In case you wanted an update on our Friday story about feminist Mormons.
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Fried over the fires of Mount Doom, the One Donut to rule them all: http://t.co/TVUEj3uSgI by MirachRavaia pic.twitter.com/dDOvceBWG6
— thinkgeek (@thinkgeek) April 8, 2014
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The Liberal Party has defeated the PQ in the Quebec elections. The PQ really went to the mats this time around with the effectively anti-Muslim values charter, so.
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Text in haste, repent and look like a real dick.
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This is a gorgeous satire, do not burn anyone with fire:
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MALLORY ORTBERG, being applauded on behalf of The Toast by Entrepreneur Magazine, now with fabulous hats!
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This article on the iniquities of Paul de Man is pretty amazing:
He was not at all the sort of person who would poison your dog out of meanness, though if he thought he could turn a profit he might steal your dog and sell it.
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Psst, wanna buy a lair?
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Canada is objectively PRETTY GREAT:
25. Alberta, Canada, is the only region in the entire world free of Norwegian rats.
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Congrats, Mallory. Getting on the .net 100 is a real feather in your cap!
This is probably a dumb question, but I’m gonna ask it anyway. What is a .net 100?
from their site: “a ranking that measures the top sites on the web with the .net domain extension. Entrepreneur and Verisign came together to assemble the ranking, which is based on quantitative factors and the feedback from Entrepreneur’s audience of sophisticated, successful business owners. Together, we then gathered traffic and social metrics for each site, as well as your votes to determine the rankings”
Oh, that’s pretty cool then.
Thanks for the info corfay.
LOOK HOW SMUG SHE LOOKS IN THAT CAP. That look at 0:45.
“Damn it feels good to be a writer.” – Mallory’s face
It is a pretty magnificent hat.
A CANADIAN STORY
This morning I saw a red (duh) pickup with four Canadian car flags, one on each window, plus a tiny one on the antennae, two flag bumper stickers, a big flag magnet, and his license plate read CDN BOB. Obviously, this was at the Tim Horton’s. I think he was….the Most Canadian Man in the World.
Was it Captain Canada?
I think I know a Todd Manly-Krauss. The comments are EVEN BETTER.
“Dinner is on a tray outside your door!” I LOVE IT.
“Okay you guys, you know I can’t actually approve the comments that name names, right? But they’re totally cracking me up.”
NOOOOOOOO NAME NAMES!!!
Oh my God that Todd Manly-Krauss post is perfection. E-dawg Hemster, guys – E-DAWG HEMSTER. What a way to start the day. What a time to be alive.
This might be the best thing I read all week and it’s only Tuesday.
I don’t think many people in Quebec are rejoicing in the street about a majority Liberal government (this election was all about choosing the least of several evils), but thank Dog the PQ got the spanking it deserved. Bigots.
Cosigned.
I didn’t know about the Apology Act!
Just yesterday, I was meeting with a group of students, accidentally hit something with my foot and apologized to a table.
(even if Todd Manly-Krauss is the product of satire, I’m sure I could still find someone worthy of burning with fire.)
That rats thing is why I NEVER EVER WANT TO LEAVE even though it’s objectively pretty awful here otherwise.
I’m in Vancouver and it’s wonderful in general but we just got an uninvited rat roommate last week so AB is suddenly looking a lot nicer right now.
(any tips out there for getting rid of one? it’s somehow able to get the food off our traps without setting them off–the one time it did set one off it didn’t actually close on the rat, he was just flung across the room, was stunned for a few minutes during which we dithered about how to kill it, then it came to and ran away UGH)
DO NOT get glue traps. You will be haunted forever.
I’ve had reasonable luck gluing a nut to the trap, and then adding a smear of peanut butter? But they’re smart little creatures – once they smell death on a trap or have a bad experience, they often don’t come back.
We used the giant snap kind with some success. Except for at least one rat got caught, injured, but not killed, so my roommate had to bash its head in with a hammer as a mercy killing. That was traumatic. And messy.
The giant snap kind are what we’re using now! We’re going to try and move them around and such since it doesn’t seem to be tempted anymore by the one that flung it around before. Too smart! It also ate my roommate’s avocado last night, so this definitely means war.
I am amazed by the texting story. I want to know more! Apparently he broke it off because she wouldn’t sign a prenupt… I’m thinking of the “poor working girls” in the next post and how they would probably be getting the same kind of treatment…
Me too! Also interesting that an implication made in a sarcastic text message holds up in court.
When I buy that lair, you’re all invited to my castle-warming party, but if you fail to dress to impress, there will be boiling oil.
I thought, somehow, the dounut was related to the feminist Mormons? “Well that looks delicious but that writing is Arabic, maybe? Did Joseph Smith not write his books in English? Hm.”
Spoiler: It does not.
It could have been the Deseret alphabet! Except it is not. But I do hope the feminists are getting some good doughnuts out there.
GUYS:
To be fair to Ring Guy, she did use the wrong “your”.
Nah they’re probably both juiceboxes.
Even I, Queen of the Grammar Police, am giving her a pass for using the wrong “your” in this case. Even a juicebox deserves a face-to-face engagement breakup.
Killjoy alert: I’m not even remote convinced that the PQ lost because of the Charter — they lost because they ran a terrible campaign, have had numerous foot-in-mouth moments (including making a false accusation to the Elector General of ambiguous electoral fraud amongst anglophone students), and have swung sharply to the right (as evidenced by Peladeau’s standing for office). The charter itself still has substantial support (and there’s a variety of perspectives of how it should be tweaked amongst those people) — but the PQ just showed itself to be buffoons, and lost handily because of it. I’m no fan of a PLQ majority, but I’m very happy that the charter is dead in the water (as it well should be).
I generally agree with this. If they had kept the topic to Hater-ade, they probably would have sailed to a minority (heh), but Peeky-P switched the conversation to Separ-ade and Marois couldn’t help herself. Like a moth to a flame. The Liberals only had to step aside and watch them self-immolate. The charter of anti-rights and unfreedoms is still wildly popular.
Absolutely right. It’s unsettling to see how much support the Charter has, especially in rural areas where it will never need to be applied.
But people clearly don’t want to talk about separation any more, as evidenced by the Bloc’s implosion during the last federal election (of course, that was due in large part to Québec’s exceedingly fickle electorate, which decided to vote en masse for Jack Layton because he was a nice guy with a nicer mustache). And once Marois started discussing her “vision” of an independant Québec, with its open borders and Canadian dollar, it made it abundantly clear that sovereignists have no idea what it is they want or how they’ll go about getting it. Which is why they always avoid such questions.
And yeah, the PLQ didn’t win; the PQ lost.
I get way too excited that Nicole is Canadian sometimes. I’ve been researching and writing about the PQ and the implications of the charter for minorities in Canada since last year and whenever I mention it to my fellow Americans, they are (understandably) like “The P-what?” and I’m like “guuuuys Canadian politics are important or whatever”
I got hooked into the Toast by its amazing Canadian content.
I would read the hell out of a Toast post on that topic.
YESSSSS to this and all the Canadian politics posts here in general.
Well here is the gist:
this type of liberal protecting-women-and-minoirties-in-name secularism has different kind of backers. I mean, they’re all wrong but some people are earnest in their desire for church-state separation and keeping the public sphere secular and others are straight up using it as a tool to promote a racist and xenophobic agenda. The language of the charter implicitly lets Christian symbols and practices go on while sikh, muslim, jewish (etc.) symbols and practices would be more targeted.
Bernard Drainville is his own character and deserves to inspire murky, ambiguous, sleezy villains in movies for decades to come and was basically like “we need to keep religion out of the public sphere” but then when people were like “hey maybe the big ol’ cross in the national assembly should also go?” all of the charter people were like “Whaaaaat??? But that’s just a part of our culture…ain’t nothin’ to do with religion.”
But they said all of this is French. It was a smart tactic because it sounded less dumb in French.
(Aside: guess who is most hurt by this? ding ding ding you guess it it’s women of color. four for you. you guessed it right.)
It was funny how the PQ marched him out to do damage control (I believe Marois was out of province at the time) for PKP’s gaffe and he doubled down on the Charter (because it’s still wildly popular) by saying the ban would include banning all students from campus if they wore religious headscarves and also stopping people from receiving ANY government service if they were wearing a burqa, niqab or hijab. When asked if a woman in danger and calling the police would have to remove her headgear before receiving service, his reply was (1) yes; but (2) if she was unconscious they would offer her help. (BUT THIS IS PITCHED AS A FEMINIST POLICY, YARITE)
It frustrates me that there aren’t more Americans who follow Canadian politics. Mainly because we should be paying attention to what’s going on with our neighbors, but also because it’s just dang entertaining (like all politics, really) and I want to be able to discuss it with friends whenever something interesting happens.
Also, we’re a major energy supplier to the US, and what happens with the tar sands and our environmental policy (or lack of it) has a direct impact on US politics. We’re not just some quaint beer soaked haven of sensible health care — our (often terrible) federal policy has implications for our neighbours.
(If only I had the time to pitch a semi-regular Canadian politics column here :/)
Yes, definitely. My post was flippant, but the concern that Americans don’t pay enough attention to Canadian and Mexican politics is real, considering how much are economies are intertwined. Environmentally, Keystone is the big rallying point right now, but only a very small percentage in the US are following it closely, and the other ten pipelines being constructed/approved are pretty much ignored.
The ramifications aren’t just limited to our two countries — Canada’s climate change policies regularly rank among the worst (if not the worst) in industrialized countries, and the US doesn’t fare much better. The tar sands can only make it worse.
I’m in one of those pictures on Al-Jazeera!
MALLORY IN A HAT OMG.
Oh yeah, I’ve known that Alberta’s been rat-free for years! There’s a whole novel about it, The Dominion of Wyley McFadden, which is pretty great!
From the Todd Manly-Strauss article: You wonder if your hesitation to self-promote is holding your career back. Maybe it’s because you’re a woman, and society has taught you not to talk about yourself this way.
True fact, when I am feeling hesitant to promote my own writing with pride and a lack of foot-shuffling, I think to myself “Look, if you were [insert average white male writer name here], would you feel this hesitation? Would you be tempted to be self-effacing? Would you be worried about coming off as a braggart? YOU WOULD NOT!” and then I click “post” and never look back.
Me too! Lately when I’ve needed to access the inner “Fk Everyone Else” inner rail, I channel Don Draper/Roger Sterling and/or Angela Basset in American Horror Story (and maybe just life, generally).
I also remind myself that this is a job, one that I’m doing it not just for myself but for my publishers. Providing links to my writing is part of the work, as much as meeting a deadline or providing clean copy. I’m not stroking my ego; I’m performing my job.
And really, when I see someone promote their own work, I’d prefer to read a crisp, competent remark that suggests the author is proud of the writing than a self-effacing, halfhearted “hey, here’s a thing i wrote, go figure.” If I didn’t think it was worth reading, I wouldn’t have pitched it in the first place!
Am I the only one who hasn’t been able to focus on ANYTHING ELSE because hello people there is a DONUT with ELVISH SCRIPT (ahhhaaaa you thought I was going to say elvish writing and then get to slam me with “Nuh-uh, it’s the language or MORDOR, burrn.”)??
On the plus side, it’s a lot easier to destroy The One Donut…no Fires of Mount Doom necessary, just a decent appetite.
ahhh the low ceilings in the lair make me feel sooooo unfortable I couldnt sleep just expecting Dracula to show up like “Oh, hey, yeah I’ve sort of been squatting here since its been empty, but i mean no worries, you’re here now too its cool and everything, i’m just um… definitely going to drink all of your blood until you die.”
I think it’s really more of the skewed perspective- especially the one with the dark ceilings. I’d bet the ceiling heights are actually pretty reasonable.
Now, who in the world lists an apartment for $7 million with the world’s ugliest track lighting (which they used everywhere!), I don’t know. I would be haunted by that track lighting.
So this is a really weird aside, but in reading the Paul de Man article, I was reminded of a problem I had with the Language of Flowers. The main character in the LoF is working without paying taxes, is driving without a license, and generally living in a nice world where bureaucracy and its long lines and paperwork don’t exist. I get that people do live this way, but it bothers me when this is either presented as a “YEAH, STICK IT TO THE MAN AND HIS DAMN DRIVING REGULATIONS!” or “This takes place in a world utterly like our own, except without parking tickets and audits and legal contracts”. On the one hand, I’d conclude that a person who drives without a license and lies about his degrees is sufficiently horrid for me to drop him on the spot. On the (fictional) other hand, that kind of writing is world-building laziness. I mean, the DMV exists. You can just look up how your character would have to get a drivers license.
Initially I thought that the lack of drivers license etc in Language of Flowers was a sign of the character being a shady sort, working outside and around the laws, because she thought she was better than them (hence my connection with Paul de Man) – the sort of “rules are for the dummies that follow them” person. Now I think it was more of the latter – the book has some awfully lazy things going on with it, and it makes sense that the author just couldn’t be bothered to figure out how the character would file her taxes and have a bank account.
Even I, Queen of the Grammar Police, am giving her a pass for using the wrong "your" in this case. Even a juicebox deserves a face-to-face engagement breakup.
On the plus side, it's a lot easier to destroy The One Donut…no Fires of Mount Doom necessary, just a decent appetite.
I also remind myself that this is a job, one that I'm doing it not just for myself but for my publishers. Providing links to my writing is part of the work, as much as meeting a deadline or providing clean copy. I'm not stroking my ego; I'm performing my job.
And really, when I see someone promote their own work, I'd prefer to read a crisp, competent remark that suggests the author is proud of the writing than a self-effacing, halfhearted "hey, here's a thing i wrote, go figure." If I didn't think it was worth reading, I wouldn't have pitched it in the first place!
It could have been the Deseret alphabet! Except it is not. But I do hope the feminists are getting some good doughnuts out there.
ATTENTION: Mallory is Lucy Burns/Frances O’Connor from Iron Jawed Angels (classic early 2000’s movie about suffragettes and hats!)