Hello, my loves (Mallory here)! Texts From Jane Eyre just made #11 on the New York Times bestsellers list for Culture, and I’m enormously pleased and also one step closer to riding Jonathan Franzen like a pony (nothing sexual, mind you. Just weird)!
I’m right below Roxane, as I always should be. It’s where I belong.
*
Many of the most extreme interrogation methods — including waterboarding — were authorized by Justice Department lawyers during the Bush administration. But the report also found evidence that a number of detainees had been subjected to other, unapproved methods while in C.I.A. custody.
The torture of prisoners at times was so extreme that some C.I.A. personnel tried to put a halt to the techniques, but were told by senior agency officials to continue the interrogation sessions.
*
TNC has marshalled his thoughts on The New Republic (Mallory wound up covering this yesterday BUT LET US DO IT ONE MORE TIME):
TNR did not come to racism out of evil. Very few people ever do. Many of the white people working for the magazine were very young and very smart. This is always a dangerous combination. It must have been that much more dangerous given that their boss was a racist. (Though I am told he had many black friends and protégés.) Peretz was not always a regular presence in the office. This allowed TNR’s saner staff to regard him as the crazy uncle who says racist shit at Thanksgiving. But Peretz was not a crazy uncle—he was the wealthy benefactor of an influential magazine that published ideas that damaged black people.
A writer for TNR told me how, in the mid-’90s, Peretz would come down to the office from Cambridge and lobby young writers to write what turned out to be the fictional “Taxi Cabs and the Meaning of Work.” The writer told me that the young interns and fact-checkers would squirm in their seats. But no one took a stand. And perhaps it is too much to expect writers in their mid 20s, with editors in their late 20s, to say to Peretz, “Please stop shopping this racist bullshit.” But the task was made infinitely easier by a monochrome staff that could view Peretz’s racism as an abstraction, and not something that directly injured their families.
This is from earlier in the piece, but I think that TNC’s statement “TNR made a habit of ‘reflecting briefly’ on matters that were life and death to black people but were mostly abstract thought experiments to the magazine’s editors” is really the meat of this piece, and something that gets to the heart of how journalism can go astray and the vital importance of assigning pieces about race to POC.
*
*
CIA leadership refused to punish officer who literally killed a detainee during torture session. pic.twitter.com/8Jsm9P52nw
— Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) December 9, 2014
*
*
The Guardian talks to Ayesha Siddiqi:
I have to do a great deal of justification before I write or publish a piece: am I adding something that is truly original to the conversation? Very few people seem to share that sense of angst. When so much of your experience is erased and silenced, to insist upon it requires a great deal of daring. Even something that can feel inconsequential as an essay about pop culture can feel like a particularly audacious gesture of insistence on your personhood. Under white supremacy, the existing social environment, it will take a lot for that ever to feel natural.
What’s required online is the basic concession to our own culpability and corruption, the fact that it’s possible for me to be anti-black, since we live in an anti-black society. The value in a platform like Twitter is that I know if I mess up, I’ll get called out. I’m so grateful for that because you have everything to gain when you’re open to that critique.
*
*
*
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Jesus sweet tapdancing Christ that dude is an asshole. (The Harvard business school professor, not the snake-throwing Tim Horton’s dude, although that dude is also an asshole, because what is your thought process do go from “I really want diced onions” to “I MUST have diced onions” to “GIVE ME SOME FUCKING DICED ONIONS” to “Fuck YOU!!!!! [hurling the snake you keep in your coat for just such an event]”.) You’re a fucking professor and consultant. Is it REALLY WORTH YOUR TIME for $3? Oh I see you have graciously admitted that you DO have better things to do other than harass a restaurant owner over four fucking dollars.
Congratulations! You, a White Man, have successfully showed us all that there is no threshold at which it is ridiculous to pursue an idiotic claim. I can’t even reread it to look for a specific quote that enraged me because THE WHOLE THING IS JUST SO BEYOND STUPID.
I posted the snake story on Facebook a couple days ago, and an old friend from college replied thusly:
“Man, I wonder how many weeks that guy carried the snake around, and every time he thought he’d have a chance to toss it, the argument would de-escalate too quickly and he’d be like, ah, screw it, it would just be awkward to introduce the snake at this point. But finally, at the Saskatoon Tim Hortons, he realized his moment had come!”
I had to read the comments just to find out if there are idiots in the world who could actually read that story and take the professor’s side. YUP, THERE ARE.
THERE ARE. The first time I saw this story linked was from a facebook friend who thought it was “hilarious and amazing.” We are no longer friends. These last few weeks may have sucked in general but they’ve been good for identifying and defriending assholes.
There’s the silver lining I’ve been looking for in 2014.
Welp, now I’m depressed. “Can’t speak well. Not from here. Very poor. Trying hard. GO AWAY!”
How charming.
I skimmed some of them and was not at all surprised to see comments like “those people are all thieves” (except with worse spelling and punctuation). I think today is a good day to keep http://calmingmanatee.com/ on deck.
I used to frequent some DC blogs that focused on local/neighborhood issues and I’m pretty sure 7/10 of those commenters would take that guy’s side. Not in an overtly bigoted way, but in a soulless “I, too, enjoy using my law degree to gain a small measure of ultimately meaningless power over my neighbors” way.
It’s really about ethics in restaurant websites.
I am so het up now after reading that Harvard prof story. I did love how the restaurant owner called his bluff and told him he would wait until the proper authorities had sanctioned him before moving forward with any refund. I did not love the lunatic asshole professor continuing to harass him and try to test and push that boundary after he set it, but I’m sure not surprised. White guys love to not hear “no.”
Seriously all else aside what do you figure is the value of the time that guy spent trying over and over and over to bully a restaurant out of 4 12 25 dollars?
Oh let’s be real here he wrote all those emails on Harvard’s time and would throw a hissy fit if he got docked one second of it.
I would love it if he wrote those emails from his harvard.edu account and is somehow sanctioned for writing personal emails from his work account. Not that I expect anything like that would happen, but I can dream.
This is a guy who charges $800/hour to corporate clients for online fraud consulting, and you can bet your sweet biscuits he doesn’t skimp on billing those clients. Sweet lord, what a dillhole.
ummmm Mr. Edelman was browsing Wikipedia for at least 15 minutes while being paid to work on my case and also he smells funny, by the Law of the Sea I demand compensation to the tune of no less than one smillion dollars or you will be answering to the INS
The restaurant owner handled that exchange so well at every turn.
This represents everything I hate about lawyers.
The horrible tell is how his language becomes increasingly pompous as the exchange goes on, as if that makes his cause more righteous. Once your petty complaint to a local business includes the phrase, “to wit,” you’re done and your internet privileges are revoked.
What a fucking pill that dude is, but wow, I am so impressed by Mr. Duan’s responses — 100% polite and helpful, and 100% unyielding. “Since you chose to contact the authorities, I know you wouldn’t want me to just act willy-nilly without waiting to hear from them. So I will make a note of the resolution you’ve requested, and discuss it with the proper authorities when I hear from them, and in the meantime you can go fuck yourself.” (Or go fuck Lyndon Johnson on the sofa, as the case may be. P.S. still cracking up about that piece.)
Yeah, I’m so glad he was able to handle himself and at least already had some exposure to the media. (I wonder if he leaked the story to the press? If so, good on him.)
Is it REALLY WORTH YOUR TIME for $3?
From a Metafilter thread:
I figure this probably took about an hour of Mr Edelman’s time, all told. Which means his time is worth, to him, about $12 an hour. This seems fair to me, and I urge Mr Edelman to contact me regarding some brush-clearing and ditch-digging work that I have available.
I make less than $12 an hour and even I would not throw a fit over this. I wouldn’t even notice. I’d be too busy enjoying my god-damned delicious food and being grateful that I hadn’t cooked it.
The snake wasn’t in the snake-thrower’s coat. He turned around and yanked it out of his buddy’s coat. This is an absolutely crucial detail, whether the accomplice was that guy’s routine snake-bearer or an innocent bystander who was just minding his business when he suddenly found himself bereft of snake.
I would be furious if my buddy took my pocket snake. >:(
Especially if he then chucked it at someone.
The snake-bearer is an indispensable part of any Eccentric Gentlepersons’s entourage.
“Hey man, get your own throwing snake!”
Because heaven knows that when you are trying to keep a small business afloat in the middle of the 7pm dinner rush and there are eleven million things to do and only so many people to do them, the first thought on your mind is: “I have to call our website designer immediately to let him know we raised the price of Shredded Chicken with Spicy Garlic Sauce by $1.00.”
Man if you’re a restaurant it’s pretty important that your menu is accurate and you can expect some angry customers if it’s not, but what kind of fucken whackjob right off the bat starts demanding several times the value of his very small overpayment and threatening legal action and just how often does he try to pull that shit (always, with everyone)
Dude is 33 and has been a professor at Harvard Business School for SEVEN YEARS.
I think we’ve discovered why he’s so pompous. No man should be allowed a position of power before he is 25. It is known.
Huh. Harvard usually burns out the young ones and boots them before they get tenure.
I wish I could give this all the thumbs-up. Everything I’ve heard points to “they eat their young.”
Someone in the comments dug up his LinkedIn and pointed out that he’s never had a job not in academia, which explains SO much. This is what you can turn into if you’ve never had a job as a server or in retail.
I love how The Toast sends me down Wiki holes on the reg. YULE CAT!!! Why do I feel that Yule Cat would be a likely tool in the Misandrist Revolution? I needed to find an image for this, but there is a shocking dearth of satisfying Yule Cat pictures on the internet. I found this one however, which should do for now…..
I learned about Yule Cat last year, and I’m so happy the Toast reminded me of it. YULE CAT.
I’m honestly quite a fan of this one. Although it does suffer from an insufficiency of visualized purpose (ie, no lazy children are being mauled):
It definitely would be be a tool in the Misandrist Revolution. We misandrists will give any men we wish spared a piece of clothing, and the Misandrist!Yule Cat will devour all other men.
I saw Mal’s tweets (or maybe Nicole’s?) about Yule Cat the other night while I was baked out of my mind, and I can confirm that it is the very best thing on Wikipedia.
I’m a really big fan of this one, which a coworker sent me after I told him about the Yule Cat:
Also, I can’t believe I had never heard of Gryla.I feel like we as a culture need to bring back the popular folklore of monsters who eat misbehaving children.
Yule Cat has brightened my day no end. YULE CAT!
I really want to go home now and work on the glorious woolly cardigan in my knitting basket. Do you think my boss will buy the “if I don’t finish it by Christmas Eve, the Yule Cat will eat me!!!!” rationale?
I haven’t read any of the links yet (going to now!) but I am just going to leave this here: someone released a bunch of hacked emails from Sony, and it’s just … I am against email hacking, but have none of these people ever heard of the advice that you don’t put anything on your work email that you wouldn’t be happy to show to the auditors and/or a court? It’s like the Hey Ladies went to Hollywood. http://defamer.gawker.com/leaked-the-nightmare-em…
My favorite is the one from David Fincher: “Adam Driver is a terrible idea, I’m with you…” (which I disagree with, but) – such a snarky, avoiding the topic reply.
Yes!! Someone in the comments over there was trying to make the argument that “your corporate email is full of personal stuff too, so how can you be so MEAN?”. Uh, no, it’s not! There’s a giant notice on the top that says “This email account managed by Company Name”! How do you not notice that? Or ignore it and just start writing whatever you feel like?
I know tons of people who do and it is HILARIOUS, EVERY TIME. It’s like the tie-wearing mirror image of the kids who take selfies while rioting and post them to Facebook.
Some companies are more hard-core about monitoring employee email than others. It is very easy for folks whose companies have a very laisseiz-faire attitude to forget that their work email COULD be monitored at any time, even if it isn’t always actively being monitored, and to fall into unprofessional behavior. It doesn’t help when your coworkers are your friends. I know I have an email chain or two in my archives about how badly my coworkers and I need a drink (though it was always discussing scheduling after work). It’s not a good idea to get super personal in your work email, but I think it is an easier bad habit to fall into some places than others.
Even if your compan doesn’t monitor employee email, if it is ever sued/sues anyone else, your (sometimes VERY) personal emails could end up being reviewed by teams of attorneys, even if they have nothing to do with the subject matter of the litigation.
Yep. Which might occasionally entertain said attorneys, but is probably not something you want to happen.
I have to say that although Rudin comes off as a colossal jerk he also appears to be the only sane one.
Alternately they’re like me and just don’t fucking care if their nasty comments end up in court.
Can we have heard of it and think it’s also an unfair expectation? : / (Ex: the aforementioned drink planning.)
Ugh, I’m a former SPE employee, of the non-fancy, non-celebrity variety, and my SSN and other assorted data are all out there on torrent sites for the world to download. It is not awesome.
Yule Cat ; See also Troll Cat
A related creature: the Swedish milk hare.
If I already have an angry, violent white rabbit, is there a way I can train it to retrieve milk for me from cows?? Asking for a friend!
AYESHA SIDDIQI!!! She is so great. Her Twitter can be like a cold glass of water in a desert. Sometimes when I read a tweet of hers though (like the series she did on how teachers condescend to minorities), I have to sit and think a lot about how much stuff sucks. But it’s good, in a bracing way.
Ahhh, does this mean Nicole is near delivery??
I love the Yule Cat.
ETA: Also, in local (Houston) news, a news alert went out the other night that a woman was literally found dead inside a fridge and the police are looking for her 11-month-old baby and his father, who is a “person of interest” in the case. I am so angry. I refuse to even pretend to be nice to strange men anymore. A guy at the grocery store was staring at me and said “how you doin'” when he saw me staring back, and I didn’t even fake-smile, I just lifted my eyebrows and walked away. And kept an eye on him until I left the store, and was more aware than usual walking to my car. GOD.
How long was that Saskatoon dude carrying a snake in his coat pocket for? Did he pick it up in the first place intending to weaponize it or did he think it would make a good pet? Was he filled with regret the moment he threw it, already missing the effortless companionship you get when you have a secret snake in your pocket? Its friendly hisses, how nice the cool dry scales felt under his fingers when he petted its little snakey head. Did he think the snake would slither back to his side like a Pokemon and they would go on to terrorize countless other innocent people? What name did he give to the snake? (Don’t try to tell me he had a snake in his pocket for god knows how long and didn’t name it!)
So many questions…
Until I learn otherwise, I’m going to pretend the snake was named Sir Hiss.
And I am going to pretend the dude had provided Sir Hiss with a collection of tasteful hats, like so.
(LIFE TIP: do a google image search for “snake in a hat” YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED)
Snakes don’t walk, they slither! SO THERE.
I really want to know. It’s too cold for wild snakes now, so wouldn’t that mean it was a pet? If it was a pet, why would he be carrying it around? And why would you throw your pet at someone? I’ve never once been tempted to throw a cat at someone. Why would you think that would be the best course of events????
Sometimes people carry their pet snakes around. I was checking out at the grocery store once and a woman in line in front of me had her pet snake wrapped over her shoulders.
Well I have known people who catch wild snakes and carry them around in their pockets. (And by people, I mean “children”, in the summer, for an hour or so).
I think it was probably his pet… So why did he throw it? Did he lose his pet? Poor poor snake.
He didn’t throw it. His angry friend pulled it out of his pocket and threw it …
That is the ultimate betrayal! A person you loved and trusted stealing your pet snake out of your very pocket and using it for evil! I certainly could not continue associating with someone who would do such a thing.
Oh, this story gets even better. The guy who threw the snake reached into his friend’s coat to grab the snake! He threw his friend’s pet snake!
And the police have named the snake, “Outlaw” . He was unharmed and is being cared for until spring.
That certainly changes things! Are there any laws against carrying a small, non-venomous snake on your person? If not, then the snake should have been returned to its proper owner. It’s not the snake’s fault that his owner’s friend up and stole him to commit assault with.
Also, this suggests that the dude carried his snake around with him so often that his friends were not only aware of the snake’s presence, but also knew what pocket the snake would be in.
I’m pretty sure that while bearing a snake is legal, you need a license to carry your snake concealed and brandishing it in a restaurant is grounds for losing your CSL
In some places, you’ll get discounts from businesses if you open carry your snake inside.
Do leash laws apply to snakes? Is the snake a service animal? Can he become a police snake or a snake mountie?
+1 for the effortless companionship you get when you have a secret snake in your pocket
All Canadians carry a snake in their pocket at all times, for just this sort of emergency.
I am Canadian and all I have in my pocket is a fistful of maple sugar that I could throw in the eyes of a hypothetical assailant to blind them while I make my getaway.
Do I need to apply for a snake at city hall or can I just pick one off the ground?
Pick one off the ground, of course!
Then apply for a permit and license for it at city hall.
Shhh! Don’t tell the Americans. I’m trying to start a new Canadian stereotype. Canadians, polite? Hell no, we’ll throw a snake at you as soon as look at you. And we’re always ready. Got one right here in my pocket. Both pockets, in fact. This one’s Trooper and this one’s David Suzuki. You dice my onions wrong, you might just get to know them a lot better.
…’cause I’ve got one hand in my pocket, and the other one is holding a live snake
This made me burst out laughing and I woke my poor husband up from his nap, +1 for you!
How did he keep it alive in his pocket in Saskatoon in the winter?
Srsly, it was freaking cold here until two days ago. Makes me think that was some premeditated snake.
I love how all three of HBS asshole’s degrees are from Harvard. Jesus Christ, get out a little.
But it’s HARVARD. Why would you get an education anywhere else? <– everything that’s wrong with Harvard, in a nutshell
“HBS asshole” has a different meaning in some of my discussion circles, so parsing your comment took me a few seconds. 😛
Yup. This story is kind of funny but he’s also representative of some of the worst people I’ve had to deal with on social media lately, people who are highly educated but also complete morons who can’t comprehend basic logic. The Harvard grad who argued that Harvard couldn’t possibly have been mistaken in awarding a Phd to a thesis with white supremacist ‘research’, and white lady who argued that white people’s dominance at protests can’t be a problem because ‘e.g. intersectionality’ come to mind. The fact that this guy’s law degree and big words makes people oversee the fact that his argument is completely invalidated by the website stating “Prices may vary” is actually deeply depressing.
Man, I knew the US’s maternity leave policies were, to me, anti-family and anti-health, but seeing them compared to other country’s civilized and sane policies is especially disheartening. I’ve been wanting to do some advocacy work in trying to get better US maternity policies since I came back from my own maternity leave. Does anyone have experience in that area or suggestions on where to start to push for change?
“push for change”
ISWYDT
May I suggest 9to5.org which I believe is a part of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. I think NAPW has been focusing lately more on the drug laws that target pregnant women and the criminalization of miscarriages while 9to5 would work on maternity leave issues.
Thank you so much. I hadn’t heard of either organization, so I’ll check them out now.
Oh, god, what a depressing summary of why we have such terrible maternity & child care policy in the US – the people who would be working on that issue are instead spending their time working against the criminalization of miscarriages. Jesus.
Is there a workers’ center in your area?
AL-SO SELL-ING! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap!) AL-SO SELL-ING! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap!)
(go, Mallory, go)
In further Harvard is Just So Great and Turns Out Some Really Top Notch White Dudes news, the store that I used to work at in Harvard Square got vandalized by a student and the kid’s dad is trying to make it all go away. Basically, the kid got drunk one night with his friends in the square and when (apparently) a girl walked away from him, and he got so mad that he PUNCHED ONE OF THE PLATE GLASS WINDOWS ON THE STOREFRONT and shattered it. So the cops showed up yadda yadda and the store owner is trying to get the kid/kid’s family to pay for the damage but they won’t! I don’t know why! They just…won’t! So now the store owner might have to go to court over like $200!
which store?
I am hoping it was Curious George’s or something, just for extra embarrassment for white dude
(sorry to hear about inconvenience for your former boss)
Sadly, it was Black Ink and not Curious George.
oh, that makes sense. Right next to that horrible fishbowl bar Tory Row that looks so unpleasant and loud with all the glass and hard brick — drinking in a storefront window, how fun.
I go there (Tory Row) more than intended because my ladylove is vegetarian and she adores their veggie burger. Strange but true!
Aw, I really like Black Ink!
I LOVE Black Ink, I plan to do 95% of my Christmas shopping there this weekend.
I don’t know if they still do this, but one year for her birthday my sister only wanted a Starbucks gift card. So I got that and a bunch of random tiny stuff and took it to Black Ink and they sealed it in a metal can for like $3. It’s a fun way to wrap a present. Or challenging, if the recipient doesn’t have a can opener.
when (apparently) a girl walked away from him, and he got so mad that he PUNCHED ONE OF THE PLATE GLASS WINDOWS ON THE STOREFRONT
so he went from being rejected to being rejected and covered in shards of glass and probably his own blood? smooth.
Anyone who claims a college education makes you smarter has never met college kids.
And sexy. I’m sure the lady who spurned him turned around, saw him standing there covered in shards of glass and probably his own blood, and thought, “I HAVE ERRED. I MUST PROCURE MYSELF SOME OF THAT.”
Nothing is more appealing for me, sexually, than reckless damage of other people’s property and disproportionate responses to minor setbacks.
>
Pah,I think we all know who that storeowner REALLY needs to sue, the girl who rejected that poor, poor boy. He can’t be blamed for his own actions! /sarcasm
I feel like paying for the damages is the way you make it all go away. Like “hey, sorry my kid’s a dumb-ass, let me buy you a new window and we won’t need to press any charges, right?” If you refuse to pay for the damages, that’s when it becomes a Thing.
nah, paying for the damages is admitting wrong-doing on the part of the kid.
everyone knows it’s not the kid’s fault he lost control and punched a window, which then shattered. it’s the shop’s fault for not using shatterproof glass – or, hell, having a window at all when they’re right next to a bar in a busy square that everyone knows someone could break it at any time.
Yew guize, I’m just dropping in to recommend the Susan Sontag docu on HBO, REGARDING SUSAN. It’s just…damn. She’s just….damn. I hadn’t heard anything about it til my husband came home from work yesterday all excited “Wanna watch a movie about Susan Sontag tonight, boo?” It captures her brilliance and her ferocity/orneriness, and she comes across sexy as hell to boot.
And then read this wonderful interview on the Hairpin with the filmmaker Nancy Kates: http://thehairpin.com/2014/12/an-archive-of-longi…
Re the Siddiqi interview (also kinda-sorta re TNC on TNR, in a roundabout way):
The risk of undervaluing what you have to offer, especially for women of color, is so much greater than the risk of overvaluing it.
I just went on a minor (and probably incoherent) Twitter soliloquy about this, but: the thing I worry about, especially lately (especially since publishing the K-pop female groups piece back at the beginning of this year, in all honesty), is overvaluing what I have to offer, especially since I was not until very recently aware of how overvalued it is in the marketplace in general, given that I am white, American, a native English speaker, etc. etc. TNC focused on the editing/hiring process, but left out how all those aspiring young white writers were, well, aspiring young writers, who wanted to get ahead; and they might have appreciated diversity in the abstract but likely did not appreciate competition in the abstract, given how hard it is to make a living as a writer even if you are white American blah blah blah.
To put it another way: I worry that the marketplace of ideas is perhaps crowded enough as it is, and if I can’t articulate clearly why people should listen to me, maybe it would be better, in a global sense, to hush. (And if I can articulate it, how much of that articulation would be a false confidence born of being white/American/etc.?)
Not speaking for anyone else here, mind you.
Ugh, I know so well what you mean. My only counter-argument to myself, in those long dark hours when I also believe that “it would be better, in a global sense, to hush,” is that…. no man. ever. thinks that. Ever. No man ever thinks to himself that he should silence himself. Just keep fighting the good fight, and value diversity, but value yourself too! Life is already hard enough.
THAT HARVARD THING. I saw it in the context of “And when someone says that James Watson is an asshole even by Harvard standards, THIS IS WHAT THEY’RE MEASURING HIM BY”. Which is both horrifying and accurate.
Tl;dr, James Watson is worse than this dude, according to other professors there. And he’s getting his fucking Nobel back. I HATE HIM SO MUCH.
Ugh, WATSON. I imagine him as the whiniest, most entitled member of The Girls’ Bike Club. Instead of yelling, “DAWSON!” Bonsall and Billy Joel are yelling, “WATSON!”
The part I hate the most about the Edelman ridiculousness is that commentators — mostly dudes, I’m just going to say it — are all applauding him for standing up to an “illegal practise” and basically bringing social justice to all. The restaurant is doing a small wrong, *maybe* profiting from it in an industry known for razor-thin margins, and it makes these guys FROTH AT THE MOUTH, and demand reparation through whatever means, even if it goes to ridiculously disproportionate lengths.
So in conclusion:
Harassing a restaurant for overcharging you FOUR DOLLARS is justice.
Black people, women, and other marginalized groups being treated like human beings, with equal treatment and safety = dumb and unnecessary. Black people, women, and other marginalized groups being mistreated and abused for centuries = not big enough a wrong to discuss today, because it’s in the past.
Fuck these assholes.
I regret that I have only one upvote to give to this post.
It’s not even necessarily wrong, too! Like several folks have pointed out there and here, the website had a note that prices were subject to change — making the whole thing even more starkly revealing of the actual priorities of these guys.
Now you know the actual priorities. “Systemic imbalances and injustices to people of colour, women, and the underprivileged? Whatever. But I, a WEALTHY WHITE MAN, may have to pay $4 more on a $55 ticket for Chinese food and THAT CANNOT STAND. That man is taking MONEY from MY POCKET! This could affect ME and ALL MY FRIENDS. To the Batmobile!”
UGH. BAN MEN.
http://calmingmanatee.com/17
I just read a comment where it was like, “The restaurant should have refunded right away. The first email wasn’t out of place. Who wouldn’t feel ripped off?”
1. This isn’t about the first email only. To reframe it that way is redefining why people are reacting to the story, and it’s disingenuous.
2. I get to lots of people, $4 is a big deal. And nobody, rich or poor, should be overcharged. But slapping “ripped off” on it ignores that the person being “ripped off” is not only 1) able to afford more than $50 for take-out but also 2) really rich anyway.
3. Apparently, we can’t recognize that some people have more ability and privilege to let things go than others, especially when those people are rich white men.
When it comes to being overcharged $4 for take-out, we’re all equal. But when it comes to being paid less systematically, being jailed more, all that horrible bullshit that wrecks your life, you should be grateful, shut up, and live with it.
Also what I hate about the Edelman thing: Real rich white guy thing to lean on the institutions and systems designed to help him, and using them against people who might not know better than him. JUST UGH.
Congratulations, Mallory! I hope you start inserting “New York Times bestselling author” before your name whenever possible.
Could someone explain the story behind “Taxi Cabs and the Meaning of Work?” I tried googling it and only found articles saying that the article can’t be found.
Here you go: found in the comments (fourth one down) of TNC’s Atlantic post here.
Brad DeLong posted it on his blog several years ago. It’s pretty gross and racist.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/the-marty-p…
Site question: Is anyone else having a problem where if they click on links on The Toast (including Read more…) they get ads opening instead? And not necessarily ads in a new window, but just replacing the Toast entirely. It’s been happening to me for a few days.
That’s happened to me for some time now–I think Maria has been asking that you screenshot it, note what page you were trying to get to, and send it to her?
oh man, that’d be about 18 different screen shots a day. Glad to know I’m not alone!
Yeah, me too. Constantly.
That happens to me frequently on my android phone using the android browser when I don’t wait for the site to fully load and try to click an article/comments first.
Yes, but only sometimes. And I can’t figure out what the difference is between when that happens and when it doesn’t! Which is almost as crazymaking.
It happens to me all the time on my phone. Like, at least three times a day.
Yes, please join us in sending screenshots with your mouse over a link and visible bar at the bottom where it tells you where it’s taking you. It happens to me intermittently and has done for months. I hover over links first now and if it says it’s going to take me to a random page I just refresh and it normally goes away.
I’m a couple of days late on this so someone might have linked it already but Parable of the Polygons is a really great playable demonstration (using cute shapes!) of how slight biases can cause nearly immediate segregation even if everyone involved ostensibly prefers diverse environments.
Great piece, thanks for linking
It’s a goddamn tragedy none of the articles on that Tim Hortons thing have any identifying information because I would love nothing more than to subscribe to the weekly police-blotter updates on the adventures of Snake Pocketz and Onion Man
There’s always the Madison, WI, police blotter. The MPD’s chief CIO has a cult following because he writes some of the more absurd case reports as if they were in fact mystery stories.
He made the Huffington Post a while back.
I support faculty at a business school that competes with HBS and all I can say is THANK GOODNESS HE DOESN’T TEACH AT MY SCHOOL.
Does anyone else get a Samsung commercial auto-playing on Toast pages after they’ve been open for a while? For the life of me I can’t figure out where on the page it is to turn it off.
I cannot believe that fellow Toasties are going to let this opportunity, the once in rare blue moon chance to say:
IS THAT A SNAKE IN YOUR POCKET, OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME
Love you, Creek
Thread is incomplete without comment by literaltrousersnake 🙁
Haha, and for so much of the 20th Century Americans were so hard on citizens of other countries who after the fact said, “what, I had no idea that was happening.” Doesn’t look so implausible now, does it!
We kinda knew though.
Yet, the 2004 election results!
This might be the result of growing up in a family FULL of alcoholics, but I always figured the 2004 election was good evidence we knew.
The administration is PROBABLY torturing people, but then we’d have to confront them and we’re very tired, can’t we just have a nice election and ignore it -> Your uncle is probably drunk again, but we’d have to confront him about his drinking and we’re very tired, can’t we just have a nice Thanksgiving and let it go?
And then we can’t acknowledge that we don’t want them in charge, because our negative feelings about them are linked to the torture , and we hate ourselves for not facing them about the torture. -> We can’t prevent him from driving, because we’d have to admit that we let this shit slide because we’re weak, fucking weak, weak as he is. It’s easier to let the status quo continue.
It’s a fucking magic trick, and it’s no coincidence that George W. Bush used to have a drinking problem.
Am I the only person who conflated Jerry Lee with the Harper underneath and was very confused as to how the author of To Kill A Mockingbird became a hard-living rock ‘n’ roll legend? Yes?
Nope. Me too.
“The Yule Cat is a monster from Icelandic folklore, a huge and vicious cat said to lurk about the snowy countryside during Christmastime and eat people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve. ”
Am I the only one who at first assumed this was just a clever way that Icelandic parents of yore got their kids not only to appreciate receiving the requisite socks and sweaters for the holidays, but also damn well start wearing them right away too?
I am very angry about torture and the torture report and I have EVEN LESS OF AN IDEA than I normally do for things that make me angry about what to do about it. Is there anything? It’s over, right? So what? I dunno.
Me too. No ideas or advice, just know that there are others fuming impotently in solidarity.
My branch has the only copy of Texts From Jane Eyre in our 13 library system and it had to work its way through requests before it finally made it to its home with me (I am the personal guardian of our county’s copy and I take that as a great and serious responsibility).
I will now go to Black Ink and buy stuff to support the beleaguered store owner!
Good lord. That Harvard prick should be made to stuff that spicy capsicum directly into his sinuses. What an asshole. “I suggest making my order half-price — that’s appropriate thanks for my bringing this matter to your attention.” WHAT. “Not only am I going to be an insufferable jerk to you, but I will also demand that you thank me for being such a pedantic blowhard by giving me $30.” The worst.
I just want Mallory to know that I moved to NYC last month and promptly began a tour of the city’s independent bookstores and asked for Texts from Jane Eyre at every single one and acted very judgemental, shocked, and disapproving wherever they did not have it, so hopefully my one-woman efforts caused some orders : )
Yeah, well, then havard guy should have accepted the refund when it was offered. Or, you know, ask them to just give you some spring rolls for free next time, like any normal person would.
Hahaha me too (#NotAllLawyers!) but I mean come on, I have absolutely zero legs to stand on here. I, too, can be a flaming a-hole.
I really don't do it in my personal life, though. Being in a highly contentious profession where I act like a huge asshole all day on behalf of my clients means that I have zero interest in being right ever in my personal life. Who cares! As long as we can be nice to each other and drink some wine, be right allllllll you want.
Just put Texts from J.E. on hold at the London, Ontario, Canada public library. They have one copy with “more on order”. That should make you feel Good! Better! Best! You’re On Hold! with more copies on order in little, unimportant, backward, conservative London, Ontario.