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Jamelle Bouie on “black-on-black crime.”
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Mallory has received your (numerous) notes of sympathy, and thanks you for respecting her privacy at this difficult time. She officially wishes Brittney and Glory all the best. Also, do not click the pending comments option at that link, because not everyone appreciates that Brittney Griner “wears a breastplate of truth, and a girdle of strength, and a helmet of integrity, and she is arm’d so strong in honesty that your threats pass by her as th’ idle wind, which she respects not” and is also incredibly gorgeous.
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Mallory and I were talking about this piece, which is awkwardly framed (like, “look, it can even happen to white people!”) but the GENERAL POINT that cops collude on this “he grabbed for my gun” excuse for shooting unarmed people is solid, as is the legislation it calls for:
In April of this year we passed a law that made Wisconsin the first state in the nation to mandate at legislative level that police-related deaths be reviewed by an outside agency. Ten days after it went into effect in May, local police shot a man sleeping on a park bench 15 times. It’s one of the first incidents to be investigated under the new law.
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My dad’s girlfriend found a copy of the Worst Book Ever Written For Fat Girls (WRITTEN BY A FUCKING MAN, OF COURSE) which her mom had given her in a passive-aggressive gesture when she was in grade school (Dad’s gf: “wow, my mom was a real cunt”), and lent it to me, and I kind of want to just take photos of every page and put them on the site so we can mock it, but it also bummed me out and is generally not the sort of content we run, so I’m just gonna do this one:
Spoiler alert: instead of Catundra, the fat cat, eating the mole, she lets him badger her into dieting on leaves and running around 24/7 until she gets skinny and then no one makes fun of her ever again. Because that, children, is how bullies work.
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This cat-adopting-a-bunny video is tight as shit.
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Classic Dune moment. (Courtesy of my younger brother.)
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Ashamed to say I clicked through on a Ringly ad and only left the site when it became clear the Emerald option was sold out.
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
CAN WE TALK ABOUT MO’NE DAVIS?
(In case you did not already hear, Mo’Ne Davis, aka Our Once And Future Queen, is thirteen years old, playing in the almost-entirely-male Little League World Series, and threw a SHUTOUT GAME on Friday night. She throws a 70mph fastball. She is feared by boys and men, as she should be.)
Her lucky charm is some cash in her back pocket. “It’s just that I do well when I’ve got money in my back pocket. And I know if I ever get hungry, I know I can get something to eat because I’ve got money.”
Yeah! I can’t wait to root for her in the WMLB!
Oh wait. Fuck.
FUCK.
That is the whole thing that still perplexes me about the baseball/softball gender divisions. If women have played baseball professionally.. if the games are two very different sports w/r/t pitching/body movements.. why don’t we see a consistent group of girls playing baseball in HS and beyond? do they get tracked into softball?
I’m pretty much a baseball noob (casually follow the Os through my adult life, things started spiking in 2012) so there’s some finer points of baseball culture/history I don’t get.
Basically, yes, they get tracked into softball. At least when/where I was growing up and most of the surrounding area there was an independent Little League and a girl’s softball league that started at the same age post the coed T-Ball (aka no pitching) league for very young kids. Most parents would default sign sporty girls up for softball, because once you could play for the school as well in spring they had girl’s softball and boy’s baseball. There would always be one or two girls that wanted to play Little League and did but they had it pretty rough, as you can imagine, and frequently defected after getting “accidentally” hit with pitches and getting stuck in right field for a few years.
Pretty much the only difference is the pitching style (and ball), so coming from T-Ball you don’t know either way and there’s no skill assessment in deciding which to play.
I’m just really curious about the history of how they developed, and when did the decision that “girls=softball, boys=baseball” happen? Why don’t we have women’s baseball teams? Men’s softball teams? Why did that decision happen? did someone decide that soft = girls, so softball = girls’ sports, even though apparently softballs are harder to hit? (that’s just hearsay I’ve heard from other women.)
Like I said, I’m a noob to this realm of sports.
ETA: I see others have start addressing this downthread. Thank you all for your patience. 😀
Sidenote: we do have men’s softball teams. Aside from the obvious rec leagues there was actually a brief professional league in the 70s.
I’m also fairly nooby about baseball/softball, but I’ve asked someone this question before. I think the softball = harder to hit idea comes from a couple things. Softball is played in a smaller field, so there’s less reaction time. The reaction time to hit a 90mph baseball pitch is the same as a 75mph softball pitch (I think those were the numbers I heard). Professional baseball batters would strike out against a top-of-the-class softball pitcher (and hey, against Jenny Finch, they did!) I hear there’s also more tricky pitches you can do in softball, but I don’t know much about that. Softballs are also harder to hit because they cushion the blow more than a tiny, tight little baseball. Softball to the face hurts a lot less. They travel slower and are more floaty when hit than baseballs. They’re a lot harder to send flying, and getting that result is a little more about precision and hitting it just right than hitting it hard. That’s also why it’s the “girly” one.
Yes, this is true.
I worry that in a lot of conversations about women and baseball, softball is seen as easier than baseball and just a consolation prize for girls. It’s a disservice to both sports and the women who want to play either one. Girls shouldn’t feel obligated to play it instead of baseball, but they shouldn’t feel less than for wanting to play softball. Growing up in Oregon and being a native Oklahoman (and a member of a Southeastern tribe; I can’t imagine Creek culture without softball), softball was always a very big deal and respected, so when I moved away I was shocked how it was treated like a complete joke, usually a homophobic one. (tangent: Girl Scouts was the same way. I was basically thought to be of questionable sexuality for being super into both, when I was really just a straight misandrist in training. Softball is great misandrist training, btw. You learn to rely exclusively on women to achieve your goals and throwing underhand is a better angle to get to the “undercarriage”.) So, yes, women can and should play baseball on a professional level, and they should also play softball, and basketball and every sport.
Also, softball to the face hurts still a lot, so does softball to the shins, when you’re pitching. You’re so close to the plate and like you said, little reaction time. I really wanted shin guards when I was in grade school, because so many hitters did not really aim for anywhere and it came straight back to the mound a lot.
Well, both sports were played by male and female teams. Softball was invented after baseball in the 1880’s (about 20 years after the Dolly Vardens an African American Women’s team, became the first baseball team to ever be payed to play the game). Both sports remained somewhat coed during the early part of the 20th Century while various leagues were solidifying, though softball was already more populated by women. The MLB which was a men’s league basically becomes the professional baseball league as we know it, but in lieu of a “farm system” like we have today for minor league baseball there were just some smaller/specialized leagues. In 1931 Kenesaw Mountain Landis the commissioner of professional baseball declared baseball unfit for women after a young woman struck out Lou Gherig and Babe Ruth in an Exhibition game. Women’s baseball got national attention again when the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was created to fulfill the desire for baseball during the war when lots of players were overseas (aka, sexy Geena Davis pitching in A League of Their Own Times). They were actually a softball league for the first few years because softball was already viewed as more of a women’s sport because of the Landis stuff. Around that time Little League started (1939) and was pretty much a national organization by the time they ended the AAGBPL in the 1950s. Little League baseball was created for young boys specifcally (IDK if there were other young girl baseball leagues at the time to be honest, but Little League took off and went national). So around 1950, Little League declares itself officially girl’s only (until 1974). This is basically in tandem with the decline of the AAGBPL’s popularity and the general push for women to leave their wartime jobs, marry, repopulate, become single income, male-headed suburban families if they were middle class, etc. I don’t know for a fact and I can’t find anything definitive, but with Little League pretty much choking out/absorbing smaller local kids’ baseball organizations I would assume it’s around this time that the already female coded softball became the de facto young girls’ alternative to baseball.
There are some women’s leagues in other parts of the world, and there are a few small leagues here. They operate outside of the current minor league/major league farm system that we have in place for new players which is what stifles them. In basketball there’s no minor leagues anymore. There are exhibition leagues but for men and women college basketball functions as the “minor league” meaning you’re drafted from college and then you play for a national team. In baseball, if the Phillies draft you after college you play for their minor league team first while they develop you. Because it works this way, most colleges fund men’s baseball and women’s softball as well (again, a few women play college baseball but it;s not common) and that funding is considered equal for Title IX purposes.
tl;dr Manpain is the issue.
the commissioner of professional baseball declared baseball unfit for women after a young woman struck out Lou Gherig and Babe Ruth in an Exhibition game
MANPAIN
(thank you for dropping some baseball/softball knowledge on us!)
This sentence is bringing me so much joy + anger at the same time. STRIKE EM OUT.
God, don’t you want to be able to do this?
Boy gets a better mark on a math test than girl. MEN UNFIT FOR MATH, BY DECREE.
Male cop shoots unarmed teenager. MEN UNFIT FOR POLICE SERVICE, BY DECREE.
Etc.
It is all I want on this planet.
Man Convicted Of Corruption, MEN UNFIT FOR POLITICAL OFFICE, BY DECREE.
I now know, much more about baseball than I ever wanted to know. So, thank you.
I’m so pleased with all the knowledge this thread has spawned! Baseball facts for everyone! (The Toast commentariat’s depth of knowledge on all subjects is a beautiful thing.)
I think what cheeses me about baseball so much is that it is a history of white men. My brother in laws love it and believe it’s a standard bearer of all things man (like catching a big fish and how much Duck Dynasty you watch). So, I’m all, GOODBYE BABY AND YOU TOO FUCKING BATHWATER.
But Toast histories are different histories. I will listen to them.
I love this kid. I want to send her five dollars for her pocket. Get some snacks, girl. You earned them.
This is a great comment! Thank you for sharing the history. Yes, there are women’s baseball teams, at least at a semi-competitive/rec-hybrid level (and there’s a US National team too). There’s a league in DC, a small league in Chicago, and enough teams scattered throughout the US and Canada to support a few tournaments each year. There’s also a league in Australia that visits the US periodically. Any interested Toasties should see if there’s anything going on in your area! I know my league is always looking for awesome women who want to learn to play.
*that should say “Little League declares itself boys only,” LOL DREAMING.
As a former museum teacher at the Baseball Hall of Fame, thank you for mentioning Jackie Mitchell! Telling her story to unsuspecting school tour groups was one of my favorite things about working there.
Landis was also a racist, so feel free to hate him doubly as well!
WITH PLEASURE
Send her to the MLB and let her OBLITERATE them.
(I think I heard a quote from her about wanting to go into basketball?)
That look in her eyes when she pitches… she will do just that, I have no doubt.
“I throw my curveball like Clayton Kershaw and my fastball like Mo’Ne Davis.”
QUEEN.
“When Davis was asked by ESPN post game how she dealt with excess media fascination, she had a perfect answer.
“I can always say no,” Davis said.”
WHO RAISED THIS CHILD, LET US PRAISE THEM AND HER ALIKE.
Things Mo’Ne Davis believes in:
-Financial independence
-Eating food when hungry
-Shutting down unwanted attention
New misandry heroine.
<3 <3 <3
I hope she’s always surrounded by people who recognize her awesomeness, and support her in continuing to be her own excellent self.
I caught a bit of one of the games on ESPN this weekend and was pretty impressed that she was on one of the teams in the first place, because I never see girls playing baseball. And now I find out that she’s even more awesome than I already knew!
AND the team she’s on has only been in existence for two years, I think? Even better.
Okay, that does it. I’m officially getting a Pinterest account just so I can start a board of “Misandrist Heroes.”
Please share link.
ditto
Yes. Need.
“It’s just that I do well when I’ve got money in my back pocket. And I know if I ever get hungry, I know I can get something to eat because I’ve got money.”
This kid is already so wise.
Seriously, this is a strategy I need to take up myself.
Have we decided that Dad is officially a gender neutral role yet, because that is such a Dad thing. “Do you have enough money to strike out the opposition and buy a snack afterwards?”
I like this idea. Practical, pragmatic, and supportive.
“Here, have $5. It’s hard dismantling the Patriarchy when you’re hungry.”
I LOVE HER. She is my new favorite baseball person. Maybe new favorite person, full stop.
Crossover world where Mo’Ne Davis and Tamika Flynn are best crimefighting/sportsplaying friends.
I am usually against fanfic about real people, but I will make an exception.
Tamika Flynn is perfect.
It makes me feel a little bit more hopeful about the future to see ultra-talented, CONFIDENT girls like her!
LOVE HER SO MUCH. HEARTS IN EYES EMOJII.
And I love that in Sunday’s game, she played, like, every position because the coach said she was the best player in general and they could put her wherever they needed help. I just love that whole team, I am rooting for them harder than any baseball team right now. They made a really awful weekend bearable for me.
Also, this: http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/mo-ne-davis-li…
“This girl is the best thing since food.”
That entire article made me so delighted, but this especially.
What the what the what, Catundra or the Worst Book Ever Written For Fat Girls. Amazon claims it’s aimed at Age Range: 5 – 9 years.
Fuck that fat book.
Because when a girl is being made fun of for her weight, the obvious answer is that IT’S HER FAULT, THE GROTESQUE FATTY FAT FAT.
UGH
There’s really something extra to a book on lecturing the reader to eat less and exercise aimed at a five year old, who literally has no choice in their diet or daily schedule and may have to be read the book by the person who does
I just went through and clicked “Yes, this review was helpful to me” on every 1 star review and “No, this review was not helpful to me” on every 5 star review. Fuck that shit.
I knew there would be five star reviews so I didn’t even click through.
You know, I was totally given that book (Serendipity books were my favorites to copy drawings from) and, as a fatty-fat 7 year old girl, the message went right over my head. As a 33yo it’s infuriating. >:( Why fast shame anyone, bit especially the 5-9 age set? It is so far from their responsibility to manage their weight–and to start shoving the idea of diets in their heads is flat-out unhealthy.
Oh man, that is a SERENDIPITY BOOK? I did not recognize the name and I thought I had every single one of those. I wonder if my parents still have all of them, and if that is in the collection. If so, I will be very happy to burn it.
Hmm, actually, I definitely did not have all of them, because I just looked and there are a lot of titles I do not recognize.
in cat years though, right? that is just about the age when a cat starts to get complacent and stops trying to make sure she is as appealing to humans as the day she was adopted. you tell a cat she should dress to flatter her maturing figure and you see how far you get. perhaps books aimed squarely at their demographic are the answer.
the only time I breathed the slightest criticism of my cat’s appearance, she started playing a new game with me called “hide a rubber band under something and pretend to have eaten it.” it gets me every time, she is trying to give me a heart attack to prove something.
I constantly tell my little Anne Cat that she is a fat cat, a princess tubby butt, a chubby little creatures, and ask her if she likes it when I rub her pudgy pudgy belly.
I figure it’s OK cause I’m fat too.
I’ve always thought that my cats preferred being plump to being skinny. They were skinny little catlings when I got them, but filled out after they got spayed and got comfortable in their new home, and they seem to be quite content when lying on their backs with the belly all spread out for admiration, or propped up Jabba-the-Hut style against a pillow, or slowly expanding to fill up the available space between two humans. I think it’s their genetic destiny too, as they look very Russian-blue-ish and have many other elements of a “cobby” build (short little legs, short round ears, etc.).
So, since they are perfectly at home in their fuller figures, I feel no compunction about terms of endearment that evoke round sweet things: pumpkin (plumpkin), muffin, butternut (fluffernut), etc.
The Jabba pose is my favorite! I used to have a fat black cat that couldn’t clean her belly without some wall support.
Anne does exactly that, the glorious barrel-shaped thing she is.
My girls are the same way. They are British Short Hairs so they are naturally stocky cats, which was what attracted me to them in the first place. They are beautiful- just the way they are.
Also, cat bellies are the best because it’s THE SOFTEST FUR EVER! I wish my belly was a cute as theirs.
I bet it is though. That’s the thing–I am always learning from my catgirls, who are now wise ten-year-old matrons, but one of their most impressive examples is a perfect confidence that the belly is loved and deserves love, that more belly means more love, and that to show the belly is to give a beautiful gift. And damn if everyone doesn’t receive it that way. : )
ETA: It’s a hard example to emulate, I admit, but trying seems to have positive results.
I’m trying hard to live by Cat Principles.
1- I am glorious above all things
2- Eat when hungry, sleep when sleepy, play when bored
3- Affection is given and received on my terms and only mine
4- Show displeasure clearly.
5- NO
6- Demand the things you want. If they aren’t given, demand them again, but louder this time.
7- If you are touched when you don’t want to be, say so. If they continue to touch you, make them bleed.
A+ EXCELLENT summary of cat philosophy
You win this picture of Derrida and his cat pretending to ignore each other:
8 – THERE IS A SPIDER ON THE WALL
9- MURDER murdermurdermurdermurder MURDER
I have- er, let’s be delicate and say “several” cats, and all but one of them was born in my house and has subsequently lived here their entire lives, being coddled and given treats all the while. As such, they are gigantic. The biggest one is about twenty-five pounds. He started out life being called “Smudge,” but after he hit the fifteen-pound mark, we started calling him “Pudge” as an affectionate nickname, and it stuck. Mostly because, well:
(Other nicknames include “chubster” and “fatlet.”)
The ex-stray cat- Pudge’s mother- has also gained a significant amount of weight since she’s lived with us. I am totally okay with this, since she spent the first few months of her life foraging for food in garbage cans; as far as I’m concerned, she DESERVES to have a huge belly. Plus, you know, she gave birth to a litter of five kittens. She’s earned it:
I tell my cat she better not lose her looks or nobody will love her anymore cause she is just so awful. she has no reaction whatsoever. then when she rolls around on her back to show off her belly I tell her she is immodest and should be ashamed of herself. then she does it more. then I tell her not to bite me and she bites me. anybody wants to write another helpful book for young girls using cats as role models can use my cat, she’s good for it.
My cat is pretty tubby (she’s actually a tiny cat, but somebody seems to have replaced her stomach with a basketball), and also has the swinging fat pad that accompanies imperfectly-done spaying. It flaps back and forth when she runs, and it’s the cutest thing ever.
she wants to help you work on your cardio
My 15 lb calico is zaftig. She is pleasantly plump and she would eat that shitty little mole the second he started to speak.
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Best review: “I threw this book away. Not only does it show the fat kitty being forced into weight loss so she won’t be teased – INSTEAD of teaching tolerance toward children who are different – BUT cats cannot live on a vegetarian diet. They are obligate carnivores. They MUST have meat to survive. God made them that way. Any uninformed person who reads this book and gets the bright idea to put kitty on a diet will end up with a blind, sick cat…eventually a DEAD cat.”
That was part of my response. “Hey, if you are teased, you should do something COMPLETELY UNNATURAL and ignore all of your body’s signals/messages in order to become thin and aesthetically pleasing to those who were cruel to you.”
Bless Mo’Ne Davis. Let’s all throw like a girl.
In the UK, the 8am headlines on BBC Radio 4 on the Today Programme said: “Protestors have thrown fire bombs at riot police in Ferguson”. I did a complaint on the useless BBC complaints website, which will achieve nothing.
Fun Fact:Softball was invented because the Patriarchy didn’t want boys to have to compete with girls, so they said baseball was “too dangerous” and shunted the girls off to softball purgatory, where the men could safely say, “But it’s not really baseball, it’s just girls.”
My SIL played softball in college and has out pitched many a MLB player. But heaven forbid that a “lady” could play such a rough sport as baseball!
You go Mo’Ne. Out pitch them ALL
My favorite ball playing memory: My brother and I used to both play for our church; I played softball, he played baseball. One weekend, I had a morning game, and then we went straight to his afternoon game. His team only had seven players show up. Since I was still in uniform from my game, they threw me in as right fielder and centerfielder so the game could go on.
Playing right field AND centerfield SUCKS because that is just too much fucking ground to cover and I was used to playing third base anyway. So of course the other team was like “hurr hurr girls can’t play baseball.” INCLUDING THE FUCKING ADULT ASS COACHES.
And then I got up to bat, completely in a rage. And they were like — “hurr hurr move in, girls can’t hit.”
And I hit a fucking grand slam.
We still were completely *steamrolled*, due to not enough outfielders, but at my second at bat I hit another home run out of spite even though they knew to back the fuck up that time. (I am two years older than my brother, which may have had something to do with the fact that I was an unstoppable beast at bat, but I choose to believe that it was the power of misandry working through me that day.)
Men can’t HANDLE competing with women: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Mitchell
I don’t understand how things quickly went from getting better to so, so much worse in Ferguson. Reports last night of police issuing a five-second warning, three hours before curfew, then blasting the peaceful crowd, including children, with teargas. No confirmation whatsoever of the violence that supposedly precipitated this.
It seems overwhelmingly obvious that the militarized police, not the actual residents, are the problem here. So if your only tool is a hammer and it’s not working, yeah, sure, bring in a bigger hammer. Call the fucking National Guard. The only thing that is going to make people stop protesting, peacefully, is justice, or at the very least, some indication whatsoever that somebody gives a shit about their lives. This is not rocket science.
I’d be down with bringing in the National Guard if their directive was to do crowd control on the REAL problem: the police.
Because Kent State went SO well…this is The Worst.
(edit: a phrase)
From what I understand, a certain number of both local and out-of-state vultures drawn to the free-for-all have showed up to set fires and loot and be nuisances. So there are things going on besides actual prosocial community members– I’ve heard actual prosocial community members complaining about them. But. That’s. Wayyyyyyyyy insufficient fig leaf for this shit, still.
Wesley Lowery has been reporting that community members have started creating human walls around these businesses: http://uproxx.com/webculture/2014/08/when-the-loo…
The vultures only came when it was clear how rotten the situation was. That’s all on the police for not letting the protests happen peacefully.
Just reminding everyone that the only true Dune film is the unmade and totally bananas Jodorowsky one!
Unrelated, but Toasties: does anyone have a good source for an interesting Canadian news blog or page they do to that’s relatively unbiased but reports on actual social justice issues? I read Shameless, but it doesn’t get updated as often as I’d like it to.
I would love some recommendations on this, too! Rabble.ca is extremely leftward-slanted, but the social justice coverage is good. I also like thetyee.ca – it’s based in BC but has pretty decent national coverage. I like ipolitics.ca for independent politics reporting. It’s almost entirely paywalled, but you can get a free year if you can scrounge up a student email address.
I was going to say The Tyee, too, although I’m in BC so I’m kind of biased.
Um, well, there’s rabble.ca, but it’s pretty intense on it’s social justice issues. I like & enjoy about 50% of the content, but the rest is stuff written by that super over-the-top earnest kid from university who thought you were on the side of evil corporations for drinking a can of coke.
Canadian blogosphere: bit of a wilderness in my experience.
Rabble is laughably over the top sometimes. I saw a tweet from them last week – something like “the worst part about listing the top 10 reasons to destroy capitalism is that it’s so hard to stop at 10!”. Come on.
Yeah! It’s a pity that they get so extreme, because there really is space for a good solid left-ish online voice in Canada.
Totally. Lots of gaps in Canadian online media, for sure.
Canadian Toasties should quit our jobs and start a nice solid left-wing commentary site.
Yessssssssss! That would be awesome.
I would read it!
Yeah, it’s hit or miss in a lot of places. I’m reeeeally interested to see what Ricochet does, though — it should be launching soon, I think? They’ve got some preview editorials and pieces up already though. https://ricochetmedia.ca/
Okay, I was just scrolling through the Ringly page and one of the “It can notify you when…” options is “He texted.” So glad I can finally have a ring that lets through important communication from men – now I can finally ignore all those women who have been texting me.
Toasties! I am back from my vacation in Croatia and I am really looking forward to catching up on the 2 weeks’ worth of articles I missed while I was gone. I MISSED YOU ALL. *clings*
(Also, I discovered that while I still need my Ativan for long-haul flights over the ocean, I am totally fine with short flights over land. It’s like taking the bus, except the bus flies. I can deal with that! Yay for progress!)
Ahh, fabulous! I hope you had a wonderful time. And great news on the short-haul flights!
How was Croatia?? I really want to go to the beaches and go sailing and see where Game of Thrones is filmed!!
It was beautiful and really hot and there is some amazing seafood to be had. I didn’t have the best of luck with beaches because I didn’t do all the research, so I ended up on super-crowded rocky beaches or places where the “beach” was a small strip of cement on a boulder with a little ladder leading into the REALLY DEEP water. There was a really cute little swimming hole on Lokrum (an island 15 minutes from Dubrovnik) but I found it on my last day there and I was too lazy to sail back to Dubrovnik and get my swimming stuff, so I missed out.
“Except the bus flies…” Well that’s my adorable mental image of the day!
I have also clicked on the Ringly ad, and I was very taken in by it until I realized that you still have to get out your phone to text back, you can’t just whisper into your Ringly like a secret agent, and then I closed the page in disgust.
I wanted the stones to change colour. This 21st century future lady-jewelry is GARBAGE.
EAT THAT FUCKING MOLE, CATUNDRA.
I’m all saying is, when I was a teenager, our chubby family cat used to kill moles and leave them on the front porch for us as a gift. Just sayin’.
My cat likes to hide small rodents in the leaf piles that collect on the back deck, so I can find them later. Huzzah.
Fans of The Two Monks might enjoy this rundown of Great Mistakes in English Medieval Architecture.
Bless you for sharing this beautiful gift with us.
I just shared this with my whole office (of architects) and was immensely pleased as I heard the snort laughter spread through the office.
Praise you.
This may be a question born out of my ignorance of firearms, but how does this even happen? From the NYT autopsy findings link:
“Some of the bullets entered and exited several times, including one that left at least five different wounds.”
I know that bullets can fragment once they’ve hit you, but not before, right? I am obviously not the expert, and I know they have very qualified professionals working this case, but this is somewhat difficult to process logically.
I was also wondering this – anyone know about guns and have an answer?
Could be a bunch of things, none of them terribly likely, but you can sorta see in the drawing how that might maybe work – bullet enters at the wrist, exits up the arm, enters the chest and then travels upward to exit the chest and penetrate the lower jaw? Or it fragments at any point when it’s inside him and the separate fragments do something kinda similar. Or the Ferguson PD buys ammo from the same place as Lee Harvey Oswald, IDK
Potentially upsetting description alert!
Later in the article they say one of the bullets “traveled through his face, exited his jaw and re-entered his collarbone.”
Disturbing imagery alert:
I imagine it depends how he was holding his arms– like, if he was blocking his face (arm bent at the elbow) or if he was bending over either blocking his head or with arms raised (as the autopsy report in the NYT article), there could be multiple exits/entries. Also, the report mentioned that he was shot 6 times but only 3 bullets were found, so maybe there were fragments that ricocheted.
(Sorry for bluntness, reading that article made me shut down): Multiple body parts folded on top of/in front of each other, bullet travels in a straight line through the stack.
Because I have no self control/apparently want to raise my blood pressure, I read some comments on the NYTimes autopsy article. I thought the robbery thing had been debunked? (And not that it needs to be said here, but many scumbag humans still don’t get it: even if you steal some cigars, you shouldn’t be shot to death by the police!!!!!!)
Re. the robbery: by my understanding of events, it was probably him at the convenience store, taking those cigars. (I watched the video, and while I think it’s hazy whether or not it was def Brown, his friend was definitely there and recognizable. His friend also admits to being there with Brown.)
Your latter point is still extremely fucking valid though, particularly since even according to the police chief, the officer didn’t know that Brown was even a suspect in that robbery. Regardless, you don’t shoot an unarmed person as they’re running away. blech.
My understanding is that the officer who shot him was unaware of the robbery and that the stop was completely unrelated.
Slightly unrelated, but I just read a short story satire of Facebook that I think a lot of you would enjoy. It’s been pinging around in my head all morning:
https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/t…
Oh man, I just read it. That is raw. Recommend, recommend, recommend!
Okay, this is off-topic but I’m a little frustrated with my lack of technical expertise, even though, for heaven’s sakes, I was a research scientist in computer science at one time. Two questions so far: (1) how do you get rid of Jezebel’s pop-up ads? There’s no dismiss button and the ads cover up the text and (2) how do you make edits to comments in *intensedebate*. (I do know how to use html w/in the comments but … I’m looking for an *edit* button.)
Thank you in advance, to use business speak, or to be optimistic … .
No idea on the first one, my ad blocker eats those. On the second one, I believe you may well have to be a registered commenter, rather than “guesting”. After I submit a comment, there’s three little links in the lower-right corner of my comment appearing, including “edit” and “delete”.
1) Dunno if there’s a specific way to get rid of the pop-ups, but stuff like that (at the AV Club) made me finally install an ad blocker (I use AdBlock for Safari right now). You can white-list websites you like that don’t have obnoxious ads (like The Toast!), while leaving Jezebel ad-free when irritating crap that like happens. There’s probably a way to block ads from specific domains, as well, though I have not played with it.
2) From what I can tell, you just go back to the original comment (i.e., where it was posted), and there should be an “Edit” button at the bottom of the post next to Delete and Report. I think the comment is only editable for some period of time after it was posted, though? I’ve never been quite sure!
I THINK you can edit a comment until it gets replies. I THINK.
Also, I’ve noticed some pop-ups don’t have little Xes but if you click on the site behind them around the edges or something, they disappear automatically.
Oooohhh, it’s when it gets replies? That makes sense!
Ahhh. Now, the mystery is solved. My laptop almost went out the window.
I find it’s really helpful to read The Toast instead.
LOL! I went to this link on Jezebel: This cat-adopting-a-bunny video is tight as shit.
As I said, I’m new to The Toast, and I love this site. Love love love it. On it all day. My life is better. Will someday do a psychological study on myself which gives actual test results to support my statement that “my life is better.”
I’m pretty sure the Worst Book For Fat Girls would actually be She’s Come Undone by (ALSO A MAN) Wally Lamb. Thank you for your consideration.
I have been both fat and not-fat. You get made fun of for something regardless, because there are always buttholes in the world. Also, that one page was so ire-inducing that I think the full thing would just send me rocketing to the moon on a jetstream of rage.
I have spent basically any time I’ve been on twitter with rare exception just horror-reading and retweeting things regarding to Ferguson. It all makes me so sick to my stomach. “Post-racial nation” my ass.
Female warriors help take back Iraqi damm.
http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/08/female-warr…
ISIS hates female warriors because, as a tweet says “… if a woman kills you, no heaven.”
*big smile*, not endorsing war though.
On a related note, have you seen photos of Afghan policewomen? There’s nothing quite as amazing as the sight of a woman in head-to-toe black hijab rappelling down the side of a building while carrying an AK-47.
Wait can you please link to this photo? that is all I want to see today.
My bad, it’s Iran:
But here’s an Afghan woman in police training, just because it’s an awesome image:
And another because it’s been a shitty few days:
Thank you! This is exactly what I needed today, along with the “We Have Always Fought” essay (and my misandrist heroes, Mo’ne Davis and Michele Roberts).
Did anyone else go see Mallory and Roxane at Bad Feminist friday? I DID. They both have even more resonant and compelling voices than I could have hoped for. It was fantastic and so jam packed they sold out of the books. Well done feminism!
I did too! The whole thing was amazing. I went for Mallory and Roxane but I’m also really excited now to check out the work of the other readers. I wish there were events like that where I live. Maybe there are and I just have to look harder.
You guys, I miss the old Hairpin. Not that I don’t love The Toast- I 100% do. I just hate that Jia has left The ‘Pin as well, and I just wish Edith would come back and be awesome again. :/
Amen.
I still go back and look with fascination at their “Friday open threads,” which now get maybe… 10 comments a week? If that? While the Toast ones have like, 800 minimum.
It felt like such a sudden shake-up that I’m still patiently waiting for everyone to stop being so polite and mutually supportive and for someone to write an anonymous tell-all about what actually happened there! I mean, even if it’s to say, “Oh, it was completely a coincidence that basically the entire editorial staff left the site within a three month period.”
I would read that anonymous tell-all. Anonymously, of course. But many times over.
I miss those massive Friday open threads, thank God we still have The Toast for them.
I’m guessing that Edith was burned out- can’t blame her. No offense to Emma, but it just was such a hard blow with Edith being gone. It just felt like it was her baby. Of course, everyone has moved on to other projects, but Jia felt like the last hold out for the old ‘Pin. Now she’s gone, I just feel unsure about the future of it.
I have to say I was really heartened by Choire’s interview with Haley. She sounds great, and I would love to see a return to the delight in petty enthusiasms and personal obsessions of Ye Olde Hairpin. There was a whimsicality to Edith’s version that I don’t think anybody could ever replicate – nor should they try – but a little more of the oddball would not go amiss, I think. I personally got a little burned out on doing the Estate Jewelry posts, first because it was getting much harder to find stuff I hadn’t already covered, but mainly because it wasn’t as much fun to do without Edith and all the brilliant comments. But I think I’m feeling the itch again…no matter what, I need to write more and get out of my stupid miserable day job malaise.
monica those posts are really important
some of us need them to live
This is true. I’ve been losing health units since they ended.
Monicaaaaaaa bring back Estate Jewelry for usssssss we will shower you in witty joyous comments.
You did the Estate Jewelry! That was fantastic. Thank you for many happy thoughts. I think you may have been responsible for me buying my wedding ring on AffordableVintageJewelry.com.
Ahhh, Monica I was just thinking yesterday about how much I miss reading the estate jewelry posts. Posts like yours, plus the whimsy and hilarity of ye olde Hairpin are what made the place so special. Haley sounds like a real good egg, and I’e enjoyed her writing in the past. I’m glad you’re getting the itch to start writing again!
YOU GUYS <3
I LOVED your estate jewellery posts! (Would have happily commented sooner but just came off an internet free 3 day vay-cay.)
Yeah, I have said “what the fuck happened?” out loud, to myself, more than once. Because something clearly did.
I missed them much more before the spambots took over completely. Now even going back to reread an old article has 100 spam comments and I constantly get spam notifications. The excuses that they couldn’t institute a good spam filter killed a lot of what goodwill I had left towards them.
The Hairpin situation makes me sad and I hope they can recover and thrive again. I realize that good writers get poached for book deals etc., but the site that I got into had Jia, Jolie, the bargain bin round-ups, Jane (?) with her makeup stuff, AHP with Classic Scandals, all those fantastic advice columns, and a thriving commenting community. They lost a lot of those in quick succession and replaced them with a lot of music stuff that I don’t click with, plus the spambots.
THE FUCKING SPAMBOTS! I hate getting messages for old comments that is just a ridiculous nonsense reply.
Yup, you said my exact same thoughts! No more bargain bin round-ups, etc. and the excess of music videos, the freaking spambots, GAH!
Changes began immediately after change of publisher. My working hypothesis is that the new publisher had orders to clean house, or the new publisher does not work and play well with others.
Wait. Publisher, or Editor? Isn’t it owned by the dudes at The Awl? And they hire editors who run the site independently? I am 100% guessing here based on only what an outsider can see, but their post introducing the latest editor a) introduced her as an editor, and b) wasn’t a masterpiece of clarity with regards to the financial structure of the underlying organization, which I am pretty sympathetic to, but which doesn’t really do anything to explain what in the hell happened over there.
Also, do you mean when Edith Zimmerman left? I am super late to the Hairpin-and-its-offspring party, so I am easily confused. But I am also intrigued and/or terrified by massive flameouts, and the Hairpin seems to have built one of the best communities on the web and then burned it to the fucking ground in a very short period of time. I guess I am just curious about how that happens.
I do mean publisher. If I remember correctly, Anne Marie was the first departure, announced after a noticeable absence and with no message directly from her, no goodbye. Edith’s departure was planned and announced in advance, after several other departures. All of this happened after the new and current publisher came on board. Anne Marie’s leading absence was imediately after.
Huh. So whois tells me that thehairpin.com is registered to the guys at the awl, and the hairpin’s article on Wikipedia redirects to the awl’s article, which indicates that the awl changed publishers in May of 2014. But Edith Zimmerman left the year before that, right? And the Hairpin’s decline predated May of 2014? There’s no mention of who the publisher was before the dude that left in May, but maybe that’s the change that precipitated stuff? (Shankman had been there for “nearly three years,” which would go back to some time in 2011, when the ‘Pin was founded in 2010.)
Damn. I know this might be a sore spot for some of the people who were an active part of that community, and I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. I tend to fall into rabbit holes when I want to figure something out, and I have a deadline, so this is obviously a horrible combination.
Gang, let us choose not to have this conversation here.
Noted. And, apologies.
And my hypothesis stands as the best explanation in my mind for Jia’s moving on so quickly to bigger and better pursuits. Other than her obvious awesomeness.
And I understand Choire and Alex are trying out new pursuits, too.
I’m interested to see where Haley Mlotek takes it — she’s the publisher of Worn, which is the best fashion magazine I’ve ever read, and I think she could do some great stuff with it. But it’ll be an uphill battle to revive the community in the comments, that’s for sure.
I know, I love Jia, but I bet she is moving on to something incredible.
Not only is Catundra offensive, but it also IGNORES THE FACT THAT FAT CATS ARE THE BEST.
They’re so ROUND
Their BELLIES.
Possibly of interest to some Toasties: the Hugo science fiction awards were last night and there was a strong female presence among the winners, including in particular Kameron Hurley’s essay “We Have Always Fought”, on how women are written out of history. Personally I’m really happy about the results.
Links:
Essay http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/…
Speech http://www.kameronhurley.com/hugo-speeches-thanks…
Awards http://loncon3.org
Not gonna lie, I did a little witchy dance when I read the list. Ann Leckie won for Ancillary Justice! Such a great list of winners.
News has been pretty muted on this, but there was another unarmed black man shot by the police last week, this in Los Angeles. He was shot 3 times in the back while lying on the ground; his family says the police knew the man had mental health issues. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08…
“And then Catundra the overweight cat died horribly because nobody had ever explained to her that, being a cat, her body could not synthesize crucial proteins and amino acids from an exclusively vegetarian diet. And she was, in fact, miserable, because the mole was a little bastard who had lied to her in order to further his own goals and desires.”
“How dare you possess a body that I either can’t or don’t want to fuck,” said the mole.
“CHOMP,” said Catundra.
GOLD.
“Then Catundra rolled in a convenient patch of catnip, sunning her fluffy kitty belly, unconcerned with the foolish opinions of all animals that were not her. And her past was littered with the bones of moles who thought she was a cat they could sleep on.”
Sorry for my inexcusable Canadian ignorance**, but wouldn’t this be a great reason to give cops smart guns? Or is that still too close to “selling” smart guns for the NRA’s comfort?
**And by that I mean “yes, ‘grabbing for my gun’ is a McGuffin, I know.”
I have- er, let's be delicate and say "several" cats, and all but one of them was born in my house and has subsequently lived here their entire lives, being coddled and given treats all the while. As such, they are gigantic. The biggest one is about twenty-five pounds. He started out life being called "Smudge," but after he hit the fifteen-pound mark, we started calling him "Pudge" as an affectionate nickname, and it stuck. Mostly because, well:
<img src="http://i62.tinypic.com/25a25o7.jpg">
(Other nicknames include "chubster" and "fatlet.")
The ex-stray cat- Pudge's mother- has also gained a significant amount of weight since she's lived with us. I am totally okay with this, since she spent the first few months of her life foraging for food in garbage cans; as far as I'm concerned, she DESERVES to have a huge belly. Plus, you know, she gave birth to a litter of five kittens. She's earned it:
<img src="http://i61.tinypic.com/3097d4n.jpg">
(If it makes you feel better, I met up with a Toast/Pin friend, who is also a college friend, and we speculated unreasonably about what happened. WE DON'T KNOW EITHER but you're not the only one who can't stop wondering!)