I’ve been thinking a bunch about this Sady Doyle piece, which is just chock-full of horrible stuff you might not want to know about, but also has some interesting nuance on being wrong and trying to fix things, and how best to facilitate that as a society and as a person:
Horovitz explained it pretty clearly, in the context of a song he wrote against street harassment: “Sexism is deeply rooted in our history and society that waking up and stepping outside of it is like I’m watching ‘Night of the Living Dead Part Two’ all day every day. Listening to the lyrics of this song, one might say that the Beastie Boy ‘Fight for Your Right to Party’ guy is a hypocrite. Well, maybe; but in this fucked up world all you can hope for is change, and I’d rather be a hypocrite to you than a zombie forever.’”
In other words: They made the joke because they didn’t know, at the time, that it was a bad joke. They were just wrong.
Canadians are raised to think that the word “Eskimo” is a slur (having been used as a kind of blanket pejorative for ages), so it’s weird for me to see it used here, but the internet reveals that the usage is viewed quite differently in Alaska, and life is a rich tapestry. NOW THE IMPORTANT PART:
Obama met two Husky puppies, Feather and Moose, who are roughly three months old. He grabbed Feather — dubbed that because the dog is smaller than all the others in the litter — and murmured, “Sweetie, you’re okay, sweetie.”
On Twitter yesterday, I was talking a bit about Canada’s failures in the Syrian refugee crisis, and how ridiculous it is that we’ve theoretically agreed to take 11,300 people in, when one of Canada’s greatest moments saw us take in 65 THOUSAND Vietnamese refugees in 1979-1980, all driven by civilian outcry and organization. My mom remembers how many people and churches in her community sheltered whole families, and anyone with an extra bunk bed filled it, and most of those men and women and kids stayed to become Canadians themselves, and the country is much richer for it. If you’re interested in learning more about that time, and why it should impact our country’s attitude towards the refugees fleeing Syria, here’s a great place to start. The people here want to help, and Chris Alexander needs to shut his face and do his damn job.
While we’re talking about goodness, this sweet dad needs a double lung transplant, and is drowning in medical bills, and I would love if you could help him out.
The sharecropper’s daughter who made black women proud of their hair:
The details of Madam Walker’s early life are hazy: She was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana, in 1867 to sharecropper parents who worked on a cotton plantation where they were previously enslaved. Both Sarah’s parents passed away by the time she was 7, and she moved with her sister Louvenia and her sister’s husband to Vicksburg, Mississippi, just across the river. Sarah didn’t have the chance to attend school, and from around age 10, she began doing the difficult manual work of a laundress, which gave her a glimpse of the luxurious lifestyles enjoyed by some of Vicksburg’s white families.
Just learned a whole bunch about tacos:
With the Spanish conquest of the land we know as Mexico, beef, pork, chicken — today’s common taco fillings — were introduced to indigenous people, making the taco a very mestizo tradition. Lard was also introduced into the indigenous people’s diets which gives tamales their soft, fluffy texture and which is also used to create flour tortillas, depending on who you ask. While chili and chocolate from Mexico was traded and became globalized, corn did not because it was associated with lower class indigenous people. When maize arrived in Spain and the rest of Europe, the Spanish didn’t know the methods of nixtamalization so it led to pellagra. So in the Spanish’s eyes, corn was equated to poor people and disease while wheat was associated with Spanish conquistadors and the elite class. The origins of flour tortillas aren’t clear but it probably was influenced by Spanish colonizers forcing indigenous people to use wheat instead of corn. For people living in Northern “New Spain” they made mostly flour tortillas because of regional patterns of agriculture.
I am VERY excited for Beasts of No Nation, which is getting great, great hype, and is based on a WRENCHING novel by my college friend Uzo Iweala, a certified genius.
Here is a piece about Dad Magazine! In keeping with media, I spoke glowingly of Dad Magazine for about half an hour on the phone and the result is what it is:
“I know that sometimes it’s hard for our readers who have bad dads to read, obviously the bad dad is something that exists in our society,” says Cliffe. “Sometimes the warm celebration of this particular kind of dad can be hard. Not only is it not their dad, but it’s upsetting that it’s not their dad.”
ANYWAY, you know I love Dad Magazine, but there I am, repping for those of you with bad dads.
I am obsessed with Debra Winger, and so is Tyler Coates:
I never realized it was my dream to run into an ex with his new slam piece and then completely show him what he’s missing by practically rodeo-fucking a mechanical bull, but now that I know that it’s possible… It is all that I want to accomplish.
My friend Carrie’s new puppy has a sodden fox:
