Roxane Gay’s The Butter launches today! You’ll be able to find The Butter posts here on the mainpage until she spins off (always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom), and if you want to see them ALL IN ONE PLACE, you can go here! I mean, later today, when there are posts. I’m just excited.
You can also follow The Butter on Facebook and Twitter! AND YOU SHOULD.
Solange. If you need a link to know what I’m talking about, find a new site to hang out at.
my literal favourite movie:
Other parts of Follow That Bird aren’t quite as ham-fisted, but still make an emotional impact. “One Little Star,” the song Bird sings as he longs for home and Snuffleupagus, is a heartfelt wallop, as is the scene where Maria, Telly, and other Sesame Street residents try to talk Bird out of leaving. They tell Bird that just because he’s a bird, it doesn’t mean he has to live with and be friends with only other birds. They love him, but because he honestly says he’d like to give living with other birds a try, they’re reluctantly willing to let him go.
I’m doing an interview with Lynn Lurie about her new book, Quick Kills, and if you’d like to know what we’re talking about, buy it and follow along!
Slide. Slide. Slide. Slide. Slide. Slide. Well, looks like we’ve reached the end. I’ve graded your essays. I saw a lot of good things in them about Michelangelo and his steroid goggles, what that Mona Lisa woman is thinking about, and that gang of beneficent hoarders named The Medici. But I do want to correct a few things. I saw some analysis of mannerism, chiaroscuro, and foreshortening. I believe you have mistaken me with someone who knows what these things mean.
Peak Nicole link.
And then I cried for HOURS (this is really beautiful and also people should not lose their children and do not worry, this is not that horrible video of the dad singing “Blackbird,” it’s about grief and its evolution.)
You are a monster.
What an utterly repulsive organization:
The vast majority of Everest’s students have no prior experience with college — few relatives who attended themselves or high school counselors to help navigate the process. Sintia Lopez, a veteran, emigrated from Nicaragua when she was 12, unable to speak a word of English; she knew nobody who had ever gone to college. She believed her Everest representative when she was told that the school was one of the best in Florida, and believed the representative’s claim that the high tuition was a sign of quality education that she wouldn’t get at a community college. She didn’t know that it was abnormal for a school to call you at all hours of the day, begging you to enroll.
My name is David, and I am the marine biologist who put a shrimp on a treadmill—a burden I will forever carry. To be clear, the treadmill did not cost millions of taxpayer dollars, the goal of the research was not to exercise shrimp, and the government did not pay me—or anyone else—to work out shrimp on treadmills.
Every time I learn something new about Mr. Rogers, the more I’m convinced he was the most perfect human being ever. pic.twitter.com/9nQ7xPelxU
— Jeff Chausse (@JeffChausse) November 14, 2014
Follow that Bird occupies a special schmaltzy place in my heart, but that movie gave me ALL THE ADOPTEE FEELS when I was a kid. Also, when my mom took me to see it in the theater, she had to take me out again, because I was yelling at the top of my lungs “THEY CAN’T DO THAT TO BIG BIRD.” ohhh my gosh I haven’t actually tried to watch it in years, and I’m fairly certain some parts would still be hard to watch.
Fellow adoptee, I know those feels for sure.
YAY BUTTER YAY BUTTER NOW PLEASE NOW PLEASE
That article about Everest College is just horrid in so many different ways. Admissions personnel were never allowed to discuss financial aid directly with students, according to the first former admissions representative — “they would fire you on the spot if you mentioned financial aid” — but were instead told to promise students that, once they had signed initial enrollment papers, they would be given financial aid counseling. But more often than not, she said, students left that single counseling session confused about what they had signed. “A couple days into class, I’d often get calls from students I enrolled saying, ‘I think I took out a loan? I don’t understand, what did this mean?’” she said. “But you couldn’t answer. You could only give them the runaround and say, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay it back until after you graduate.’”
It’s criminal. To prey on people who are undereducated, not financially literate, and in some cases not literate or severely under-literate at all? Disgusting. To make an entire industry around this? It’s like the worst of the payday-loan places and the rent-to-own places had a baby and then dressed the baby in a “This is the ticket to your future!” outfit. Horrid.
My mom sat on a federal grand jury that convicted a guy who had committed this kind of fraud with people and federal housing loans during the real estate bubble.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s how these clowns should.be treated. Playing fast and loose with federal dollars? Having people sign stuff they don’t understand? You should spend some time in Club Fed baby.
How come they don’t? There must be some sort of legislation covering pushing people into signing financial paperwork with mis- or poor information? Or is it waiting for someone to take a civil suit or something!
You know. It’s really likely that the article linked actually answers those questions, so I should go and read it.
Thing I take away from the “Dear Kate” piece (aside from ALL MY TEARS) is, for the love of god, don’t be that friend:
“One of Steve’s longtime friends gave a reading at Kate’s funeral. But when Steve didn’t bounce back as he expected, they argued and parted ways. A mother whose daughter died nine years ago says her close—now former—friend has never acknowledged that anything happened. Another mother told me one day that her friends had grown impatient with her grieving. “They seem to want me to get better for their sakes,” she said.”
Also, the point at which I utterly lost it:
“Last November, Steve and I were having pizza in Bloomington. When he handed his credit card to the waitress, she looked at his name for a moment. Then she asked, “Did you know Kate Comiskey?” When Steve said he was Kate’s father, the young woman’s eyes filled with tears, and she threw her arms around him. She was one of Kate’s students, she said, and had been thinking about Kate that week. After nine years, she still remembered the date Kate died. Her words reminded us that even if we don’t always know it, Kate is remembered by those whose lives she touched.”
I’m losing it now, at the dog photo, captioned “Lola, shown at Kate’s wall in Maine, was her constant companion. The Lab mix died in Nancy’s arms last year as Nancy whispered, “Kate loves you” in her ear.”
I have been thinking, lately, that the “get over it” attitude needs to be killed dead.
In the complete opposite direction, I hope I am one fraction as good as a friend to someone as this guy:
“Six months after Kate was killed, Steve got a call from a friend in New York City he hadn’t seen or spoken to for more than a decade. On a whim that day, he had Googled Steve’s name and found the news stories of Kate’s death. He called and told Steve he was flying to Indianapolis. If all Steve could do was to meet him at the airport for a drink, that was fine. He’d turn around and catch the next plane back. He ended up staying with us for a few days, and we’ve been close friends with him and his wife ever since.”
Is that good friending? I would find that a little overwhelming. It obviously worked out for them, but I’m not sure I’d consider it friendship best practice.
It would definitely depend on the strength of the prior friendship I think.
I just meant, I hope I can be ‘there’ for someone who needs me at much as the author and her husband needed this friend.
I think it depends upon the people involved, but after all Steve could have said no. 🙂
I have a friend who recently lost her 9 year old son in a car accident. I immediately sent it to her (with a content note) and made sure to mention his name.
Also, the part where I lost it? The dog’s ashes being with her. ALL THE FEELS.
My favorite (“favorite”) part was when the author said she and her husband invited a long-term friend and his new GF to stay with them for a weekend… and a week or two later that couple sent them an email (!!) listing out all the ways in which they were bad hosts.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME
BURN IT DOWN TO THE GROUND
LEAVE NO TRACE
SOLANGE LOOKS LIKE A PRIESTESS AND WE ARE ALL HER ACOLYTES I LOVE IT SO MUCH
Husband? What husband? Solange has married womanhood!
I need to complain for a second about how I had to do an hour and a half of work begining at 6:30 and the DMV towed my car in the 30 minutes I was parked illegally, which, fair enough, but the towed car locator is down, as is the phone line, and I would really like my car back. Fuck the DC DMV. They’re the worst.
The Butter! Mr. Rogers! Shrimp on a Treadmill! Solange’s Performance Art Wedding! Nicole’s really starting off my wk RIGHT.
Utterly unrelated, this wkd I was sucked into a Netflix black hole of The Killing (Season 1/ Season 2) — anyone want to discuss EVERY ASPECT of that show bc WTF? I loved it wholeheartedly notwithstanding some of the hmmm/what?! moments I dont care! I was ENTERTAINED! WHO AMONG THEE IS PERFECT? LET THAT MAN CAST THE FIRST STONE etc. etc.
Ohmigod if you loved the first two seasons you’re gonna Really love the third. So so good
YES! (sn: great name!) That is great to hear! I still don’t really understand how Councilman Ken Doll met / dated Rosie if ultimately she was a maid and a not an escort? Did that really happen or did they just drop that thread entirely in Season 2?
That Everest article, oh my GOD. “At every step of the way, people fell prey to Everest precisely because of tactics designed to capitalize on their poverty and their trust in an accredited university. Its advertisements targeted poor and minority students, capitalizing on their desperation for jobs to get them on the phone with admissions representatives. Those salespeople used classic high-pressure tactics to sign them up for programs that were up to five times the price of similar offerings at a community college, and twice as much as a state university. One former employee called the tactics she had been taught “beyond deceptive and immoral.
For many students, a major life decision that was meant to lift them out of poverty has left them more deeply entrenched in it.”
I’m glad the parent company has been shut down and lawsuits against Everet are pending, but I really want to see the people in charge of this go to jail.
“Corinthian paid its CEO, Jack Massimino, more than $3 million in compensation last year, including a bonus of $1 million in what was the company’s worst fiscal year to date, according to SEC filings” whoops my head just exploded from anger
I also really want to see the people in charge of this stripped of every single one of their dollars and assets and have that money go back to the people they swindled. Even if it isn’t remotely enough repay their loans, even if it only buys every person a single goddamn breakfast sandwich, I want it every penny of it gone from the hands of those despicable charlatans and misers.
And so much of the debt the former students are struggling under is federal student loan debt, which theoretically could be forgiven if a law were passed allowing for debt forgiveness in cases where a college has been shut down by the feds. I don’t have much hope of that happening, but it’s a possible solution–it wouldn’t give students back the years they’ve spent investing in a worthless degree, but it could erase their outstanding debt.
As I said in a comment above, perpetrating fraud with federal dollars? You should go to federal prison.
The Bluebird of Happiness scene is one of the saddest goddamned things ever committed to film. I don’t think I’d be able to watch it as an adult. (Also horrifying, on the same theme: the episode “Appa’s Lost Days” from Avatar: The Lost Airbender. 22 SOLID MINUTES OF SOBBING.)
re: Appa’s Lost Days, I am RIGHT THERE WITH YOU sister
Yes!! My husband’s “you’ll love this episode, you love Appa” changed to “oh god what have I wrought” very, very quickly.
I always think “I can watch this, no problem, I’m good!” because for some reason I think I’m the kind of person who didn’t start crying two sentences in to the article about grief that Nicole linked above. Sobbing. Endless sobbing.
(Plus, I usually watch it back to back with “Tales of Ba Sing Se”, so I’m usually already crying over the “Little Soldier Boy” segment when I start watching “Appa’s Lost Days.”)
You are a glutton for punishment.
(leaves from the vine… falling so slow…)
(yes I am a monster)
I really am. My favorite stretch of episodes in Young Justice is similarly emotionally devastating (“Failsafe” through “Misplaced” if anyone watches) and yet I’m always like “Haha, why don’t I just watch all four of them! Why don’t I just DIE!”
Iroh :'( :'( :'(
That episode: a very sensitive approach to lasting grief.
In fact, I love AtLA because it models such good behavior. People behave badly or misunderstand one another, and the characters say “Hey! That’s not OK! I have boundaries! I have compassion for the things you’re dealing with, but you need to treat me like a person!”
It is weeeird how much children’s programming doesn’t do that, and instead has 16 minutes of bullying, 4 minutes of crying, and two minutes of apologizing for bullying.
Yesssss, AtLA does an amazing job of modeling behavior! I love how it allows for complexity and really shows the work that you have to do to forgive or to be forgiven or to process big emotions. Aang has to really work for his centered-ness and pacifism, and he gets into trouble when he doesn’t deal with his negative emotions (anger over losing Appa, grief over losing his people). Zuko has to individually make amends with the different members of Team Avatar and with his uncle (and also goes through a ton of ups and downs on the road to being “good”). Katara and Toph have to talk through things and learn to respect each other’s differences.
tl;dr IT’S JUST SUCH A GOOD SHOW GUYS
IT’S SO GOOD.
OK, real talk: I want to love Korra. I love the passage of time, and the fact that characters from the first show clearly have flaws as adults, and how things have progressed, and magic rare talents from the first show are now matter-of-course things.
But the fact that she needs to learn that she is wrong, and cannot be brash, and needs to learn to trust authority figures instead of people who give her information: oh great, even if women are the Avatar, they need to have fewer emotions, be less aggressive, and not demand data before they make decisions.
I’ve known my husband for 11 years, and the only time I’ve seen tears on his cheeks was during “Tales of Ba Sing Se.”
It is Iroh’s vignette in the Earth Kingdom episode that gets me. Urgh. Be right back, have to go cry now.
So glad (and not surprised) that there are A:TLA fans on The Toast. That show does not get nearly enough love.
I can honestly say I cried through that entire episode. Just…tears streaming down my face for 22 minutes. I will never watch it again. Same with “Tales of Ba Sing Se” but mostly for the Tale of Iroh. I am literally tearing up just thinking about it.
This really should wait for open thread, but I don’t know whether I’ll be around on Friday so…
My surprise going away/birthday party for my partner was Saturday, and it was AWESOME. He didn’t suspect a thing, was totally blown away. Almost all our friends came, the food was great, the restaurant was nice and cosy, it had a low-key house party vibe, and we had such a fantastic night. I’m still pumped from the weekend. Yay!
I will go and click on the clicky links now Nicole. Also, The Butter!!!
Awesome! I am so glad it went so well!
Thanks, it did! Couldn’t have gotten through the planning stress without venting on The Toast though =)
Toasties are awesome
They said he couldn’t make a great painting where people had bendy serpent necks. He said he could. Giotto won the bet.
This is beautiful. Giotto is pretty much the only Western pre-Ren painter I can remember from my one class in art history. The education system has failed.
I just finished the Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and am about to become a Katharine Howe completist by reading the Penguin Book of Witches.
Other modern day witch book recommendations? Points for being incredibly geeky.
I only really know the Deborah Harkness trilogy other than Howe, but I did so enjoy them. Deliverance Dane was a delight! So witchy!
Among Others, by Jo Walton
Oh my god, that Everest College article. It was bad enough reading about the deception and manipulation, but then to read about the CEO’s salary and house and all the political players involved with these “institutions.” The feeling I am having now is one that I call MURDER HEART (just to be clear, I would not actually kill anyone, it just the level of maximum rage. So much rage for everyone involved with perpetrating and protecting these scams, and (slightly less, but still) so much rage for every smug bastard that sneers, “Well, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, duh.”
But! The Butter is here! So now I will try to let the rage drain away a little and focus on this most exciting news.
I met Mallory this weekend. She signed my book and it was great. She even drew a picture of Leela for me.
OH MY GOD I COULDN’T BE MORE JEALOUS AT THIS MOMENT
What’s weird to me about all the “preying on the poor” schemes is that THEY’RE POOR. That means they have NO MONEY. Why do you think you’re going to get money?
They get money by signing up students for federal student loans, which Everest gets in the form of tuition dollars. The students then have to live the rest of their lives under the suffocating weight of unpayable debts, but Everest clearly could not give less of a shit about that.
It seems so short-sighted. It’s clearly not a long con.
I don’t know, the former directors of Corinthian are doing pretty well for themselves. It wasn’t a stupid idea to create a for-profit college designed to exploit the poor and inexperienced, just a really, really immoral one.
Ugh. This hurts my heart to know.
Yeah, oof. It’s really sad to see people using hope as a tool to exploit people.
Everest got their money up front. The loans weren’t issued by them; they are federal education loans that they tricked individual students to take out in order to pay for their tuition. It’s like when you get a mortgage- the previous homeowner gets their money upfront, and then you pay the mortgage back to the bank. But these are worse because student loans cannot be discharged by bankruptcy filings. Once you have them, you’re stuck forever.
When we follow the money, we see the scheme is actually milking government funds. And using poor folk as a means to that end. Of course, the only party in this trio with negative consequences is the poor.
If the poor stopped being a high-quality source of revenue capital would pretty much cease to exist overnight. People with no assets or power have few resources with which to defend against scams, strongarm robbery, and loan sharks, and it’s relatively trivial to take what little they have compared to looting millionaires.
Nobody gets rich in America by punching up
I used to work in the HR department of a community health center. The recruiter would always be looking for medical, dental, and nursing assistants. She’d get applicants who had past criminal offenses that meant they wouldn’t pass a CORI check and wouldn’t ever be able to work in a health center or any other place required to do background checks. The schools don’t warn them because then they might not get that student’s money. So instead the students pay for a certificate they’d never be able to use. There are a lot of them that also change their name every few years to get away from bad publicity. If you ever see a school’s changed it’s name, stay away. They’ve probably done it to keep you from Googling them. And the worst part is that after so many years recruiting medical positions, the recruiters know what kind of crappy education you’re getting at a for-profit school and stay away from those students. So those expensive degrees and certificates don’t go far towards actually getting you hired.
ETA: I just want to clarify that I’m not saying all students at for-profit schools have past criminal offenses and it doesn’t come up often. But it’s happened enough over the years that we know for sure that those kind of schools never inform their students about potential background checks in the medical field.
Whoa like specifically drug/stealing/murdering patients type crimes or any kind of criminal background at all?
Exclusionary offenses vary state-by-state. Generally, there are five- and ten-year exclusions (which include offenses like identity theft, drug- or alcohol-related crimes, property crimes, certain, more minor interpersonal crimes), and then lifetime exclusions (which include more serious offenses, especially those that suggest some level of predation). It’s a complex issue, with no good solution. On one hand, there are very good reasons you don’t want someone with, say, a history of identity theft working in an environment where they have access to personal information like Social Security numbers and birthdates; on the other hand, people do make mistakes, and we do know that people of color and people with low-incomes are disproportionately charged with and convicted of minor (and major!) crimes. One person’s assault or theft might be another’s boys-will-be-boys scuffle or lifting of $20 from Grandma’s wallet, but the difference is that poor people and people of color often don’t have the opportunity to mature out of adolescent poor judgment without having a permanent mark on their records.
You are, of course, correct, and don’t read the comments because there are a really unfortunate number of people toeing the “Well people shouldn’t be so stupid! Just go to community college instead! Nobody held a gun to their head! I grew up living at the bottom of a well with only one limb and I taught myself to read by picking up trash down the well and I persevered and now I’m the president of the universe so it can be done and it had nothing to do with the fact that my parents were incredibly wealthy and supported me while I was having limb replacement surgery!” party line or whatever.
(this is a response to the lovely Pear whom I adore)
Your parody comment reminded of Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k
Dr Svec would be my hero just for his careful use of she/he when referring to his computer alter-ego.
I can hardly wait to listen to songs like “S/He is Like the Angry Birds” and “I Am a Weary Immaterial Labourer in a Post-Industrial Wasteland.”
Mr. Rogers! I once had a dream that I died and went to heaven and Mr. Rogers was there and I was weeping with joy just to be in his presence…
That sounds amazing…
Its amazingness correlated with how amazing Mr. Rogers was.
Now I want to believe in heaven!
Me too.
What hurdyburdy said, plus the poor are vulnerable in a way other demographics aren’t. They have few to no resources for help, advice, assistance. And it’s harder for them to draw attention (or especially SYMPATHY) when they realize the situation they’re in.
Those who devise these schemes to prey on them are definitely ending up in one of Dante’s circles of hell.
(reply to ljndawson)
Christ yes. I have been poor and terrified, but for-profit colleges were not yet invented at that time. I guess I have trouble wrapping my head around this because, having been there, I can’t imagine how anyone could sleep at night while propagating this sort of scheme.
Can we just put them in jail NOW? Hell is too long a wait. I think there are queues, also.
I am all for using the full weight of the justice system to make them suffer as much as possible while they are still alive, of course.
A friend of mine is a sysadmin at a local, expensive, well-regarded institution of higher learning. This weekend she told me that the communications profs can’t be bothered to instruct their students how to use graphics software correctly to export to PDF. Perhaps they don’t know how to do it themselves.
I have a tech comm professional master’s degree myself and suffice it to say that my graphics professor knew how to use the software AND taught us how to do it. Then again, I got my degree nearly 20 years ago.
I think there are many higher-ed scams going on right now, not to minimize the nastiness of the one Nicole pointed out.
EW. that “friend” of the couple expecting a baby… I wonder what it must be like to have a life so straightforward and perfect that you can sit back on your cloud of judgement and pass down life lessons to everyone else whose lives fall outside of the “first comes love, then comes marriage…” rhyme. I don’t think they modified that rhyme to accommodate things like illness, accidents, and other unfortunate circumstances that deserve our compassion, not judgement.
I wanna find out where this baby “sprinkle” is and help make it awesome.
Right? I mean, how is her reaction not “You’re happy about the pregnancy, so I’m happy about the pregnancy! I know you have a lot on your plate right now, how can I help support you through this?”
how annoying that she keeps complaing about how hard it is to have a potentially terminally ill spouse. I can really see why you would think it’s a tacky move to keep a pregnancy from a possibly dying loved one. Poor you, you must be suffering so much to have to hear about someone else’s misfortune.*
*Said without sarcasm**
**This is also sarcasm.
Is the font color change permanent? It makes links a little hard to spot (at least for me).
I’m finding the lighter grey color very hard to read, especially in comments, where it’s on a grey background as well. Is it supposed to look like this? Any chance we can convince y’all to change it back?
Yeah, I’m finding the grey text on the comment grey background hard to read as well.
I’ve started using my bookmarklet that makes web pages all black text & white background. Usually I only use it when it’s a light text on dark bg situation but this new toast also warrants it…
For this poor tech-novice, where/how did you acquire such a thing?
My hatred of white text on black background is keeping me from some of the places where my friends can often be found.
Blergh, I couldn’t find the actual page I got it from but if you copy this text as the url of a bookmark it’ll do the trick:
%20(function(){%20var%20newSS,%20styles=’*%20{%20background:%20white%20!%20important;%20color:%20black%20!important%20}%20:link,%20:link%20*%20{%20color:%20#0000EE%20!important%20}%20:visited,%20:visited%20*%20{%20color:%20#551A8B%20!important%20}’;%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20{%20document.createStyleSheet(“‘”+styles+”‘”);%20}%20else%20{%20newSS=document.createElement(‘link’);%20newSS.rel=’stylesheet’;%20newSS.href=’data:text/css,’+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName(“head”)[0].appendChild(newSS);%20}%20}%20)();
Clear your cache and the issue should be fixed!
Thanks Mallory!
Holy fuck “Follow That Bird”. I saw it as a kid and it was so horrifically sad that I completely blocked all memory of its existence, until I was an adult and saw a picture of a blue Big Bird and it all came flooding back. Even that I thought it had just been a bad dream and no one would make a movie about Big Bird that was that sad. I wish I was right.
Everything about this comment is the truth.
I sob during “Sesame Street Christmas” when they play Crack the Whip. I think I had better not watch “Follow That Bird.”
The shrimp treadmill! That guy teaches at the university I went to, you guys!
OH MY GOD Facebook really really wanted me to watch the video of the guy singing “Blackbird” and I was very mad about it. NO. WHY WOULD I DO SUCH A THING. No.
Even seeing the link was too much to handle. i really wish there were a way to block certain trending articles from appearing in the corner.
I’ve been experimenting with various “AdBlock” and “Silencer” type browser extensions to get anything related to Upworthy and similar sites (that’s where the Blackbird video was posted, correct?) to stop appearing in my internet browsing altogether. I’ve already wiped out most of the horrid comment sections. It’s only a matter of time.
Any tips you’d like to pass along?
That link popped up so many times in my feed and, well, I can’t bear to think about it when I’m not in cuddling range of my baby son, and I obviously can’t bear to think about it when he’s right there, so that wipes out all the possibilities.
I have used the extension “Silencer” to block Upworthy and related sites by just putting “Upworthy,” “Buzzfeed,” “Viralnova,” etc. into my filters. It works pretty well for Twitter. Doesn’t seem to work as well for Facebook. AdBlock does work wonders on comment sections though. I sometimes forget YouTube even has comments.
Awesome! Thank you!
No one in my FB feed even linked to it (astoundingly) but it still persistently popped up in the “trending” links. NOPE, ALL SET, NOPE.
Just the HEADLINE was enough to make me get a little misty and chokey in the back of my throat, forget watching it. I thought if I pushed ‘play’ on that I might actually die of emotions.
I was simultaneously misty/chokey and super disgusted by the exploitation of this poor guy’s grief. How awful must it be to have such a private moment “trending”? UGH.
THE MACHINE HAS SELECTED FOR YOU THIS INSTANCE OF HU-MON ‘EMOTION’. WE BELIEVE THE SEVEN BILLION OF YOU WILL FIND IT #ENJOYABLE AND #PROFOUND. REMBEMBER TO UPVOTE. END SEQUENCE
a) Someone’s husband is dying of cancer, does it not cross the letter writer’s mind that she might want to add to their family while he’s still alive?
b) There’s something that nauseates me about worrying about being “on the hook” for listening to your friend talk about her life.
c) I love how the letter writer actually signed off as ISN’T MY CHOICE, almost as if they already knew the answer to their question was IT AIN’T YER BUSINESS.
A dingo really did take her baby. Add her to the list of people we owe an apology to.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/us/vindication-…
Follow That Bird is woefully sad, but it did give us the Grouch Anthem, which is the gift that keeps on giving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8IHMctrKCg
(my mom and I used to sing this together, appropriately off-key.)
also, how did I miss Sesame Street week at the AV Club?!
I work at a large private university and was recently exposed to an interesting sales program. My boyfriend was applying to an online masters degree in the education school. As soon as he started his application, he kept getting phone calls. I told him I thought it was weird that the woman didn’t have the phone number that follows my university’s root number, but didn’t think too much on it. This woman offered to help review his personal statement, pinged his recommend-ers with reminders ect. And then when my boyfriend was accepted, she sends him an email telling him what specific courses he should sign up for.
Cue me submitting his tuition for my benefits, and it gets bounced back “these courses are not eligible.” He emails his program director, and she won’t email him back, but asks to speak on the phone. Only then does she tell him that he simply needs to switch sections of the course, because payment for his current section goes to a company that is not my employer. My university basically outsources this online program, but DOESN’T TELL THE STUDENTS. The sales representatives tell you they work for [University] admissions, but they work for a private company whose only interest is in you registering.
Mr. Rogers is one of my personal heroes, to the extent that I mentioned it on my OKC profile. Alas, it did not have the desired effect (of attracting kind and accepting potential suitors.)
Oh, “Dear Kate.” My sister died 11 years ago, when she was 20. I wore and wear her clothes, her shoes, her lotion. It is wrenching, absolutely wrenching, to watch your parents feel like this and know there isn’t a goddamned thing you can do. And, simultaneously, I had to (in the earlier years) find ways to remind my mom that her loss was my loss, too…
Sorry about your sister. It is wrenching. My husband’s cousin died at a similar age, before I knew them, but she is a very real presence in the family- especially for her parents and her surviving sister. And I think there was a journey there, too, for aunt/uncle to view the loss from their other daughter’s eyes; it seems natural and universal but in no way easy. I’m glad you can keep your sister near you still.
Ehmgeebee I am so sorry for your loss
The Solange wedding photos are making me feel like Pigpen. So much white! No smudges or stains! Beyonce has a toddler on her hip and yet looks like she just emerged from a clamshell in the sea. How do people do this.
Staff.
Oh and a special babely forcefield, but you can’t hire that.
Wearing White: We’re All Doing It Wrong.
Also, Solange’s husband is 51. FIFTY-ONE! Go look at a picture of his face and think about another 51 year old you know.
Just one more way that this group of people is somehow superhuman and I don’t understand them.
Apparently I have to find a new site to hang out at. Sad panda. 🙁
Here you go: http://www.vibe.com/photo-gallery/solange-wedding…. You can stay!
But WHYYYYYY does the UK government keep looking at the most totally fucked up aspects of American healthcare and higher education and going, “oh yeah, that’s great, we should totally do that”?
(Actually, I know the answer: the fucked-up-ness victimises the poor, makes life difficult but anabeable for the rest, except the super-rich, and guess who their friends are. The end.)
SOLANGE. I was thinking about going to my local movie theater Friday night, and saw it was closed for a wedding, and thought “Is that Solange’s wedding??” AND IT WAS.
A kid I babysat years and years ago had a framed letter from Mr Rogers in his bedroom. It seems the kid had been concerned that the fish weren’t being fed when the show wasn’t on (i.e. weekends) and wrote him a letter about it. Mr Rogers responded with a hand-written letter (how many did he write over the years?) explaining the postman fed the fish when he wasn’t able to.
Mr. Rogers apparently personally responded to each and every letter he received. If Protestants were into the whole sainthood thing, he is the only worthy recipient of that honor I can think of. I will never stop admiring that man.
Also in the ranks of people who personally respond to each and every fan letter: Arnold Palmer. He needs essentially a separate house for all his fan mail, but he still does it.
my friend was an intern at mr. rogers’ neighborhood here in pittsburgh, and part of her job was to respond to the letters. there were guidelines they had to follow and apparently mr. rogers approved all the letters … but she said it was a sad thing. lots of kids in fucked up situations would write to him for help and basically all they could say was stuff like “please, try to find help in your own neighborhood, here are some good places to look.”
Oh my god, I just watched Solange and her son dancing together and then they HUGGED AFTER and oh my god, my heart.
Also, I made a really stupid Twine game about #Shirtstorm (aka that dummy from the ESA who wore that naked ladies shirt during a media appearance). I made it so that no man will cry in public about his shirt ever again (and also no ladies will get friggin death threats because a dude is completely clueless.) It is Here!
I am ridiculously excited to be read that Vice article on AI generated CANADIAN FOLK MUSIC.
it’s too early for mister rogers, i’m gonna get all verklempt.
Leslie Feinberg has died. 🙁 http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/books/…
“Remember me as a revolutionary communist.” What last words.
(Also, what sad news.)
The Biology department office has a TV playing videos about our research on a loop: someone set the shrimp-on-a-treadmill to Yakkety Sax, and it plays between each video about setting up vegetation plots or sequencing manzanita genomes.
I love that.
Thanks for sharing “Dear Kate”. I lost my sister 11 months ago and I could relate to almost everything in the article (especially the part about people saying thoughtless things- I even wrote & illustrated a little handmade book on the subject!). I shared the article with my mom as well.
Oh my god, I read “Dear Kate” at work, which is a bad idea because a) I’m trying not to cry and b) now I desperately need to call my parents.
Plus…a few years ago my sister-in-law died suddenly when she was 26. I have never ever ever felt more inadequate. And then a few years later I broke up with her brother (my partner). Now I want to call their mother and say, even though I’m not with your son any more, I miss your daughter. I never felt like I could or should, but now I do.
I think this would be a really good thing to do.
I sent a condolence card to my mom’s friend about her mom recently and it was very very belated. I think I put a note down a year ago right after the funeral and kept thinking it was recent and it wasn’t until I looked up the address that I realized how much time had passed. She wrote back to say that it meant a lot, and as I was going through my own shit at the time it hammered home that after a bad thing happens, there’s this brief spurt where everyone has condolences and pays attention, but after that…nothingness. Just to remember that person and say you know, I carry them around with me, I loved them, I think of you. Its what remains of us on the earth, you know?
THANK YOU
Among Others, by Jo Walton
God, I am lucky I got to university when I did, before the cuts and subsequent terrifying fees. Even then I just couldn't have gone without a student loan. The NHS is the reason why my family are alive today. It's frightening to see things being crushed and re-built by the super-rich, frustrating to see calls for change come far too late when the moderately rich are finally affected.
my friend was an intern at mr. rogers' neighborhood here in pittsburgh, and part of her job was to respond to the letters. there were guidelines they had to follow and apparently mr. rogers approved all the letters … but she said it was a sad thing. lots of kids in fucked up situations would write to him for help and basically all they could say was stuff like "please, try to find help in your own neighborhood, here are some good places to look."