Monday, February 1, 2016

15 Realities Anyone Obsessed With "Anne Of Green Gables" Understands

For those who require “scope for imagination” in their lives.

It's so easy to "set your heart on frivolous things"...

It's so easy to "set your heart on frivolous things"...

Sullivan Entertainment / Via daneenekh.blogspot.com

"...and then crash down into despair when you don't get them."

"...and then crash down into despair when you don't get them."

Sullivan Entertainment / Via gilbertblythe.tumblr.com

Sullivan Entertainment / Via gilbertblythe.tumblr.com

Daydreaming makes life much more interesting.

Daydreaming makes life much more interesting.

Sullivan Productions / Via anne-of-gg.tumblr.com


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“It’s probably her best season yet. It’s her really coming into her own.” — Sophie Turner

Sophie Turner showed up to last night's SAG Awards and looked like a dream. She also weighed in on what viewers could expect from her character, Sansa Stark, on the upcoming season of Game of Thrones.

Sophie Turner showed up to last night's SAG Awards and looked like a dream. She also weighed in on what viewers could expect from her character, Sansa Stark, on the upcoming season of Game of Thrones.

Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images

It's probably her best season yet. It's her really coming into her own. She, this season, really commands the respect that she deserves and she grabs hold of it and she runs with it and it's really good.

HBO


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22 Guaranteed Ways To Piss A Human Off

What do you MEAN I’m too late for brunch?

Throw them into the unforgiving winter.

Throw them into the unforgiving winter.

Nathan Pyle / BuzzFeed

Keep them from moisturizing.

Keep them from moisturizing.

Adam Ellis / BuzzFeed

Curse them to only use glitter nail polish.

Curse them to only use glitter nail polish.

Loryn Brantz / BuzzFeed

Open up their Facebook on a rough day.

Open up their Facebook on a rough day.

Nathan Pyle / BuzzFeed


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How Many YA Books Have You Read?

There’s more to it than Twilight, you know.

There Was A Mini "Harry Potter" Reunion In Florida Over The Weekend

BRB, crying nostalgia tears.

This past weekend, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando played host to "A Celebration of Harry Potter", a three-day fan event which included a Q&A with some of the actors from the films.

This past weekend, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando played host to "A Celebration of Harry Potter", a three-day fan event which included a Q&A with some of the actors from the films.

L-R: Evanna Lynch, Rupert Grint, Matthew Lewis, Katie Leung, and Bonnie Wright.

Gerardo Mora / Getty Images

Yep: Luna, Ron, Neville, Cho, and Ginny were all in the same place for the first time since the last film came out in 2011.

Yep: Luna, Ron, Neville, Cho, and Ginny were all in the same place for the first time since the last film came out in 2011.

Gerardo Mora / Getty Images

And if that wasn't enough, Bonnie Wright posted this photo to her Instagram with the caption "family time".

The two youngest Weasleys are back together. ?????

Instagram: @thisisbwright


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An Abortion Rights Group Has Adopted Anne Of Green Gables As Its Icon

The fictional character has been adopted as a symbol of female independence.

Anne of Green Gables was written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery and takes place on Prince Edward Island.

Instagram: @iamkarats


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Here's A Look Inside The New "Doctor Who" Coloring Book

Get ready to color through space and time.

Doctor Who, everyone's favorite sci-fi television series, is officially becoming a coloring book! Have fun looking, but don't blink.

Doctor Who, everyone's favorite sci-fi television series, is officially becoming a coloring book! Have fun looking, but don't blink.

Courtesy Penguin Random House

Courtesy Penguin Random House

Courtesy Penguin Random House


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The New, Diverse Majority In America Will Win Elections

An edited excerpt from Steve Phillips' forthcoming book, Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority, out February 2nd.

Andrew Young

Thomas J. O'Halloran / United States Library of Congress

Andy Young had run out of patience. Having spent his life working in the trenches of social change and politics—supervising Martin Luther King’s voter registration drives, organizing civil rights protests across the South, and winning his own races for Congress and then mayor of Atlanta—he was trying to help Walter Mondale’s team develop a strategy for the 1984 presidential race against Ronald Reagan. When he was elected to Congress in 1972, Young had successfully applied grassroots organizing practices that included transporting 6,000 Black voters to the polls on election day, and he repeatedly urged Mondale’s team to invest resources in registering and mobilizing voters of color, but his words were falling on deaf ears. Finally, he had had enough and his frustration boiled over at the National Association of Black Journalists convention (NABJ), where he made his now-famous comment that the campaign was being run by “a bunch of smart-ass white boys, who think they know it all."

Thirty years later, Young stood by his words. “Unfortunately, I was right,” he said at the NABJ conference in 2014. “Mondale let the experts there take over the campaign and put the money into television and did not get out the vote.”

Progressive politics are still dominated by “White boys.” White men comprise 31 percent of the American population and just 23 percent of Democratic voters but they control nearly 90 percent of what happens in Democratic politics and progressive advocacy. Whether the current crop of largely male Caucasian consultants is equally “smart-ass” as in the eighties depends on who you ask, but what is clear is that what I call Smart-Ass White Boy Syndrome continues to this day — a time when the future of the progressive movement depends on solidifying the support of the growing number of people of color in America.

Much of the arrogance of today’s political consultants is based on a powerful and popular myth surrounding Obama’s historic election. According to the myth, Obama was elected because his team of brilliant strategists—nearly all White guys—mastered cutting-edge technological tools in ways that ran circles around the Hillary Clinton and John McCain campaigns. Many otherwise intelligent people have talked about “the Obama magic” in reference to the so-called mojo mastered by the tech wizards who ran his campaigns.

Buying into this mythology fuels arrogance, and arrogance keeps one ignorant about how Obama was actually elected. What Obama’s elections actually showed is that the country’s demographic revolution over the past fifty years has given birth to a New American Majority. Progressive people of color now comprise 23 percent of all the eligible voters in America, and progressive Whites account for 28 percent of all eligible voters. Together, these constituencies make up 51 percent of the country’s citizen voting age population, and that majority is getting bigger every single day.

Failing to appreciate who the real drivers of change were in 2008, the White House and Democratic political machine directed their attention to the wrong sectors of the electorate in 2009 and neglected the New American Majority voters who had put them in power in the first place. As a result, progressives all paid the painful price in midterm elections in 2010 and 2014 when Republicans trounced Democrats from coast to coast.

With all the attention focused on technological firepower and data-driven analytics and metrics, the existence of a New American Majority really should be common knowledge by now for anyone who knows how to use a spreadsheet. And the resistance to recognizing the dawning of a new demographic day continues to come from the kinds of people whom Andy Young called smart-ass White boys with big budgets and small stockpiles of cultural competence. Their determination to continue pursuing the shrinking sector of the electorate made up of White swing voters is not only mathematically unsound, it’s also incredibly fiscally irresponsible. Millions of dollars are being spent on a losing strategy at a time when we need to be investing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in organizing and strengthening the New American Majority.

Cultural competence in campaigns and the rest of the progressive movement is needed now more than ever in order to connect with the New American Majority. It’s been thirty years since Andy Young cast down the gauntlet. We can’t afford to wait another thirty."

***

Steve Phillips is a national political leader, civil rights lawyer, and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. In 1992 he became the youngest person ever elected to public office in San Francisco and went on to serve as president of the Board of Education. He is co-founder of PowerPAC.org, a social justice organization that conducted the largest independent voter mobilization efforts backing Barack Obama, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris. In 2014, he co-authored the first-ever audit of Democratic Party spending and was named one of “America’s Top 50 Influencers” by Campaigns and Elections magazine.He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and a Juris Doctor degree from Hastings College of the Law. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two cats. Brown is the New White is his first book.

To learn more about Brown is the New White, click here.

The New Press


Here's Our Best Look Yet At The Harry Potter "Fantastic Beasts" Movie

Warner Bros. has released a short behind-the-scenes video.

On Saturday, Warner Bros. released a feature taking viewers behind the scenes of the latest Harry Potter universe film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

youtube.com

Even those of us who haven't read the J.K. Rowling book know it's a prequel to the Potter series and stars Oscar-winner/certified babe Eddie Redmayne as magical zoologist Newt Scamander.

Even those of us who haven't read the J.K. Rowling book know it's a prequel to the Potter series and stars Oscar-winner/certified babe Eddie Redmayne as magical zoologist Newt Scamander.

Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.


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