TV Blog on The Huffington Post

BY EVE PEYSER

In June, Netflix got a major redesign, which gave the website a more contemporary look and provided easier navigation. While we're still adjusting to new interface, Netflix could do even more to modernize its streaming service.

Here are six suggestions for features that should be on the list.

1) Shuffle
We all have our go-to shows on Netflix. It's like eating comfort food. Mine are 30 Rockand How I Met Your Mother, both shows will relatively long runs. Sometimes I just want to turn on 30 Rock, relax, and not have to go through the arduous process of deciding which episode to choose. This is where the shuffle feature would come in.

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2) The best of the best
Similar to the shuffle feature, it would be convenient if Netflix selected the best episodes of shows with more than two seasons; it could serve as a starter pack. Sometimes you have to ease into shows. Pilot episodes are often not so promising, especially when it comes to sitcoms. (Heck, I didn't even watch the whole first season of Parks and Recreation because everyone told me to skip it.) But if the viewer could start out with the best of the best of a series, then they could develop a deep affection that would sustain them through the more mediocre episodes.

3) The decider
Some evenings, when I'm feeling fragile and tired, I spend about an hour or so idly looking through my options on Netflix, silently scolding myself for indulging in the comfort of reruns and not trying out anything new. Usually those nights end with me falling asleep without watching anything. Netflix should have a "decider" feature, where you enter the preferred genre, length, etc. We'd all be saved so much grief.

4) Netflix Hangout
Sometimes you just wanna Netflix and chill remotely, so I propose the union of two beautiful things: the Google Hangout and Netflix Instant. It's fun watching things apart yet together, so you can be in your own bed, hands covered in Doritos dust, resting comfortably in a cloud of your own farts.

5) Public and private mode
It would be ideal if you could watch Netflix in public or private mode, much like you can with Spotify, so friends can see what you're watching and have access to your queue if you choose to make it public. I probably would not utilize this feature because my friends already know that I watch the same five episodes of HIMYM ad nauseam.

6) Better reviews
Netflix should follow Apple's lead and include the Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic score of both TV shows and movies. Furthermore, it should make reviewing shows and movies more social, so instead of seeing what random users have to say, we can see what our friends think.

Full disclosure: I've written one review on Netflix. It was for Keeping Up With the Kardashians, and all it said was, "This is the most culturally significant show I've ever seen."

This article originally appeared on the Daily Dot.

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An exceptional TV show these days is David Steinberg's Inside Comedy series on Showtime or streamed via the Showtime Anytime app. It's simply an interview format and guests range the generations from Carl Reiner to Sarah Silverman, none of whom are new to TV interviews. So it's what Steinberg brings to the usual chair-to-chair format that sets this series apart. A former stand-up comedian from the 1960s, Steinberg's comedy features non-snarky, smart, observational funny delivered with gentility. He's also a very successful comedy series director with shows like Friends, Seinfeld, Mad About You, Designing Women, Evening Shade and so on, which means the man knows how to bring out the best from his actors. In addition to asking the right doorknob questions, Steinberg gets the viewer into the guest's process which you don't see often on other interview shows - which is why it's properly called 'inside' comedy. This series, plus Fonda and Tomlin's Gace and Frankie and Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee are what makes the streaming world a valuable alternative to reality show-based broadcast options.

While we're on the subject of Davids, David Duchovny is the only reason to watch the police procedural, Aquarius on NBC. Exceptional acting is often about just listening and Duchovny is a master class in listening. However, Duchovny is the ONLY reason to watch this show. Aquarius is set in the 1960s and in an apparent attempt to give the show an appropriate 'tone,' some chichi executives added a dusky gray, soft visual look to the show which doesn't give tone so much as it gives dim and hard to see. Then there's the casting of the Charles Manson character. Gethin Anthony seems to be a perfectly fine actor but he's just not the right choice to play the real-life cult leader. Manson's entire shtick was an exaggerated, fierce-eyed hippie spouting amorphous babble for maximum scary effect. Maybe it's this actor's hesitation of going too big, too caricature for the small screen. But that's Manson's unique essence which makes it a much more compelling acting choice then the common one delivered here. Missed opportunity.

Conversely, there is a no more bold and magnetic acting choice than the one Portia De Rossi makes as the hyper-alert boss in Better Off Ted, an office-based half-hour comedy series that aired for only two seasons on ABC in 2009 and now on streaming. The show got crackerjack reviews; Entertainment Weekly called it "The most original sitcom to come along in a while." Newsday: delightfully "oddball." The New York Times: a "charmingly offbeat" satirical poke at corporate America which is the R&D department of Veridian Dynamics a huge conglomerate that's forever bringing good things to life such as carnivorous shoes, popcorn that pops in your mouth, a man-eating ficus, cow-less beef and a people-skinning laser system. This is comedy satire at its best and it works because show creator Victor Fresco has the ability to make the absurd sound perfectly reasonable.

And it takes skilled actors to play screwball comedy like this without cartooning. There's always one normal character in a goofy mix, the fulcrum around whom everything pivots. He's the narrator who comments and guides viewers through the mayhem. In the 1940s it's an incredulous Cary Grant. The fulcrum role here falls to Jay Harrington who projects a resigned acceptance of the chaos around him. It's the casting of riveting de Rossi along with Malcom Barrett and Jonathon Slavin as uber-nerd scientists with a need to over-analyze everything that puts this discarded series back on the must-see list.

Caveat: the second season begins to sag in what appears to be a re-tooling effort by producers to make the De Rossi character nicer which only succeeds in diminishing the essential comedic friction of the show. This is the same miscalculation producers made with Carroll O'Connor on Archie Bunker's Place.

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BY MATTHEW ROZSA

America's most high-profile Christian conservatives often use their social media platforms and media prominence to extol the virtues of chastity -- only to get caught up in sex scandals.

The most recent example comes by way of Josh Duggar, one of the oldest kids from the hit reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting. Coming on the heels of a revelation last month that Duggar molested five young girls (including his own sisters), Americans have now learned that the outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and sex education was cheating on his wife with an account on the notorious dating site for cheaters, Ashley Madison. "I have been the biggest hypocrite ever," Duggar proclaimed in a public statement. "While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the Internet and this became an addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife."

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Duggar is certainly a hypocrite, but it's arguable whether or not he's the biggest hypocrite of them all -- because over the past few decades, plenty of other religious conservatives could give him a run for his money at that title.

A short list might include names such as Jason Dore, executive director of the Louisiana Republican Party, whose information also appeared in the Ashley Madison dump. It would also include Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and 2012 Republican presidential candidate who cheated on two of his wives (including when he was calling for Bill Clinton's impeachment over the scandal involving Monica Lewinsky). There's also Evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, who despite his anti-gay rhetoric admitted to having an affair with another man. And former Sen. John Ensign of Nevada was revealed to have had an affair with the wife of a former staffer.

The list goes on, and on, and on. During the same month that he voted against an anti-discrimination bill, North Dakota legislator Randy Boehning sent an unsolicited picture of his genitals to a 21-year-old on a gay dating site. Former Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina had his status as a conservative darling was destroyed when he vanished for several days to have an affair with an Argentinian woman.

Then-Alabama Attorney General Troy King attempted to outlaw sex toys and opposed gay rights, before being caught by his wife having sex with a male college student. Another Southern conservative, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, had a reputation for promoting "old-fashioned" values when news surfaced his frequent engagement with the D.C. Madam. And who could forget former Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, another anti-gay rights conservative, who was caught soliciting sex from a male undercover cop in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport bathroom.

Why does this keep happening?

When it comes to conservatives being caught up in sex scandals, the reason could be traced to what Sigmund Freud called the "reaction formation." The concept, as Freud coined it, signifies a hostile fight against outward symbols of inward emotions that are being stifled -- in other words, self-repression. As it relates to homophobic leaders cheating on their wives with other men, a study from a 2012 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology make shed some light.

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The researchers discovered that individuals who identified as "highly straight" but had latent impulses for sex with other men were far more likely to favor anti-gay policies. In addition, those men were also more likely to call for stricter punishments against gay people who commit petty crimes. "Not all those who campaign against gay men and lesbians secretly feel same-sex attractions," explained Dr. Richard M. Ryan to The New York Times. "But at least some who oppose homosexuality are likely to be individuals struggling against parts of themselves, having themselves been victims of oppression and lack of acceptance."

The explanation is pretty similar when talking about heterosexual sex scandals, such as the one involving Duggar. One study found that residents of highly religious and politically conservative states spent more money on Internet pornography than their less religious and conservative counterparts. And the states which banned gay marriage had 11 percent more porn subscribers. There is a solidly-established statistical correlation between social conservatism and higher rates of abortion, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases -- and nations that have more liberal views on sexuality generally have fewer sex-related health problems than countries that are more repressive.

All of this is because, as Dr. Christopher Ryan explained at Psychology Today:

If expression of sexuality is thwarted, the human psyche tends to grow twisted into grotesque, enraged perversions of desire. Unfortunately, the distorted rage resulting from sexual repression rarely takes the form of rebellion against the people and institutions behind the repression... Instead, the rage is generally directed at helpless victims who are sacrificed to the sick gods of guilt, shame, and ignorant pride.

Josh Duggar spent his life trash talking gays without any facts and suddenly WE'RE bullies for calling him out on his hypocrisy???
-- The Gay Burn Book (@SouthernHomo) August 21, 2015

So Josh Duggar is a child molester AND an adulterer. What a fine Christian! #Hypocrisy
-- Matt Murphy (@MattMurph24) August 20, 2015

It's worth noting here that many of the right-wing objections to what they characterize as pathological sexuality are incredibly modern notions. Beliefs like the idea that there is a clear dichotomy between heterosexuality and homosexuality, or that the traits associated with womanhood are fixed, are relatively modern. They're the simultaneous product of industrialization -- which has created national and global cultures in place of purely local ones -- and a reaction to the dizzyingly fast social and cultural changes that have been wrought over the past two centuries.

These problems, then, may very well have a root cause. While sexually repressed lifestyles may not be psychologically healthy for individuals, there is nothing morally wrong or dangerous about deciding to follow an abstinent (or an otherwise sexually-conservative) set of values. The danger comes when one's individual sexual inclinations manifests in social policy, affecting others.

Although social conservatives claim to promote "old-fashioned" sexual values, it is necessary to understand that there are deeper psychological drives behind much of the political rhetoric. The personal intersects with the political, often with dire consequences for innocent men and women who want nothing more than to live according to their own inclinations -- and to do so free from persecution.

They have every right to do this -- and we, as a society, have a moral responsibility to protect them from hypocrites like Josh Duggar.

This story was originally published by the Daily Dot.

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Early in 1969, Dean Burch, the new Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, called me to ask for some advice. "Ok, big shot," he said, "you talked me into taking this job. You told me I could do good in the world. Any ideas?" I told Dean about a new program not yet on the air, funded by the Carnegie Corporation and which I had seen presented by a talented broadcaster named Joan Cooney to a meeting of the board of National Educational Television - NET, the precursor to PBS.

"Cooney," he said. "Do you think her maiden name might be Ganz?" Yes, I replied, she was introduced at the meeting as Joan Ganz Cooney." Dean smiled. "You're not going to believe this. I asked her to marry me when we were both students at the University of Arizona." He got in touch with Joan, who told him she was having problems getting funding for distribution from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Dean, who had managed Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, took her to see his old boss. "Ganz," Goldwater said. "I see you're from Phoenix. Are you related to Harry Ganz?" She was. "Harry was my dear friend and the first person to encourage me to run for office. How can I help you?" Not long after that, with Senator Goldwater's endorsement, HEW approved the funding Joan needed. Later that year, "Sesame Street" went on the air. Today it is one of the most-watched programs in the world, on the air in many languages and more than 140 countries.

In the wake of last week's announcement that the next five seasons of "Sesame Street" will premiere on HBO, not PBS, the program's home for more than 45 years, we can take two lessons from this history.

The first is that "Sesame Street's" birth was fortuitous. But for a series of coincidences it might never have gone on the air in a country where, for nearly a century now, we have had a broadcast television system attuned exclusively to marketplace, in which children are treated as a demographic to be sold to advertisers.

When Congress wrote the Communications Act in 1934, it took great pains to ensure air time for only one group of Americans, themselves. Children were not on the agenda then or now, one of the reasons for the HBO deal announced last week. In order to survive, to serve its historic mission of providing high quality programming for children, and especially disadvantaged ones, "Sesame Street" needs new sources of revenue.

The second lesson is that "Sesame Street" would never have existed at all but for the start-up funding it received from the private sector, not the government. The program began and continues as the kind of private-public partnership that Americans are singularly good at. Sesame Workshop, the producer of the program, is a non-profit corporation that receives some funding from the government, principally from the US Department of Education, but also from dozens of private donors, from the Gates Foundation to Walmart. "Sesame Workshop" itself has long earned nearly half of its revenues from licensing agreements - on merchandise from bed sheets to vitamins -- money it has plowed back into children's programming. Bert and Ernie aren't welfare recipients. They're entrepreneurs, and have been from the beginning. The HBO deal is but a new chapter in that history.

I understand and to some extent agree with critics of the HBO deal who believe it represents a betrayal of our children, and to the "public interest" the Communications Act requires of broadcasters. At a time when Congress has cut funding for Head Start and working parents struggle to find quality child care, the departure of "Sesame Street" for a premium cable channel seems like another slap in the face to poor and working families. It was by luck, by good relationships across party lines and by a commitment to public service that we even have "Sesame Street," which is still unique even in today's world of unprecedented quality and quantity in media for kids: There is nothing else like it in the pipeline. The economic divide is a growing problem, and the failure of leadership on public television funding and other early intervention programs is a serious one. The children who already have access to books and well-educated parents and caregivers are now going to have even more privilege, while kids who have very little will have less. Surely as a country we can do better.

But I am also optimistic. I have been both a critic and a champion of American television, a witness to its failures and its triumphs. The partnership between Sesame Workshop and HBO will result in significantly more programming - 35 episodes of "Sesame Street" per year instead of the current 18 - and all of them will eventually be free to PBS, where all children can watch them. And the existing library of "Sesame Street" programs will continue to air on PBS.

Sesame Workshop, like every legacy media venture, needs the human and financial resources to compete and to thrive in the digital media marketplace, and HBO can provide them. For several years now, the most innovative programming on television has come from cable programmers, not broadcasters. Understanding that, Sesame Workshop has made a bold and creative move. I believe Joan Cooney would have done the same, and that Dean Burch and Barry Goldwater would again embrace her vision.

Newton N. Minow was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission for President John F. Kennedy. Craig L. LaMay, professor of journalism at Northwestern University, assisted him in writing this essay. Together they are authors of Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television and the First Amendment.

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I imagine I am Alison Parker, doing a live shot, yet another live shot, one of a dozen that will fill the work week.

I imagine how the sun rises behind her in the moments before it happens, how her photographer Adam has to adjust his camera to accommodate the encroaching fingers of light.

Maybe she learned her assignment that morning, when she walked into her newsroom at 3:30 AM and a producer told her she would be interviewing a woman about business redevelopment.

Maybe they were lucky to be able to park their truck near somewhere with a bathroom, so they could drink coffee in between live shots and stay awake until the show ended and they got their next assignment for the day.

Maybe they chatted between their two to four live shots, sharing the sort of intimacy that comes from spending the majority of your waking hours together.

Maybe Alison already knew, even in her short time in the business, that if news broke, the chamber of commerce story was out the window and she was off to the shooting/car crash/fire/robbery.

I can barely stand to think about the seconds leading up to the shooting. I have been her, hundreds of times in 23 years, ignoring the person I see walking up out of the corner of my eye. I cannot look at or be distracted by the passersby, the lookie loos or the rabble rousers, because I am on live television.

Live from Russia

But I see you. And I hope that you let me finish my live report before you do whatever it is you've walked up to do.

Sometimes they simply want to say hello. Sometimes they want to cause a scene or get behind me and attract attention for themselves. I have been spit at and spit on and cursed at and yelled at and shoved and goosed and grabbed over the course of my career.

I have been frightened. I have heard gunshots, witnessed fights, have had photographers fend people off for me while I am still making coherent complete sentences on live television.

The live aspect of our business is just one of the many reasons that television news is not for the faint of heart.

Nor is it for the thin-skinned.

And in the hours after we found out that Adam and Alison's killer was someone who had been a journalist, I had one thought -- he wasn't one of us.

The evil that slithered up behind them as they tried to simply do their job was not one of us.

I consider myself somewhat of an expert on us.

I do not delude myself. We are not curing cancer. Some of us have egos the size of Donald Trump. Some of us just really, really like being on TV.

But most of us, the VAST majority of us are the same.

People who try mightily to get it right

We are the same in that we will never get rich doing this. Many of us qualified for food stamps in our first TV jobs and spent a decade trying to hit the $40,000 mark.

We are the same in that we will live in cheap, crappy apartments in cities where we don't know a soul, schlepping off to work in our TJ Maxx clearance TV clothes, hoping to do a good job, so we can move up to the next slightly better paying job, where maybe we can afford to shop at Macy's.

We are the same in that we miss major life events. You name it. Funerals and births, first words and first steps, Christmas and Thanksgiving, reunions and anniversaries.

We are the same because we are used to people calling us the mainstream, lame stream, left wing, right wing media.

People swear we have an agenda, a bias, a slant, an angle. They stop us at the grocery store and give us a piece of their mind about us, critiquing our looks and our reporting, telling us we need to fire this one or that one. As we're trying to find a cereal on sale, they accuse us of being in bed with the Mayor/Obama/FOX News/Muslims/Christians/CNN.

It's enough to make you wonder, who in the hell would want to do a job like that?

Us.

Because deep down inside, we are the same in believing that we can make a difference.

We can change things.

We can expose rot.

We can give a voice to the voiceless.

We can make people happy.

We can make them angry.

We can be the catalyst for change.

We are the ones at the shooting, the city council meeting, the hospital bedside, the big high school game, the war zone, the grieving family's living room.

We take what we hear and I swear we do our damndest to regurgitate it back to you the best we can.

We want you to know what we know.

I didn't know Alison Parker or Adam Ward, but I would bet they entered this business with an idealized, deep desire to make the world a better, more informed place. They wanted to tell good stories. They wanted to be part of the change.

One person, a Glock and possible GoPro-toting person, stole the promise of their lives, ensuring they would experience no more 'firsts,' of any kind.

I beg of you to remember one thing.

He was not one of us.

This post was originally published on Jaye Watson Online.

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On Monday night, join me as we pay tribute to the great city of New Orleans with multiple Grammy award-winning vocalist, Dee Dee Bridgewater and three-time National Poetry Slam Champion, Kataalyst Alcindor. Dee Dee's latest album, Dee Dee's Feathers, is a powerful ode to the people and culture of "The Big Easy."

Despite the tremendous losses suffered during those terrifying days and nights in August ten years ago, we pause to remember those who were lost... celebrate those who survived... and praise those who call New Orleans home.

In the clip below, Kataalyst performs part of his powerful poem, "Greater Than Hurricanes," and Dee Dee performs "New Orleans" with Irvin Mayfield and the Thelonious Monk Jazz Performance Ensemble.

For more of our conversation, be sure to tune in to Tavis Smiley on PBS. Check our website for your local TV listings: www.pbs.org/tavis.

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I may have been in the minority, but I thought Neil Patrick Harris did a great job as host of the 87th Annual Oscars. I also thought his predecessors (respectively Ellen DeGeneres and even Seth MacFarlane) did as well. In an Entertainment Weekly story today, this year's producers David Hill and Reginald Hudlin mentioned there would be two hosts for the 2016 Oscars. Naturally until the hosts are named I imagine everyone's father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate is going to weigh in on the possible golden tag team. Include me in the mix.

Since voters got killed last year by omitting minorities in all four major acting categories, and virtually shutting out the lauded Selma in most categories, I wouldn't be suprised if the host selection make up for that. Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson, or a return trip from Chris Rock could be in the cards. Hart and Johnson, by the way, are filming a movie together right now so a pairing doesn't seem that nuts.
EW are likely on target with their suggestion that soon-to-be Comedy Central-free Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele could do it. Anyway, I'm going to guess anyway.

There's a pool of talent - minorities or not - who could make a vicious tandem. Here's personal choices, predictions (really you're predicting Oscar hosts, Jon?), and wild card picks. Let the search for Hollywood's newest dynamic duo begin.... Now!

Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis
My personal choice would go to these two guys. They were offered the gig before, would lighten up a usual long-winded show, and send ratings soaring. Imagine a live, unscripted Between Two Ferns'? I can.

Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake
Another dream team that scores on The Tonight Show and especially Saturday Night Live but methinks ABC will once again block Fallon from hosting since late-night competitor Jimmy Kimmel is on their network. One can hope though. David Letterman landed the gig even though he was on CBS but keep in mind ABC had Ted Koppel going up against him. That guy was hilarious.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
I'm going to nix this obvious choice right away. Their first two Golden Globe hosting gigs were classic. Their third? Not so much. Something tells me they're pretty much done with emceeing an often thankless gig.

Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock
This will never happen, but one can hope. Murphy was once slated to host, and I so wish he did. We so badly need Axel F. to be funny again. As for Rock, he was controversial when he hosted and nailed it. Sure, he threw Jude Law under the bus but is that really enough reason to keep him off the show?

Ellen DeGeneres and Seth MacFarlane
Let's see how the contrasting styles work together!

Louis CK or John Oliver and Anybody Else
It's time. With CK, ratings would be huge, the show would be intellectually funny, and the audience would get a little uneasy. It'd make for great TV. I could say the same for the brilliant and wicked Oliver.

Mix and Match time
The following is a list of my would-be contenders - feel free to comment below and mix and match them. Ditto for any of the above! Who's your perfect pair?

Bill Murray
Kevin Hart
Dwayne Johnson
Jon Hamm
Emma Stone
Conan O'Brien
Jon Stewart
Stephen Colbert
Amy Schumer
Seth Rogen
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Hannibal Burress
Quentin Tarantino
Aziz Ansari
Paul Rudd
Kanye West
Ricky Gervais
Keegan-Michael Key
Jordan Peele
Chris Pratt
Kristen Wiig
Jimmy Kimmel
Kevin Spacey
Alf... or any of these?

About A-Sides with Jon Chattman: Jon Chattman's entertainment series features celebrities and artists (established or not) from all genres performing a track, and discussing what it means to them. This informal series focuses on the artist making art in a low-threatening, extremely informal (sometime humorous) way. No bells, no whistles -- just the music performed in a random, low-key setting followed by an unrehearsed chat. In an industry where everything often gets overblown and over manufactured, Jon strives for a refreshing change. Artists featured on the series include Imagine Dragons, Melissa Etheridge, Air Supply, Joe Perry, Alice Cooper, fun, Bleachers, Charli XCX, Marina and the Diamonds and Bastille.

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During my highly-distracted years, life was a blur -- the to-do lists took over ... my life was a constant mad dash to a finish line that couldn't be reached ... and my devices were gripped more tightly than the hands of my loved ones.

Five years later, things are different. Now I strive to open my hands, eyes, and heart to the moments that matter. And on this particular day, what really mattered was on my radar.

Out for a morning run while on vacation, I spotted a helpless starfish sitting in a tide pool. I couldn't remember the last time I saved a starfish like I did when I was a girl.

But on this day, it felt like the right thing to do.

I reached into a shallow tide pool and pulled out a starfish missing a limb. I turned it over expecting to see no movement, but amazingly its tiny tube feet waved at me. The starfish was alive--and it was fighting to survive.

"Breathe," I whispered to the broken creature. "Breathe."

Suddenly, it became crystal clear what I didn't want my life to feel like. Here are the thoughts that went through my head that day -- words that have become my daily prayer, my Hands Free Life mantra, my daily vow to breathe:

Vow To Breathe

No longer do I want to feel like I'm always running late.

No longer do I want to feel like I'll never catch up.

No longer do I want to feel compelled to rush my children through life.

No longer do I want to feel the brush of a hurried kiss on my husband's lips.

No longer do I want to feel guilty when I sit down to rest.

No longer do I want to feel depleted and empty.

No longer do I want to fill the sacred spaces of my life with excess.

No longer do I want to feel like each day is a blur.

Instead, I vow to breathe.

I vow to look my children in the eyes and step into their world.
I vow to remember what my heart loves to do and then stop making excuses.
I vow to close my eyes in gratitude and open my eyes wide in wonder.
I vow to have face-to-face, soul-to-soul connection with the ones who share my life.

I vow to
read a book.
Dance in the rain.
Say, "Take your time," and mean it.

I vow to
Give a good kiss.
Leave a surprise note.
Do absolutely nothing every now and then.

I vow to
Rest
Laugh
Pray
Wait
Dream
And breathe.
And breathe.

So I can truly live.

It's been five years since I made this vow. My journey has not been perfect. Sometimes I stumble, but I get back up by reminding myself that the to-do list doesn't contain the most important tasks of the day. My heart tells me what I need to flourish and thrive--as long as I stop long enough to listen.

***

A portion of this story can be found in Rachel Macy Stafford's soon-to-be-released book, Hands Free Life: 9 Habits for Overcoming Distraction, Living Better, & Loving More. It is a book about living life, not managing, stressing, screaming, or barely getting through life. Through truthful story-telling and life-giving Habit Builders, Rachel shows us how to respond to our loved ones and ourselves with more love, more presence, and more grace. For more of Rachel's inspiration, check out The Hands Free Revolution.

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Tonight, I'm joined by conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter. The unabashedly provocative political analyst has written eleven New York Times bestsellers, including most recently her anti-immigration tome ¡Adios, America! In the text, Ms. Coulter outlines why she believes immigration to be America's greatest threat -- an idea that has been embraced by many leaders on the right, including current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

In the clip below, I challenge Ann on her often-used argument that undocumented workers are taking jobs away from American citizens.

For more of our conversation, be sure to tune in to Tavis Smiley on PBS. Check our website for your local TV listings: www.pbs.org/tavis.

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The first episode of IFC's new comedy series Documentary Now! is a pitch-perfect parody of the cult doc Grey Gardens. Co-creators and stars Bill Hader and Fred Armisen pay homage to mother-and-daughter duo "Big Edie" and "Little Edie," relatives of Jackie Kennedy who are the subjects of the 1975 documentary by brothers David and Albert Maysles. Grey Gardens captures the decrepitude of the Edies' decaying Long Island mansion -- a decay that mirrors their own mental states. In the Documentary Now! parody, Hader mugs for the camera in a headscarf fashioned out of a pair of sweatpants. "The wardrobe department loved that episode," Hader toldEntertainment Weekly. "They would put sweatpants on my head, and I was like, 'What is this? This is so insane.' And then I watched Grey Gardens and, yeah, she has, like, sweatpants on her head."

As much as I admired the episode, I wondered if the brilliance of the parody would be lost on viewers who haven't seen Grey Gardens. But then I realized that documentaries have become so mainstream that even if you haven't seen Grey Gardens, or the 1922 documentary Nanook of the North -- considered the first feature-length documentary, and the source material for Documentary Now!'s third episode -- you've probably heard of them. The popularity of documentaries among ordinary filmgoers who don't have cinema studies degrees has risen steeply over the past decade, and Documentary Now! only confirms the genre's firm standing in mainstream pop culture.

Just as comedy series like Nathan for You, Kroll Show, and Burning Love spoof different genres of reality TV, Documentary Now! spoofs the form and tone of a variety of documentary styles. In fact, I'd argue the television industry's love affair with reality TV is directly related to our growing enthusiasm for documentary films: We've become so attuned to reality TV's editing style, parallel storylines, voiceovers, and, of course, low-budget production values, that we've come to see nonfiction feature films in a whole new light. And now that we're intimately familiar with their formal cues, it's parody time, baby.

What was once considered stuffy and educational -- the filmic equivalent of eating your vegetables -- has become meaty and enticing. As historian Steven Mintz pointed out a full decade ago, the proliferation of cable channels helped create a stable market for documentary filmmakers. This lead to an explosion of different documentary styles on TV, from earnest, social-issues-driven docs à la Ken Burns, to news docs like those shown on PBS's Frontline, to concert films.

In cinemas, persona-driven documentaries of the mid-2000s like Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, or Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me -- docs in which the filmmaker places himself at the center of his narrative -- achieved both critical and box-office success. Documentary heavyweights like Errol Morris and, more recently, The Act of Killing's Joshua Oppenheimer have toyed with the format to present something more surreal and ambiguous than we previously expected from the documentary genre.

In recent years, programmers have begun to realize that audiences are clamoring for more nonfiction films. In 2013, documentaries accounted for 16 percent of the Cannes film market, compared with 8 percent in 2008. In 2014, the documentary Virunga premiered on Netflix (it would later earn an Oscar nomination), and the streaming service -- which has encouraged our obsession with documentaries with its impressive slate of nonfiction offerings -- has pushed for original documentary programming this year with the series Chef's Table and the film What Happened, Miss Simone?.

I think the growing popularity of documentaries speaks to something else, too: the rapidly shrinking space for mid-size theatrical launches, those films that aren't blockbuster franchises or shoestring indies. In a report released earlier this year, research analyst Doug Creutz wrote that "major studios are all moving towards increasingly indistinguishable strategies, as they all put more and more eggs in the franchise picture basket." Nowadays, the place for filmmakers with a vision and a voice is more often than not on the small screen. But for audiences who crave meaningful feature-length entertainment, documentaries have swooped in to save the date night.

According to Patricia Aufderheide, a professor of communication studies at American University and the author of the 2007 book Documentary: A Very Short Introduction, "Documentaries have become more popular as a distrust of mainstream media has grown. Viewers see documentarians as truth tellers."

But, like reality TV before it, documentaries are no longer a niche attraction or an oddity among "regular" scripted programming. Documentary Now!'s painstakingly accurate spoofs are an homage to what is now a totally regular part of our media diet. Welcome to the mainstream, docs! Here's a pie to the face.

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YouTube has become quite the sensation nowadays. With new video bloggers, or "vloggers," and collaborative projects at the new YouTube spaces, the company has changed the face of content creating and sharing.

Although fans and followers flock to the channels of popular vloggers, there are some smaller creators just starting out on YouTube that have a spectacular amount of potential (not to mention a solid fanbase already). These filmmakers and creators who are just starting out have a lot to offer the Internet -- a lot more than we expected.

This is the underground of YouTube.

And this is where we meet Jack Innanen.

Jack, an overachieving 16-year-old high school student from Canada, originally had his start on YouTube when he was in fifth grade, making videos about haircuts for each day of the week ("Messy Monday," "Thrown Together Tuesday," etc.). He also attempted to do standup comedy on an old YouTube channel. Later on, in middle school, Jack started a gaming channel and gained a few thousand subscribers. Three years later, he found himself interested in vlogging and filmmaking. He formed his new YouTube channel, JackIninin, in 2013 and continues to upload content regularly. Take a look at a video he uploaded back in May:

When asked why he had turned to creating YouTube videos, Jack explained that, at first, it was out of pure boredom; he was a young kid that needed a creative outlet, so he turned to the Internet for help. He "discovered" his love of film when he was playing hooky from school one day (which he claims is not common for him). Jack was browsing through Reddit when he found a still showcasing the symmetry used in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. He was intrigued and began watching the movie. Jack explains, "That feeling of being so touched mentally and emotionally by an hour and a half of simple symmetry and vibrant colors forever motivated my ambitions and altered my perspective of film."

What also surprised me about Jack was his ability to appeal to his subscribers. With a fresh (sometimes quite dry, actually) sense of humor and a playful tone to his voice, he captures his viewers' attentions. He has also proves to be quite clever. In his video, "Social Ping Pong," Jack describes himself as a "weird kid, with a weird sense of humor to go along with it". He says that when he has an opportunity to make a bad joke, he'll go for it, and begins to explain the theory of social ping pong. Inspired by the comedian Pete Holmes, the theory explains that when someone smiles at you, you smile back. If someone makes a joke, you laugh, regardless of how funny it is (or at least, this is what Jack does). The metaphorical net in the middle of the ping pong table represents life as the inevitable barrier that attempts to keep your jokes, smiles, and laughs at bay. Jack explains, "Why? Why not? Like Pete said, life is hard; we all die someday. So for God's sake, just laugh."

Jack's favorite puns:
My uncle got in a car accident recently -- it was pretty bad, he lost all feeling in his left side, he's alright now.

I just tried to make a belt out of watches, what a waist of time!

I just ate a clock, it tasted good but was so chewy. It was really time consuming.

Jack has released videos on both mainstream and unique topics, including school and the reason behind why he is going to hell. Although he doesn't like school, he does do well. "I am always told it isn't enough of a challenge for me so I am then placed in programs to "challenge myself" on a higher academic caliber. This just adds more stress and higher work loads," he explains. "It is no matter of complexity or difficulty or volume, and I have never been able to get that point across. If you give me a small amount of easy work, I will finish it with 100% of my effort. If you give me a large amount of difficult work, I will finish it with 100% of my effort. That is how school has been for me, and they have just cranked up the difficulty and the volume, leaving the same time to complete it." In his video, "I'm Going to Hell," Jack explains that although he isn't religious, he'd go to hell because of his dark humor. He admits that he finds everything funny and comes up with creative puns and morbid jokes whenever he can.

When asked who he looks up to in terms of creating content, Jack explains his admiration for Louis Cole (FunForLouis) and Casey Neistat (although, he says the former wins, if he had to choose just one). He admires their generous personalities, dedication (editing a vlog every day isn't an easy task), and "crazy lifestyles". For Jack, the two filmmakers are a huge inspiration; he especially respects how positive they are, despite having intense lives and busy schedules. "They keep the metaphorical torch of YouTube burning," he says.

The young filmmaker also plans on releasing new content this year, including short films; he's also putting focus into making videos similar to his video "Stronger Than Stigma". When asked about whether he wants to follow current trends on YouTube (i.e. tags, challenges), Jack says, "I aspire to be more of a filmmaker. I still want to continue to grow and develop with the whole YouTube culture, but I am going to put more effort into my work." The self-proclaimed perfectionist is also working on app and web projects, as well as other small projects, in a multitude of mediums. "I have learned as a 'content creator' that life is a perpetual work in progress," he says.

For those who want to create content and be a part of the YouTube community, Jack's final piece of advice is, "Stay in school, eat your vegetables, and just do it. Nike."

Weird things about Jack:
"I was born with a small bump about half a centimeter in diameter on the back of my right earlobe."

"I once ate a plastic gumball out of a "Claire's" gumball keychain accessory when I was 4. Smelt like bubble-mint, but did not taste like it."

"When I was little I used to be scared that E.T was hiding in my closet at night amongst my stuffed animals after that one scene in the movie, so I would lean a glass of water against my closet door so it would make a noise if opened."

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BY EVE PEYSER

Mad Men may be off the air, but fans are still hungry for gossip about tall drink of water Jon Hamm. Hence why the actor and his longtime girlfriend, director/writer/actress Jennifer Westfeldt, publicly announced their split after nearly two decades together.

"With great sadness, we have decided to separate, after 18 years of love and shared history," the couple confirmed to People in a joint statement on Monday. "We will continue to be supportive of each other in every way possible moving forward."

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A cursory Google search shows some news outlets reported this story with as much tact and grace as possible:

john hamm jennifer

Heck, even TMZ and Perez Hilton--celebrity gossip blogs infamous for their poor taste--used acceptable headlines.

But The Hollywood Reporter took a different approach by omitting Westfeldt's name in their headline, reducing her to just being Hamm's girlfriend:

Jon Hamm Splits from Longtime Girlfriend http://t.co/NCgfhn5UOb pic.twitter.com/BN8ULMLPg5
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 7, 2015

Post-Mad Men, Hamm is without a doubt more well-known. But even the most cursory IMDb or even Wikipedia search shows that Westfeldt is far more than just a celebrity ex-girlfriend. In fact, for most of their adult lives prior to Mad Men, Westfeldt was the far more successful half of the couple (namely, for writing and starring in Kissing Jessica Stein in 2001).

Of course, the good people of Twitter responded immediately:

@THR the girlfriend isn't important enough for you to squeeze her name in this tweet, right?
— Dobs™ (@badlydrawndobs) September 7, 2015

@THR"Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt split but whatever let's just say he dumped his longtime girlfriend because women aren't important"
— Dave Quinn (@NineDaves) September 8, 2015

She has a name. It's Jennifer Westfeldt. She's a very successful actress, writer, and director. Women are not just girlfriends. @THR
— Birdy (@palebirdy) September 8, 2015

The omission is reminiscent of the treatment of Amal Clooney, a lauded human rights lawyer who happens to be married to a very famous George. When the couple married last year, publications ranging from the BBC to the Guardian reported the story with headlines like "Film star George Clooney marries in Venice." One can understand why a site called the Business Woman Media cheekily flipped things around and used the headline: "Internationally acclaimed barrister Amal Alamuddin marries an actor."

So now seems as good a time as ever to briefly share some of Westfeldt's many accomplishments, which any reporter can easily find on Wikipedia:

Wrote the films Kissing Jessica Stein, Ira & Abby, and Friends with Kids

Directed and starred in Friends with Kids

Starred in over 25 off-Broadway plays

Won the 2003 GLAAD Media Award

Tony Award Nominee

Yale graduate

And for future reference, here are some alternate headlines The Hollywood Reporter can use about Hamm:

"Salon.com 2007 Sexiest Man Living splits from 2003 GLAAD Media Award winner"

"One time Girlsguest star splits from one time contestant on The Date"

"Gap scarf ad breaks up"

"Emmy-nominee and Tony-nominee split"

"Jennifer Westfeldt and Jon Hamm split"

"Two actors split"

This article originally appeared on the Daily Dot.

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BY JOEY KEETON

In one of Entourage's later (that is, bad) seasons, Vincent Chase stars as Pablo Escobar in a movie-within-the-show called Medellin. The production was a wreck, and Chase's venture into the world of arthouse films ends up going straight to DVD.

While watching the latest big-budget Netflix Original, Narcos, I couldn't shake the idea that I was watching Medellin. It's gorgeous, expertly acted filmmaking, but it's clear -- by around the third episode -- that the season will never gel into a cohesive narrative, and it won't really have anything poignant to say by the time the final episode's credits roll. It's eight and a half hours of the most expensive, and utterly aimless, dicking around that any large production has ever accomplished.

But here's why you need to watch it anyway.

The show is based around the partnership of two DEA officers, Steve Murphy and Javier Peña, and their hunt for the Colombian drug lord/Fortune 500 member/philanthropist/most dangerous criminal in the world/brief congressman Pablo Escobar.

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Pablo is pretty wealthy at the start of Episode 1, but the accumulation of his ridiculous levels of wealth is covered in one of those montages where stacks of money are shown in rooms, and a voiceover says stuff like "A week later, Pablo would be importing 600 million tons of cocaine an hour into Miami," while Pablo stands next to a Cessna airplane and negotiates with a goofy-looking pilot. It's an oddly paced show: A great deal of time is given to man who originally brought Pablo the cocaine refinement method, which would later make him rich, but then it hardly shows him actually getting rich at all. Most of the time we see Pablo, he's casually sauntering around by himself, looking into the sun with puppy-dog eyes that are simultaneously ablaze with ambition and hazed over by a fog of inevitable self-loathing and doom.

Wagner Moura takes a script that gives Pablo very little to do and adds at least six emotional layers to it, solely by the way he moves his eyes. He adds about three more layers by the way he carries his beer-keg belly, and, when all's said and done, he's responsible for a several-dozen-layered character that was written with maybe two in mind.

Each episode feels like it was written in total isolation from the others, like the cool parts of Pablo's rise to infamy were scripted out, laid next to each other, and tied together with only the thinnest strings of plot to connect the pieces. Consequences rarely carry over from one episode to the next, each one dutifully following the formula of "Pablo does something bombastic, and the cops go "damnit, we got nothin to nail this guy with!" -- until the very last episode, which would have made a fucking fantastic first episode.

Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal have great chemistry as DEA agents Murphy and Peña; they're just not given anything to do. Murphy's main role in the season is to provide the voiceover, which, with a few possible exceptions, could have been lost with no consequence whatsoever.

It's such a frustrating season: The performances are great, the action (and everything else) is directed extremely well, the presumably expensive Colombian film shoot makes every single frame shot outdoors look stupidly amazing... but there's just something missing. When I read an interview with the real-life Murphy and Peña, the missing thing was suddenly very clear: It's a story based on two DEA agents who didn't actually know each other in real life for 80 percent of this season.

"I was only in Colombia about three days when Escobar surrendered to his custom built prison," Murphy told the Observer. In the show, that happens in Episode 9 (out of 10), with Murphy coming to Colombia in the first episode. This explains a great deal of the dicking-around done by the agents in this season; they really didn't have anything to do.

But having spent nearly this entire piece badmouthing this season, here's why it's worth watching: The second season, which will pick up where the show should have started, is probably going to be fantastic.

This season ends with (spoiler alert) Pablo escaping his personal prison, which the government allowed him to build for himself. Here's what Murphy told the interviewer from the Observer about what came after his escape, which this season closes with:

During that 18 month period, there were 143 Colombian National Police Officers killed as a direct result of the manhunt for Escobar ... For those 18 months, Medellin became the murder capital of the world.

In the same interview, Peña confirms: "In Meddelin, you would have 30-50 people murders every weekend that were all Escobar related."

In other words, who knows why this season even exists. Maybe, due to there being nothing but extreme violence after Pablo's escape, Netflix wanted to take a cheaper approach to the first season: Film the more boring, political parts of Pablo's life to see if this crew could competently produce a show, and then give them the big bucks (and a million squibs) for the next and, logistically, final season.

For all its flaws, Narcos' first season could just be one hell of a prequel to a mindblowingly good second season. Let's just hope they have the episodes written in the same ZIP codes this time around.

A version of this story was originally published on the Daily Dot.

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BY SELENA LARSON

The brilliance of HBO's Silicon Valley is its pitch-perfect satire of a tech industry that struggles with its own lack of self-awareness. But one tech executive just proved that the Valley has a funny bone after all -- by writing his own Silicon Valley script.

Blake Ross, founder of Firefox who has worked at many of the major tech corporations including Netscape, AOL and Facebook, posted his screenplay on Facebook.

"I couldn't wait eight more months for Season 3 of Silicon Valley to start, so I spent the past 48 hours writing my own episode," Ross wrote. "It picks up where season 2 left off."

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The dialogue is hilarious, complete with subtle-yet-harsh jabs at the tech industry. He embraces the characters' personalities and the script reads like something fresh out of the HBO writer's room. Though Ross does note that it's his first attempt at a television script, you can hardly tell because it's just that great.

Ross takes on tech's lack of diversity, the ousting of a CEO and the weird interview questions for a replacement, and open source and copyright with a really clever tongue. We've clipped some of our favorite bits, but you can read all 31 pages on Ross' website.

And the icing on the cake? Ross released these pages while the techies are all off playing in the desert at Burning Man. Here's to hoping this actually becomes an episode.

This article originally appeared on the Daily Dot.

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This is an open letter to the ladies on the daytime TV show, The View. Yesterday I caught a small snippet of their show and I have to say I was quite unimpressed with how they took something that I, and so many people are passionate about, and made it into a joke. So I do what I do best, and I wrote them a letter to tell them just exactly what I thought.

Normally I wouldn't let this bother me, but I can't not say anything. I am writing to you from the comfort of my bed, after working a full 12-hour night shift on no sleep, and I have only slept for about 3 hours today. And, I'll need to get up soon and go back to work. I am a Registered Nurse.

This morning the four of you decided it would be a good idea to talk about the Miss America Pageant, you know the one where women from across the country come and share their talents and get crowned for being beautiful and smart and talented, something along those lines? That's not my normal television because I truly don't have time to care about it. But I did catch an extremely inspiring monologue by Kelley Johnson, Miss Colorado -- you know the one who came out in her -- and I quote Joy Behar -- "doctor's stethoscope"?

Now I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt because, maybe by the grace of God, none of the four of you or your families have ever had to have been hospitalized, but let me share something with you. A nurse wears a stethoscope too. Did you know, we are often the first ones to assess your family and our patients before the doctor does, using our very own stethoscopes? And did you also know, that many nurses have a four-year, Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree (it varies in some of the States, but up here in Canada, we have just one route to be a registered nurse & and one to be a licensed practical nurse - huge shout out to my LPN colleagues in both places). Don't get me wrong - a medical doctor (MD) is an MD, and they are a crucial team member, but what you've got wrong is that a nurse, is not 'just a nurse'. And had you listened to Kelley's monologue instead of calling it 'reading her emails', you might have caught her very important message.

I would like to direct this at Michelle Collins: Could you please tell me why you thought it was okay to belittle Kelley's monologue? The way you introduced the topic, "but then there was the girl who wrote her own monologue..." as if you couldn't believe she considered nursing a talent? Furthermore, I would like you to explain how being a nurse isn't a talent? You even said "she helps patients with Alzheimer's which I know is not funny" - whilst smiling and seemingly suppressing a laugh. You're right. It isn't funny. It's terrifying for both the patient and the family who has to go through it. And you know what else? It's a talent for a nurse to be able to calm someone who can't even remember their own birthday or their own family members' faces. It's a talent for a nurse to work on little sleep, long hours and hard labor to provide excellent and unwavering care for people who need them -- people who aren't their own family members, but you would often be none the wiser because nurses treat patients and families like one of their own. I could continue to share with you how many times I've single-handedly witnessed a nurse - yes, just a nurse, save a patient's life, without having time to notify the doctor (who isn't always present) until after the fact. Or how a team of nurses is the most indestructible machine on this earth, purely because we are strong, educated and wise women and men. I could even go into detail about how nurses can get a Master's Degree and become a Nurse Practitioner and go head-to-head with doctors. But I don't think I want to share specific details about the people who I've encountered: patients, families and other nurses, who've inspired me. I wouldn't want to share my emails with you, after all. If any of this is news to you, I would gladly encourage you to join me for a day of work. I'll even let you borrow my stethoscope.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure your job criticizing others' is quite difficult. To take intimate and heartfelt messages from someone who is clearly so passionate and make them into a joke couldn't be easy. But I am asking you this, Michelle, please think before you speak. Not only have you offended me, a proud Canadian Registered Nurse, but you have offended many other of my nursing colleagues across North America; who work endless hours, have many sleepless days and nights to provide excellent care to some of the sickest people, and have seen things that you probably could not even imagine.

I would like to think that you did not intentionally offend a group of the one of the most trusted professions in both the United States and Canada, but you did. And for that, you owe us an apology. That's all it will take - a simple "I'm sorry" and we will forgive you. Because that's what we do. We don't judge. We are compassionate, hard-working and forgiving people.

Do me a favor and check out the #NursesMatter and #NursingIsMyTalent hashtags on Twitter, educate yourself a little on what we do & then make your opinion.

Sincerely,

Breanna Boros

BScN, R.N.

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MSNBC is making changes to its morning lineup, and Latinos have plenty of reason to be concerned.

Two weeks ago, Mediaite reported on how the cable news network would seek to reshuffle its morning programming in order to expand Morning Joe, hosted by former Republican Representative Joe Scarborough, to a four hour block in preparation for 2016.

One notable causality to emerge from these moves is current 9-11 a.m. anchor José Díaz-Balart. With Morning Joe going to 10 a.m., Tamron Hall will then take over the 10-12 noon slot, thereby leaving Mr. Díaz-Balart as the odd man out.

So what then would become of José Díaz-Balart's current show The Rundown? The answer is not clear yet.

At a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is brewing, thanks in part to the rhetoric coming out of Donald Trump's campaign and supporters, it is journalists like José Díaz-Balart who provide fair and balanced coverage on issues that are of relevance and importance to Latinos and immigrants.

Yet, MSNBC is pushing to make the move - and upsetting many high profiled Latinos and viewers alike.

Hector Sanchez, chairman of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, and Alex Nogales, the president and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, have signed a letter addressed to NBC News and MSNBC about Mr. Diaz-Balart's future in the network:

In light of our recent meeting where we were assured that more Latino representation would be a priority for the network, any changes to minimize or eliminate José Díaz-Balart's two-hour show will be [met] with strong organizational opposition.

Meanwhile, opposition to MSNBC's possible cancellation of The Rundown is growing. A MoveOn petition has already gathered over 3,500 signatures, with many users voicing their concerns and displeasement with MSNBC's move. The hashtag #MásJosé has also seen a fair amount of use on Twitter, while MSNBC remains silent about its plans for José Díaz-Balart's show.

Having built his career at Telemundo, José Díaz-Balart has demonstrated that he is willing to go above and beyond his duty as a journalist. Before Jorge Ramos, another respected journalist within the Spanish language media, was ejected from a Donald Trump press conference and consequently insulted by one of his supporters, it was Jose Diaz-Balart who was asking the tough questions on immigration from Donald Trump.

When it comes to speaking with Dreamers about their advocacy efforts and their accomplishment, it has been José Díaz-Balart who has welcomed them time and time again to his show "The Rundown."

When President Obama's executive actions on immigration were met with delays and criticism from Republicans, it was José Díaz-Balart who hosted him in Miami for a townhall discussion that sought to reassure our community about the DACA and DAPA programs.

Should MSNBC push ahead with their currently proposed schedule and effectively push José Díaz-Balart's show off the air, it will send a strong message to Latinos, immigrants and its current viewership, that there is no place for their only Latino anchorman.

Perhaps the network should take a look at its current pundits and programming, some of whom have taken their shows as a platform to provide cover for Donald Trump -- while other claim that people who use the term "undocumented immigrant" don't care about immigration.

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month. Right, MSNBC?

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Tonight on PBS, I'm joined by legendary singer Johnny Mathis. The music icon has blessed us with his voice for nearly sixty-years, making him Columbia Records' longest running recording artist. To celebrate his 80th birthday this month, Legacy Recordings and Columbia are releasing a four-disc set which brings together, for the first time, every Mathis recording issued for the singles market. The anthology is called, appropriately, Johnny Mathis: The Singles.

Though he has become one of music's most enduring talents, Mathis was also a superlative athlete in his high school and college years. In the clip below, he tells the remarkable story of how his path nearly took him to the 1956 Olympics with his classmate, basketball Hall-of-Famer Bill Russell.

For more of our conversation, be sure to tune in to Tavis Smiley on PBS. Check our website for your local TV listings: www.pbs.org/tavis.

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BY JAM KOTENKO

Sex and the City -- which details the experiences of one Carrie Bradshaw as she immerses in love, life, and everything in between alongside her besties Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha -- is arguably one of HBO's most successful shows to date. While it's been more than a decade since the show ended, Amazon has reportedly added all six seasons of the series to its roster of premium channel content that's streamable with a Prime membership. Amazon Prime subscribers may also watch the episodes offline by downloading the Amazon Video app on their televisions, phones, and other eligible devices.

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If this piece of news excites you, or if you've forgotten what made SATC a pop-culture classic, here are a couple of reasons to plan your next binge-watch session immediately (preferably with someone who hasn't seen a single episode).

1) You can figure out which of the SATC girls you are most like.

Do you believe in love at first sight? (Charlotte.) Are you open to absolutely anything sexually, no matter how risqué? (Samantha.) Is sarcasm your defense mechanism? (Miranda.) Do you feel like you're in constant search of what you want in a relationship? (Carrie.)

Go beyond the usual personality quizzes and remind yourself of what makes each of the women you've grown fond of truly unique. After a while, you'll definitely find yourself relating to one of them more than the others (I'm a total Carrie myself), and then you can settle on which of your friends is the rest of the cast.

2) You can have (onscreen) surrogate gal pals to commiserate with.

Since every episode of the show provides you a peek into the foursome's dating styles and beliefs, and you can rest assured that you'll have at least one character to relate to. If your own set of girlfriends is in need of a break from your incessant whining about your relationship woes, SATC is definitely an adequate alternative.

3) You can figure out which of the SATC boyfriends is your type.

The show has covered myriad dating scenarios, ranging from realistic to outrageous, so you are guaranteed to accumulate a few dating insights you can apply in real life. Of course, while you are cringing over Samantha swallowing a guy's "funky spunk" or laughing at Miranda trying to avoid tuchus-lingus, you can also pick your fave beau.

Do you think Aidan is the best boyfriend a gal like Carrie could ever ask for, or do you agree that Big is her soul mate? You can even put Charlotte's lovable Harry and maybe even Samantha's hot Smith on the list. (Let's go ahead and rule out Carrie's Aleksandr Petrovsky aka The Russian because he's the worst.)

4) You can get ideas on how to spruce up your wardrobe.

Since the show is set in the country's fashion capital, you know you'll find an outfit or two worn by the ladies that you wish you had in your closet. Wouldn't it be great if you had a tutu you could wear to work and effectively pull off?

That's right: The ensembles the women don on SATC are usually next-level eccentric (especially considering that SATC was set in the late '90s), but if it's fashion inspiration you want, it's fashion inspiration you'll definitely get.

5) You can fall in love with writing (again).

A big part of every SATC episode is Carrie's voiceovers. She's a sex columnist who regularly ponders on love's many facets, and you can follow along as she visibly types her thoughts onto her Mac.

If you're a writer on hiatus, hearing Carrie's questions may awaken your urge for words, and you can finally finish that novel you've been working on for years. If not, it will at least make you wish you had a journal or a blog handy, just in case.

6) You can take a virtual tour of New York.

All 94 episodes of SATC would not be as entertaining without Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, or Samantha, but the show would surely not be the big hit it was (and still is) if not for its location: New York is the heart and soul of the series. If you're unable to take the Sex and the City tour in person, you can at least live vicariously through the characters on the screen as they enjoy cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, a movie at the Paris Theatre, or a stroll by Central Park. Be sure to take notes for your next trip to the Big Apple.

This story originally appeared on the Daily Dot.

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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the debut of The Golden Girls on NBC. From modest beginnings, the show would become a huge success, garnering top ratings for NBC and accolades for the show, its cast and crew. But more importantly, from a cultural perspective, it has had a much larger impact. As the first network broadcast show to focus on older women, The Golden Girls changed the way we looked at them and broke many stereotypes. From water cooler chatter to professionally refereed academic journals, much has been made of what their groundbreaking portrayals mean for how we understand women and aging.

The Golden Girls, both the four women and the show named for them, did not operate in a vacuum. As women with families, jobs, lovers and friends living in a multicultural community in Miami, FL, they had a number of complicated experiences while living together with the resultant highs and lows that made their lives fun to watch. The show, by examining their reactions to a wide range of topics -- from sex, to interracial relationships, to disability visibility, broached a number of topics that had been considered off limits for mainstream networks at the time and challenged previously entrenched notions of what was successful television. Tracey Ross, Center for American Progress Fellow, calls The Golden Girls, "the most progressive show on television," thirty years out.

I was an avid fan of The Golden Girls while it was on the air. As a young Filipino American entering his teen years at the time, perhaps the larger implications of what the show meant escaped me. I found myself agreeing with the show's messages about how people should respect difference -- whether by age or by race or by any other community. My upbringing in a Filipino family taught me to respect my elders and so even though these white women were very different than my lolas (grandmothers), I knew that they deserved my respect, which they earned regardless through the strength they showed. As an Asian American outside the "black or white" dichotomy through which race was discussed even for a progressive show like The Golden Girls, I knew that someone's skin color shouldn't determine how I felt about them. Their positive messages about the gay men and lesbians in their lives spoke to me as I grappled with my own feelings and coming out process. Whether I knew it or not, who I was becoming as a young gay man of color, was keeping time with how these four women were becoming who they were.

I know I am not the only one who has been influenced by The Golden Girls. Their impact, on Asian Americans interestingly enough, shows how media messages can be received in many different ways. My friend, Jose Antonio Vargas, whose story as perhaps the most famous undocumented immigrant in the United States thanks to his "coming out" in 2011 and founding of the "Define American" project and most recently, #EmergeUS (a project with the Los Angeles Times), talks about how The Golden Girls helped teach him English, and undoubtedly, how to "be" American. Ai-Jen Poo, 2014 MacArthur Fellow, talks about The Golden Girls in her book "Aging with Dignity." She writes, "Probably the single most effective product to come out of Hollywood in terms of turning around the cultural stereotypes about older women was the hugely popular and successful television show The Golden Girls in the late 1980s and early 1990s."

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Ai-Jen, Jose and myself are probably not indicative of the entire Asian American community. As advocates, writers and policy wonks who work on issues such as aging, workers' rights' and immigration, our viewpoints reflect our own perspectives. But if The Golden Girls have taught us anything, it's to walk our own path. Perhaps at that party their opening theme song sings about, this lesson is their biggest gift.

So, to The Golden Girls, at the ripe young age of 30, I still say, "Thank you for being a friend."

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James Carville helped former President Bill Clinton win his 1992 election with this phrase: "It's the Economy Stupid." It was a simple way to convey a complex idea to voters. It worked. Clinton won against then sitting president George H. W. Bush. During the 2015 Emmy Awards, I saw the emergence of a similar message to voters of a different sort. This time, a simple and yet powerful message was sent, loud and clear, to the decision makers in Hollywood: "It's the Opportunity Stupid."

Many years ago, I had the honor of introducing Viola Davis for a speech she gave to the Rhode Island Upward Bound Program. We both were graduates of the program which helps economically disadvantaged, first generation students attend college. She spoke about opportunity. When Davis won last night's Emmy's award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, it was a full circle moment.

"The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that simply aren't there," Davis announced. With those words, she made it clear how important it is to create opportunities for many stories and experiences to be shared. Audiences want to see themselves on television. f you don't tell diverse stories, you miss opportunities to connect and gain market share. When given the opportunity, great talent, which transcends race, gender, sexual orientation, and country of origin, will emerge. The 2015 Emmy Awards was proof of that.

Uzo Aduba said it another way in her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress. "Thank you for making this show, for creating this space, for creating a platform," Aduba said. If there were no platform, there would be no opportunity. There would be no role and no Emmy. Ultimately, her character's story would not be told.

So what is Hollywood to do now? Will it seize the moment and create opportunities for new expressions and stories? Will we see an increased diversity both behind and in front of the cameras?

Davis cited the following words from Harriet Tubman during the opening of her speech:

"In my mind I see a line. And over that line I see green fields and lovely flowers, and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line... but I can't seem to get there no how. I can't seem to get over that line."

Davis was making a statement about access, the twin sister of opportunity. She is pointing to all who hold the power in their hands to help others overcome barriers in the entertainment industry. I hope that those who have come from dire circumstances and marginalized groups will take a moment to think about the ways they so jealously guard the gates ("or line"). Give your "brothers" and "sisters" the opportunity to come in also. Outstretch your arms with mentoring or at least take a quick phone call.

As an aspiring television producer, I must say thank you to both Viola Davis and Uzo Aduba. Your light shone so bright that it renewed my hope. Perhaps Hollywood will listen and take action to allow new stories to be told. As Aduba said so eloquently in her speech: "I appreciate you for putting belief back in my heart."

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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