Mom of shirtless teen hunks is hiding you on Facebook because of your bra straps.
“Richard probably had more than enough food that he could share with his worms,” said Piers Mitchell, a professor of biological anthropology at Cambridge University, one of the researchers. Mitchell said it was the first time any English monarch had been shown to have been infected with worms.
Emily Matchar on the ethical complexities of adoption.
The secret life of nuns [who do not solve crimes.]
Wikipedia’s lamest edit wars.
“I was 16 when my mom died…”
When is it more polite to be late?
Pitchfork’s Janelle Monáe celebration may be a little hard to navigate, but you’ll never want to leave anyway.
Buy me this brooch, and I’ll do whatever you want.
I read 9000 words on The Eagles, and didn’t really mind.
Tags: link roundup, sluts, the internet, worms
i hate that stupid mom letter
to be extremely articulate
I thought this was a really good response: http://putdowntheurinalcake.com/2013/09/dear-mrs-…
Oops – totally didn’t mean to steal yours! I am just bad at reading comments in order.
Great minds, etc! I liked your call-out.
I saw people posting it on FB yesterday (in earnest) but didn’t bother to read. Now I have, and I’m bothered.
God forbid those girls tempt those precious boys’ fragile souls?
she posted photos of her sons in bathing suits, trying to look sexy, in a post about how girls should not post sexy photos to facebook.
Yes. I saw a good response to it though: http://rebeccahains.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/a-re…
YES.
Thank God. Thanks for sharing and restoring faith in humanity.
Yes. There was another response I saw where a woman consulted her father who was an ex-Marine and a missionary (read: mega-conservative):
“And he said two things that stood out like flashing neon signs: 1) Although men certainly retain memories of seeing exciting things – “like I’ll never forget seeing my first Ferarri!” he said – it’s demeaning to men of any age to presume they can only see a woman as a sexual object once they’ve seen her in a state of undress, and 2) This shifts an unreasonable burden of responsibility to young women for ensuring men don’t view them sexually.”
[From http://putdowntheurinalcake.com/2013/09/dear-mrs-… if you are interested- though I think the one you link to says the same general thing a lot more succinctly and clearly]
Yeah, if men are unable to treat women as anything other than sexual objects once they’ve seen them as sexy, what does that say about how she expects her sons to treat their wives?
DING DING DING! Also lady, are you only a sexual object to your husband? Because he has presumably seen you in a state of undress.
There’s another good rebuttal here: http://selfishmom.com/2013/09/05/forget-teens-her…
“The goal is to raise children, not keep them.” Yes. All of the yes.
Oh my god but even some of the pretty good rebuttals make me mad, because they still make it sound like girls taking sexy pictures of themselves is some kind of toxic epidemic. WHY IS IT SUCH A BIG DEAL? Why can’t people make embarrassing choices when they’re young without it being made into fucking Today Show teen-horror trend piece? “Teenagers are horny and stupid! BREAKING NEWS.”
Oh that’s a perfect response. Thank goodness…
I HAVEN’T SEEN IT how does it compare to the Princeton Mom Letter
someone please rank the mom letters in order of horribleness
Just read it, and then prepare to burst into flames. [I have not read Princeton Mom Letter so can’t compare]
This mom should get together with the mom from that Dear Prudie column a while back, the one who wrote with detail and fascination about her son’s girlfriend’s boobs.
So, am I not seeing it or did she delete said shirtless son pictures without referencing them or the fact that she did so in any way?
Oh hey, I think my grandad’s cousin was a nun in that convent!
That mom letter has already been facebooked by 2 ultra-Christian women I know. uggggghhhhh
I’m surprised no one is screaming about the implications of having foot-long worms in your body. WORMS!!
“In adults infected with roundworm, traumatic events like car crashes can cause the worms to pop out of peoples’ noses and ears.” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
On the flipside, I just read the Mrs. Hall letter, and I’m not sure which I would dread more: roundworms or immersing myself in the world of parenting blogs.
ETA: roundworms or a society that places the onus of sexuality all on teenage girls (how dare they show a bra strap! *waggles eyebrows*) and not the teenage boys that are apparently just victims of their own hormones? which is worse? can I just give roundworms to people who do the latter?
Please do.
I had kind of assumed everyone back then had worms. Animals all have them unless they’re domesticated and wormed, and I’m pretty sure that they were an accepted fact of human life until fairly recently.
I can understand that intellectually but part of me still cringes at the idea of parasites. Blech.
Totally. It’s like the whole dumping-your-bedpan-into-the-street thing, meaning people in cities got hit with it all the time. GAH. I would not have been cut out for pre-20th century life.
Its true, but oh god the thought.
So the legacy of Richard had 3 distinct waves:
1) Murderous uncle
Centuries 15-21
2) Archaeological Triumph
Summer 2013
3) Eww icky worm bag
Centuries 21+
I’ve spent the last few days with a digestive complaint that makes me think I would greet the appearance of a foot-long worm with a nod and an “Oh. Worm. Huh.”
(I mean, we all know I actually would run shrieking to the nearest helminthologist. I’m feeling pretty jaded, is all.)
Something is a bit off with that adoption article too, like, are ALL adopted babies exclusively the product of unwed mothers? And the very first story about how she began to think she could have forced the child’s father to support her financially instead of giving the kid up… I dunno it just seems a bit viewing the other option through rose-colored glasses?
True.
I haven’t finished it yet, but what’s struck me most so far is the part about the message boards “full of tales of bitterly regretted adoptions.” Isn’t it funny how there isn’t quite as much regret among women who have abortions? While some women certainly regret the decision to abort, missing a baby that might have been sounds much easier than missing a baby who exists in the world but is unreachable.
THE GIRLS WHO WENT AWAY.
(Not that there aren’t women who regret their abortions and women who do not regret their adoptions.)
Naturally. We women are really good at not regretting and regretting.
It could be rose-colored glasses. But IDK. I have a decent bit of first-hand experience volunteering in support services for unwed, pregnant women and the coercion is distressing. It totally changed my POV on the issue. I saw a lot of mean-girl-style subtle jabs about how single motherhood is always the worst outcome for mother and child, slut-shaming, and a lack of enthusiastic support of any option except adoption.
I saw overwhelmed mothers of 2-week-olds being encouraged to give them up for adoption because they were crying about how hard new motherhood is. No encouragement about how those feelings will pass, no offers of help, just “this is because you shouldn’t be a single mom.” I saw a woman who left her abusive boyfriend and pressed charges against him to help protect his daughter (from another woman). She found out she was pregnant after she left and dropped the legal bomb. She was scared and sobbing and the counselor said, “This is why sex outside of marriage is such a bad idea.”
I wonder if there even are services out there that genuinely support the pregnant woman in crisis without any kind of ulterior motive. Maybe I saw a bad bunch? But what I saw was pregnant women being given very superficial support and being coerced into thinking they had no other options, because of a belief that all babies should be in a home with two middle class parents of a particular religious persuasion.
Oh, thank you for this perspective. Yikes between this and “abortion counseling” centers it really makes me want to get into some kind of work to advocate for pregnant women!
I was afraid it was too long! I guess I still have a lot of feels about things I saw during my old fundie days.
The place I had the most experience in was connected to a “pregnancy resource center.” In the town I was in, anyone who needed Medicaid had only one clinic available to them– no private doctors would accept Medicaid. That clinic was overwhelmed, and they would not see patients without proof of pregnancy, which had to come from a doctor or the “resource center.” So everyone in need in this town of 70,000 and the surrounding areas was funneled through the center.
They would convince women to keep their pregnancies, pointing out that right next door was their sister center that gave pregnancy support, and items like clothes and diapers (which turned out to be a small pack of diapers every 2 weeks if you did their fundie parenting classes and unlicensed counseling sessions). The support was a lot of talk about how adoption would be best. And, wouldn’t you know it, they had an adoption agency too. It was super fucked up and sad, because a lot of people donated to that network thinking they were really helping women in need.
Most women still did keep their babies but, based on the statistics of how many women place their children for adoption, their adoption placement rate was quite high.
Agreed. I sympathize with all the people in the article, and completely support reform of the adoption system and better support systems for birth mothers. But not all adoptions are fraught, and not all agencies are corrupt, and children and their welfare deserve to be considered in this equation as well.
What we need are laws against coercion. Inform pregnant women of ALL their options and help them understand what each entails. Have supportive and nonjudgmental counseling available during the decision-making process, during pregnancy, and/or after they give birth. Trust women to make the right choice about what is in the best interest of themselves and their child. Empower them, don’t tear them down. Ugh, why is it so hard to treat women with respect?
Totally agree. I didn’t realize some of the terrible tactics used. Everyone, please excuse me today. I’m dealing with a personal tragedy and today has sucked giant rocks and when I get like this I get all grumpy and self-righteous. Can I just get a mulligan and start this day over? I mean, preferably I’d be in bed, eating potato chips and watching corgi and SYTYCD videos on Youtube all day, but I’ve got to deal with work and commuting and OTHER PEOPLE, ugh.
(I’m so sorry. Here’s wishing you a quiet stretch soon, to fill with potato chips and corgi videos and time to process the sorrow.)
No apologies necessary. I’m sorry you’re going through such a hard time. At least today is Friday, which means you will have a couple days to yourself (assuming you have a M-F job) without all the annoyances the workday brings.
I can’t wait for The Toast to really flesh out that “sluts” tag.
Me too. But not the “worms” tag.
but what about the SLUTWORMS tag??????
God those slutworms need to be careful about their selfies, they’re just setting themselves up for a bad reputation. As we all know: “that loss of virtue in a roundworm is irretrievable; that one false step involves it in endless ruin; that its reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that it cannot be too much guarded in its behaviour towards the undeserving of the other roundworm/self.”
“Did you know that once a male sees a roundworm, he can’t ever un-see it?”
Young men are fighting a daily uphill battle to keep their brains worm-free and their bodies un-parasite-addled
Okay, I would definitely welcome a post that uses a slutworms tag.
“Here is our Slut Garden. As you can see, this year’s crop is coming in nicely.”
I just fell down a Wikipedia rabbithole…there goes the next few hours. Thanks a lot!
J. K. Rowling
Is her name pronounced like “rolling” or to rhyme with “howling”? Rowling is on record claiming she pronounces her name like “rolling”. An irate editor argues that this is a “British” pronunciation and the “American” pronunciation of her name should also be noted. This is slightly ridiculous as she is English, and therefore of course will pronounce it in an English manner. Cue endless spats on talk pages over whose arguments are “more cogent”, and multiple reversions. Issue finally resolved (sort of) by very, very, very obliquely implying that she pronounces her name “rolling”, rather than stating that that is how her name is pronounced. Edit war was brief, but, astoundingly, other people have since logged on and made the same complaint. Perhaps it rhymes with “Trolling”?
This is wonderful.
The pettier the better, as far as I’m concerned:
Potrero Hills
The Potrero Hills are “a range of low hills on the western edge of Richmond, California”. They’re pretty unremarkable; there happens to be a Chevron oil refinery there. But is it the “Chevron Richmond refinery” or the “Chevron Richmond Refinery”? An on-and-off edit war over this detail roils for months. After an exasperated (if excitable) administrator goes to the length of fully protecting the page, the war spills over onto Potrero Hill, San Francisco, where it is now being “debated” whether the disambiguation tag at the top should say “For the Potrero Hills in Richmond, California, see Potrero Hills” or “For the bluffs in Richmond, California, see…” or “For the minor mountain range…”.
Anus
Should this article include a large image of a human anus? Should the demonstration anus be male or female? Should the level of hair in the anus be “moderate”? Debates over whether cropped porn images of bleached human anuses are appropriate for Wikipedia abound.
“Transponder (aviation)
7500. Four simple numbers that got an add/remove/add/remove/consensus-add/remove-anyway/ADD edit war ongoing, in slow-motion and, perhaps, still ongoing on this page. What caused all the “squawk”ing? The fact that 7500 is the emergency code you put in a transponder when your aircraft has been hijacked. Although the code is public information provided by the Federal Aviation Administration and available in any student pilot’s manual to be grabbed off the shelf, IP editors keep removing it from the article. Because, apparently, would-be hijackers use Wikipedia as their only source of information on aircraft, and would recognise the code when the pilot entered it, whereas it could be entered without recognition otherwise, or so the IPs claim. One even left an edit summary saying “Deleted reference to hijack code for secutity [sic] reasons. (Yes- I know it’s available other places…)”. Consensus keeps the code on the page, joined (after yet another well-meaning IP removed the code) by an admin admonishment in an editnotice.”
Wikipediea editors attempting to ~*~prevent terrorism~*~ guys. I shed a tear for their bravery.
Also it’s been like an hour and I’m still reading these WHY
Someone please give me a cookie for resisting the urge to leave a comment on that horrible religious mom blog about how sexy the Hall boys are and how I’ll never be able to see them as anything but shirtless little blonde sexpots.
(WHICH IS NOT TRUE, OBVIOUSLY, BUT I REALLY WANTED TO SAY IT.)
but now *I* really want you to say it! oh no….
I know! I wanted to see if any of them were over 18 so I could hate-masturbate to them.
REASON #4563 I CAN NEVER GET A REAL JOB AGAIN
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA dying
You get a cookie! I hear from other circles that she won’t publish anything she perceives as negative so it probably wouldn’t have made it to the comments list anyway. Apparently she did repost the whole thing with clothed pictures of her sons so girls could read it. Missing the point!
She republished it with her sons fully clothed?
IT’S TOO LATE! I’VE SEEN EVERYTHING!
I know, she posts a picture of them all half naked making poses to show off their bodies? COME ON. The real problem here is not the girls who post pictures of themselves, it’s the double standard.
Lady, don’t sit down with your sons and teach them to judge girls based upon what they’re wearing. YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Oh man, “When Mom Died” was so heartbreaking. I want to kick her dad in the ass.
right? what a dropkick.
“Is your mother home?” they’d ask. “No, she’s dead.”
This sounds terrible, but YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH FUN THIS IS.
I got to/had to answer a bunch of phone calls with that phrase after my father died, which was particularly satisfying with the telemarketers who always always always mispronounce our not-uncommon last name.
In my grief and frustration, I finally gave into my lifelong urge to correct them. “Can I speak to Mister [Mangled Name]?” “First, it’s pronounced [_____], and second, no you can’t. He’s DEAD.”
I also used it like a cudgel to bash my way through the red tape on my mother’s travel insurance. “Well, she can’t go on the trip because HER HUSBAND DIED.” “She’s not able to travel because HER HUSBAND DIED.” “I might seem a little testy because MY FATHER DIED.” The inhumanly chirpy, by-the-book customer service rep finally started laughing and found a way to navigate the system for us. (“Well, her husband died, Brian, but I don’t see a check-box for that on your form. It sure sounds like a valid reason to me.” He started giggling and said “It really does. Let me do some research and call you back.”)
Also, “MY FATHER DIED” worked a treat on the random dudes-on-the-street who say things like “Smile, sweetheart, it can’t be that bad.” Talk about satisfying.
That’s the best time to use it. And then you do smile, like Wednesday Addams at camp.
Yeah EXCEPT, and this is one of my favorite “weirdos on the subway” moments ever, they decide to ask you HOW he died (like, what he died of, I guess). I just… ran out of responses at that point.
Yeah, there is no sure-fire way to make people who luxuriate in their own unexamined privilege not impose it on you. There are only paths of greater or lesser resistance to the imposition of that privilege, and neither of those paths is easy.
This just happened to me, and saying it is not yet satisfying. I’m still in the “feeling preemptively bad for the person I’m about to unload the horrifying news on” stage. Knowing that someday it will be satisfying, though, is a little something to hold on to.
… it’s always possible that I’m a lot less kind than you are, to have found it so satisfying and never worry about how my sorrow affected strangers. (I never unloaded the news so bluntly on someone who knew him or me; that was always a lot harder.)
I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sending good thoughts your way. The “just happened” stage is especially hard, and I hope it will be easier for you soon.
Thank you. It has been a nightmare for my entire family and we are all just trying to put one foot in front of the other. That it will get easier is simultaneously a huge relief and a bit of extra heartbreak.
I’m so, so sorry.
(If any of what I say next helps you even a tiny bit, good. If not, feel free to ignore it, or to chide me for it, or whatever. In any case, don’t feel pressed to respond if you don’t feel like it; I’m sure you have all too much to do and think and feel right now.)
I won’t presume to tell you how it will feel for you, but I can tell you that for me, grief has been most cutting when it’s fresh, and then again a few weeks or months later. After some not-formalized length of time, some of the people who rallied ’round start to back off, thinking (sometimes aloud) that it’s time for the bereaved to “get over it.”
Those people should BACK OFF. You’ll do what you need to do when you need to do it. Be as kind to yourself as you can; it’s a hard time and it just has to happen.
I only mention that second burst of grief because it caught me so terribly by surprise the first time, and because I might have been comforted to know the experience was not unusual.
Many years ago, when my partner/whatever/ohjeezsocomplicated died, I got through it by imagining turning a corner — a literal corner. “You’re walking a tough road,” I told myself, “but there’s a different road ahead. Of course you can’t see it; it’s around a corner. Keep going.”
Keep going. You’ll get there. Wherever you’re going, you’ll get there.
Ah, those family nights, sitting around the dining table, slut shaming our friends. “Is she a slut?” I’d ask naively. “Yes”, mom would say resolutely. “Her ears are pierced TWICE.” I had overlooked this. “What kind of message is she trying to send?”, mom would ask. I genuinely didn’t know. I ventured a guess. “That she’s a slut?”
Mom nodded in agreement.
Yeah, there is no sure-fire way to make people who luxuriate in their own unexamined privilege not impose it on you. There are only paths of greater or lesser resistance to the imposition of that privilege, and neither of those paths is easy.
This just happened to me, and saying it is not yet satisfying. I'm still in the "feeling preemptively bad for the person I'm about to unload the horrifying news on" stage. Knowing that someday it will be satisfying, though, is a little something to hold on to.
… it's always possible that I'm a lot less kind than you are, to have found it so satisfying and never worry about how my sorrow affected strangers. (I never unloaded the news so bluntly on someone who knew him or me; that was always a lot harder.)
I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sending good thoughts your way. The "just happened" stage is especially hard, and I hope it will be easier for you soon.
Thank you. It has been a nightmare for my entire family and we are all just trying to put one foot in front of the other. That it will get easier is simultaneously a huge relief and a bit of extra heartbreak.
I'm so, so sorry.
(If any of what I say next helps you even a tiny bit, good. If not, feel free to ignore it, or to chide me for it, or whatever. In any case, don't feel pressed to respond if you don't feel like it; I'm sure you have all too much to do and think and feel right now.)
I won't presume to tell you how it will feel for you, but I can tell you that for me, grief has been most cutting when it's fresh, and then again a few weeks or months later. After some not-formalized length of time, some of the people who rallied 'round start to back off, thinking (sometimes aloud) that it's time for the bereaved to "get over it."
Those people should BACK OFF. You'll do what you need to do when you need to do it. Be as kind to yourself as you can; it's a hard time and it just has to happen.
I only mention that second burst of grief because it caught me so terribly by surprise the first time, and because I might have been comforted to know the experience was not unusual.
Many years ago, when my partner/whatever/ohjeezsocomplicated died, I got through it by imagining turning a corner — a literal corner. "You're walking a tough road," I told myself, "but there's a different road ahead. Of course you can't see it; it's around a corner. Keep going."
Keep going. You'll get there. Wherever you're going, you'll get there.