I was all “wait, I can see the whale just fine,” and then realized this is the new, restored, whale-y version.
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I finally decided to figure out what vocal fry sounds like.
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This shooting in New Brunswick is really scary. My mom keeps getting breaking news updates that just say “shooter still at large.” (Update: they got him.)
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Feminist hero makes man poop himself.
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lol come on now elizabeth wurtzel is trolling us:
When I see married people who don’t have kids, I wonder what’s wrong. Really. Because something is. Of course it is. I mean, if you aren’t going to have children, why bother with the rest? Why bother with the $30,000 bash and the white crinoline dress? And you can say that about everything. What do you think we are doing here, biding our time on this planet with our misspent years, justifying our days with our ridiculous schemes of leisure? Is anyone’s life so meaningful? Really? Really, really, really? Is yours?
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We have not yet begun to link to all the pieces about and by Ta-Nehisi Coates we plan to:
IC: Do you know if the president’s read the piece?
TNC: I don’t know. I hope so. Don’t know though.
IC: Have you met him? Do you see him ever?
TNC: I can’t comment on that. I’m not allowed to talk about that.
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Darren Aronofsky is adapting Margaret Atwood’s flood trilogy for HBO.
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Did you look at the father-daughter purity portrait series? I feel like there are nine dissertations in there.
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The all-time worst NBC promo pictures:
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However you choose to give birth, sweeeeeet merciful Jesus, just do not go unassisted. You cannot possibly stop yourself from bleeding out, it happens so fast if it happens, you’ll be unconscious faster than you think, and many, many women hemorrhage after birth. I am not a proponent of homebirth, personally, but if you choose to do so, please get a certified nurse midwife, even if you ask her to sit outside in her car twiddling her thumbs while you labor alone, so someone can pack your vag and give you oxytocin. These women are gonna be swarmed with cameras, I’m sure everything will be fine, but if you have any interest in hippie birth, the people who really scare you are the ones who want to go unassisted after three C-sections, and it’s a REALLY BAD IDEA. Please enjoy your surfeit of Nicole’s Concern Trolling for the year.
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I TOLD YOU I PLAYED WITH MANATEES:
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
But the Moncton shooter is in custody! They caught him without riddling him with bullets and he’ll be able to face trial.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/justi…
Thank god. I have regularly been checking for updates ever since this began. The whole thing is horrific.
Yep, I did not have internet access to update until just now. I was not expecting him to come in alive.
ME EITHER.
So glad they got him and that he’ll be tried. It’s been beyond bizarre to see something like this happen in New Brunswick.
Did the difference between this Canadian story and American-style coverage strike anyone else as significant? The Canadian story prioritizes the victims of the shooting up top, with a blip about the murderer at the bottom. I think that sort of treatment is missing from most American coverage of these types of shootings. (And I say that as someone who can’t help but be curious about how shooters became shooters.)
Also I am firmly on board with safe childbirth but I do have a nit to pick with the OB saying “In the 1900s, a women died for every 1,000 babies born in the United States” because “the 1900s” is a huge swath of time encompassing IMMENSE changes in the medical profession and the country as a whole, because 1901 is just as much “1900s” as “1995”, so, you know. (The same goes for people who generalize to “the 1800s” and similar, but the 1900s is an easy bone to pick because the changes were so incredibly drastic and fast, also see: modern technology.) I’ll stop now.
Handwashing had already made those numbers better than they used to be, too. Thanks, Semmelweis! SORRY WE IGNORED YOU AND YOU DIED IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL.
I wonder if they meant the years between 1900 and 1910? It’s hard to talk about those years clearly cause they don’t have a decade name and you get confused with the century.
Nobody else seems to be on board with my plan to call them the “nineteen-oughts.” Fuckers.
‘The 1900s’ really bugs me too! I think the decade we’ve just lived through should be called ‘the Noughties’, so they could be ‘the nineteen-noughties’?
There was a movement by some roues and cads of the turn of the century to call them the “Naughty Oughties” which I FERVENTLY BELIEVE should come back.
We must honor the memory of these forward-thinking groundbreakers.
How do I down-vote the ‘the Noughties’?
I refuse I refuse I refuse
I think people usually talk about the period from 1897-1914 as Edwardian. It’s as good a term as most others.
Elizabeth Wurtzel WHAT? Is this a joke? “We are here to leave something behind that is more meaningful than a tech startup or a masterpiece of literature.” I happen to believe that the works of Shakespeare and Mozart are wayyyyyy more important than whatever contributions they made to the genetic pool.
Don’t make fun, brah, she clearly states that she is a person who believes in science and took human behavioral biology with the in her freshman year of college. Hers is an opinion we ought to listen to.
There is so much wrong with the “science” she presents. Human beings serve our genes? Sorry for punching you in the face, Elizabeth Wurtzel, my genes made me do it.
Yeah I like how she is obviously representing the voice of the scientific community here.
Every time I give her a page-click, I instantly regret it. But the rubbernecking urge is so strong with that one!
I am leaning on Poe’s Law here, HARD. It is the only way to keep my head from exploding.
I would to have her over to my house so I can flaunt my amazing childless life at her, and fill her in on all my plans for what fabulous things I’m going to do for the rest of my childless life.
Exactly. Everybody knows “Hamlet.” Hamnet? Not so much. (the poor kid)
Don’t be ridiculous; having children is clearly the only meaningful thing we can contribute to the world. It’s not like having the time and energy to devote yourself to some other purpose could possibly be as worthwhile as childrearing. (I just spent the week with my niece and nephew, and they are lovely, but they’re not objectively better than Macbeth or mass-produced antibiotics or various other cool things humans have created.)
Benedict Cumberbatch reading all the original D-Day news bulletins over on BBC Radio 4.
I can’t listen to that, because I would never be able to forgive myself for becoming aroused by anything related to D-Day.
This is exactly what I was going to say. Eesh.
Clicked over because I was curious, and just the picture above the article made me feel pantsthings. Nope, not listening to it.
This is definitely the most turned-on I’ve ever been by World War II.
Patrick Stewart and Toby Jones too. I’ve been listening to and watching the BBC special programming all day. Keep getting things in my eye, too, totally coicidentally.
Oh no oh no oh no.
(yes)
Is anyone’s life so meaningful? Really? Really, really, really? Is yours?
YUP SURE IS THANKS FOR ASKING THO
I was just about to say this. SORRY YEAH MY LIFE IS GREAT
Are three “Really”s after a single “Really?” so necessary? Really, really, really?
POE’S LAW POE’S LAW please for the love of all that is holy let it be a satire
Which is worse: badly-executed satire or really objectionable sincere beliefs?
Sincere beliefs, every time, but yow, what a choice.
Most of the time I think that my life is more or less meaningless. I’m going to die, and everyone who ever knew me will die, and it won’t really have mattered that I was ever alive in the first place. (I would say I’m an existential nihilist if I didn’t feel that explicitly identifying as an existential nihilist would mark me as a pretentious ass until the end of time.)
… but the point is, I’M OKAY WITH THAT. It frees me from the pressure of having to do something Important and Meaningful with my life (like, say, having children). I have a limited amount of time on this planet, I’m going to try to be an ethical person and a good friend, and travel as much as I can, and then I’ll die and eventually be completely forgotten, AND THAT’S ALRIGHT.
Amen and hallelujah.
PREACH.
This is also how I feel. It’s awesome. Yeah it sucks sometimes but at least it’s the truth.
What makes having children so Important and Meaningful anyway? Is there some shortage of people somewhere I haven’t heard about?
Well, I guess the Mormons think so…
Don’t forget Catholics. Pope Francis just had a mass about the evils of childfree couples.
“These marriages, in which the spouses do not want children, in which the spouses want to remain without fertility. This culture of well-being from ten years ago convinced us: ‘It’s better not to have children! It’s better! You can go explore the world, go on holiday, you can have a villa in the countryside, you can be care-free…it might be better – more comfortable – to have a dog, two cats, and the love goes to the two cats and the dog. Is this true or is this not? Have you seen it? Then, in the end this marriage comes to old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness. It is not fruitful, it does not do what Jesus does with his Church: He makes His Church fruitful.”
I am not optimistic about our ability (willingness) to reverse climate change, so I think we’re only going to have a few more generations, anyway.
See, I do want to leave something behind but it’s not going to be a child. Maybe it’s just a legacy of really good lemon meringue pie, but something positive. Children could go either way, you are definitely leaving a legacy but good or bad isn’t entirely up to you. Some kids don’t turn out so great.
Yeah, that was kind of the point of We Need To Talk About Kevin et al, too.
Yeah, our lives our meaningless, but the lives of our dumb kids somehow will be super meaningful? That’s an ouroboros argument, Liz. If you’re not trolling us.
I mean I’d LIKE to think I contribute to society with my brain and not my loins, thanks for dashing that hope Wurtzel.
Elizabeth Wurtzel “Everyone should breed because I know peoples minds, hearts and ability to parent well better than they do”
For fucks sake, I would LIKE to have a baby and I think she’s full of crap.
I’m feeling that same feeling, myself. Whether or not you want to procreate should have no bearing on if your marriage is worth it to you. I mean to a lot of people marriage and procreation go together but there’s no rule in the universe that says you have to do either one if you don’t want to. Procreate without marriage, marry without procreating. It’s your life!
I mean, we mainly got married because a: more legal rights b: tax break c: cool party with a dress, and procreation had nothing to do with it. I would like to procreate, if I can, if life takes us that way (if husband gets offered his job full time I’m just gonna get my implant taken out and we’ll see what happens), but I don;t think it’ll magically make my life more meaningful. Honestly, getting my novel published will probably be more fulfilling to me.
There’s also no rule that getting married must involve a “$30,000 bash.” I paid like $150 for my marriage licence and $100 for a pair of blue sparkly heels from Nine West and that was it.
Yeah, we were at £4k including the honeymoon and a custom-made dress. Most of the money was spent on booze and food for our guests.
Right? My husband and I kept that cost down as much as we could. I mean we also got married ’cause we just really liked each other a whole lot so clearly we’re doing something wrong, here. 😛
Frankly I plan on spending a shitload of money on mine because I WANT TO HAVE A HUGE PARTAY but I do not think this makes me any less of a person (even though my marriage is 99% likely to remain childfree because I think I would make a terrible parent).
Yeah but are you really married if you didn’t throw a party with everyone you’ve ever known on a cruise liner with a dress from royalty? Really really really? Is your life so important? etc
My baby is 4 damn days overdue, obviously I am on board with the concept of reproduction (NOW, PLEASE), and I agree that she’s full of crap. I suspect, actually, that the choice to spawn will make my life less special and important, not more, since I’m good at things that aren’t a simple biological imperative, and now I might not have time to do them.
Or maybe you’ll be like one of the many child-having people in my life: maybe you’ll have a built-in support system of childless friends (LIKE ME) who would love to bring over dinner or take the kid for an afternoon or a night or a weekend, people who love and support you and want to connect with your child and give you time to pursue the pleasures and rewards of something besides parenting for a while.
A society in which there are no (voluntarily or otherwise) childless adults would be a poorer society for a great many reasons, and this is only one of them.
YES, THIS.
I truly believe I can make a bigger difference if I contribute my money and time supporting the children who already exist in this world rather than bringing more children into it.
BINGO. My calling is as the Cool Aunt character. So far this has mostly manifested as buying books for small babies/children and drinking with parents. It is pretty perfect. Once the kids get old enough to go out on adventures, I’ll be stealing them on a regular basis.
Attn: Baby Canard: If you’ve been waiting for a formal invitation, CONSIDER THIS IT. Take it from somebody born on June 6–today is an excellent day to get born.
OH the purity photos. There are few things that get me riled up like the concept of purity. And patriarchy. So much patriarchy. Just eww eww eww.
That said, does anyone else feel like the photographer’s assertion that he wanted to show the diversity and truth of these relationships is a bit undermined by the photos (and especially the poses) that he presumably encouraged? Or is my midwestern upbringing just making me kind of defensive of something that is a part of the culture in which I grew up even though I hated it? (Because really, that might be it, I honestly don’t know.)
Oh TOTALLY. That photographer has some splaining to do. Or, more accurately, his splaining seems like total bs. The photos do NOT show diverse relationships and independent-minded girls. I feel actually sorry for the subjects of the photos, because I think they have been manipulated and exploited.
On another note, “splaining” seems to be a-ok with spell check, which is hilarious to me.
Make a harasser poop himself? Never has anything gone up to the top of my bucket list so fast.
I wonder if anyone accused her of having “vocal fry” because of the voice she used…
Argh, quickly not fast! Sorry, so excited about pooping jerks, can’t grammar…..
The Wurtzel piece has got to be a joke. She herself even says she doesn’t have kids!
Also, RE: the purity photos – not only is the concept of purity meaningless and terrible, but also, those photos themselves don’t look particularly great to me. Everyone looks washed-out and sad.
I do hope the washed out sadness was a legitimate choice by the photographer. He’s Dutch, and a lot of Europeans regard our cultural obsession with chastity as truly bizarre, so *fingers crossed* he’s maybe making a statement by making them look sad and shooting on barren landscapes (like their barren and empty vaginas/uteri!!).
Oh, please, Elizabeth Wurtzel. I love my children, and I’m happy I had them, but I don’t think they make my life more meaningful. Yes, my life was really meaningful before I had children. Really, really, really, really. Then again, I’m not married, so my relationship is probably less important, as well.
Speaking of childbirth, freebirthing freaks me out as well. And I had four drug-free birth-centre births with a midwife and no doctors at all, so you know, I’m on board with the low-intervention, but really, why would you take the risk? Because as much as you want to have a birth which is ‘totally natural’, is it really worth the risk of your baby not making it, just so you can have that experience?
Aw, those manatees are just all kinds of awesome. Love.
Elizabeth W made me so irritated that I was annoyed briefly that I had had two children. I had them for entirely selfish reasons. I didn’t even think about Elizabeth’s feelings on the matter for one second.
How DARE you.
I think Wurtzel wants a job at Slate!
She and Prudie could begin a reign of terror, the likes of which we have never seen before.
Someone on facebook this morning linked to a Slate piece about how adults SHOULD be embarrassed about reading YA books. A+ trolling. .
Yup, that’s my latest annoyance with them! The article implies that you’re immature if you read YA, which is just glorious.
YA books are MAGNIFICENT and no one can take them from me, I will read them ’till I die.
Either that or Slate’s annoying contrarianism is infecting the rest of the internet. RUN!
I can’t really believe she got hired as a lawyer. I don’t question her analytic intelligence, but I could just never trust her to be responsible for someone’s else’s affairs.
Have you read Prozac Nation? I did after getting diagnosed bipolar (unofficially, since my doctor was pretty hard and fast about waiting till I was an adult) at 16. And even then I knew there was something really bad about that book.
Oh, she’s *that* person.
Hell’s bells, people, part of the reason I’m not keen to reproduce is that this way, the screwed-up neurochemistry stops here. I didn’t get married to have babies. I got married to have health insurance SO I CAN AFFORD TO SEE A PSYCHIATRIST AND GET ME SOME MEDS.
Dolphins don’t give birth unassisted and neither should weeeeee!
That’s why we should be giving birth in the water, among the dolphins!
Oh my god I made the below joke before clicking on your link.
Get a dolphin midwife, like nature intended.
I learned in my animal behavior class that one study found new dolphin mothers who associated with experienced mothers had a lower infant mortality rate so DOLPHINS NEED HELP TOO BECAUSE GIVING BIRTH IS HARD
I can barely hear a difference between the vocal fry clips and the “normal” clips. I think I maybe speak with vocal fry? Uh oh.
I am the one for whom the trend pieces toll
soooo… vocal fry. i get it, it’s annoying to many. i don’t think I do it, but it’s kinda hard for me to hear/identify.
does anyone subscribe to the belief that all this nitpicking about verbal tics/trends is a sexist issue? I had a (stupidly) prolonged discussion on someone’s facebook link to this story yesterday, and want to pick brains.
Totally. It’s partly because I actually quite like vocal fry, so I’m a bit baffled by all the hostility to it, but it seemed clear to me that when the term was popularized the other year or whenever it was, everyone just immediately went into this rote script where they were like “A thing! That is distinctive! And I am told is associated with young women! It must be so annoying! I’m so annoyed!”
Seeing as I have never heard of a irritating vocal tic that’s predominantly performed by men, I’m going to go ahead and say yes, sexist.
(Except for y’know, the vocal tics of mansplaining and street harassment and misogyny.)
Yeah, the vocal tic of “I AM GOING TO LOUDLY KEEP TELLING YOU THIS NO MATTER WHAT INDICATIONS YOU GIVE THAT YOU KNOW IT ALREADY OR DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT OR DON’T CARE” is pretty damn irritating, but less likely to show up in mainstream thinkpieces.
Yes. And as The Toast’s resident linguist, as soon as I saw the vocal fry link, I knew I was going to have to link to this post I just came across pointing out all the problems with that study: http://christiandicanio.blogspot.ca/2014/06/vocal… So thanks for getting the conversation started!
Also, it’s never a coincidence that the way the most privileged people speak is considered “good English”. Quite the opposite. (Here’s another link, this one by me saying the same thing in more words: http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/05… )
Ok, thanks guys. the convo went kinda like this:
friend: this article right? isn’t vocal fry and uptalk annoying? (link to article with picture of a wide-eyed, spaced out zooey d on it)
NFL: yeah, well… it irks me that (explains sexism inherent in the issue)
friend: it’s not a sexist issue!!! women just need to stop doing it!
NFL: well, why?
friend: because it’s fucking annoying!
NFL: so, to recap, a habit that is perpetuated by (mostly) women needs to stop because (mostly) men find it annoying? yep, not sexist at all…
[begin pile-on of all the offended white men telling me to check my privilege because there are many other issues that are more important to feminism and don’t i know that i’m hurting the movement by being petty about this]
I read your friend’s statements as if he were saying them in vocal fry…
And “check your privilege”?… ugh
LOL forever: “it’s not sexist, women just need to submit to my irrational demands”
and is it just me, or is ANYONE who says anyone else “plays the racism/sexism” card pretty much automatically a tool?
I had almost literally this conversation, but with my boss as the fry-hater. In a discussion of how he makes hiring decisions. YIKES
When I took some voice lessons last year, the instructor insisted that fry is harmful to the vocal folds, especially if prolonged at volume.
But yeah, there’s a massive sexist component in how it’s discussed. Fry is rife among the younger set in both genders, but it only ever seems to be framed as a problem for women.
(Actually, just skip what I wrote above and read Christine Brennan’s comprehensive autopsy of the issue in the comments of the linked piece.)
This is why vocal fry worries me, too. For example: all three Haim sisters speak with a heavy vocal fry (at least, they do in the “explanatory” bits that pop up on Spotify) and it makes me worry so much for their singing voices.
They’re fine, though, and so is everyone else who does vocal fry. They can make their own decisions about their vocal health, and even if their vocal quality does change because of the way they talk, they’ll be okay. Not to pick on you specifically, but this is an argument that is not infrequently used to concern troll.
I’m not a linguist, but that has been my personal assumption about verbal trends. I am in my first job post-college, and in learning how to function in an office environment I have noticed that all my verbal habits that might mark me as incompetent are things that are closely associated with the way younger women/girls speak (using “like” as a filler, vocal fry, speaking in an upward lilt as if asking a question). I’ve talked to a couple other coworkers who are women in their early 20s and we all have debated with ourselves whether we should try to drop these habits because we’re concerned people will perceive us as stupid.
Obviously my experiences here are just anecdotal; I would love to hear from someone who studies this sort of thing.
Wasn’t there a similar reaction to valley girl speak? And now everyone uses “like,” like, all the time. I forget where I read this (the toast?), but a linguist stated that young women lead the changes in our way of speaking. Note to old men: laugh at vocal fry now, but you will be using it by the time you move into your nursing home.
Have you seen the movie In a World? I thought it was funny but then felt bad at laughing at the “haha, young women talk in ways that make them seem stupid” moments.
CORRECT, young women are the leaders of linguistic change! People are assholes about linguistic change, and so are (continue to be) assholes to women. NORMS (non-mobile older rural males) are on the opposite end and are much slower to change their speech. (Mostly I just wanted to work the term NORMS into this comment.)
Source: my linguistics degree
Also a linguist, and I concur. And here’s a recent study showing that in Toronto (and probably the rest of North America, at least the urban part), quotative “be like” is now at ceiling for people under 30: there are no longer visible effects of gender or other demographics because everyone is using it so often. http://www.nwav42.pitt.edu/wp-content/uploads/201…
Yeah, every generation there’s a new thing about how young women talk that the establishment is going to start concern-trolling about.
People bitching about vocal fry seriously pisses me off for that exact reason. Vocal fry is created when people try to talk in a lower tone than their natural voice. Young women do it to try and sound older, more masculine, and more serious. Apparently that is terrible. But the VERY SAME PEOPLE who bitch about young women trying to sound serious and masculine also bitch about uptick and other vocal tics young women use that make them sound younger, more feminine, and less serious. It’s pretty hard to see those two criticisms combined and not feel like the underlying advice is “young women just stop talking altogether because no one wants to hear you”.
YES, I was going to say this and you did it for me. I think I use vocal fry sometimes at work, and it is always when I’m trying not to sound girly, ditzy or young. Can’t win.
YES
I didn’t know this about the lower tone, that explains why I don’t have it (I have a naturally low voice and I mostly speak in the upper part of my register to be better heard). I’d always just assumed that people who had it smoked a lot of weed…
My vocal fry is the result of my dad trying to train me out of uptalk – the easy way to avoid it is to pitch your voice low when you want to pitch it high. I don’t know how much of other people’s uptalk is beloved daughters drilled so that misogyny doesn’t hit them quite as hard.
I had a moment of white-hot rage when I encountered it as a “bad thing.” I was playing by the rules! You moved the fucking goalposts! Don’t lie to me and say that I can be good enough when you’re going to change the rules!
YES. My linguistics degree and I are here to tell you that people shit all over the way young women speak (BECAUSE THE PATRIARCHY) and ALSO because the leaders of linguistic change are young women in cities. So young women get hassled about the way they speak because they are ~changing~ and ~damaging~ the language (hello, prescriptivists, I hate you)…and also because they’re young women and people are terrible to young women. Really, though, young women are leaders of linguistic change and presciptivism is the worst.
Isn’t there some theorizing that sexism is also part of what sets young women up to be the leaders of linguistic change in the first place? I don’t remember all the details, I only have a linguistics minor. But that would mean that it’s a little less straightforward – young women are being unfairly criticized not just because we live in a world where that always happens, but also for how they respond to living in such a world.
Which is not so different from many other things that young women are criticized for, of course.
Could be! I don’t remember anything about it, but I am not necessarily up-to-date. Now I want to read up on that!
sigh, society.
I don’t remember where I got that idea, so it might just have been my own assumption that behavioural differences between men and women are generally cultural rather than biological.
The explanation that I’ve learned is a combination of women being generally more socially aware when it comes to language (more likely to change their dialect in response to social pressures, for example) and young women being disproportionately the future childrearers. So even if young men were being linguistically innovative, the subsequent generation of children wouldn’t have the same exposure to them and the changes wouldn’t catch on.
Of course both of these factors are good candidates for being culturally conditioned and/or actual products of the patriarchy that despises the effect that they lead to (language change). If only old men were the primary caregivers for more children, I’m sure the kids would learn to talk more like them.
Well, the very first comment on that study was someone ranting about how it sounds like adolescent girls, and since adolescent girls are terrible and disrespectful of authority all vocal fry is terrible. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that point before, so I’m going to guess that yes, maybe there is something sexist afoot.
It is how I talk almost 100% of the time and I had not noticed it until I listened to that clip. No one has ever said anything to me about it though.
ughhhhh the only thing worse than purity balls is that new social media thing where dads are posing next to their daughters and their daughters’ boyfriends with guns
THE EXTENT OF MY FATHER’S CONCERN ABOUT MY SEXUALITY BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL:
Nicole – Bye, dad!
Dad – What are you up to this morning?
Nicole – I am having my pediatrician, here in Canada, where pediatricians are free, put me on birth control pills!
Dad – Would you like a ride? I just have to switch this laundry first.
Nicole – Sure would!
fin
**standing ovation for Papa Cliffe**
Dad also emailed me the other day to say:
“Yesterday, three or four women were near the Canadian Tire store with signs protesting abortions. It was disgusting.”
DO NOT DARE SULLY CANADIAN TIRE WITH YOUR FORCED BIRTH NONSENSE. ABORTIONS FOR ALL, MINIATURE CANADIAN FLAGS FOR ALL, POUTINE FOR ALL.
Notwithstanding the stupidity of this, why Canadian Tire? Of ALL PLACES? It’s not even CLOSE to anything even remotely relevant!
No no no no no, I got this.
You see, a tire is like a vagina. And also like a wedding ring! Which is like a vagina. Therefore, no abortions.
QED!
This is awesomely perfect.
Also, a tire is like an open cervix, like yours should be, during childbirth.
oh my godddddd
My tiny Canadian town doesn’t have abortion services (I don’t think?) so when the anti-choice hill-people do their annual protest, they have to aimlessly wander around town annoying people.
Yup. That’s always fun to walk by.
My mid-sized Canadian home town only offers abortion services in the major hospital. They have to stand on the sidewalk, across the street from one of the less important entrances, that isn’t next to any private homes. So, when you’re walking from the parking lot to the hospital, you can see them off in the distance, but you can’t tell what they’re protesting.
Thank goodness they’re not allowed anywhere near hospital grounds.
Your Dad just made the July cover photo for Dad Magazine. Quick, someone give him a byline (I’m not a clever enough wordsmith).
I love your father. Mine operated more on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell method
Kind of like a Fight Club Teenage Daughter Sexuality mindset
my dad was in the “feeling impotent rage at the situation and would explode about stupid stuff like the mayonnaise not tasting right” camp.
My favorite Dad dealing with teenage sexuality moment was when he was explaining to me why I couldn’t have boys at my sleepovers [I was like 16]. I pointed out that I was at home alone all afternoon and could have sex then, instead of surrounded by a whole group of my friends, and he responded with “well, when I was your age we would just tell my parents that we could do anything we wanted in the back of a car, but they still wouldn’t let us have girls sleep over”.
I did kind of appreciate that he clearly thought I had/could have a sex life in high school, because I was nowhere close.
My parents wouldn’t let me have or attend mixed-sex sleepovers through all of high school. My best friend then and now is gay, and my mom wouldn’t let him sleep over until he came out, even though I was 90% sure he was gay and we obviously showed no signs of sexual interest in each other. Meanwhile, my friends and I spent long afternoons and evenings being immature teenagers unsupervised. (Then again, a bunch of my friends did get up to some non-parent-approved stuff at sleepovers, so at least my mom prevented me from sharing a room with that.)
Dad Magazine cover material, he is.
My mum had me put on the pill as soon as my periods started.
My dads reaction? “She’s a sensible girl, but things do happen.”
He’s not a regular dad, he’s a cool dad.
Because of the way my parent’s insurance (under which I was their dependent) worked, all my birth control pills came in the mail. And I think my dad wanted to try to really respect my privacy (not necessary, but sweet) so every few months he would announce “your medicine has arrived” and I would find 3 boxes of sex pills neatly laid out on my pillow. He also paid the copay on my IUD when I was in college (and laughed at a joke I made about it!) which was very sweet.
~DADS~
DADS. That is delightful in every way.
this story just made me very hopeful about humans!
SC Dad Sex Talk: [8th grade, in the car on the way to school] “I don’t expect you to wait until you’re married. I don’t even expect you to wait until you finish high school. Just be safe, and don’t tell me anything about it.”
I was the most tight-lipped teenager ever to walk the earth, so I WOULD NOT HAVE, and it was oddly nice to have permission to be private?
Did he at least show the pediatrician pictures of his guns?
I read that as “podiatrist” and was briefly very confused.
So I understand that people want to do their childbirth in a way that suits their lifestyle and makes them feel comfortable and good about the way they’re choosing to do it, but I also have a very hard time with people who decide that modern medicinal advances are somehow inherently bad. Like… years and years of research and study and testing and education are behind the choices and the things we do as a society in our medical field. Countless people spend half their lives learning how to do right by a patient in medical school and come out the other end prepared to do exactly the things that will save as many lives as possible and treat you well. So this knee-jerk backlash against hospitals and modern medical advances like anesthesia and vaccination just… it makes me sad, and it also makes me angry in some cases. We have these things because over the years we’ve been working hard to find out what works versus what doesn’t work, what saves people from pain and suffering and death, and we try our damndest to find the best and safest ways to do things. Wanting to go back to a weirdly glorified fantasy version of the “easier olden days” by shrugging away medical professionals and their educated opinions in favor of stuff read on mommy blogs and driven by fearmongering profiteers like Jenny McCarthy and their ilk just… it makes no sense. We have an uptick in measles and whooping cough in this country because people are distrusting the medical field, and I feel like the same distrust is driving women to try things like freebirthing. It saddens me. It saddens me a lot, and the people that push this distrust because they’re somehow profiting from it in fame or finance disgust me.
It’s definitely complicated, though. I think that when the hospitals in your area have 50% C-section rates, that’s also something that can influence people to make decisions I think are wildly unsafe, like freebirthing.
I wish that my teaching hospital in UT was the national standard; I was able to give birth with their midwife unit, in full-on hippie splendor, with the ability to have a crash C-section in minutes. I never felt like I was on anyone’s clock, and they let me push for 3.5 hours, monitoring her heartrate constantly to make sure she was cool, and finally gave me a teeny dose of Pit when they thought I was just too done to get her out, after which it was about two pushes. If I had wanted an epidural, I could have had one. And I absolutely know that if I’d been at the hospital down the road, I would have had a C-section after an hour or so of pushing. Which would have been FINE, everyone would have been fine, but then I would have been recovering from an unnecessary pelvic surgery I really did not need and it would have jacked up my chances at avoiding pelvic surgery next time.
I think the US could definitely learn from Canada and some other Western European countries; I do NOT think they should move to a more homebirth-y model; I think it’s dangerous, and I think people really play with the numbers to make it seem otherwise. I would love to see, in an ideal world, hospitals making a real effort to offer low-intervention births, and women choosing to have their babies in hospitals.
And do not get me started on anti-vaccination, I cannot even. I have lost the ability to can.
(You should get an epidural though, I think it was probably dumb not to get one, they have really good low-dose ones now. BUT I HAD TO KNOW, like the kid holding his breath during The Jaunt.)
I didn’t get an epidural with my first and it went well, but my second was awful. It was 10 times more painful because it happened 10 times faster. I was in active labor for maybe 3 hours, at most. I was screaming for an epidural the second we got to the hospital.
I am definitely a pro-hospital kind of gal because even if you have done it before no two deliveries are the same. I also I bled a lot with the second so being in the hospital with an IV drip already in place was the best thing ever.
Having given birth once, I’m really envious of this scenario. I wanted to have an unmedicated midwife birth with a birthing tub, but the only way I could do this in Maryland would have been at a birthing center. The birthing center would have had to transfer me to a hospital over fifteen minutes away if I really had needed an epidural or a C section. So I delivered in the hospital with OBs I had carefully chosen because they were willing to accommodate my birthing preferences– but I still had to fight them to avoid induction, etc.
Yeppp. Some women make the decision you made (which is the one I think is best, honestly), and some say “well, then, if these are my two options, I’ll do it at home” especially if they’ve had a hospital birth that went really badly the first time around. And then when OBs and nurses see the ensuing disastrous homebirth transfers (obviously, the non-disastrous majority of homebirths never become transfers and never get seen by OBs), it does NOTHING to improve their attitudes towards low-intervention births.
Home birth is not allowed in Maryland, so the “middle ground” a lot of women choose is a birth doula. The doula seems to have two jobs: help the woman with labor AND advocate on her behalf with the doctors and nurses who are less comfortable with a low-intervention birth. I’d like to think that bringing a doula into the hospital with an OB is a good way for OBs to see the positive potential of fewer interventions, but it sounds like that relationship can be so antagonistic that I’m not too optimistic about it working this way. Plus, a doula is a luxury so few women are able to afford if they’re already ponying up for a hospital birth.
Yeah I do understand that not every hospital is going to be great, which is really unfortunate. I also think that’s something we as a society should really invest in improving. I agree wholeheartedly that the US could learn from other countries about better ways to go about it.
Yeah, I think the hospital I gave birth at (in Canada) was a good balance between natural and medical. There was a a shower, a birthing ball, a bar on the bed and room to walk around. I had an amazing supportive L&D nurse by my side throughout. We tried different pushing positions. The OB did suggest a C-section after 1.5 hours of pushing, but I asked for more time and he came back an hour later. At which point the baby had still not moved a single cm and I was just done so I agreed to the C-section (but I’m still glad I had the chance to try).
I agree with you, but I also feel that the for-profit hospital/insurance model with the extremely high fear of litigation has made our birthing more medical than necessary. Like Nicole said, the high c-section rate, the number of “scheduled inductions” (which contribute to a much more painful labor experience) and being in a strange environment – which causes the cervix to be much less capable of relaxing – these are all things that freak people out about hospital births. I mean, most hospitals won’t even let the mother work in a squat, which is one of the most effective positions to push in, due to fear of loss of balance and possible falls.
There is a local midwife-run practice here that is across the street from the hospital. They help encourage a more hands-off approach, but have a medical facility so close that if there is a need for a transfer, they are able to provide it lickety split (non intentional maybe not even a pun, sorry). I think more facilities like this one would help provide women with a more natural experience without the dangers of home birth, but without the beeps and needles and strange doctors of the hospital experience.
Ida Mae Gaskin is an amazing midwife who does a very natural approach, but she is very knowledgeable and safe. Her methods are outstanding, and it’s a good model for home birthing if that is what people want.
I agree that here in the US the for-profite hospital/insurance problem has changed some of the circumstances around childbirth in general but I also get the overwhelming impression from friends and family (as well as stories I see here) that if you know what you need/want going in you can press back against a lot of those things like early inductions and shortcutting to c-sections. And we’re a stupidly litigious society, so I”m sure that’s not helpful AT ALL. Nobody needs a doctor paranoid about whether or not you’ll sue if they make a decision and it turns out to be not the best one. :\
Yes, I think having the knowledge, information, and confidence to push back and demand what you want is very important, and can make a hospital birth much more comfortable. Since I’m working in a lower-income area, I see that many of the women here aren’t as knowledgeable, informed, or confident, so I kinda feel like placing that expectation on the mother is not as fair to all women as it would be for those who are college educated, etc. Maybe there would be some way to start out looking at birth in a much less medical way? somewhere int he middle? and then helping to educate women in very understandable ways about their options so they can customize their birth plan…. make that a part of their prenatal care. It sounds dreamy, but wow, I think that would have the best of both worlds.
Oh, of course. I agree completely with Nicole above that the US could definitely learn from Canada and other countries w/r/t better ways to handle our medical system, and it is undoubtedly true that we could be doing a far better job of letting people know what their freedoms are with regard to their own medical care. I like your dreamy prenatal plan idea.
I think you’re right. I went to a birth center for my birth, and the midwives were awesome, but there was a big overlap between my fellow patients and vaccine deniers.
BUT, I labored both at the birth center and at the hospital, because I was transferred for something that wasn’t a problem but put my baby at risk of having a problem.
And laboring at the birth center was much, much better, both emotionally and measurably — I was put in bed and not able to move freely once I got to the hospital, and I am certain this made my labor longer by a couple hours. Eventually, I reached a detente with my bitchy L&D nurse and was able to get off my back and into a crouching position and things sped up again. There was a recent study finding epidurals (which I’m very in favor of for anyone who wants them) lengthen labor too.
So I think “Countless people spend half their lives learning how to do right by a patient in medical school and come out the other end prepared to do exactly the things that will save as many lives as possible and treat you well” is perhaps overly optimistic, particularly on the “treat you well” front. I’d like to see hospitals grapple with that a bit more. Some have, with setting up birth centers and hiring midwives, but a lot of people have pretty unpleasant birth experiences, so I do understand the distrust.
I almost died at birth, as did my mom and I suffered permanent damage and she had several transfusions in what would later be discovered was the height of the unsafe blood supply problems of the early 1980s. I get why people have lots of reservations about hospitals and medicalized birth.
However, if I was not born in a hospital, I probably wouldn’t have survived and neither would my mom and most of this was unforeseen. So, I just want to say a good word for hospitals and doctors because I like my (apparently meaningless) life because stuff happens.
Oh absolutely! I was a premature twin who was born blue and would have died if not for the OB who delivered me and the NICU.
All I’m saying is that it’s not (or shouldn’t be) a choice between homebirthing and doing as the hospital tells you without question. I picked my birth center because it was a half a block from the hospital, was under the supervision of certified nurse-midwives, and had very stringent rules in place about who was allowed to deliver there. That, or something like the hospital Nicole describes, is a good model for minimizing unnecessary intervention and caring for the mother’s needs while still respecting all the lovely things modern medicine does for us.
Oh, I hope I didn’t come across as saying “just do what the hospital tells you to do,” my misgivings are more about people who have just come to the black and white decision that all hospitals and modern medicinal practices are bad. I definitely think that being well-informed about what you want, and preparing for contingencies (like a lot of the stories replying to my original post have talk of ‘I made a non-hospital choice but there was a hospital nearby just in case,’ that kind of planning), is the way to go, and if you choose a nontraditional route that’s COMPLETELY FINE, you do you!
To me the thing is that inherent distrust, where people are believing things they read on the internet written by kooks and pseudo-celebrities looking to make a buck over sound medical and scientific research and advice, that’s what upsets me.
Yep, I think we’re in agreement!
And I don’t want to put the onus on the medical profession to convince all the crazies — We can see how well that works with vaccines. But I think many, many people could benefit from hospitals that would look at their own role in not offering enough options. I knew people who drove from eastern Colorado or Nebraska to get treated at the birth center I was at in Denver, and it was because they didn’t want to risk a homebirth but had no local hospital with support for nonmedicated/low-intervention birth.
Yeah, agreement here too, mainly of the “you do you” variety and wishing more people had more options but also feeling like there is a very rigid contingent of “hospitals are bad!!!!11!” people who don’t consider everything.
Darren Aronofsky is adapting Margaret Atwood’s trilogy? Wow wow wow. Please let this be Aronofsky on enjoyably weird form, rather than Noah weird (haven’t seen it but I heard I haven’t missed much.) Given the news that LUPITA NYONG’O IS STARRING IN THE FILM VERSION OF AMERICANAH (HAS MALLORY SEEN THIS?) today is like Christmas for cool-sounding adaptations of my favourite books.
I am cautiously optimistic about MaddAddam on film. I feel like Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream both had a knack for showing us the interior of characters–and a lot of what’s moving about Oryx and Crake is not the tech and environmental horrors but how Everydude Jimmy lives and breathes the culture that produces them.
I am elated about Americanah on film! How will they fit it all into one movie though?
I really really hope it’s good – wonder if HBO will do their usual “show full-frontal nudity for all women, BUTTS ONLY FOR MEN!” thing with the Crakers, though.
Oh man, I hope they accurately recreate the Craker mating activities. Also if they show the Crakers at all, there’s gonna have to either be peen or a lot of conveniently placed bushes (…ha, bushes), because like the whole point of them was that they didn’t do human things like wear clothes.
Yes, this is the best news. I think the ‘Flood’ trilogy approaches ‘1984’ in its value for providing a vocabulary to understand the insanity of our culture.
Can we talk about the Flood Trilogy? Because I think Oryk and Crake is one of the best books I have ever read (and reread, and reread), but I could barely finish MaddAddam. It seemed so unlike Atwood to handle rape as a topic the way that she did in that book.
Thanks, Elizabeth Wurtzel! Glad to know us non-reproducing folks are doomed to an ultimately meaningless life of striving against the void!
SHE CONTINUES TO TROLL US:
“I am 46 and I don’t have children, which is a bit of a problem, because I believe everything I am saying. I also was not married, but I recently got engaged, so I will be soon—and I hope to have a child. If I don’t, I will figure that out. I am very good at figuring things out. And science is even better at it. (Maybe the Pope should reconsider the Catholic Church’s stance on IVF, though.)”
Lol, what?
I feel like this whole article was a private writing exercise for use in therapy that was somehow published.
Yessssssss!
I kind of feel that way about all of her work.
I feel like I’m falling into a Concern Troll trap myself for saying this, but for someone who is concern-trolling everyone about Science!, she is really blase about the chances of conception at that late an age.
I mean, I hope she does figure it out. Good on her! Just maybe can the lectures on biology?
I understand what you’re saying. It’s her body and her fertility to wrangle with. But she, of all people, should understand that everyone comes to marriage and the decision whether to have children from a different place and in their own time. We’re all trying to figure it out and make the best decision for each of us. There isn’t one answer for everyone.
Um OBVIOUSLY there’s only one right answer for every issue, otherwise what would people write obnoxious opinion pieces about???
Nah, didn’t you read? She is very good at figuring things out. Not like the rest of us fools who never figured out how to have babies.
If I don’t, I will figure that out. I am very good at figuring things out.
I will figure that out.
I WILL FIGURE THAT OUT.
Sounds great, Elizabeth Wurtzel! I’m sure you checked with all the other childless people you’ve positioned yourself to judge to be sure they aren’t also “figuring that out.” You did, obviously. Right? Because otherwise you just look like a ninny.
Heeeey, I don’t remember you checking with me, Elizabeth Wurtzel.
OH.
Y’all the Night Shift ads/promos are killing me here. Every commercial is golden ridiculousness showering down upon me. He’s not JUST A DOCTOR! He’s a REBEL, Dottie! A loner! What we had was DIFFERENT! You will NEVER UNDERSTAND IT because you have NEVER ridden a motorcycle through a HOSPITAL or worn a V NECK SHIRT that was THAT DEEP!
HE WAS IN AFGHANISTAN HOW DARE YOU
I am just waiting with bated breath to see if he plays by the same rules as other doctors (I hope he doesn’t!!!!)
Sars and Tara wonder what the hell is going on in the Night Shift promo picture.
OMG yes. Someone in the comments pointed out that this was CLEARLY Dr. Sexy, MD, the fake hospital show on Supernatural staring Dr. Sexy (MD).
Do you think that they just have people who are in the midst of their second day of a photoshop class at their local arts center create all these promo shots pro bono?
I saw the first episode…and it was bad. Like a soulless take on every single other medical drama series ever made ever. Without any charm, good plotting or good acting.
wurtzel has been trolling us since DAY ONE
It’s not even /good/ trolling, either. Come on! Say the infertile should be placed as nannies in large families! Put your back into it!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
“Your scientific duty” is an amazing phrase and I’m going to be using it all day like a dictator from a bad sci-fi movie or a turn-of-the-century eugenicist.
TODAY IS NATIONAL DONUT DAY, check your local donut dispensaries for specials and celebrations of all sorts.
I sent my student worker minions out for donuts! They did not disappoint me–bringing back free glazed AND a jelly filled just for me. I have trained them right.
For short, I shall refer to it as “D-Day”.
I LOOKED FOR A DONUT ON MY WAY TO WORK AND COULD’T FIND ONE THIS IS A TRAVESTY.
Uh oh, I ate a cupcake instead, will I die?
Maybe. You better go find a donut, too, just to be safe.
I HATE DARREN ARONOFSKY SO MUCH but this miiiiiight have something to do with the fact that my insufferable high school boyfriend was obsessed with him and made me watch all of his stupid movies like a million times while attempting to “educate” me about what made them so INNOVATIVE and GROUNDBREAKING. (This dude had grand aspirations to be a filmmaker and once told 17-year-old me, “When you find something you’re as passionate about as I am about filmmaking, I’ll be really excited to support you!” It’s been 8 years and I’m STILL RAGING A LITTLE.)
Also I just feel like male hands are unworthy of touching anything Margaret Atwood has written.
Arrgh, the things that come out of people’s mouths! What did you even say in response to that?
I don’t even remember, but it wasn’t SETTING HIS FACE ON FIRE, so it was clearly not the correct response.
let me guess this dude never shot a movie that wasn’t a sub-ten-minute clip of his friends just goofing around
Infuriatingly, he has kept at it and made some half-decent things that didn’t suck nearly as much as I wanted them to. He does still live in his mom’s house in the sad rural town where we grew up, though, so it’s basically a wash in terms of petty vengeful wish fulfillment.
Dog and cat licenses will be required and you can only have a license for a pet if you have procreated
I love my biological children so much that I am sacrificing the possibility of a meaningful life by not having them, thereby sparing them the burden of an existence whose importance is dependent on their own ability to procreate. I look forward to receiving my Most Selfless Woman award soon.
<bestows laurels upon thee>
True story: the first father-daughter couple in the purity portrait series are family friends of mine! They’re very nice. Rose especially is a creative, charming kid.
There’s a lot that’s problematic and should be examined about the whole purity ball concept. It’s a combination of fundamentalism and the debutante ball scene, which is pretty weird in itself. But I think there’s goodness in purity balls too.
I am a total softy for anything #dad-related though.
I just screamed and yelled and made a big, squicked-out fuss about the purity portraits. My husband came over, took a look, and announced his intention to do the same with our future sons.
I assume that they’ll be in coordinating Topatoco shirts, dice in hand.
You got yourself a good one there.
I have a friend who is giving birth soon, and she’s opting for hospital birth + presence of doula. After visiting said friend in the hospital last night (she and baby are fine; she had a bout of heat exhaustion but is hydrated & healthy now), I understand BOTH why you want modern medical advances at hand AND someone on your side who’s arguing for your humanity and comfort because DAMN those medical professionals have hard jobs and we could really tell based on how they were treating my friend. A nurse yelled at her for getting up to go to the bathroom too much! She yelled at a 7-month-pregnant, baby-sitting-on-bladder, pumped-full-of-IV-fluids woman for going to the bathroom. Once the doula got there things turned around very quickly & my friend received much better treatment. So as much as people go on about like, hippie bullshit being a terrible idea for women giving birth, I think bringing a little bit of “hippie bullshit” into the hospital is an A+ idea.
Yeah, every couple we’ve spoken to who had a doula loved having one.
The third purity pledge picture looks like a romance novel cover (with a title like Surrendering to His Will). Highly creepy. I’m so glad my dad did not care at all about safeguarding my purity.
I found all of them to be creepy. ESPECIALLY the few where both father/daughter had their eyes closed.
For once, I’m going to consider myself lucky to have fallen into the deadbeat-dad club.
That and the womb-cupping. So many of the portraits had the dads with their hands on the daughter’s belly. Why? Photographer decision or spontaneous womb-covering affection?
I remember in another piece about the photos that the photographer said that the participants chose their own poses with no instructions from him. I’ll link the article if I can find it.
All poses were chosen by the participants.
Here’s an article that was linked from Magnusson’s site that has the relevant info. http://www.featureshoot.com/2014/04/david-magnuss…
so someone can pack your vag and give you oxytocin
most appropriate typo ever?
I assumed it was intentional, like…you give birth, you’re bleeding out, they need to pack that shit with some gauze or something so you don’t bleed all over the place on the way to the ER?
Yeah, I don’t think packing a bag is the most important service someone could provide in this case.
Unfortunately, that is not a typo.
D: I stand corrected and horrified.
ACTUALLY… just so anyone knows in case they’re in an emergency birth “omg what do i do” type of situation, the best way to alleviate excessive uterine bleeding after giving birth is to massage the fundus, which means massaging the lower to mid abdomen (basically from the pubic bone to the bellybutton) to help the muscles of the uterus contract, thereby constricting the blood vessels and decreasing bleeding STAT. Nursing 101 🙂
also those purity portraits eeeuuuucchhh blech blech blech
Thanks, Elizabeth Wurtzel, for your carefully considered opinion on what gives my life meaning! I don’t remember you conducting the in-depth psychological survey it would take for a complete stranger to assess my goals and dreams and desires; it must have slipped my memory.
I also don’t remember you asking if being childless was a choice I made BECAUSE I AM SELFISH and don’t wish to contribute to society in (as you say) the most important way I can (because my writing, my artwork, my loving friendships and family support, my education, my research, those are meaningless).
What if it isn’t a choice? IS THAT OKAY, ELIZABETH WURTZEL? Do I pass your test if my childlessness is merely a tragic condition? I yearn for your approval, Elizabeth Wurtzel, so I hope you’ll extend your endless compassion toward poor childless me and consider how sad I am.
The existential nightmare of the everyday is way more than even those of us with enormous egos who love what we do can possibly cope with. We are on this earth to keep on keeping on. We are here to reproduce.
Oh, really? THANKS FOR INFORMING ME OF THAT, ELIZABETH WURTZEL, I didn’t know. Some of us find the existential nightmare even harder to fathom when we consider bringing children into this world. Some of us think the conditions we’re leaving to the next generation make this world harder to reckon with, not easier. I personally don’t use that as an excuse to publicly judge people whose lives and choices differ from mine, but I am not you, oh Elizabeth Wurtzel.
And of course, some of us think (oh, forgive me for saying it, ELIZABETH WURTZEL, I fear this may hurt your feelings if you have any), your blanket criticism of childlessness, swathing blithely as it does over those who are childless out of necessity, out of desire, out of uncertainty, for self-protection, for protection of that hypothetical child, or because they have no choice — your blanket indictment makes this world a worse place, a harder place, a place more swirling with existential dread and self-doubt.
Elizabeth Wurtzel, you just made this world worse, and I hope you know it. I hope you never forget it. I hope you steep in that knowledge forever.
Booya-Kasha
Did I miss a previous link to LeVar Burton’s interview on Think Progress?
“If you want free, independent thinkers, people who can discern for themselves, people who want to actively participate in a democracy, you want them literate. If you want to control people, if you want to feed them a pack of lies and dominate them, keep them ignorant. For me, literacy means freedom. For the individual and for society.”
Tell it, LeVar.
Since nobody else has mentioned it, I have to say I really enjoyed the video of how they found the whale!
I looked at the two pictures and one has a whale and one doesn’t. I don’t understand how it’s not obvious that Photoshop. :O
I used to work at that museum! I’m sure I looked at that painting so many times without realising what was hidden away.
Sorry, Wurtzel, turns out that life only becomes more meaningful if you have manatees.