#Ferguson
I hope you all got the chance to read Ezekiel Kweku’s piece from yesterday on Michael Brown and the events in Ferguson, but if you didn’t, why, here it is again.
In case you loved that Mary Beard profile in The New Yorker as much as I did (you didn’t, no one loves as much as I do), please consider reading her piece on rape in the LRB from 2000, which is fabulous, and also contains the following turn of phrase:
I have to admit that I have long been suspicious of any argument that starts with a chimp and ends with a human being; and I may, for this reason alone, be an unsuitably prejudiced commentator on any study in evolutionary biology.
If you would like to spend $3.99 to read an incredible story by Leslie Jamison about 52 Blue (the lonely whale), I can firmly recommend it. To be fair, her publicist sent me a PDF, so I didn’t even have to spend the $3.99, but I WOULD HAVE:
The whale that Joe George and Velma Ronquille heard was an anomaly: His sound patterns were recognizable as those of a blue whale, but his frequency was unheard of. It was absolutely unprecedented. So they paid attention. They kept tracking him for years, every migration season, as he made his way south from Alaska to Mexico. His path wasn’t unusual, only his song—and the fact that they never detected any other whales around him. He always seemed to be alone.
a) this is the last “Ask Polly”
b) it’s really good
c) i lied for drama, there will be more “Ask Polly,” but at The Cut
It has been a real shit week for women in gaming.
Thank you for your kind notes about my sick toddler! We spent much of yesterday at the ER explaining the merits of eating a Popsicle over getting an IV. Also, our NEW babysitter has morning sickness. If you are keeping count, this makes 4 sitters in the last 2.5 years that have become pregnant while working for us.
THEORY: my husband is impregnating them all in turn and gaslighting the FUCK out of me.
MORE PLAUSIBLE THEORY: this is the logical end result of getting most of your babysitters from the same apartment complex housing newlywed LDS couples fresh out of BYU.
On the role of humor in sex work activism:
I don’t mean to dismiss the incredibly serious writing and activism that sex worker do on digital platforms, in the streets, and in their communities. It is abundant and important and my gratitude for it cannot be adequately expressed here. It is work that is performed with earnestness that I, in my self-consciousness and desire not to seem to want anything especially badly—even basic decency in my workplace—eschew in favor of humorous outrage and tongue-in-cheek dismissals of our opponents because, like many sex workers, I feel vulnerable to anti-sex work critique from antis and figure that if I can laugh at myself first, their judgment isn’t as painful.
Oh. I definitely thought he was dead. There’s a lot more here, too, though. OR?
I would emigrate and never look back.
