Canada’s Garson Romalis died in January, and he was a hell of an ally and will be missed. Oh, and HAPPY CANADA DAY.
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Speaking of allies, WE HAVE NONE, take to your battle stations, Ruth Bader Ginsburg will lead us, and when she dies, her funeral pyre will light the skies with righteousness. If you have money, give it to the abortion lawyers of the future.
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Today is “technically” our one-year anniversary, but it’s really tomorrow (and we’ll be celebrating it then) because of the crushing technical difficulties that postponed our launch! Mallory and I will have a rambling, self-congratulatory conversation to launch the day, we will each pick a wonderful piece by the other to re-run, and we will ALSO each pick our favourite freelance piece to re-run.
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Abusive murderer Oscar Pistorius deemed not to have been mentally ill at the time he murdered Reeva Steenkamp, the girlfriend he abused (and then murdered.)
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How the Chilean miners survived:
Sepúlveda helped to take an inventory of the remaining emergency provisions: one can of salmon, one can of peaches, one can of peas, eighteen cans of tuna, twenty-four litres of milk (eight of which turned out to be spoiled), ninety-three packages of cookies, minus the ones that had been eaten, and some expired medicines. There were also two hundred and forty plastic spoons and forks, but only ten litres of bottled water. The miners figured that if each man ate one or two cookies and a spoonful of tuna every day the provisions might last a week. There were thousands of litres of water stored underground in tanks, but the water was used to cool the industrial machinery, and it was tainted with oil. The men put the food back into the locker and secured it. Urzúa gave the key to Sepúlveda.
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Everyone was an artist in kindergarten:
Kelley explained that his creativity-consultant predecessor Gordon MacKenzie—who was something of a legend in the world of greeting-card writing at Hallmark in the 1980s, where he operated as the company’s Creative Paradox, a title he created—used to go around and speak at schools. He would ask each grade to raise their hands, “Any artists here?”
And in kindergarten, everybody was an artist. Not just an artist, but a two-hands artist: “Me! Me! Me! I’m an artist!”
By the first grade, it was still 100 percent, but it was with one hand. Then it progressed. When MacKenzie talked to the sixth-graders, he would get two or three people raising their hands, nervously looking around like everyone was going to think they were weird.
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A podcast about Hollywood history, and Anne Helen Petersen is on it!
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Happy Canada Day, Canadians! Let’s all share something wonderful we love about Canada.
1. Socialized healthcare (even with horrific doctor shortages and abortion restrictions in the East).
2. Poutine
3. The genuine ability to apologize for something that’s not your fault
4. Ketchup chips
5. Outstanding nature!
6. The middle of Ontario!
7. Mosquitos!
8. Healthcare again, and more importantly that the government’s designated columnists get snotty about how we care most about a system of billing health administration!
9. VIA Rail!
10. Bears!
Ontario is such a weird shape, what counts as its middle?
The Barrie – Peterborough – Kingston line is sort of a population weighted middle.
Sudbury! North Bay! Fighting with Manitoba over who *~really~* loves Northern Ontario most!
We once drove across Canada, and stayed at a campsite on North Superior just east of Thunder Bay. The next morning after breakfast, we were talking to the hired man and mentioned we would be driving through Wawa on our way to Manitoulin Island.
“Oh wow, Wawa,” he said. “It’s all city down there.” I didn’t even broach the whole eastern Ontario issue.
Oh man! I am from Northwestern Ontario (west of Thunder Bay) and growing up I basically thought of Ontario as: Northwestern Ontario, Southern Ontario (where all the cities are!), and that’s it.
Edited to change ‘east’ to ‘west’ because I still don’t understand directions, apparently.
Seems you and I have somewhat different opinions on Via Rail.
Any driving in and around the Montreal elevated highways = strong train preference.
Oh god, yes — driving here is best avoided at all costs. But our train system is woefully inadequate (and inadequately funded!), and I’m baffled by some of the things that they’ve cut or altered in the past few years. Trains that were always full on busy lines cancelled, more money into business class stuff, etc. Plus after three and a half years of taking trains on alternating weekends, I’m just tired of it 🙁
I’m totally from the middle of Ontario!
Happy Canada Day! This non-Canadian loves much about Canada, including the poutine, the outstanding nature, and the friendliness of most of the people I’ve met there (and not just in Manitoba).
We are going to Ontario and PEI in 5 weeks for vacation, and it’s going to a be LONG five weeks until then.
Alice Munro! Vegan Kit-Kats! Oh how I dream of those Kit-Kats. When I was there I pretty much survived on dill pickle potato chips and dark chocolate Kit-Kats and I was SO HAPPY.
the dark kit-kats are vegan!!!?!?!? oh my god. you have made all future roadtrips so much nicer.
The ones they have in Canada are! I’ve seen some here in the US but they have milk.
One time in high school, I stepped on a girl’s foot by accident and she apologized to me. CANADA!
I will add:
– the city of Montreal
– milk in bags (especially because it seems to baffle Americans)
– L. M. Montgomery
– healthcare (it bears repeating!)
My contribution: the Shakespeare festival in Stratford, Ontario. Hell, the entire town of Stratford, Ontario.
Stratford is so lovely. With the notable exception of their most famous citizen.
They still sell “to Bieber or not to Bieber” in the tourist shops and I shudder whenever I walk past them.
– Socialized health care (seeing the shenanigans in the US lately makes me want to hug it protectively)
– As much of a three ring circus as the Ontario election was, the fact that Wynne is a lesbian was never once used to insult or belittle her, or used as a reason why she shouldn’t be elected
– Relatedly, that half of Toronto was flying rainbow flags last week
– the Niagara peninsula
– nanaimo bars and butter tarts
The 6 hour long Pride Parade because everyone wanted to be in it.
I am American, but:
1. Canadian Lit! Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje!
2. Quebec City’s old town. So beautiful.
3. Our drinking water.
Why did you leave Canada, assorted grandparents and great-parents? Were the mills of RI and MA truly that much better than farm and city life in Quebec? Why did you continue on to the US, other great-grandparents who emigrated first to Canada and then to the US? I could have been Canadian! I almost was!
1. the Charter of Rights and Freedom
2. real winters
3. Breathtakingly beautiful rocks, trees, and water
4. Semi-decent social safety net
5. And (for Ontarians, unfortunately not universal for all Canadians) free abortion on demand (up to 20 weeks).
You took the words right out of my mouth (and would like to add “the beautiful rolling Chilcotin plains and the suede covered hills of the Similkameen”).
Happy Canada Day, everyone!
Bonne fête du Canada!
Real winter — after this winter on the Prairies, I think I’ve had enough real winter for awhile. One day, in February, it was minus 30 (Celsius) for the millionth day in a row and I actually put my head down on my desk at work and cried. But it also gets dark at 4 in the afternoon during the worst part of winter here. When you have 2 down jackets (one is lighter than the other) in addition to other weights of winter coats, that’s a lot of reality to handle.
1. Socialised healthcare
2. Giant prairie skies
3. This gentleman and his friend, who will be spared when the revolution comes: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/welwyn-sa…
I’m an Angeleno turned Bluenoser. I love my new country! It’s so adorable!
– There is a HEAT ADVISORY today. The high will be 26C / 79F. My husband is moaning about the unbearable heat.
– While in Canada, I watched my Canadian husband apologize to another Canadian for being “too Canadian.”
– Gently poking fun at Canada is a Canadian national pastime.
– The people in Nova Scotia are super-friendly and community-oriented. Living in Halifax is a bit like living in a small town, except it’s got 300K people or something.
– You can fish up blue lobsters off the coast. If you catch one, it will grant you a wish.
Hello can we talk about this terrible piece of dreck: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/…
#NOTALLMALEPRISONERS
I want to meet the editor at the Atlantic who said, “Yeah, let’s run this piece.” (And I want this editor to look me in the eyes so I know whether they genuinely thought it was a good piece or if they just wanted to brag to another section editor about how much traffic this maddening piece brought to the site.)
Also, please pretend I didn’t use the word “piece” like ten times in the space of four lines. I woke up very early to get to work at 7 am so I could then skip out soon after lunch to go watch the USA-Belgium game.
Your pieceyness is forgiven. All is forgiven when it comes to skipping work to watch the World Cup.
I like you, Jack!
I mean, it’s better than calling it an “essay” or “article” or “writing”. It certainly is a piece of something.
As though there were any possibility an editor has ever looked at one of Berlatsky’s articles, even once
OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE
I tried to read it and then I got to this line:
“The few male prisoners who are shown on OITNB are presented in almost aggressively stereotypical ways.”
and thought about LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE OTHER TELEVISION SHOW, not to mention ALL THE MOVIES, and was just unable to continue.
Oh, it gets SO MUCH BETTER. “while women in prison are, often, innocent victims, doomed by circumstances and their own painful but touching character flaws.”
Really? Really? Morello tried to fucking BLOW UP A CAR. “Character flaw???” I mean, I get steamed enough when people are like “oh, Morello’s such a sweet character, blah blah” because these are exactly the same poeple who if she was a man would be screeching for permanent incarceration, but……I CAN’T GET OVER THIS.
Not only that, but there’s the fact that we still don’t know the backstories of a TON of characters – notably Poussey, but a bunch of minor characters as well. Understanding their lives doesn’t make them “innocent victims,” it makes them more human.
Yeah, under-representation of men in television is a REAL BIG FUCKING PROBLEM.
Would it have been that hard to say, “this show is drawing attention to people who usually are left out of mainstream entertainment and telling their stories, let’s do more of it”? Why does it always have to be “this isn’t about white men, so I shall whine and whine and try to squash it”?
“The backstories don’t really focus on systemic injustices. Instead, they show how individual weaknesses lead the women to prison.”
oh okay so you didn’t actually watch the show, that’s good. because, yeah, taystee’s story is fundamentally one about a “tragic lack of love” (women and their feelings, amirite) and not actually about how fucked up adoption/foster care/prisoner re-entry is in this country.
and someone commented to ask if he had a problem with the lack of female prisoners in Oz, too, which the author of the article responded to: “I think you may not have read the article? I’m talking specifically about the gender role issues in OITNB; it’s not specifically about representation.” no dude we all read your dumb article. the point is still valid.
In the comments, someone points out that Morello and Suzanne are used to show how the prison system becomes a dumping ground for people with mental illness, and the author responds that they’re not really shown as crazy because Morello’s problems are just from watching too much romance and Suzanne’s from being adopted by white parents. ???
I honestly think he’s incapable of seeing women as universal stand-ins (because they’re women, so it’s all about feeelings and romance movies!). Thus, while the rest of us are happily generalizing the lessons from these prisoners’ stories, he’s stuck in the weeds, thinking it’s all a big soap opera.
That sound you hear is the sound of my head exploding.
“Love and romance! That’s what those silly women think about, so clearly their problems stem from lack of love and romance! Also I read a book about race! That other woman’s problems are about race! Now I’ll just click send….done! What a great article I wrote!”
Just in case it wasn’t crystal clear that Berlatsky thinks men are the default humans, he says pretty much that in the comments:
In response to another commenter who asks: “Just to clarify–are you saying that because the women of the show are humanized in a particularly feminine way, their humanization won’t extend in viewers’ minds to male prisoners?” (I assume that “humanized in a particularly feminine way” just means identifying as a woman AND having a backstory?)
Berlatsky says: “Yep. That’s what I’m saying.”
OMFG
Goddamnit, Berlatsky. Seriously? What is wrong with you? You work at the Atlantic, you have to have some loose, tenuous grasp on the debates happening in America (not just in college classrooms, etc.) since the tragic shootings in California, right? And you still, for some unknown, unfathomable, ridiculous reason write an essay saying, “Well, folks, I’d just love to see more of, like, you know, men in a show about a women’s prison. And I’m enlightened, like, they don’t have to be white men, they can be, you know, from, like, another… umm, culture? Is that the word I’m looking for…? Anyways, I love women, they’re just fantastic, and those gals on that there prison show are really, you know, gosh—how to say this without, like, putting my foot in my mouth—fleshed out? Can I say that? Is saying ‘gals’ and ‘flesh’ in the same sentence okay, you know, with, like, cultural sensitivity and the like? Why am I wondering about that after writing such a, well, like, stupid essay—an essay that never needed to have been written, about a lack of men on television, because there is no such thing as a lack of men on television, and if anything maybe a piece about how there could be, like, more believable, realistic depictions of women—hell, written by women, maybe?!—on television might have, umm, you know, like, resonance?”
Well shit son, I thought reading romance novels was just a harmless pleasure of mine, but it turns out it’s actually the first step on a road that ends in attempted murder! I’m gonna go google how to makr a car bomb!
twenty billion bucks he heard that line about Morello watching Twilight and tuned out of the rest of the episode in a masturbatory rhapsody over his feminist disdain for the books.
That’s a lot of words to say “BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ?”
I hope there are four male leads for “True Detective” season 2! It is the only way to square this “imbalance” with the universe! Nay, with God!
Listening to him attempt to defend himself in the comments is PRICELESS.
“Yep, I’m aware of intersectionality, thanks. I read Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Thought not that long ago. Even wrote about it here.”
Guys, are we out of you-read-a-book cookies? What a shame.
so much second hand embarrassment, I can’t.
This is the same guy who spent his last lit-crit article getting really mad and shitty in the comments section at people telling him that 1984 is not, in fact, about a German invasion of England. When he says “guys, it’s okay, I have a black friend read a black book” what he means is that he heard of its title somewhere and decided it was lame.
I AM A MAN AND I WAS ONCE READ A bell hooks ESSAY. I WILL TAKE AN OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE, BUT WILL SETTLE FOR OATMEAL RAISIN BECAUSE I AM A FEMINIST AND DO NOT WANT TO PUT UNDUE PRESSURE ON YOU LADIES.
Yeah, well we’re OUTTA COOKIES. We only had two bits and we didn’t think there’d be such a rush.
WELL I’LL HAVE THE CHICKEN.
I WILL SETTLE FOR BEING TOLD I AM A BETTER FEMINIST THAN MOST WOMEN YOU KNOW.
Your choice is “or death.” Sorry (not sorry) menz.
Tea and Cake or Death!
DON’T BE MAD BABE I KNOW FEMINIST WORDS I JUST DON’T LIKE THEM
On top of every other problem in this article, it’s not as if the issue of the institutionalization of oppression of minority and poor men hasn’t been explored on television. There was this little show called The Wire? That a lot of people think was the best show ever on television? GUESS WHAT, ALL ABOUT DUDES.
Not to mention that I don’t think we can possibly be watching the same show, if he thinks OITNB focuses too much on women and their personal problems, not on the system.
Seriously. I don’t remember any articles entitled “Why doesn’t The Wire talk more about the plight of middle class white women in Alexandria, VA?” which is roughly equivalent to what this shithead is complaining about.
THERE ARE NO TV SHOWS OR MOVIES THAT ARE ABOUT MEN IN PRISON AT ALL EVER
Sporfled coffee all over my desk when I got to the line “That group is men.”
One of the commenters brought up that this may just be an exquisitely crafted piece of satire. If you look at it that way, everything changes, and it becomes beautiful.
Fingers crossed that this is the case. It would make life less… terrible.
That said, “Sporfled” is my new favorite word. Thank you, AliasGrace!
Loving “sporfled”.
I wish I could claim that I made it up myself, but I stole it from a genius friend. It’s a good ‘un! 🙂
Happy DNS Birthday, ThehyphenToastdotnet!
HI GUYS WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING
The website is working BEAUTIFULLY
Everything is fast and clean and beautiful, Nicole.
Servers are like men – the small unreliable, temperamental ones are the ones that cause the most havoc.
The big ,strong, silent types; the ones that do the work – those are the best
HI NICOLE EVERYTHING IS GREAT OVER HERE AND I CAN READ THE TOAST ALL DAY BECAUSE TOMORROW IS MY LAST DAY AT THIS JOB AND I’M REAL GLAD THE SERVERS ARE BEING DELIGHTFUL.
I want to make sure everyone has a chance to see this amazing gif of Robot RBG stomping on men that our own monkeybutter made in the Futurama thread yesterday (she is good and kind to us, all credit to her):
Could we just have this gif on the upper right hand corner of The Toast for a little bit?
ETA: Or maybe someone could make it an ad for books that way it’ll come up as a Google ad and regularly pop up on here.
Thank you for reposting this piece of beauty. monkeybutter, if you ever need to hide the body of a Man, call me and I will be there with shovels and lime.
ETA: If anybody out there wants to write an article on the awesomeness of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, please contact me (Twitter- @Sedna_51) and I will gladly sponsor it.
oh man, I was such an angry Noodge yesterday, and if I would have seen this it would have made it all better. This is my current spirit animal.
Yesterday was indeed rageful, but “spirit animal” is still not a great way to refer to something you identify with. Maybe patronus? RBG’s Jaeger would be a mighty patronus.
…really?
Yep!
ah just fuck it. fuck it all. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. can’t do anything right. go ahead and just fucking call me out for using a term you don’t like when i’m already raw as fuck. awesome.
Noodge! This doesn’t make you a bad person; we like you a lot. It’s easy to miss the appropriative aspects some words/phrases have when you’re on the other side, and I think AddieJoy was gently and kindly trying to let you know because we know you’re an intelligent person and you have the capacity to be thoughtful about these things. 🙂
Yes, that’s the one.
Everything is pants right now, and everyone with sense feels awful about it. I don’t mean to make that feeling worse or tell you you can’t do anything right.
“Everything is pants right now” is the most accurate description I can find. Thanks for understanding, sorry for jumping off the ledge.
SCOTUS has been all about putting us on the ledge recently.
I hope I wasn’t talking over you or anything!
Not at all!
thank you, sorry for freaking out…
I’m truly sorry you’re having a difficult day. I hope you feel better. I still don’t think it’s wrong for someone to gently offer correction when a not-great term comes up, and I hope you can come to the same conclusion when you’re feeling a little calmer.
I can see you’re trying to help, but since you weren’t involved in the beginning, and I’m super stressed/hormonal, it all sounds really condescending to me right now. I’m trying to say this gently from a calmer place.
Ah, I apologize for that; Figgy said things much more effectively than I did above, so I’m just going to second everything she said.
I am 100% agreed on the awesomeness and motivational power of RBG, though. I really want to print out the image below and put it up on my office wall.
i literally broke my toe last night, after being the grumpiest fuck that ever lived, and then woke up this morning to take my husband to the hospital because he has such severe tonsillitis he may need to get them taken out, and that probably happened because he went on a complete bender last weekend, and we’re still trying to figure out his substance abuse issues, so I feel like a little baby mouse who has been sandpapered for a few days. raw. and now totally embarrassed, because I TOTALLY know better to be aware of what I say, and TOTALLY know better than to jump down someone’s throat and throw a public tantrum. So this is my full apology, thanks for being so Toastie, my Toasties.
Tons of love,
Noodge
oh honey, oh my god. I’m so sorry. What a shitty, shitty sequence of events. These bunnies and I hope things get better for you ASAP.
haha, and now i’m crying because i’m so glad that i’ve got these lovely friends sending me fluffy pictures.
(seriously, those bunny noses are hypnotic…)
And now I’m slightly misty-eyed because (a) THAT PIT BULL’S GRIN, IT’S SO GRIN-Y and (b) this whole exchange was so awesome that I am bookmarking it in case I ever need a reference for what it looks like when gentle correction goes beautifully, which leads to the obvious conclusion of (c) being so so glad the Toast is still Toastie, as well.
Noodge, that sounds incredibly crazy-making! I’m so sorry to hear about it all. My go-to pick-me-up is less cute animals and more our old “Fairy Tales for the Modern Woman” thread. I also hope things get better for you super-soon! http://thehairpin.com/2013/06/six-fairy-tales-for…
Robin Thicke’s PR people APPARENTLY thought an open #AskThicke hashtag was a good idea. People with twitter should chek and see how THAT turned out. It is a glorious, glorious thing full of people taking down his rape-culture, stalky bullshit.
You did a marvelous job with that hashtag!
Thank you! One of my tweets got on The Evening Standard.
Personally, I think ‘#AskThicke are women people?’ was better, but twitter is a fickle mistress.
For those of us not on Twitter (for fear of Men), could you please direct us to a roundup or way to view the best of these?
Here’s a link to an article on The Telegraph.
Oh my god, here’s a roundup of the weirdest ones
aaaahahahaha my favorite is the simple, direct “WHY ARE YOU A THING”
I’m not on twitter but you can still read them all if you click on one of the AskThicke hashtags in the articles elsewhere.
Stupid work computer blocks the twits, but it’s totally fine with me reading Very Important News Articles like those roundups.
This made my morning! So many good ones to choose from!
I particularly liked:
“”His PR people said no to this idea, but NO means YES so #AskThicke””
“#AskThicke don’t you think this is an ironic hashtag considering you’re not one for asking?”
Can’t stop won’t stop loling:
If you put Vaseline on your eyeballs, and visit the zoo, do you see Blurred Lions, you big gimp? #AskThicke
This was a personal favorite of mine, too!
I just spat at my keyboard. OMG.
“#AskThicke Do you have a complete understanding of the meaning of the Sexual Offences Act (2003)?”
“#AskThicke did anyone ask you about going ahead with this hashtag, or did they just know you want it?” (from EverydaySexism)
” Luke Walker @lukewalkerbooks
#AskThicke Coffee, tea or sexual assault?”
linkshund @linkshund · 5h
#AskThicke Are you an actual predator or just a profoundly boring man desperately trying and failing to make erotically-charged music?
“Robin Thicke is getting terrible abuse on the #AskThicke hashtag. Maybe If he’d dressed less provocative & stayed sober it wouldn’t happen?”
The whole thing brought me a great deal of joy last night. I love laughing at the expense of asshats.
I’ve just seen the #AskThicke hashtag and literally no one seems to have used it the way the PR people intended it to be (possibly because once you get past the braying celebrations of rape and stalking he’s a Butlin’s-level entertainer with nothing at all of interest or value to say). It is beautiful.
It’s enough to make my withered misandrist heart sing
So I caught up on this last Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight” (my new favorite TV show) and – even though I’d already had too many Feelings yesterday (eff you SC*TUS) I managed to feel a bunch more after watching this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2W41pvvZs0
You guys, Pepe Julian Onziema is my new hero. He has such focus, presence, and has not yet squashed all his compassion and emotion behind an internal brick wall despite being persecuted by his fellow human and the police in his country. MUST WATCH TV, and can we make Pepe Julian Oziema an honorary Toastron?
I cannot wait to watch the new episode. That show is kicking some serious ass.
A million thumbs up for John Oliver et al.
The new show is super-awesome, but I must also admit to a little bead of fear in my heart that The Bugle may not return to me, when it has brought me such joy over the past six(?) years. And by “joy” I mean “relief from the claustrophobia of mass transit commuting” and also “a safety valve when stuck on ‘file maintenance’ duty by the terrible lawyer bosses”
Oh, I totally understand! I’ll be very sad if The Bugle doesn’t return. Do you listen to Answer Me This? It’s a question-and-answer podcast by Helen Zaltzman (Andy’s sister) and Olly Mann, and though it’s not as pun-heavy or weepingly hilarious as The Bugle, it’s quite good!
I had not heard of that one! I’ve added or wandered away from a few different ones over the years, but Bugle, Savage Love and This American Life have had the longest staying power; I’ve listened to the first two more or less since launch. Side effect: I’m now so certain of everything Dan will say in response to callers that I’m sometimes guilty of just fast-forwarding to the guest(s) of the week.
I could put on this video and let Pepe’s voice lull me to sleep – it’s so… deep and melodic and soft. Serious crush.
Pepe was so wonderful! I really like Last Week Tonight. My sister doesn’t watch it because “It’s just another Stewart/Colbert” but I really like how deeply he can go into something because there’s no commercial breaks. Also his metaphors are just so ridiculous, his writing staff is great.
PEPE! the clip they showed from a Ugandan talk show, when the minister starts showing up with bananas and cucumbers and carrots and zucchini, saying that these are the “tools” that homosexuals use in their perversions, and Pepe is like “um, these are vegetables… for food.”
This is obviously not up there with Hobby Lobby, or anything, but DID YOU SEE THE DEAR PRUDIE LETTER about the “Finders, Keepers!” Tooth Fairy BITCH MOM?
THAT WOMAN IS BATSHIT. “Finders keepers” does not apply IN SOMEONE ELSE’S HOUSE, YOU LUNATIC. What the fuck!??! Where do they FIND these people?
If you cannot handle dealing with the mild disappointment of a child when confronted with the reality that you do not FIND money in SOMEONE ELSE’S HOME you may drop them off at the coatcheck. And, right, this was not a dime between couch cushions! DOLLAR COINS. Six bucks!
I would make the little thief give the money back, and calmly tell both him and his sociopath mom that they are no longer welcome in my house. It’s not even a question of who’s wealthier, it’s a question of behaving in someone else’s home and putting up boundaries against shitty behavior.
WHO SAYS SHIT LIKE THAT
edit: also, if that isn’t a golden ticket invitation to go to bitch mom’s house and start taking shit, I don’t know what is.
“I found this in your house! I mean, I broke a window and came in while you were out, but I found this awesome 52-inch TV and Macbook there!”
Seriously, “finders keepers” in SOMEONE ELSE’S HOME???
WTF, man. W T actual F.
And the one about orgasms? I kept waiting for it to get Prudie-style weird, but then nothing?
Wait. What? This woman thinks it’s ok to take money she finds in other people’s houses?! Is this Bunny Corcoran’s mother?!
But then the other Evil Mom story on page 2 made me so unbearably sad. Poor weird little kid! Poor confused mom with unmanageable emotions! I’m going to be worrying for ages about how they’re doing.
Clearly the family is trying to raise an RPG hero, stop stomping on their dream people who own portable items of value.
Raising a good little Chaotic Neutral.
I mean the least they could do is install hundreds of little deathtraps everywhere before inviting them over
Would it have been overreacting to tell her to give the money back or you’d be calling the cops because I feel like it isn’t.
I keep sitting here thinking of things I would say to someone in the same situation and I am falling down in the space between “I don’t know how you raise your kid but in my house we do not steal” and “I’m going to consider that $6 the price I had to pay to learn what kind of person you are” and upon this woman leaving with her children I wouldn’t say goodbye, I’d say “consider yourself uninvited from this house forever, asshole.”
I dunno about you guys but stealing was a cardinal sin in my parents’ house growing up. You take from someone, you were taken to task for it.
*Carries flatscreen TV out front door.* Finders, Keepers!
I have always been happy to share my birthday with Canada Day, but I didn’t realize I also share it with The Toast! Oh happy day!
Ahhhh! Happy birthday to you, delightful peanut butter fluff sammich! Hope it’s a great one!
I’m so fluffy! Thanks sednarea51!
OH, and did everyone read this?
I keep trying to pick a line to quote, but there are so many horrible ones.
The only non-helpless-rage response I have to this is: I want her to be my President. Maya Peterson 2032.
Yes, I was hoping we could discuss Maya Peterson today. I actually read the comments yesterday (I know…) including some from fellow students who claimed that this was a “last straw” and she’d already been in trouble for cheating and bullying. I have no idea if any of that is right, but I don’t honestly think it matters. If those allegations were true and not considered worth action by the school when committed, then I don’t see how they could be worthy of action years later when she posted some pictures that mocked privilege in ways that made your white male students uncomfortable.
that was not the reading I needed to do with my morning coffee, argh. Been stewing since. The kid who was questioning whether she won by fraud was really just too much. Wonder how many of those assholes think Obama was born in the US.
Seriously, if this is what finally broke the camel’s back, and not actually bullying, then this administration is really really terrible. I mean, more terrible than we know they already are because apparently sexually harassing her and flying confederate flags is a-ok, but mocking privileged assholes is not.
Are you telling me that for only a few thousand dollars more than I spent on my entire college education, I can spend one year surrounded by heinously racist teenagers? What a deal!
Yup and then I had a minor anxiety attack in the office. Yay, East Coast prep schooling!
holy shit the coolest teenager in the universe
gonna be for reals president someday
I couldn’t help but think, as I read this, that Maya Peterson is going to turn into a really cool adult.
“You’re the student body president, and you’re mocking and blatantly insulting a large group of the school’s male population,” one student commented on the photo.
“Yes, I am making a mockery of the right-wing, confederate-flag hanging, openly misogynistic Lawrentians,” Peterson responded. “If that’s a large portion of the school’s male population, then I think the issue is not with my bringing attention to it in a lighthearted way, but rather why no one has brought attention to it before…”
At age seventeen, Maya Peterson has a clearer understanding of the world than the people complaining about her ever will.
“I understand why I hurt people’s feelings, but I didn’t become president to make sure rich white guys had more representation on campus,” she said. “Let’s be honest. They’re not the ones that feel uncomfortable here.”
I’m trying to focus on the great things Maya is saying, because everyone else’s quotes make me go NO NO NO NO NO.
what is even the excuse you use to handwave away waving the Confederate flag as somehow not crazy racist in goddamn New Jersey
“I’m not racially harassing you, I just deeply sympathize with the cause of traitors who went to war to make you livestock, stop making fun of me you bigot I’M OFFENDED“
Oh the Chilean miners story. It’s basically Dads In Peril. Oof.
LSRJ is great! Some religious law schools (*ahem* Georgetown) refuse to allocate student organization funds to LSRJ b/c of “moral objections”, so donations really do impact how much the group can do both on campuses and off.
Hooray for the new server! Toast posts aren’t showing up in my RSS feed, though. Any way to fix that?
(I know you probably don’t care but I always click through! I need it to keep track of what I haven’t read yet!)
Oh, they’ve all appeared now! Cool.
Everything about that SCOTUS ruling makes me feel physically ill. Can I start a thread for people in reasonable countries who are up for green card marriages to Toasties who want to escape the US?
I’d do it if I weren’t already wed!
So, this was the ad that I got on this page, and I’ll be really honest and say that I’m disappointed this isn’t a Mallory parody article about Dads and who golf and think you should just Get Out There.
<a href=”http://i.imgur.com/HopOhkg.jpg” target=”_blank”>http://i.imgur.com/HopOhkg.jpg
I got an ad for a book called ‘White Mans Problems’.
I got an ad for cheese. CHEESE. The targeted ad system is working nicely over here.
I’m seeing an ad for “Asian Single Dating Site for Sincere Men”. Not quite your target audience, ad algorithm!
Hey Nicole, Mallory, I’m sure y’all know you got linked/republished by Refinery29. When I saw the title in their email blast I was all, WAIT A MINUTE THAT SMELLS LIKE TOAST!, but it was fine when I saw it was credited back.
Except their bio for you is way fucking bogus:”The Toast — a byproduct of ladyblog vets Nicole Cliffe and Mallory Ortberg — practically serves as our feminist manifesto.” Say what? How the hell is your actual jobs of writing and editing an amazing feminist website a byproduct of anything? Is this your side gig? Can I read your “real” website? Or is all this just a ruse for something amazing?
Slings & Arrows is the BEST SHOW.
Another Halifax Toastie, yay! I moved here 5 years ago (from Vancouver) and it is a good place.
I know it's a bit late to comment, but I'm doing the Artist's Way too (I'll start week 7 tonight). If you need an accountability buddy, let me know!