Notices by Flipboard Culture Desk (culturedesk@flipboard.social)

No one should be surprised that Guillermo Del Toro, master of craftsmanship and practical effects, eschews AI, but it's still nice to hear. The Oscar-winning filmmaker, whose new take on "Frankenstein" is in theaters now, told @npr's Terry Gross that he would rather die than use the technology. "AI, particularly generative AI — I am not interested, nor will I ever be interested. I'm 61, and I hope to be able to remain uninterested in using it at all until I croak." Here are the interview highlights.

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#Film #Movies #Cinema #Frankenstein #GuillermoDelToro #ArtificialIntelligence #AI

When Alice Gooblar-Perovic, Aahana Gupta, and Lydia Cruce were freshmen at Iowa City West High School, they learned that thousands of books, including "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Nineteen Minutes," were going to be pulled from classrooms across their state. This was in order to comply with Senate File 496, which said books and school materials must be "age appropriate." So they started a Banned Book Club. Two years later, the club is still going and growing, and the law is in trouble — the part of it that affected school libraries was temporarily blocked by a federal judge, while enforcement of book restrictions remains frozen under a second temporary injunction. @npr's Iowa Public Radio spoke with the three girls, who are now juniors, about how their goals have changed, and the community they've built.

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#Books @bookstodon #BookBans #Iowa #TheKidsAreAlright #HighSchool #Children

Aziz Ansari says he plans to donate "part of the fee" for performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival to Human Rights Watch, but the organization doesn't want it. Arvind Ganesan, the HRW's head of economic justice and rights division, told @Variety that accepting money from Riyadh performers, "could create the perception that somehow we compromised our independence after the fact." Here's more.

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#Comedy #HumanRights #AzizAnsari #RiyadhComedyFestival

Earlier this week, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security surrounded and raided an apartment building in Chicago, pulling men, women and children from their beds in the middle of the night. They then posted a "highlight reel" on social media. For his Doomsday Scenario newsletter, Garrett Graff writes about these "Kavanaugh Raids" and their connection to the Palmer Raids, a century ago.

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#USImmigration #USPolitics #BrettKavanaugh #USSupremeCourt #ICE #KristiNoem #DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #KavanaughRaids #USHistory @histodons

A galaxy of stars including Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Tom Hanks and Disney performers such as Selena Gomez have come out in support of Jimmy Kimmel. In total, 400 celebrities signed an open letter published by the ACLU warning of a "dark moment for freedom of speech." Here's more from @people.

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#JimmyKimmel #CharlieKirk #FreeSpeech #Celebrity #Entertainment #Hollywood

Late night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" has been pulled from schedules "indefinitely" by ABC over remarks the host made about Charlie Kirk. On the Monday edition of his show, Kimmel said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them." Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr threatened to take action against the network over this, after which Nexstar, one of the biggest owners of local TV stations in the country, said it would replace the series for the immediate future. Here's more from @THR

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#Television #LateNight #JimmyKimmel #TV #Entertainment #CharlieKirk #TrumpAdministration #MAGA

On April 1, Mohammad Halimi, a 52-year-old exiled Afghan scholar who had been assisting U.S. diplomats in understanding his homeland, learned that his name had appeared in a viral post on X, shared by Elon Musk. The post declared that Halimi was a former Taliban member, and that payments to him for his work for the United States Institute of Peace constituted support for militants. Halimi had worked for the Taliban government in the 1990s, but subsequently switched sides and served as a cabinet minister in the U.S.-backed Afghan government. The Taliban had attempted to assassinate him three times. And the U.S. government — including Musk and DOGE — knew all of this. Musk's post exposed Halimi and endangered him, and those family members who are still in Afghanistan. He immediately began to receive threatening messages. A week after Musk's April 1 social media post, three of his family members were taken by the Taliban in Kabul, questioned and beaten. @ProPublica reports on everything that happened, how DOGE took things to another level on Fox News, and how they continue to justify their actions.

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#DOGE #ElonMusk #Afghanistan #Twitter #MohammadHalimi

James Dobson, the evangelical Christian leader and child psychologist who advised Presidents Trump, Reagan, H.W. Bush and W. Bush and founded the ministry Focus on the Family, has died at age 89. Dobson advocated strict parental authority and corporal punishment and was a hard-liner on LGBTQ+ issues and abortion. In 2010, his Family Research Council was formally designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for "anti-gay propaganda." In 2022, he claimed a victory after the overturning of Roe V. Wade. Here's more from @BBCNews.

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#JamesDobson #EvangelicalChristianity #Christianity #TrumpAdministration #WomensRights #LGBTQ #Abortion

How Cheryl Hines went from liberal Hollywood actress to Mrs. MAHA.

From @WSJ: "She used to be Larry David’s TV wife. Now she’s a political spouse to one of the most polarizing Trump officials of them all."

Gift link: https://flip.it/6GUX2d

#CherylHines #Hollywood #LarryDavid #MAHA #RFKJr #USPolitics #Trump

Last month, job boards for actors were flooded with ads looking for people to record “conversations, character voices, and natural speech to help train AI systems," for a project by Microsoft. Payment was orders of magnitude more than a normal acting gig — up to $80,000, where a national ad campaign for a big brand might ordinarily pay $6,000. @404mediaco's Rosie Thomas spoke to voice actors about the "Faustian bargain" of accepting such roles. "You're still taking away tomorrow's meal because they're offering you a little bit more,” says Katie Clark Gray.

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#Movies #Cinema #Film #Acting #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Tech

Is Pedro Pascal, one of the most vocal progressive celebrities, the victim of a social media smear campaign, and if so, why? Pascal, who has criticized Hollywood's "passivity" over Gaza, spoken out in support of trans rights and called JK Rowling a "heinous loser," is facing viral accusations on X and on some news websites that he has been groping women. Some of these rumors are based on faked videos and an interview that he never gave, despite it being cited by Google's AI summaries. "The basis of the allegations against Pascal isn’t true, and none of the women he’s been accused of groping have said so themselves," writes Kat Tenbarge, for her Spitfire News newsletter. "What’s happening to Pascal across these viral posts is a smear campaign, one spearheaded by bigots against a celebrity whose inclusive stance directly challenges their beliefs." Here's more.

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#Celebrity #PedroPascal #TransRights #Gaza #Entertainment #Hollywood #SocialMedia #ArtificialIntelligence #AI

Michael Madsen, the actor best known for his roles in "Kill Bill" and "Reservoir Dogs," has died at age 67. Here's @Variety with more.

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#MichaelMadsen #Movies #Film #Cinema #Entertainment #RIP #InMemoriam

Tomorrow is Canada Day, and this year has seen a resurgence in Canadian pride after U.S. President Donald Trump's "51st state" threats. But in some parts of Canada, today has been proclaimed Indigenous Survivors Day. Here's @cbc@flipboard.com's interview with Troy Abromaitis, the Sixties Scoop survivor who created the observance. "By placing Indigenous Survivors Day on June 30, we invite Canadians to reflect before they celebrate Canada Day, and to remember the children who are taken and why this matters," said Abromaitis, a member of the Nlaka'pamux Nation from Lytton First Nation in British Columbia.

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#Canada #CanadaDay #Indigenous #SixtiesScoop #IndigenousSurvivorsDay #History @histodons

The USA's history is littered with shameful moments and dark chapters — and in recent years, historical sites have begun to acknowledge this in their communications with visitors. That may be about to change. The Trump administration is now posting signs asking visitors to report historical information “negative about either past or living Americans," the Colorado Sun reports. Last Friday, signs went up at the Amache site where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II, and at the Sand Creek Massacre site where U.S. troops killed peaceful Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people in 1865. “I interpret it as a direct threat to why we have national parks,” said Tracy Coppola, Colorado senior program manager for the southwest regional office of the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association. “Definitely a chilling effect on our park rangers, whose job is to tell the story of these places. The Park Service is not partisan, and they represent all of us.”

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#Culture #History #USHistory @histodons #NationalParks #JapaneseAmerican #NativeAmerican #Indigenous #TrumpAdministration

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on L.W. vs Skrmetti, a case that will decide whether state bans on gender-affirming treatment for young people are constitutional. @TeenVogue spoke to trans youth and their supportive families about what this means for them, the difficulties they've had in accessing care, and why it's so important. One mom, Esther, spoke of what she witnessed right after her daughter Kai told her she was trans. “I opened the door, and she was just beaming. She had her headphones in and was just kind of be-bopping and, like, dancing,” Esther recalls. “I'd never seen her smile like that. She'd been suffering with depression, [harming] herself, anxiety for years, and just had this heaviness to her. And it was just gone. There was a lightness.”

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#LGBTQ #LGBTQYouth #Skrmetti #USGovernment #TransRights #TransRightsAreHumanRights

The largest ever nationwide survey of the transgender community, which surveyed more than 90,000 people, found that the overwhelming majority reported a vast improvement in life satisfaction after transitioning. This is in spite of trans people continuing to experience discrimination and mistreatment because of their gender identities and/or expressions. Here's more from NBC.

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#LGBTQ #Pride #TransRightsAreHumanRights #Happiness #USA #America

A year ago, film lovers raised $1M to save Seattle's Scarecrow Video, the world's largest video rental store and a cultural icon beloved by everyone from Roger Ebert to Quentin Tarantino. Now, the team behind it is shifting focus from survival to thriving. @IndieWire checked in with some of the people who are leading the institute into its new phase. “I think about this job a lot in terms of who gets to be the arbiter of truth,” said director of development Tyler Mesman. “Our job is to draw attention to things people might not know about. Unlike other public media libraries that are being pilfered right now, that are being censored, that are being torn asunder, nothing is going to leave our collection.”

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#Movies #Cinema #Film #Entertainment #VideoRental #Lifestyle #DVD #VHS

The Chitlin' Circuit consisted of venues throughout the U.S. that were mainly Black-owned, where Black entertainers would perform, predominantly to Black crowds, during the racial segregation era of the 1930s to the 1960s. "[It] is really the educational training ground for African American performers. Before they reach concert stages or Broadway or make recordings or they’re going to places like Motown or Stax or Chess Records, they’re really getting their start, particularly for musicians, in these small clubs, really forming a community of musicians, learning your craft, learning your vocals for the day, and then going on to the next level," history professor Michelle Scott told Jala Everett on Atlas Obscura's podcast. They chatted about one specific venue, Club Ebony in Indianola, Mississippi, where artists like B.B. King, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford and Bobby Rush cut their teeth.

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#History #BlackHistory @histodon @blackmastodon #Music #Culture #Lifestyle #ChitlinCircuit #USHistory

Marc Maron announced that he will end his "WTF With Marc Maron" podcast this fall. "We're tired, we're burnt out, and we are utterly satisfied with the work we've done," he said on today's show. Maron, who is also an actor and standup comedian, has recorded more than 1,600 episodes with everyone from President Barack Obama to Carol Burnett. His interview with Robin Williams, recorded in April 2010, was the first one-on-one podcast episode to enter America’s National Recording Registry. Here's @RollingStone's story.

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#Podcasting #Podcast #MarcMaron #Maron #WTFWithMarcMaron #Entertainment #Lifestyle

"It will be nice to talk about fiction again because ever since the attack, really the only thing anybody's wanted to talk about is the attack, but I'm over it,” Sir Salman Rushdie recently said. The “Satanic Verses” author was injured in a 2022 knife attack while giving a lecture in New York has a new book coming out later this year. So you can see the reasons why he’s ready to move forward, and he talks about some of them in this article from from @BBCNews:

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#Culture #SalmanRushdie #Books #Bookstodon #Reading