GREEK LIFE for students at UNC Chapel Hill is very LGBTQ friendly according to The Daily Tar Heel. “Fostering a supportive and inclusive community is part of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life’s core values, said Ion Outterbridge, the director of the office. Outterbridge said there are members of Greek life who have openly come out, and they had no problems from their brothers or sisters. The LGBTQ+ students who have joined Greek life demonstrate this possibility. Greeks are not anti-gay [here].”

JUNIOR’S NASTY LOSING GAMBIT Donald Trump Jr. has been saying nasty things about public school teachers.

A response by PBS: “Editor’s note: President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr., addressed his father’s campaign rally in El Paso, Texas, on Monday night, instructing young conservatives ‘to keep up that fight, bring it to your schools. You don’t have to be indoctrinated by these loser teachers that are trying to sell you on socialism from birth.’ His remarks prompted many responses by teachers on social media. Kristin Karnitz is not a teacher (she is a customer service account manager and mother from De Pere, Wisconsin). But, counting many educators in her family, she penned an op-ed in defense of the profession, an edited version of which appears below. “I come from a long line of loser teachers. I am the granddaughter of a loserteacher. The niece of loser teachers. The cousin of loser teachers. The sister of a loser teacher. The friend of many loser teachers. Once upon a time, I wanted to be a loser teacher too. But when I approached that point in my college life to choose that track, I bailed. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t selfless enough.”

Read more here.

Judge Cassandra Hollemon

SAD NEWS Judge Cassandra Hollemon, one of the 17 Black female judges who was recently elected in Harris County Texas, lost her life to pancreatic cancer. “Hollemon, one of the iconic 17 Black women who ran for judicial seats in Harris County, Texas and was elected last year as part of the “Harris Black Girl Magic” campaign, has passed away at age 57. According to the Associated Press, Hollemon’s daughter, Brandy Hollemon said that her mother died on Monday, about a week after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,” according to Essence.

“She was an awesome, very strong woman,” Brandy Hollemon said of her mother, who presided over Harris County Criminal Court at Law No. 12.

LIAM HEMSWORTH’S DADDY No really. His real father! What did you think we meant? Just Jared reports that the out the hospital Liam took a lunch-time hike through Malibu with the patriarch of the stunning Hemsworth clan.

COOL JUNK” You’ve probably seen the heart-wrenching photos of the damage plastic six-pack rings can do to marine life. They tangle the wings of sea birds, choke seals, and warp the shells of growing sea turtles. This Florida brewery has a solution. Introducing, six-pack rings that can either biodegrade or serve as a snack for wildlife. After years of research and development, the rings, made of wheat and barley, are now popping up in south Florida stores. Saltwater Brewery, a craft microbrewery in Delray Beach, developed the rings with a startup called E6PR. Troubleshooting and manufacturing the rings was expensive. E6PR hopes other breweries, both small and large, will buy into the new rings and help bring costs down,” according to Real Farmacy.

JONAS BROTHER TOUR? Don’t get us wrong–we love you Nick–but we can never forget how we met. The first time it was three. Dlisted is reporting that, “Rumors that the JoBros were getting back together were first sparked in January 2018 after their original Instagram page was reactivated for the first time in four years. However, Nick shut down speculation that a comeback was imminent. “I mean, it is not happening right now,” he later told W magazine. However, he did keep some hope alive, saying, “Never say never. I think that there is some great things happening in all of our lives individually still and we are all focusing on that at the moment.”

NO SHE DINT Cardi B just said that Jussie Smollett messed up Black History Month.

#CardiB speaks on #JussieSmollett…thoughts? 👇🤔 @IAmCardiB pic.twitter.com/j1FLJzuYmV
— WORLDSTARHIPHOP (@WORLDSTAR) February 19, 2019

DAILY RESIST “One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don’t have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day. So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy,” from Shakesville.

WILL WE SURVIVE THE END OF GLITTER? Sydney, Australia’s Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is banning glitter because it’s bad for the environment. From Attitude: Chief executive of the Mardi Gras, Terese Casu, told the Sydney Morning Herald: “We used to bring in about three tonnes of glitter from China.“That goes in the gutter, it ends up in our oceans, our fish eat it, you find it in crab shells and oysters. “We must be responsible and make really urgent changes.” Liz Carter, production manager, has reportedly been helping parade floats shine and be as glamorous as ever without using glitter.Carter said: “There are cleverer ways of achieving something that sparkles and shines without the glitter.”

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras kicked off over the weekend and is set to run celebrations up until March 3.

The parade will be held on March 2.

GOT THE WINTER BLUES? Shorebreak will take you far away. “Shorebreak is a documentary by Tony Liuzzi that serves as an oral and visual history of competitive skimboarders beginning in earnest in the 1970s when it really took off and also reveals some fascinating anecdotes. Like Sports Illustrated’s legendary ‘Surf’s Up’ cover in 1987 actually features skimboarder Tom Trager — the sport is famous for looking “cooler” in photos than traditional surfing and ironically that iconic cover of SI seeking to cash in on the surfer craze depicts Trager skimboarding and never differentiates or mentions the sport in the article much to Trager’s chagrin.”