could laugh at itself, something that feels impossible to imagine now. Alda’s film also reminds us of a time when the Revolutionary War was such a safe topic that he could choose it as the backdrop for his frothy comedy. There is an ease and innocence in the references to the 1770s, which feels hard to picture in the ruthlessness of the post-&#8220;The 1619 Project&#8221; world. In Alda’s 1980s, the American Revolution was not yet a battleground of the culture wars but something that genuinely united Americans.
In Britain, we have historical reenactors who recreate the key battles of the English Civil War, our own struggle against tyrannical royal authority, which took place almost 150 years before the Revolutionary War. Our reenactors, called the <a href="https://www.thesealedknot.org.uk/">Sealed Knot</a>, are similarly passionate about costumes, cannonballs, and muskets, and they work to keep the knowledge of our Civil War alive. But the sad truth is that too few people care anymore this side of the Atlantic.
Our Civil War had been fought over ideals that are strikingly similar to those of the American Revolution, and much of the language used by the framers of the Declaration of Independence was inspired by legal documents written a century earlier as English Parliamentarians put King Charles I on trial for tyranny. In 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson even took a week-long road trip to visit the battlegrounds of the English Civil War, rather like we may visit key sites of the American Civil War, or cemeteries in mainland Europe from the two World Wars. They wanted to pay tribute to that &#8220;holy ground&#8221; where a previous century’s soldiers had sacrificed everything in the cause of freedom. Yet Adams was shocked at how quickly the English were losing interest in their own history, writing in his <a href="https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/popup?id=D44&amp;page=D44_3">diary</a>: “Do Englishmen so soon forget the ground where liberty was fought for?” Watching Britain today going through a profound identity crisis, I think Adams may have had a point.
Maybe one reason I have always had such affection for America is that you do care about your history, even if you may not have as much of it as we Europeans do. But what you don’t have in quantity, you make up for in quality. Which is why, for all their twee silliness, I will love thinking about those faithful reenactors parading in small towns across America this summer. They are keeping alive the memory of an ideal that was worth dying for. Even if we can laugh at them for having period-correct breeches, knowing all 14 firing positions on a musket, and matching the theme-park quality of a place like Colonial Williamsburg, there is something essential to a nation&#8217;s future health in the way it cares about its past.
So happy birthday, America! I hope you have a great celebration and eat way too much cake and ice cream.
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Bridget Riley studied modern history at Oxford and completed a Ph.D. in Medieval history at the University of Reading. She writes on history, culture, and the philosophy of religion.

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Almost a year ago, when my doctor recommended I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/weight-loss-medication-may-have-dangerous-side-effects-i-dont-care">go on a weight-loss medication</a>, she asked what my goal weight was. After having six babies in nine years, I had trouble remembering what number the scale sat at before I started having children in my mid-twenties. Pregnancy, nursing, and the years of raising young children had blurred together. I could remember clothing sizes and life stages, but I rarely stepped on the scale.
I settled on what seemed like an absurdly low number, one I hadn&#8217;t seen in many years and wasn&#8217;t convinced I could reach. The truth, though, is that my real goal wasn&#8217;t the number on the scale at all; it was one in my bloodwork. Diabetes runs in my family, and after watching relatives struggle with the disease and seeing my own markers moving in the wrong direction, I knew I needed to act. If the end result was also looking better in family photos, I considered that a welcome bonus.
Months ago, I hit that supposedly impossible number. Now I&#8217;m faced with a different question: How low can I go? And, more importantly, when should I stop?
Like many women who have spent years pregnant or recovering from pregnancy, I carry the physical evidence of those years. There is extra skin and a pouch around my middle that no amount of wishful thinking seems capable of eliminating. Six pregnancies leave their mark, and no medication can entirely erase them. Could and should I continue losing weight in an effort to get rid of those reminders? Would I actually want to? That was the question my doctor posed last week as we discussed what to do next.
When I reached my goal weight, we moved from weekly injections to every other week. As we debated whether to continue on that schedule or space them out even further, I joked, &#8220;I&#8217;m not interested in looking like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/demi-moore-doesnt-look-toned-she-looks-like-shes-starving">Demi Moore</a>, Ariana Grande, or Kelly Osbourne.&#8221;
My doctor immediately understood what I meant.
My bloodwork is dramatically improved, I have more energy than I did a year ago, and I am now well within the range of what any reasonable person would call a healthy weight. At a certain point, however, continuing to lose weight stops being about health and starts becoming about something else entirely: vanity. Our society has always struggled to recognize where the line between health and vanity lies, but it’s particularly bad now that medications have made it possible for millions of people to keep shrinking long after the health benefits have largely been achieved.
If you&#8217;re old enough, you remember the last time this happened. The 1990s gave us heroin chic, a look defined by hollow cheeks, protruding bones, and bodies that were alarmingly fragile. Fashion magazines celebrated women who looked exhausted and underfed, and our culture largely went along with it. Eventually, there was a backlash when Americans grew tired of pretending that obvious signs of ill health were aspirational, and the pendulum swung dramatically in the opposite direction, swaying violently too far in the other direction, embracing “fat positivity.”
The rise of body positivity brought with it some necessary corrections, but a great deal of our culture lost the ability to acknowledge the obvious reality that obesity carries genuine health risks, not to mention that there might be meaningful distinctions between acceptance and celebration. Any discussion of weight became suspect, and acknowledgment of health consequences was treated as cruelty.
Then came Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, and the rest of the GLP-1 revolution, and almost overnight, the culture lurched in a different direction. Celebrities who had spent years insisting they were perfectly happy carrying extra weight no longer had to maintain the fiction. The pounds disappeared, and with them disappeared much of the rhetoric about body positivity that had dominated the previous decade. For many public figures, the process didn&#8217;t stop when they reached a healthy weight, and, for once, our culture is raising red flags.
Every night, Ariana Grande posts photographs from her performances while she’s on tour, and every night the reaction is remarkably similar: many of her fans seem genuinely, and rightfully, concerned. She is clearly terrifyingly thin, all sharp angles and jutting bones, and it is difficult to imagine anyone looking at those images and concluding that this could possibly be healthy.
What&#8217;s striking is not simply Grande&#8217;s appearance but the public reaction to it. For years, Americans have been lectured that noticing physical reality is judgmental, that commenting on obvious signs of poor health is cruel, and that discussing weight at all is beyond the bounds of polite society. Yet despite years of elites lecturing ordinary people about politeness, we have retained the ability to recognize when something appears off, and when celebrities appear in public looking like the victims of a starvation campaign, the comments light up with truth-telling.
The comments sections underneath celebrity photos may be one of the few places where cultural sanity still survives. Americans are looking at bodies that would have been celebrated on fashion runways 25 years ago and rejecting them. They are looking at collarbones that protrude dramatically and faces that appear increasingly gaunt, and they respond, rightfully, with discomfort. That discomfort is not evidence of cruelty; it is proof that most people still possess healthy instincts about what human flourishing looks like.
There is such a thing as too thin. That shouldn&#8217;t be controversial, yet increasingly it feels as though it needs to be repeated. Just as there is such a thing as carrying too much weight, there is also such a thing as carrying too little.
Weight-loss medications have transformed millions of lives, including mine. I am healthier today than I was a year ago, my risk factors are lower, and I am deeply grateful that modern medicine arrived at exactly the moment I needed it. But these drugs have also created a question that many Americans have never had to confront before. For decades, the challenge was figuring out how to lose the weight. Now, for the first time, millions of people are having to decide when enough is enough.
Sitting in my doctor&#8217;s office this week, I realized that I already knew the answer. The number on the scale had stopped mattering months ago. The victory wasn&#8217;t fitting into a smaller size or reaching some arbitrary number from my twenties; it was improving my health, and I achieved that.
The loose skin will remain — as a reminder that my body spent nearly a decade growing and nourishing six babies. That&#8217;s fine. Not every mark of a life well-lived is a flaw that needs to be corrected.
A year ago, I was trying to lose enough weight to avoid becoming diabetic. Today, I find myself resisting a different temptation; I’m not fighting the food noise anymore. I’m fighting an unhealthy aesthetic that has been in and out of fashion for most of my life. Medicine helped me lose the weight, but I’m grateful for the wisdom of knowing when to stop.
***
Bethany Mandel (<a href="https://x.com/bethanyshondark" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@bethanyshondark</a>) is a homeschooling mother of six and a writer. She is the bestselling co-author, with Karol Markowicz, of &#8220;Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation.&#8221; She <a href="https://themomwars.substack.com/">writes</a> and <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mom-wars/id1796727112">podcasts</a> at The Mom Wars.

83rd Annual Golden Globes – Arrivals

The Ozempic Question Nobody Wants To Answer

Health

Ozempic

weight Loss

Weekend Plans is our exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture. 
This weekend, Academy Award-nominated actor and prominent veterans’ advocate Gary Sinise chats with The Daily Wire to celebrate the most magical year of his late son Mac’s life, offer words of wisdom for those journeying through heartbreak, detail how the <a href="https://www.garysinisefoundation.org/">Gary Sinise Foundation</a> serves with holy purpose, and unwittingly prove why his trailblazing legacy just might last forever. 
***
Gary Sinise settles into his home office in Nashville, sporting a black polo emblazoned with his foundation’s logo and a fittingly off-duty Lt. Dan Band ball cap. If you only know him for his lauded film and television career, or for founding Chicago’s world-class <a href="https://www.steppenwolf.org/">Steppenwolf</a> theater, you should know he’s also a monster on bass.
He’s flanked by candid family photos carefully placed among various awards and mementos, an assortment of handheld U.S. flags, a military service banner, and other cherished treasures. The latest vinyl collection of his son Mac’s posthumous musical work, “<a href="https://store.garysinisefoundation.org/collections/merchandise/products/mac-sinise-resurrection-revival-part-three">Resurrection &amp; Revival: Part Three</a>,” suits the tableau. Each album cover in the three-part series features a portrait of Gary’s then-17-year-old grandfather on horseback before he shipped out to France to serve in World War I. 
Gary’s smile is warm and present. I don’t find out until later that he was just on the phone with the wife of someone killed in the recent crash at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He meets me in the moment. “Hi there,” he says. I can’t believe I’m talking to Lieutenant Dan. Still, Gary’s iconic “Forrest Gump” character takes a respectful backseat to this chapter of life, much of which quietly beckons grief to the surface. 
I’ve listened to Mac Sinise&#8217;s stunning “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCCPGtbQ5Pc">Arctic Circles</a>” and soulful “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_93pPbgGPa0&amp;list=RD_93pPbgGPa0&amp;start_radio=1">Shenandoah</a>,” featuring the harmonica Mac taught himself to play as a rare cancer overtook his body, making it impossible to drum like he once did. He recorded both tracks with a studio orchestra on the cusp of his death in 2024 at age 33. “He was able to finish that album before he died, and I mean just weeks before he died. It&#8217;s a beautiful thing because —” Gary wells up. The silence feels sacred. “In some ways, that final year for Mac was one of the greatest years of his life because of what he accomplished.” 
Mac was diagnosed almost in tandem with Gary’s wife, Moira Harris, who is now in remission from Stage 3 breast cancer. After six years of supporting family through surgeries and treatment, Gary is sharing Mac’s music with new audiences and putting pen to paper on his own journey. “It&#8217;s really the story of my son and the family and dealing with all of it,” Gary says of his upcoming release “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Graceful-Warrior-Father-Carried-Through/dp/1400208157">Graceful Warrior</a>,” a follow-up to his debut New York Times bestseller, “Grateful American.”
“It&#8217;s been a hard couple of years navigating through the stuff that bubbles up just at the drop of a hat,” he says. “You have one thought and boom, there you are in the middle of it.”
Gary tears up, recalling the year he surprised Mac with a professionally recorded version of a song he had written during college. “It was just a rough little recording of him singing and playing,” Gary says of the initial inspiration. After convincing two musician buddies to preserve “Eyes of Marigold” in the studio, Gary presented it to Mac. “I have a great picture of him with earphones in his ears in a restaurant when we took him out for his birthday dinner … with this gigantic smile on his face, listening to his song.”
I know I’m just barely scratching the surface on Gary’s inner wellspring, but it almost seems there was a greater force at play when Gary took on his role in “Forrest Gump.” Somehow, <a href="https://youtu.be/fJdxyuNslCI?t=45">Lieutenant Dan’s</a> impassioned outcry on the boat feels like an honest prayer from humanity’s depths, giving voice to our struggles as he screams at the heavens. “You call this a storm? … I’m right here. Come and get me! You’ll never sink this boat!”
The Nashville chapter
Ten years after its founding in 2011, the Gary Sinise Foundation relocated its headquarters from Los Angeles to Franklin, Tennessee. Gary’s family followed. 
“I stopped acting at the end of 2019 because things were getting so tough,” he explains. “I just needed to step away from it … and then I started to realize I don&#8217;t really want to live in California anymore.”
The move hinged on his daughter Sophie agreeing to move from SoCal with her three kids. Soon, Gary’s daughter, Ella, relocated from Virginia to the Volunteer State. Another driver was the security in knowing that his wealth would stretch further in a state with no state income tax (and less of the “dopey things they do out there”), plus gas that’s routinely $3 cheaper than it is in LA. “I have a lot of friends in Nashville,” he adds. “I&#8217;ve always loved Tennessee.”
The whole family, including Gary’s six grandchildren, is planning a getaway this summer. It’s their first vacation since Mac died. Gary’s face lights up when he tells me, “I can’t get enough of my grandkids and daughters.”
A morning fit for reflection
I’m convinced that some of the most fascinating people think their personal lives deserve no headlines. “It&#8217;s not that interesting, quite frankly. You know, I don&#8217;t do that much,” Gary says with a smile. I don’t believe that for a second.
“I&#8217;ll get up at about 5 o&#8217;clock every day,” he shares. Usually, he gets straight to responding to emails, but if he’s looking for something a little more analog, he heads outside to walk the hills of Tennessee. “It&#8217;s peaceful, and there are deer, turkeys … It&#8217;s really a beautiful area that we&#8217;re in and I get my exercise that way,” he says.  
I can’t imagine doing this before dawn without coffee, but Gary skips the hard stuff. “I found out that my gallbladder was shot … I was like, okay, I’ll get rid of coffee, I&#8217;ll get rid of alcohol, I&#8217;ll stop eating spicy food, you know, whatever it was.” He occasionally treats himself to decaf or Ryze superfood mushroom coffee, but he knows his limits. “As soon as I have a cup of caffeine, it&#8217;ll be back to three or four a day,” he says. Still, he adds, “I do like this sort of ritual of having something warm in the morning.” 
He tells me he eats yogurt with “this sort of cereal and fruit,” and I gently tease him for sounding MAHA with this and his mushroom drinks. “You know, a couple days a week … I&#8217;ll do like steak and eggs,” he finally admits. “I&#8217;ll go protein, like heavy protein.” There it is.
Spirit-boosting work
“I&#8217;m always working,” Gary says, confirming my hunch. He’s the kind of person who recharges his batteries by serving others. “Years ago I used to try to play golf.” 
The Lt. Dan Band is currently set to head out on tour, eventually stopping by the Opry in September in salute to our nation’s heroes. “I&#8217;m an actor who happens to have a band,” Gary says. “I&#8217;m not a songwriter or anything like that. I play other people&#8217;s music; we do some of Mac&#8217;s songs.” Even though the band was founded to honor veterans, it also serves as a creative outlet for Gary’s many talents. 
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1124073" style="width: 654px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1124073" class="wp-image-1124073" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/20260201-13620-GSF-LTDB-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="644" height="429" srcset="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/20260201-13620-GSF-LTDB-864x576.jpg 864w, https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/20260201-13620-GSF-LTDB-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/20260201-13620-GSF-LTDB-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/20260201-13620-GSF-LTDB-1536x1025.jpg 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 644px) 100vw, 644px" />Courtesy of Gary Sinise</div>
“Playing in the band is about the mission work that I&#8217;m doing,” he explains. “I pay everybody else; I play for free. Even though that&#8217;s part of the mission, my sort of relaxing enjoyment is to get up there with my bass and play these songs for people and lift them up. I get a lot of joy out of that.”
A legacy of service
I catch up with Gary at a local firehouse just outside of Franklin, where he’s serving Martin’s Bar-B-Que to first responders alongside his longtime friend Joseph Carr, founder and CEO of Josh Cellars. This is clearly not Gary’s first rodeo on baked beans duty. But even though the Gary Sinise Foundation has served nearly 1.5 million meals of appreciation, Gary zhuzhes up the chafing dish and loads up plates like he baked the beans himself. 
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1124065" style="width: 643px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1124065" class="wp-image-1124065" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/IMG_7991.heic" alt="" width="633" height="364" />Lauren Bair</div>
But it’s really not about the food or leveraging America 250 for the brand. “This is what we do every day of the year at the Gary Sinise Foundation,” he says. “The food is great, but the message of appreciation and remembrance is really what this program is all about.” 
It’s a perfect sunny day. Gary makes himself available for photos with each firefighter and rallies everyone for seconds. The firefighters assure me they never eat like this (usually it’s pizza or takeout). They’re gifted full-fledged catering, maybe once every two years. I hear we’re lucky the siren didn’t go off before everyone got fed.
Still in his apron, Gary ribs me about sneaking a glamor shot of the banana pudding. “What about the beans!” he laughs. If you remember those old Bush’s commercials, we got some beautiful bean footage before the beans ran out. Gary’s staff alerts him to the fact that his servings were extra large today. Gary jokes back, “We’re outta beans! My team has totally failed!” He has everyone in the station laughing.
“Service is a great healer,” Gary says. “I would recommend it to anybody when you&#8217;re going through a tough time.”
He’s been doing this for decades. Unlike other stars chasing photo ops, there’s no question his dedication comes from the heart. I ask if anything changed when his wife and son were in treatment. He says helping others renewed his spirit. 
“[I’d] come back from a trip where I&#8217;m just watching kids jump up and down, and spouses who have deployed service members overseas, and they&#8217;re worried about them, and they&#8217;re smiling,” he says. “I would always come back nourished and energized to continue the fight.”
“When your heart is broken over something, you know how it makes you feel when you lift somebody else up,” he explains. “When you put your arms around them, you lift them up, and you see the smile. You forget about your own broken heart for a while. I never stopped doing the mission work throughout the entire painful period of fighting for my son. He loved that I was out there on the road, helping families of our fallen heroes, and helping our wounded through difficult times.”
It really seems like Gary’s operating on another level, spiritually, holding vigil for people exactly where they are. He’s living his legacy. I can’t help but think of Lieutenant Dan on the dock, joining Forrest on the shrimp boat. “I told you if you were ever a shrimp boat captain, that I’d be your first mate,” <a href="https://youtu.be/HQsImiDtZds?t=72">he says</a>. “Well here I am. I am a man of my word.”

Sinise Punch

Weekend Plans With Gary Sinise, The Most Patriotic Actor In America

Gary Sinise

weekend plans

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
The field of psychology has its own special version of obtuse, especially when it comes to the trans debate. I am a therapist, but I’m an outlier nowadays, and that is simply because I have common sense. I continue to be dumbfounded by what passes as professional expertise, such as the mythological, non-scientific idea that people are “born in the wrong body.”
It is Pride month, which means we are being surrounded by the LGBTQ alphabet soup. Most of us are sick and tired of the rainbows and perverted celebrations. However, behind these narcissistic displays, we must remember that there are still vulnerable populations being recruited into a <a href="https://genspect.org/the-cult-connection-part-1/">cult</a>.
One of the largest vulnerable groups the rainbow cult exploits is autistic people.  
While many young people overplay an autism label for clout or special treatment, it is undeniable that <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/autism/data-research/index.html">there are higher rates of autism compared to 20 years ago</a>. The explanations for this phenomenon shall be saved for another day; the point is there are more vulnerable autistic young people, who are easy to recruit into gender ideology and are harder to pull out of it.
In fact, the strong connection between autism and transgenderism is so apparent that the pro-trans crowd even acknowledges it. NPR  <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/15/1149318664/transgender-and-non-binary-people-are-up-to-six-times-more-likely-to-have-autism">states</a> uncritically, “Transgender and nonbinary people are up to six times more likely to have autism.” A 2021 <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9014767/">study</a> by the National Institutes of Health titled, “The lived experience of gender dysphoria in autistic adults: An interpretive phenomenological analysis,” begins by stating that “autistic people are more likely to be transgender.”
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/drcolleencira/?hl=en">Colleen Cira,</a> one of many likeminded psychologists with large followings on social media, cites these statistics: “Autistic adults are 8.1 x more likely to identify as asexual and 7.6 x more likely to identify as non-heterosexual. Trans and gender diverse adults are three to six times more likely be autistic than cisgender adults.” But her response to these statistics is not curiosity or concern; it is affirmation. She continues, “This neuro-queer community deserves to be seen and celebrated, so this Pride Month I am celebrating every queer and autistic person out there.”
Dr. Cira is not an outlier. You can find countless posts and websites of mental health professionals and <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-73703-001">institutions</a> with a similar sentiment. Even autism organizations such as Autism Speaks <a href="https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/gender-affirming-care-transgender-autistic">promote so-called gender-affirming care</a> as the only valid treatment for the population in which it claims to specialize. Never once do these professionals question why so many autistic people claim a trans identity. To them, the dogmatic belief that any declaration of a trans or queer identity is real and true, no matter the context, is all they need. Their blind spot is so big they make Ray Charles look like a hawk.
It’s not a coincidence that trans communities love-bomb and provide a welcoming atmosphere for new recruits, something that easily attracts a lost soul who can’t figure out how to make friends. LGBTQ groups attract other “quirky” people who don’t otherwise fit in and provide a new sense of belonging. In addition, the trans community plays into the minority stress belief system, so the autistic individual can blame his or her problems on external oppression, rather than personal social deficits. 
The identity also becomes a type of shield for the socially awkward person. When the autistic person behaves inappropriately, he gets a pass because he is trans. And in many circumstances, he is given extra positive attention for being trans.
Finally, the trans culture provides a language and a script for people who can’t figure out the complexities of human-to-human interactions. Detransitioner Maia Poet wrote in her <a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-192672283?selection=4f793844-fca4-439a-8b6c-96cf3d49af70">Substack</a>, &#8220;My trans identity was the mask I wore, as an elaborate way to conceal the confusion and overwhelm I felt as I navigated the world encumbered by my autistic social deficits.”
For anyone who knows an autistic person, the real explanations for this connection are glaringly obvious, and it is not because autistic people were suddenly disproportionately mismatched with their bodies.
<ol>
<li>Autistic people struggle socially. They have difficulty interpreting social cues, understanding unspoken expectations, recognizing context-specific norms around clothing and behavior, and navigating social roles. Plus, they have trouble flirting, dating, and getting attention from the opposite sex. When you are truly different and get left behind, it would be natural to claim a &#8220;queer&#8221; identity instead of facing the pain of feeling ostracized. </li>
<li>Autistic people have sensory issues, which makes body changes and puberty even more difficult than normal. Also, they may prefer baggy clothing, which in and of itself is enough to identify as “nonbinary” or “trans masculine.” Binding (or flattening breasts) may feel good, or it can seem like a way to control changes happening to their bodies. </li>
<li>Autistic individuals often spend more time online than their peers, and many are drawn to activities such as gaming and online communities on platforms such as Discord, Reddit, Tumblr, and others. Digital spaces can feel easier to navigate because social expectations are more explicit and interactions can happen from the comfort and predictability of home. Features such as likes, reposts, and other forms of feedback also provide clearer social cues about what is rewarded or positively received online, for better or worse. Because of this, online communities can become especially influential during identity formation, and many young people are recruited to social movements and learn ways of understanding themselves through these digital environments.</li>
<li>Flags, symbols, and categories attract the autistic mind. They enjoy categories and ways to acknowledge details. The many <a href="https://www.sfgmc.org/blog/pride-flags">trans/pride flags</a> are a great outlet for those who experience the world this way. There is even an <a href="https://www.autisticempire.com/autistic-pride/">autistic trans flag</a>, which appears like a targeted marketing campaign.</li>
</ol>
The most concerning aspect of the trans-autism connection is that many autistic individuals tend to be more inwardly focused and <a href="https://www.advancedautism.com/post/addressing-rigid-thinking-in-autism">exhibit rigid patterns of thinking</a>. Although much of gender ideology is not grounded in logic, it can still foster an inflexible mindset that becomes difficult to challenge. As a result, it can be especially hard to help an autistic person reconsider beliefs she has strongly adopted. Parents of autistic children <a href="https://www.pittparents.com/p/wheres-the-village-for-autistic-kids">face unique challenges</a> in helping their children recognize when they may have been misled or influenced by systems and industries that financially benefit from reinforcing the belief that discomfort with oneself means being born in the wrong body.
Despite these obvious factors, NPR repeats in its article that “researchers are working to understand the connection” as if it is a complete mystery.
My profession used to understand that vulnerable people often seek certainty, categories, belonging, and explanations for pain. We once recognized that distress can be real while the explanation for that distress may still deserve exploration. Somehow, in this one area, psychology and medicine forget their own principles, pretend to ignore the obvious, and continue to remain obtuse.
***
Pamela Garfield-Jaeger, LCSW, is a licensed therapist. She is the author of &#8220;<a href="http://a.co/d/5KIhI3J">A Practical Response to Gender Distress: Tips and Tools for Family</a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href="https://froggygirlbook.com/">Froggy Girl</a>.&#8221; You can find her on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/the.truthfultherapist/?hl=en">@the.truthfultherapist,</a> X as <a href="https://x.com/pgarfieldjaeger">@pgarfieldjaeger</a>, and Substack as <a href="https://pamthetruthfultherapist.substack.com/">Pamthetruthfultherapist</a>.

autism, neurodivergent, neurodiversity

The Group Gender Ideology Seems To Attract Again And Again

Autism

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Milly Alcock needs media training. Since the beginning of the year, the “Supergirl” actress has been on a generational run of angering and alienating fans for absolutely no reason. Part of this can be attributed to the loaded questions journalists have asked her, but every time, she takes the bait. 
In March, Alcock anticipated <a href="https://archive.is/20260404001445/https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/milly-alcock-vanities#selection-1115.65-1118.0">backlash</a> for her new role, telling Vanity Fair what she&#8217;d learned from her “House of the Dragon” acting gig: “It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on. We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies,” she said. “I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself.”
Two months later, she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supergirl-star-says-shes-glad-to-trigger-christian-dads">addressed</a> the backlash from her backlash comment — fairly standard “it’s hard to be a woman in Hollywood” fare that she should have just moved on from — by doubling down. This time, she targeted hypocritical Christian dads. 
“And it’s from a lot of people whose profiles have no photo, who are burner accounts,” she said. “Or someone’s name and then ‘Dad of four, Christian,’ which is hilarious to me. But I mean, whose opinion do you really care about? If you’re pissing the right kind of people off, you’re doing OK.”
Later on, in red carpet interviews, Alcock made other faux pas: She <a href="https://x.com/Variety/status/2069238925659410444">admitted</a> that she’s never seen the 1984 “Supergirl” film, and she suggested that her character is <a href="https://x.com/finalgirlsonia/status/2067763323001864666">bisexual</a>. (Saying “she probably goes both ways” does imply the existence of only two genders, however; so, a win!) 
The 26-year-old actress has also prompted such uninspiring <a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/milly-alcock-supergirl-queer-no-love-interest-1236788209/">headlines</a> as this one from Variety: “Milly Alcock Embraces Queer Readings of ‘Supergirl’ and ‘Loves’ How the Movie Ditches a Romance Storyline: ‘A Great Representation of a Modern Woman.’”
A great representation of a modern woman? Oh my bad, I was expecting &#8220;Supergirl&#8221; to have a great representation of a trad wife. 
None of this inspired confidence in me that the movie would be any good — and it did not exceed my expectations. Across the board, the movie isn&#8217;t doing well with critics: &#8220;Supergirl’s Rotten Tomatoes Review Score Is A DCU Disappointment,&#8221; reads a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/06/24/supergirls-rotten-tomatoes-review-score-is-a-dcu-disappointment/">headline</a> at Forbes. The film amounts to a handful of superhero story tropes thrown together with the occasional good song playing in the background.
A swanky rendition of “Cheek to Cheek” playing during a fight scene has the intended comedic effect; a somber cover of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” during the final action sequence does not, though it’s unclear whether this is meant to be funny, or significant, or really anything with a discernible purpose.
Speaking of purpose, if we’re looking at the hero’s journey, Supergirl is missing a mentor, someone to give her the wisdom she needs to make the right choices. In flashbacks to her mother, we hear her tell her daughter that she must be good, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be tough or that she must be nice. Her teenage charge Ruthye later encourages her by telling her that while she is pretty rude, she is good. This seems to be all she needs to complete her transition from slovenly alcoholic to a sober and serious hero. 
According to the interviews, we’re meant to accept that Supergirl is an unlikeable and messy character, but the movie never gives us much reason to like her; besides having a tragic backstory and a dog whom she loves, she does little to prove her goodness, or “save the cat.” She does, however, save her CGI dog. 
The villain is forgettable — I could not tell you his name without searching it and I refuse to waste any more time on this — but a bounty hunter played by Jason Momoa brings some charisma and comic relief. Speaking of which, I saw the movie in a fairly full theater on opening night, and not one single joke elicited an actual laugh. A film should more fully commit to being a drama if it can’t figure out how to tell a good joke. In one scene, Supergirl puts Ruthye in a pop-up space suit, and the dialogue goes something like this: 
“Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“You’re not freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out!”
“It seems to me like you’re freaking out.”
“I might be freaking out.”
We get it. You’re freaking out. 
Supergirl is the chaotic counterbalance to Superman’s all-American charm, following the current pattern of heroes who are relatable, who curse a little, and who don&#8217;t have much to offer when it comes to inspiring young fans. What we need is a film that either fully leans into the silliness of superheroes or presents something valuable to say. &#8220;Supergirl&#8221; does neither.

69cbff2524aa9a000f3fbf32_preview_clean

Hollywood Made Another ‘Modern Woman’ Hero. Here’s How It Went.

Movies

Superheroes

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
It’s 1975. The United States is coming off the Vietnam War, which involved a heavily opposed military draft, mass casualties, and major economic distress. Watergate had just fractured the trust between the public and government. Americans needed something to believe in, something to celebrate. And a resurgence of patriotism spread across a small, secluded town in Alabama, thanks to a group of fourth graders.
Susan Holdridge was a 33-year-old teacher at Laurel Elementary School in Alexander City, Alabama. Like many teachers at the start of their career, she was eager, she was energetic, and she assigned tasks that went beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic.
The bicentennial was still more than a year away, but preparations and excitement were already building. America was getting ready to turn 200! To honor the country’s milestone, Mrs. Holdridge tasked the nine- and 10-year-olds with writing poems about America. Then a “song committee” turned the words of the poem into a song, “My Grand American Home.”
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It came together on a single sheet of paper in cursive writing. Stanza by stanza the students put the poems together like a puzzle. It seemed to come together smoothly with barely any notes in the margins.
“I do remember telling them about the White Cliffs of Dover because we needed a place name that rhymed with over for the first verse, but everything else came directly from the students,” Mrs. Holdridge told The Daily Wire.
The chorus reads: 
“I love America so 
I will never never go 
It&#8217;s a grand old place 
You can tell by my face 
I love America so.”
The assignment that was meant to sharpen her class’s literacy skills turned out to be a pretty impressive song in Mrs. Holdridge&#8217;s eyes, but the teacher wasn’t the only one pleased with the students&#8217; work.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1123165" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1123165" class="size-large wp-image-1123165" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-38-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-38-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-38-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-38-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-38.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Credit: Cindy Blake</div>
A few adults were called on to put the lyrics to music, and a local church agreed to provide a piano and choir loft. Just like that, “My Grand American Home” was recorded on a cassette tape.
“I still remember all these years later hearing our song on the local radio station in 1976 and thinking we were famous,” Cindy Blake, one of the fourth graders, told The Daily Wire.
But the story doesn’t end there.
As the classmates recall, the bicentennial celebration of the country was a proud time for Americans. Streets were decorated, flags flew high in the sky, and it seemed everyone wanted to celebrate the greatest country in the land. The buildup for America’s 200th birthday was years in the making, so the fourth graders had plenty of time to perform “My Grand American Home.”
It’s a shame no one really knows exactly how the next parts of the song’s journey came to be. As Mrs. Holdridge put it, word travels fast in a small town. In any case, all that mattered was that this patriotic project made its way down to Alabama’s capital city, Montgomery, and onto Governor George Wallace’s desk.
“As Governor of Alabama, I commend you for your recording of &#8216;My Grand American Home,&#8217;” Wallace sent via telegraph. “I think you are great for undertaking this project and congratulate you on your success.”
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<div id="attachment_1123175" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1123175" class="size-large wp-image-1123175" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-39-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-39-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-39-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-39-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Untitled-design-39.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Credit: Cindy Blake</div>
That was a token of appreciation the fourth graders would hold onto throughout their lives. The lifelong friends still often broke out in the song every time they would hang out. I know all this because my mom, Cindy Blake, is in this group of fourth graders, and she has made it her mission to give the song new life in 2026.
My mom’s best friend, David McGhee, held on to the scrapbook of memories Mrs. Holdridge made, including the telegraph from Governor Wallace, the lyrics, the printed music, and a copyright certificate at his furniture store in town.
“He got the word out to our classmates that he had it and we could drop by and see the treasure,” Blake said.
Unfortunately, McGhee died during the COVID-19 pandemic and his furniture store burned down shortly after, destroying the scrapbook of “My Grand American Home.”
That was another reason my mom wanted so badly to give this song new life.
A few phone calls were made and Facebook messages were sent, and 23 of the original group of fourth graders were around to rerecord with their teacher, 84-year-old Mrs. Holdridge, whose idea started it all.
“We gathered at First Baptist Church, on June 14, 2026, on the same stage we made the original recording by pressing the record button on a cassette player, but on this day, we pressed record on our iPhone,” Blake said. “We practiced once and were ready to go. Our voices filled the church sanctuary. There was more pride the second time.”
“Meeting back at the same church to rerecord was absolutely amazing,” Holdridge said. “Seeing my fourth-grade students from 50 years ago was so special. They were wonderful students then and are wonderful adults now. I loved them then and I love them now. Many good memories brought tears to my eyes.”
The simple song evokes American pride and reminds the group, now in their 60s, how important it is to share that feeling with the younger folks.
“What I love about America? I can freely choose who and what I want to be without limitations,” Nancy Patrick Holley told The Daily Wire. “I am free to choose the life I want to live, most of all, I can walk in my beliefs and my faith.”
The group didn’t wear their matching white shirts and red bandanas like they did in 1975, instead opting for a more personalized patriotic look. The First Baptist Church sanctuary didn’t have the same maroon carpet on the stage or pews; it’s more modern now with new floors and paint. But the feeling the class felt decades ago was the same.
“For a few minutes, we weren’t retirees, grandparents, or professionals — we were Mrs. Holdridge’s fourth graders again,” Karen Carr said.
“This time when we sang, we put the politics and opposing views, which surround us every day, aside and sang about &#8216;Our Grand American Home&#8217; with deep pride,” Blake said.
Same lyrics, remastered and renewed all for America’s 250th birthday. The class of 1983 knows that with technology, more people can hear the words that still bring them so much joy.
“We love our country even when we&#8217;re sad. 
We don&#8217;t give up when the going gets bad. 
No place on Earth is like the place of my birth. 
My Grand American Home.”
“Of course, I would love for us to perform it for the president and celebrate our 250th birthday in a grand way,” Sharon Blair said. &#8220;I know that will not happen, but it is an endearing story of a class that always comes together and loves each other!”
“We would even love to share the song with the president, at the White House,” Blake added. “I can envision my teacher, Mrs. Holdridge; my classmates; and I surrounding the president sitting at his desk in the Oval Office while he signs a proclamation declaring &#8216;My Grand American Home&#8217; a national treasure,” Blake added.
(Look, my mom shoots for the moon, okay?)
That American dream aside, what the class really wants to come from the rerecording is for today’s generation to know that with a little creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, learning is fun and lasts a lifetime. And, of course, the class wants this song to encourage others to love their country too!
“If this project inspires others to value their school memories, reconnect with old friends, or appreciate the educators who influenced them,&#8221; Carr said, &#8220;then it will have accomplished something meaningful.”

Credit: Cindy Blake

It Started As Homework. Fifty Years Later, They’re Still Singing It.

Alabama

America

Feature

News

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Welcome to the Bright Side, a weekly roundup of all the good news and ideas you might have missed from the past week.
TSA regulation comedy: They’re here all week
I’m still reeling from being able to leave my shoes on for airport security. But suddenly we’re not allowed to bring <a href="https://x.com/TSA/status/2069813285155750342">live beavers</a> and jugs of ranch on the plane? How are we supposed to live like this?
While it’s still gonna be a no on World Cup fans hauling 40-ounce bottles of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/world-cup-travelers-overwhelm-tsa-with-beloved-american-condiment?author=Trinity+Gentry&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=World+Cup+Travelers+Overwhelm+TSA+With+Beloved+American+Condiment">ranch dressing</a> back to Europe in their carry-ons (stay tuned for TSA-approved <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DZvRQNpRKzd/">Kraft packets</a>), the TSA’s recent live beaver restriction was a playful rib at the tourist fever around Buc-ee’s. Does Buc-ee’s stock beaver merch? Yes. Live ones? No. But <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Buc-ees-Famous-Beaver-Nuggets-Snacks/dp/B005VS93GI?th=1">Buc-ee’s Beaver Nuggets</a> are real, and they’re cleared for takeoff. I’m more of a Buc-ee’s Milk Chocolate Cashews person myself.
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Europeans are blown away by Buc-ee&#8217;s
More videos that will make you smile! 
So many Europeans are finding America to be an amazing place!❤️ <a href="https://t.co/gAORs1XPnv">pic.twitter.com/gAORs1XPnv</a>
— Americaforever (@onetexgal9) <a href="https://x.com/onetexgal9/status/2068110832592994334?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Soccer can be a pretty boring low-scoring game if you’re new to the sport. Maybe that’s why we’re talking about salad dressing and gas station snacks so much. I’ve lived through many scoreless games thinking about how the sport could be made over for American audiences. How about a time clock to force advancement on the field or shots on goal, or a ban on telenovela drama at a tugged jersey? (Eyeball popping double-take! Arms in the air! Susan was her own evil twin this whole time?) 
Still, even with its international quirks, maybe fútbol is perfect just as it is. As someone posted on <a href="https://x.com/OrevaZSN/status/2069430295674192017">X</a>, “The World Cup is proof that, if it weren&#8217;t for our leaders, the vast majority of people around the world would get along just fine.” I could chug an overpriced stadium beer and honk one of those anti-vuvuzela “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1631068081286891">pleasant horns</a>” in agreement. 
Bill Gates just gave you all his money. Go.
Wait, wait, wait. You’re not getting his real money. But a game designed by creative programmer Neal Agarwal gives you the sensation of making it rain on Microsoft’s dime. 
Starting with $100 billion in your bank, <a href="https://neal.fun/spend/">Spend Bill Gates’ Money</a> lets you throw down on everything from $2 Big Macs to a $3,000 acre of farmland, a $15,000 Rolex, and $780,000,000 for the Mona Lisa. I’m pretty sure a Big Mac costs a little more than $2 these days (Blame Big Shredded Lettuce), but designating billions of fake dollars to specific purchases really shows you how far that kind of cash can — or can’t — go! 
If that kind of game isn’t your speed, Neal also built his Every Second series where you can visualize the <a href="https://everysecond.io/animal-heartbeats">heartbeats per minute</a> of everything from elephants to hummingbirds, or how many trillions of <a href="https://everysecond.io/your-body">neurons</a> just fired in your brain while you were reading this sentence. 
It’s official: Meet the world’s loudest talker
FYI, it’s not Doug from the company retreat. The loudest person in the world trashed his vocal cords proving his talents, but he holds the Guinness World Record now, so — worth it!
Australia’s Joseph McGrail-Bateup is just a 58-year-old guy who cleans air conditioners for a living and has a voice that cuts through the noise. He also spends his free time LARPing as the town crier. But after competitively “crying” to his heart’s content, he knew he had to level up. “What can I do that’s a little bit different?” he asked himself. He then hit 122.4 decibels with a single shout. “It took me seven attempts just for one word, which was the word ‘now,’ and my voice was shot for the next couple of days as well.” 
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Guinness World Records has recognized Joseph McGrail-Bateup, a 58-year-old professional air conditioner cleaner, as the world&#8217;s loudest person. He was recorded yelling the word “now” at 122.4 decibels. <a href="https://t.co/D8Gp0YFTm4">pic.twitter.com/D8Gp0YFTm4</a>
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) <a href="https://x.com/washingtonpost/status/2069748018287399196?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Possibly my favorite part of this important history is that the previous record was held by Irish schoolteacher Annalisa Flanagan, who hit <a href="https://apnews.com/article/australia-guinness-world-record-loudest-shout-2a5aea90b6ece0ceba6ba56fdff866e5">121.7 dBs in 1994</a> by ironically shrieking the word “quiet.” (Then, and probably every afternoon until she retired.)
I was impressed, but also curious about how loud this sound might be. (I also didn’t know the average human ear can actually detect <a href="https://rnid.org.uk/information-and-support/protect-your-hearing/how-loud-is-too-loud/">zero decibels</a>, did you?) Normal conversation hits around 60 to 70 dBs. A motorcycle? 100 dBs. Metallica at Madison Square Garden? 110 to 120 dBs. And at about 130 dBs, you’re gonna feel the pain.  
Hailing from a culture that takes pride in its enthusiastic talking volume, my Puerto Rican boyfriend might be able to best 122 dBs. But for now, Joseph’s the guy to beat. Not even the <a href="https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-5210-abercrombie-fitch-store-in-clackamas-town-center.html">85-decibel music</a> at Abercrombie &amp; Fitch can hold a candle to the reigning champ.
The cutest critter in the Land Down Under
While I was giving the algorithm a break from my newfound obsession with meticulously snatched <a href="https://youtu.be/nvb-5wMF3cI?t=32">corgi butts</a> (they’re groomed like fluffy peaches!), it came to my attention that there’s a creature called a quokka (Thanks, J.K. Rowling.) 
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Today I discovered not only that there is such a thing as a quokka but also that my whole life I&#8217;ve been missing a quokka. <a href="https://t.co/sR0m9so38H">https://t.co/sR0m9so38H</a>
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/2069848150987231555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Native to Western Australia, and known as the “happiest animal in the world,” quokkas are the cute, cat-sized cousins of kangaroos and wallabies. They constantly look like they’re smiling and want to be your friend. You’re not supposed to touch or feed them, but the <a href="https://www.natureaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/our-priorities/wildlife/wildlife-stories/meet-the-quokka/">Nature Conservancy of Australia</a> offers tips on taking selfies with them. You’ll have to <a href="https://people.com/movies/keanu-reeves-praised-respectful-way-taking-photos-women/">pose like Keanu Reeves</a> does with open hands hovering behind his fans. 
If you’re trying not to book a flight to Australia to get some quality quokka time, don’t watch this video of a pet <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DXxhGemp18k/?hl=en">quokka snuggling and licking its owner</a>. Next up, nonstop <a href="https://x.com/DudespostingWs/status/2069450408028934602">watching dogs watch other dogs eat hot dogs</a> content because this is the content we need right now. 
***
About <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bright-side-the-global-craze-americans-are-finally-joining">last week’s Bright Side</a> featuring the “Asian squat” flex, one fabulous reader emailed me a priceless photo of everyone in his family (except him) happily relaxing in deep squats, noting: “Last month, my family (including my 64-year-old wife) was making fun of my (white dude with bad knees) inability to execute the Asian squat.” 
This kind of self-deprecating humor warms my heart. I sincerely invite you to share your stories and favorite moments in the comments! Feel free to <a href="mailto:lbair@dailywire.com">email</a> me too. I’m off to shop for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-most-patriotic-fashion-picks-of-americas-250th-year">the perfect July 4th fit</a> for next weekend! Let’s go, America! — Lauren

Virginia’s First Buc-ee’s Opens

The Bright Side: The Feel-Good American Stop Everyone Wants To Visit

bright side

ranch dressing

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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In Pixar&#8217;s original 1995 Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear completes his character arc from arrogant, wannabe space ranger to humble yet confident toy who straps himself to a rocket and saves the day with his new friend Woody. Fast-forward 30 years, and the story couldn&#8217;t be more different.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-lesson-toy-story-5-gets-dangerously-wrong">&#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221;</a> ends with a marriage scene where Buzz, wearing a kilt, is escorted down the aisle while his bride waits for him at the altar before tipping him over for a kiss after they are pronounced husband and wife. Were the writers intentionally trying to feminize Buzz? Or was all this done for comedic effect? I went viral on TikTok and Instagram for asking that very question.
As I type this, my video titled “Toy Story 5 And The Feminization Of Male Characters” has over 2.5 million views between <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@claytonkeirns/video/7654016602131729677">TikTok</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DZ3mkAwNKjh/">Instagram</a>. As the views and comments continue to rack up, it’s clear that I struck a nerve on both sides of the aisle.
Many on the Right are thanking me and saying they now refuse to see the movie. Meanwhile, the Left is saying I’m “overreacting” and that I need to get a life. However, the truth is that I genuinely enjoyed &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; and am by no means calling for a boycott. And no, liberals, I was not “triggered” or “offended” by this movie.
There were simply a few over-the-top optical choices the writers made when it came to feminizing Buzz’s character that appeared to go beyond writing for “comedic effect.” It was too on the nose. Too deliberate. They’re the kind of things you include in a script when you’re really trying to hammer a message home. As I left the theater, I didn’t get the sense that these scenes just “accidentally” made it into the final cut.
I also tried watching this movie from the lens of a parent. Since I don’t have kids myself, I had to imagine how I would feel if I had kids and they saw their favorite strong male characters slowly fade into irrelevance, weakness, and, quite frankly, femininity.
For context — spoiler alert — Buzz’s main “bit” throughout the film is that he is trying to muster up the courage to ask Jessie (the tomboy cowgirl introduced in &#8220;Toy Story 2&#8221;) to marry him. I obviously had no problem with him being “nervous.” I’d be lying if I claimed I never got nervous in situations like this. Heck, last year in Barcelona I had to circle the block twice before marching back into a clothing store to ask the cute sales associate for her number. We’ve all been there.
So in the first two acts, Buzz is practicing his proposal. He rehearses his speech, his cadence, and his kneel. Fun and humorous. Still no problems.
Then, in the third act, as the toys are on their way to save the day, Buzz stutters while attempting to pop the question. Before he’s able to ask Jessie, she kisses him. During their kiss, Buzz kicks his leg back as a woman would traditionally do in movies.
Was this done for comedic effect? Maybe.
In fact, I’d be very inclined to say “yes” if it weren’t for what came next. Because, as I said at the beginning of this piece, the movie ends with the two main human characters holding a “wedding” for Buzz and Jessie. And that is where they really dialed things up to an eleven.
The wedding scene takes all of the classic imagery of the groom and applies it to Jessie. As you can guess, all of the “bridal” imagery is applied to Buzz’s character. Mind you, Buzz is a character that children have previously seen depicted as a competent, masculine hero in several movies before it.
As the wedding music plays, Buzz is escorted down the aisle while Jessie waits for him at the altar. Buzz is wearing a kilt, making him look even more feminine. Then, Jessie gives Buzz a diamond ring. And when they are announced husband and wife, Jessie is the one to tip Buzz over to kiss him.
Now I’m not saying that this scene is going to make or break your children. But if there was ever an agenda to weaken and feminize strong male characters for all young boys to see, this is how they would do it. Brick by brick, with scenes like this.
But this scene is just one piece of the very large puzzle. Our kids are being exposed to hundreds of woke messages every single day in mainstream programming. Some of it is subtle, some of it is very deliberate. Either way, the seeds are being planted, and they’re having an effect on the minds of the youth, whether they know it or not.
In response to my commentary on this scene, liberals have tried pointing me to a scene in &#8220;Toy Story 1&#8221; where they claim the writers even feminized Buzz way back then. But as is so often the case, not only did they not make their own point; they made mine.
The scene they’re referring to is when one of the children dresses Buzz in feminine tea party attire. When Woody comes into the room, a distraught Buzz calls himself “Mrs. Nesbit.” Now, why is Buzz acting like this? Simply put, he’s not being himself. In fact, he’s going a little bit crazy. He has just found out that he is a toy, not a real superhero from outer space.
When Woody slaps Buzz back to reality, he snaps out of it and then admits he’s “depressed.” Then poof, the bit is over. That right there is an example of something being done for comedic effect. Not whatever they did to Buzz in this movie.
I enjoyed &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; as a whole. The movie also had a few classic, heartfelt “Toy Story” moments, one of which was an absolute tear-jerker (if you know, you know). I thought the movie did the best it could to remind kids of how fun it can be to imagine, play, and rely less on their screens. I thought it <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-lesson-toy-story-5-gets-dangerously-wrong">could have done a better job</a> “villainizing” technology for kids through the end of the movie instead of giving it a redemption arc, but that’s a topic for a different time.
Finally, one scene won’t break your child’s view of traditional gender roles in a wedding. But 30 years ago, Buzz taught a generation of boys what it looked like to be brave, to lead, to charge in when everyone else froze. Ask yourself what the new Buzz is teaching them.
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Clayton Keirns is a conservative political commentator and cofounder of Trending Politics &amp; Quantus Insights. You can find his videos on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090710613645" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id%3D100090710613645&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1782489277071000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0dH84VunXJaxB6WIXQMBSX">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/clayton.keirns/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.

g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798

How ‘Toy Story 5’ Stripped Buzz Lightyear Of His Masculinity

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Pixar

Toy Story

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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We Americans are <a href="https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/strangers-next-door-the-decline-of-neighborhood-socializing-and-the-class-divide-in-belonging/">no longer talking to our neighbors</a> as much as we once did. This is especially true for younger people, with only 25% reporting conversing with their neighbors a few times per week. There’s also an educational gulf. For those without college degrees, a mere 46% have spent an evening hanging with someone from the &#8216;hood, compared to 58% for the grads. Even when technology is in the mix, just 45% of youngsters are texting or emailing vs. 65% of those who matriculated. 
We’ve gone from keeping up with the Joneses to only paying attention to their social media output. The neighborhood, once the cornerstone of community, is becoming extended-stay housing, with people who live next to one another doing little more than offering a passing wave as they pull into or out of their garages.
As an American Enterprise Institute study <a href="https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/strangers-next-door-the-decline-of-neighborhood-socializing-and-the-class-divide-in-belonging/">points out</a>, there are myriad reasons for this. Though work from home has given way to returning to the office, people still spend more time around their homes than they did pre-COVID. Technology is another factor, whether it’s because one doesn’t have to walk a few steps and knock to send a text or because we post so much of ourselves online. There is also the fact that our kids are overscheduled and have to be driven here and there. Sports parents may commiserate, but largely it’s done on the sidelines or in a hotel lounge, not sitting in one another’s backyards. 
There is also the trend toward turning what used to be called offices into campuses, replete with stores, coffee shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, daycares, and any and everything else an employee might need. While marketed as a testament to concern about the well-being of those who work there, c’mon. The purpose of these splendiferous campuses is not to enrich the lives of the people; it’s to ensure they never have to leave. The residents of these abominations may not have to worry about loading 16 tons, but we’ve almost come full circle back to them owing their souls to the company store.
The campus also reduces the number of outsiders people will talk to as they go about their day-to-day lives. Gone is stopping for a few things on the way home, perchance to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/for-the-love-of-humanity-quit-the-self-checkout-line">run into someone</a> along the way. Instead, it’s returning a package while talking to the person you were working on a PowerPoint deck with a few hours ago. And it’s not a conversation about how the kids are doing in school or that Ben and Stella are installing a pool, it’s about the PowerPoint they’re going to work on tomorrow. 
It’s easy to mock those who yearn for buggy whips and typewriters as hopelessly caught in the past. The loss of neighborhoods is different. It’s not the sort of change that eases life, enriching it along the way, but one that diminishes it. While people may yearn for the freedom of the college years, sprawling office parks without a quad or a stadium are but a pale imitation of the true campus. Likewise, the algorithm can never provide the frisson, or the tensions, that neighbors do. Online, it’s easy to settle into echo chambers, ones where there is no possibility of getting slugged in the mouth. On the streets, more decorum and bonhomie are required. The streets also offer more opportunity to see people as full humans rather than caricatures, ones based solely on their job titles and voting preferences.
Losing neighborhoods — places for community, for tribes — to extended-stay housing atomizes us instead of helping to build those bonds. We are not meant to be atoms, careening around alone in the world save for our immediate family members, people who are also likely isolated in the digital panopticon rather than sitting in the living room together.
It seems dark and difficult to surmount. It isn’t, though, not with a modicum of effort. All you have to do to be the change you want to see in the world, to quote something Gandhi never said, is to go out and be in the world. Take a walk. Get a dog and take him to play fetch. Bake some cookies and deliver them to your neighbor. Sit on your front porch. Randomly fire a pistol in the air to attract attention to yourself. 
Actually, don’t do that last one unless your goal is to sacrifice yourself in order to bring the rest of the neighborhood together in opposition to you and your flagrant disregard of HOA regulations as well as common sense. If you’re planning to move, though, no, still don’t do that. Maybe put up one of those giant Halloween skeleton statues but leave it up year-round? 
While technological progress and the economy (mostly) just keep humming along, life is more than the sum of our material inputs and outputs. Government is not simply the name for things we choose to do together, but instead a necessary evil since we ate our way out of the garden. Becoming digital recluses is not the mark of progress, but an omen of the dystopian future that awaits us if we don’t start fighting back.
Civilization encompasses the entire tapestry that we weave together, one not solely focused on key performance indicators or politics as sports fandom, but on shared sorrow, hope, fear, and joy. No one should have to put up those stupid giant letter signs announcing the arrival of a child or to honor someone’s birthday. We should just know that the mom and dad could use some heat-and-eat meals or that the party is on Saturday and we’re responsible for an appetizer. 
Nor should it take a study to remind us to talk to our neighbors, to go hang out with them from time to time. Most of us who walk this earth are destined to be forgotten. There will come a day when the last person to remember us will die, and our memory will die with him. Much better to leave a legacy focused on working together, on celebrating together, on crying together, on building up the spaces immediately around us together such that we leave them better than we found them. But we cannot do that without doing something far simpler first: saying hello.
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Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin’ Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to here. You can also follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/rcromwell4">@rcromwell4</a>.

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The American Tradition Dying Right Next Door

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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As the GLP-1 train keeps on rolling, the <a href="https://www.aamc.org/news/glp-1-pills-weight-loss-are-here-how-will-they-change-obesity-care">30 million adults</a> taking weight loss medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, and Mounjaro face a serious struggle to maintain lean muscle mass as they drop the pounds. And to fill in the gaps, supplemental protein is suddenly popping up everywhere, in pasta, cereal, chips — and your morning coffee. 
“When you lose 20 or 30% of your body weight, you lose muscle mass,” University of Texas professor <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/o6Uc_11TZM0?t=31&amp;feature=share">Dr. Ralph DeFronzo</a> told “The Peter Attia Drive” podcast, referencing GLP-1s. <a href="https://store.mayoclinic.com/education/glp-1-medications-and-muscle-loss-what-to-know-about-nutrition-and-supplements/">Research</a> shows that nearly half of the weight dropped with these drugs can come from vanishing muscle. So how do you hang onto those guns? By upping your exercise and getting <a href="https://advances.massgeneral.org/endocrinology/article.aspx?id=1601">more protein</a>. 
Here’s where “proffee” enters as the internet’s buzziest protein bump. Just as delicious as other portmanteaus like brunch, cronuts, and pizzadillas, it involves adding a full serving of protein to your morning cup of joe. (We’re not waking up for less than 25 grams of anything.) 
&#8220;Adding protein powder to your coffee can be a convenient way to supplement your diet, especially if you’re someone that skips breakfast,&#8221; registered dietitian <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/protein-coffee-proffee-trend-8738994">Dawn Menning</a> says. &#8220;Depending on your nutrition needs, preferences, and goals, this may be an easy way to increase protein intake.&#8221;
If you’ve been hanging out on planet Earth for a minute, you may remember <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/themes/lowfat.html">the &#8217;90s low-fat era</a>, the healthy-fat trend of the 2010s, and conflicting low-carb and high-carb schools of thought. Now we’ve entered the protein jungle as we shed our formerly <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/thicc">thicc</a> skins for mid-2020s “body-positive” skinniness. It’s all kinds of boneless skinless chicken-breasty up in here.
I’m not currently taking GLP-1s, but I definitely didn’t understand how much protein I was missing in my diet until I entered a nutrition challenge at my CrossFit gym a few years ago. (I know, protein plus CrossFit is like the “Inception” of wellness cults.) But balancing my daily macros throughout the day (carbs, fats, and protein — especially the last one) showed me I could sustain energy while preserving lean muscle mass and snatching extra fat. When I entered a bodybuilding competition, slightly adjusting those numbers completely transformed my body. (Also props to the insanely dark spray tan.)
Truth be told, building and maintaining lean muscle should be a priority for everyone, not just the workout crew. Don’t tell Gwyneth or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/demi-moore-doesnt-look-toned-she-looks-like-shes-starving">Demi</a>, but lean muscle is one of the greatest things your body has going for it. The more muscle you have, the higher your <a href="https://www.massgeneral.org/news/article/why-muscle-mass-matters-and-how-to-keep-it">resting metabolic rate</a>, which means your body easily burns calories to maintain a healthy weight. 
Muscle is also key for strength and mobility, increasing insulin sensitivity, lowering blood pressure, improving cognitive ability, and extending life span. <a href="https://amjmed.org/muscle-mass-index-as-a-predictor-of-longevity/">Studies</a> show it’s your muscle mass, not your BMI, that more accurately predicts how long you’ll live. Turns out six-pack abs and buns of steel are actually good for something other than thirst-trap selfies in the locker room. 
Okay, so let’s agree we need protein to, y’know, survive. How much do we actually need every day? Are you getting enough? Too much? Does Khloe Kardashian’s <a href="https://khloudfoods.com/collections/popcorn?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=22471967737&amp;gbraid=0AAAAA_bFvADOGc3CNtFH4xjaQanp-E7Jb&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjw3ejRBhAdEiwADkqPnxMNRw4_mSwGBIXHflh6TtWly24ptjGok9k5C1C5tChJQ35_c7-oDBoC700QAvD_BwE">Khloud Protein Popcorn</a> count as food? Literally everyone has an opinion on the ideal amount. 
Gym bros are over there doing tricep curls on <a href="https://www.verywellfit.com/protein-for-bodybuilding-how-much-is-too-much-3498450">300 grams</a> per day of the stuff, while your yoga-loving bestie’s going full Savasana on nothing more than a few raspberries. Officially, the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-facts-label/daily-value-nutrition-and-supplement-facts-labels">Food and Drug Administration</a> recommends 50 grams of protein daily for adults. That’s the rough equivalent of a five-ounce salmon filet and a cup of cooked lentils. 
“If we look at the recommended daily allowance right now, we see it’s around 0.8 kilograms of body weight,” physiologist and nutrition scientist <a href="https://youtu.be/kVjTtdtwYOM?t=34">Dr. Stacy Sims</a> notes. “That, I want people to understand, is the bare minimum you need to consume to prevent malnutrition.”
Active and aging adults need more. “As we get older, our bodies, both men and women, become more resistant to the growth effects of protein, and growth effects of exercise,” Dr. Sims explains. “We need to look at dosing more of both.” 
For women, healthy macros can clock in at one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Active men might need two grams. Maybe you need more, or less. But this isn’t just about getting shredded at the gym. It’s about leveraging the amino acids in protein to preserve brain, bone, and muscle health.
“We’re going to have a stronger skeletal system, a stronger musculoskeletal system, and better brain health if we start looking at increasing our protein intake from that 0.8 grams per pound, trying to eek our way up to at least one gram per pound,” Dr. Sims says.
<a href="https://www.uchealth.org/today/nutrition-vital-when-taking-glp-1-weight-loss-drugs/">GLP-1 users</a> need to be extra vigilant about getting enough nutrients since they may be eating less than half the amount of food they consumed before starting the weight loss medications.
I admit I’ve tried adding protein powder to coffee with limited success. That is, if you prefer coffee that’s not full of powdery clumps you have to chew. There’s boba, and then there’s whatever monster I created. 
Luckily, I’ve been following Dr. Sims as my protein guru. Not only is she an expert in balancing nutrition and exercise during all stages of life (pregnancy, peri-, and menopause), but she also offers a recipe for protein coffee that actually tastes good. Her strategy for letting it chill overnight eliminates unappealing textures. I especially love this method for fueling early morning workouts when I don&#8217;t have time to digest a meal. Plus, it legitimately tastes like a milkshake. You might even skip snoozing your alarm. 
Dr. Stacy Sims Protein Coffee
<ul>
<li>30 grams (two tablespoons) chocolate protein powder</li>
<li>4 ounces cold milk of choice</li>
<li>2 shots coffee or espresso (decaf works too!)</li>
<li>Optional plant-based sweetener like Stevia</li>
</ul>
Mix the protein powder with the milk, then add the coffee and optional sweetener. Stir or shake to combine, and chill in the fridge overnight. You can also drink it on the spot. 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gnF1j_J0ERg?si=013X6bOnb8KL27Uz" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
“Caffeine, good fat, carbohydrates, and 30 grams of protein? And you can put it in a cup to go?” <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@melrobbins/video/7490620535097888030?is_from_webapp=1&amp;sender_device=pc">Mel Robbins</a> remarked after tasting the protein coffee on her podcast. “Dr. Stacy Sims, you’re a genius.” 
Don’t feel restricted to “proffee” if you’re not one of those “offee” types. Try the combo using matcha or chai instead of coffee, pairing these bold teas with vanilla or unflavored protein powder and your favorite milk. You can even pop a few shots of espresso into a pre-made protein shake to satisfy the assignment.  
With many of us trying our best to work a little more protein into the day (without having to tote around a zip-top bag full of grilled chicken breast — I can’t be that girl!), adopting the trendy protein coffee habit might be just the ritual your body has been craving. The best part of waking up is “proffee” in your cup.

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The Ozempic Side Effect That’s Changing America’s Morning Coffee

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