For at least a decade, Toronto’s police force has been quietly building a massive database of the black residents it is supposed to serve. This is not a catalogue of convicted criminals—most black people in the database are not suspected of any crime, at least not in any official sense. Police simply document us in case they ever need to identify us later.
In Toronto we use the term “carding” to describe the police practice of stopping civilians who are not suspected of a crime, and documenting their personal information. For years, this practice was a secret; now we know it exists, and that it has excessively targeted Toronto’s black residents. The retention of information collected in such a dubious and discriminatory manner is an insult to black residents. Yet police plan to not only continue carding, but to keep the information from millions of individual contacts in a database for years to come—just in case.
Teaching evolution at the University of Kentucky:
I was originally reluctant to take my job at the university when offered it twenty years ago. It required teaching three sections of non-majors biology classes, with three hundred students per section, and as many as eighteen hundred students each year. I wasn’t particularly keen on lecturing to an auditorium of students whose interest in biology was questionable given that the class was a freshman requirement.
Then I heard an interview with the renowned evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson in which he addressed why, as a senior professor—and one of the most famous biologists in the world—he continued to teach non-majors biology at Harvard. Wilson explained that non-majors biology is the most important science class that one could teach.
RIP, Cynthia Lennon. She did not have an easy time of it.
Get it together, cops:
Andy Hort is nearing the end of his rope.
For months, he says, the NYPD — and others apparently connected to the police department — have been taking up all of the available parking spots on the street near Earth Enterprise, Hort’s 100-year-old midtown printing business. His vendors are unable deliver the supplies he needs, and his own trucks have been exiled from the block, forced to double-park or simply circle the block, near Eighth Avenue and 36th Street.
The cars that are giving him trouble aren’t police cruisers or other marked vehicles, but personal cars of members of the NYPD (and, in some cases, their families) as well as retired cops. And Hort says he would understand if the vehicles — almost uniformly parked without paying for metered parking, or with all manner of infractions, like in front of fire hydrants or in clearly marked “no standing” zones — displayed a valid police placard, which allows cops on official business to park where they need to without fear of a summons. But instead there are handwritten notes, reflective NYPD vests, badges that read “family of NYPD,” and, in some cases, just a copy of the NYPD patrol manual sitting on the dash. Fed up, Hort decided to start documenting what he saw.
The Archipelago is coming to an end, but you should really peruse the archives!
Very moving piece in The Lancet by a daughter about her father’s suicide and the Cat Stevens album he loved:
36 minutes 40 seconds is a perfectly respectable amount of time to invoke your father’s death, dwell on details, have a mid-ranging contained breakdown with an appended general existential crisis concerning your own mortality, and then recover yourself like nothing happened. You can even, when you become more adept at it, squeeze one in before going out and no one would ever suspect.
okay I surrender I’m gonna read all the Elena Ferrante books
This is my #1 piece of advice for people having babies: immediately follow a bunch of British people on Twitter so you have someone to talk to in the wee small hours of the morning.
how do dogs have the courage to go down the stairs they are going head first
— robyn (@ucrazyutaraptor) March 31, 2015
I feel like Nicole’s advice for almost any situation involves British people on the internet. Not that she’s wrong, mind you.
Before I read the above… NICOLE! Did you know that that medication overdose article was going to be 4 parts long? (maybe 5… maybe more… who knows?) Resolution is needed!
Am I the only one feeling this way?
No. No you’re not. It’s almost cruel how they’re STILL (after THREE parts) not telling us if the boy survived or not.
Argh, I refreshed part one umpteen times in the office the first day.
I was dying (not literally) to know as well, and after doing some digging, and according to the obnoxiously named site HISTalk (Health IT News and Opinions is the subtitle–reminds me too much of the women in tech conversation on the Toast yesterday!) which has a link roundup of its own, HE SURVIVED AND MADE A FULL RECOVERY.
Thank you! That’s such a relief, and now I can read the remaining part or parts with much less anxiety.
You are amazing! Thank you so much!
You’re welcome! Like I said, I couldn’t stand not knowing either. I feel bad that this teenager’s horrible experience is being used as the probably very effective “hook” to sell the book. I’m sure Pablo Garcia is a pseudonym, but personally, I’d still feel really uncomfortable with my story being the cliffhanger for multiple chapters (possibly even the whole book), and hope he isn’t blindsided by the sensationalistic storytelling.
I am sitting here refreshing the author’s profile page like mad. WHERE IS PART 4. IS THERE A PART 5.
It’s an important and compelling story but it really doesn’t need to be this long. The author is belabouring the point like whoa.
I feel like the length so far is reasonable, but the serialization isn’t serving the story well — this is a story with a lot of details and numbers that are hard to retain from day to day and part to part. And I’m generally against serializing something without giving the reader a heads-up about how many parts to expect (or, if it’s being published as it’s written, a heads-up that you aren’t sure how many parts it will be).
I now see that Part 4 is up, and that the final part will be Part 5, to be posted tomorrow. But why not say at the beginning “In this weeklong series…”?
I agree! Though I wonder if it’s really The Medium belaboring it, since the story’s a long excerpt from the author’s book.
…I just want to finish reading the story, Mediummmmm.
Also, I disagree with the author’s statement (in part 4) that “it was the computer systems, and the awkward and sometimes unsafe ways that they interact with busy and fallible human beings, that ultimately were to blame.” It’s part of a general trend to blame tools for our own misuse of them that really bugs me. Alert fatigue is a problem, and judging by the screenshot he provided of the medication ordering software, the interface could be more user-friendly. But the “mg/kg” on the screen is clearly visible and if the doctor had taken 5 seconds to double-check everything before accepting the order, or if she hadn’t dismissed the alert without actually looking, the problem could have been avoided. How is it the computer system’s fault that she failed to do either of those?
It’s a very complex situation, and I’m not a medical professional, but to me this is almost as nonsensical as blaming your couch because you stubbed your toe on it, because it didn’t “interact” properly with your busy and fallible human foot.
I don’t think it was entirely the computer system, but I do think that the design of that screen didn’t help. It’s true that the doctor made a mistake, but if it were reasonable to expect humans to never make mistakes, we wouldn’t need these kinds of computer systems.
If I had to blame a single cause for this, I would go with the policy about dose rounding. The doctor was described as being pretty careful entering the initial order. But the policy forced her to re-enter the order when she was busy and distracted by other things, and that’s when she made the mistake. If the policy had been to have the pharmacist just ask for confirmation and then approve the original order, this particular error wouldn’t have happened.
That’s what alert fatigue means, though – not stopping to reconsider when the alarm goes off, because it’s almost always nothing.
“Human error” and lapses in attention are interesting (and horrifying obvs), because every single mistake is almost always avoidable, but when you have a million little tasks it’s impossible to not commit ANY mistake. Logically, no one should ever make a mistake on a math exam, because you already know all the rules, you only have to follow them. I’m perfectly able to solve 2+7 when I only have to do it once, but if I spent eight hours a day every day for years solving kindergarten-level problems, I’d probably screw up at least once even though I know perfectly well what to do, just because it’s impossible to stay mistake-free. In medicine, one lapse could mean that someone dies.
I work at a hospital and have been sharing it with colleagues. I fear I have become That Person who mass-forwards links.
How DO pets do it? My cats practically throw themselves headfirst down the stairs if I throw a toy or say I’ll feed them and I always think “one of these days they’ll break a neck doing that.” but I suppose cats don’t really do that?
Also brb Toast, I have to go to a meeting where my boss is going to make us watch a youtube video on phone etiquette rather than just using his words to say what he’d like us to do!
On a couple of occasions, my personal trainer has made me do bear crawls (quadrupedal motion aka QM) headfirst down two flights of stairs. It is the most terrifying thing, and while it certainly works my core, I usually end up bruising my shins all to hell because it’s hard to coordinate limb movement going downstairs on all fours, and get quite a headrush at the bottom.
This is my nightmare.
Couldn’t he also just email you the video?? Just saying, there are multiple levels as to why this seems like a waste of time.
Cats: “HOW DO HUMANS DO IT WALKING UPRIGHT ON TWO FEET ALL THE TIME THEY’RE GONNA FALL OVER”
My childhood dog would get so excited running down our steep wooden stairs that she often fell/slid down the bottom half of the staircase. She’d inevitably bounce up at the end with a sneeze. (The routine usually went “tap tap tap tap THUD THUD THUD THUD…sneeze”) I think she thought it was a more efficient way of getting downstairs? In general, she acted as if she was part daredevil mountain goat, anyway.
Our lab/pit mix pretty much does this… there is hardwood at the bottom of the stairs so half the time he just ends up sliding across half the kitchen. He is also at least 75% mountain goat.
When our corgi was a puppy she refused, refused to go up or down stairs (to be fair she was pretty tiny and it was difficult). Took forever to get her to stop being afraid of them.
That sounds like a horrible meeting and I think everyone would be better off if your cats threw themselves headfirst at your boss.
I would like to share with you all that Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman owned and operated an ice cream parlor in Worcester, MA. Gimme your best anarchist ice cream flavors. http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/04/ice-c…
Oh dang the other day we were trying to come up with feminist Ben & Jerry’s flavors (it was difficult, the only ones we came up with were Ruth Bader Chocolate Mintsberg Supreme, and Susan Butter Pecanthony).
I can’t do this because my brain is wired against puns, but I wanted to share it.
Consen-Sea Salt Caramel Decision Making
Prefigurative Politic Pistachio
Rocky Road to Revolution
Neopolitik is the best I’ve got.
oh shiiiit that’s so good though! I thought of Proper-Chai-Tea Is Theft while I was in the shower earlier.
Anar-key lime pie ice cream
Sacco and Fun-fetti
Banananarchy
Pumpkin Bread and Roses
Voltair-cookies-and-cream de Cleyre (this is a stretch but she’s my favorite)
They’re dialectically delicious!
I actually knew a dog that would only ever go down the stairs backwards.
Oh my GOD, why not just require everyone you’ve entered into the database wear a badge or symbol of some sort, Toronto police? (Don’t forget, yellow stars mean something slightly (but only slightly) different.)
I kind of want to abandon my life and move to Tennessee to take intro to biology from James Krupa. Anyone with me?
Cosigned.
His explanation of his syllabus and the reasoning behind it restored some of my faith in academia.
Yes, definitely! I enjoyed that article so, so much. He seems like just a lovely person. And all the students who wouldn’t even listen to him… Ugh. “JOHN THE BAPTIST, DUH.” Which book of the bible is that again?
Don’t move to Tennessee! He teaches at Kentucky! And is awesome!
Back in the early days of Facebook, there was a rather large group petitioning for him to go on Survivor. He never did it, but the group was quite a testament to his status on campus. He’s one of the good ones, for sure.
Oh heavens. I had better learn reading comprehension first… That’s pretty awesome about the Facebook group, though.
HURRAH for Andy Hort! I recently moved from a block shared with a police precinct (#40, Mott Haven, Bronx) and the cops were BEASTS about parking. I too would take pictures and post them to @myNYPD with no response of course. One time, two empty squad cars were double parked on opposite sides of a one-way street (and in the middle of the crosswalk), effectively blocking traffic. A school bus on its regular route couldn’t fit between the cars, so I guess whichever kids lived on that block were shit out of luck. And they were always dumping trash on the sidewalk in front of the bldg, like big trash! TVs, office chairs, you name it. Among their countless other flaws, the NYPD has a serious case of big swinging dick syndrome.
Hahahah, A+ comment on that Evolution article from Frank, who immediately sets into a seven-hundred word explanation for how the author’s description of how humans evolved from an ape ancestor is scientifically incorrect and misleading. Good work, Frank!
Haha, after being all inspired by James Krupa, whose idealism made me feel good about academia for the first time in months, Frank was a nice reminder of what most of my colleagues are actually like. Thanks for the reality check, Frank!
In a way, maybe it’s Frank who’s the real hero here?
To get the tone right, I’d phrase that, “Actually, Frank is the real hero here. His explanation is turgid yet correct.”
Did I just “actually” a post while suggesting you use “actually” oh shiiiiiiii
I remember reading a really striking description by Cynthia Lennon of her wedding to John – it was a rush job in some grotty registry office, that they had to do quickly because she was pregnant. She said that everyone was kinda distracted, she indicated that John wasn’t too happy to be there, and there was a pneumatic drill going outside that was so loud they couldn’t hear each other’s vows. Of course that could be a romantic ragtag story if told by a couple who really wanted to marry each other, but it’s quite poignant in the context of two kids who still didn’t know each other that well being essentially forced into marriage by society’s (read: Aunt Mimi’s, heh) unreasonable expectations.
That obit neglected to mention anything else she did with her life, apart from marrying people and having children. Grrr. >:-(
Well, and writing memoirs about her famous husband, but I would have liked more info as well.
Toasts, yesterday I was idly researching the Canadian court system (like you do) and I made the most amazing discovery.
The Federal Court is one of few courts in Canada which have their own coat of arms. It decided in its infinite wisdom that its powers and importance could best be represented by a brand-new mythical creature: the winged sea caribou.
Wikipedia helpfully explains, This fantastic Canadian beast has the head of a caribou, the wings and claws of a raven, and the posterior of a salmon. This unique morphology reflects the FCC’s jurisdiction over federal land matters, aeronautics, and law of the oceans. … The three constituent creatures, the caribou, the raven and the salmon are found in many parts of Canada. The male and female supporters represent the equality of the sexes, as well as the fact that the Federal Court is comprised of both male and female judicial officers.
THE POSTERIOR OF A SALMON.
That is the best. Why not just make up a mythical beast for your coat of arms! No weirder than a griffin or a unicorn, truly.
BRB deciding on which animals my arms should include. A cat, obviously. Rampant, mostly because I just like that heraldry term. Beyond that I’m going to need to mull.
But I mean, why not a mythical creature with the head of a polar bear, the wings of a Canada goose, and the posterior of a beaver? That’s a lot more Canadian to me than this salmon raven nonsense.
But it’s the salmon posterior that allows for a mermaid, right?
Also, rampant animals are great because they look like they are doing kung fu or some other martial art:
Who knew that Two Monks have a side gig with the Federal Court of Canada?
Two Medieval Monks Invent Heraldry would be a great addition to the series!
Ooh yes plz
Also new to me: the fact that the Canadian Heraldic Authority exists and is not, like, an indie shoegazer band.
“The Authority’s principal objective is to ensure that all Canadians who wish to use heraldry will have access to it. It also encourages good heraldic practice in Canada by working to the highest standards of the art form and by developing research and registration procedures that are consistent with an international level of excellence.”
“Good heraldic practice”, damn.
WE TAKE SUCH THINGS SERIOUSLY HERE IN CANADA.
I first learned about the Canadian Heraldic Authority when I saw a job posting for the position of Saguenay Herald. I assumed it was a newspaper from the Saguenay region but NOPE, turns out (1) Canada has official heralds (2) they are named after Canadian rivers, because of course they are.
Unsurprisingly, the Canadian Heraldic Authority has a coat of arms of its own and it is INCREDIBLY BADASS:
Is that….the head of a raven on the body of a polar bear? Or is that a yeti?
In herald-speak it is described as On a representation of an outcrop of the Canadian Shield proper strewn with maple leaves Gules and maple seeds Or two raven-bears Gules over Argent wings elevated Gules beaked and armed Or.
RAVEN-BEARS
The ability to go beaked and armed Or would vastly improve my daily life.
I spent an embarrassingly long time thinking, “beaked and armed or? Beaked and armed or WHAT?”
Beaked and armed OR ELSE; the Canadian Heraldic Authority takes no prisoners.
My boyfriend legitimately considered applying for a coat of arms for his family, because Canada is awesome in that regular people can get official coats of arms with whatever crazy mythical beasts they’d like!
My life has been well and truly enriched by this knowledge.
Tonight on Canadian Heraldic Authority: Design Crimes Unit, the team has to take down a well-financed gang smuggling black market weasel-puffins into Alberta.
I’ve been laughing over this for the past 10 minutes.
Also, heraldic accessibility!
http://www.canadiandesignresource.ca/features/int…
I like Philip Lee’s bison-mermaid. I imagine it swims the Red River.
To honour his Chinese heritage and Alberta home, former Alberta Lt. Governor Norman Lim Kwong opted for a pair of half dragon, half Albertosaurus creatures — along with a trio of footballs to denote his 1950s CFL career.
A M A Z I N G
“[Chief Herald of Canada] Ms. Boudreau’s own coat of arms features a pair of rainbow-coloured panthers breathing fire. For good measure, the design is topped by a third fire-breathing monster endowed with the “body of a lion, a horse’s head with horns, a griffin’s forelegs and a lion’s hind legs.”
“For good measure”, indeed. Never have I been so glad to be Canadian.
! ! !
When I was teaching and I’d get students in complete evolution denial, we’d talk about domesticated animals, inherited traits, dog breeding, breeding for type, race horses etc. Once they got that in their heads, and agreed that we could manipulate outcomes like color, speed, conformation and other traits I’d spring it on them: that’s how evolution works. Except in nature, humans aren’t interfering.
Some would accept this. Others told me I was wrong.
You did good work. Remember that sometimes it’s a matter of planting seeds that come to fruition later, when they’re not feeling so defensive and are better able to reconsider everything they’ve been taught (outside proper schools) growing up. They might remember then what you said and see the sense of it.
OKAY, BUT EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS AND FEEL GOOD ABOUT LIFE, THE INTERNET AND EVERYTHING.
I’d been following the story when it was originally updating on Buzzfeed but I hadn’t seen it update since he went to China and IT IS GLORIOUS AND I CRIED A LITTLE BIT.
THAT WAS AMAZING and I teared up.
WHY is this the cutest thing I’ve read ever? I want to hang out with Brother Orange!
I love this story! Brother Orange meets him at the airport with flowers! HOW CUTE IS THAT?
My favorite part is that there were people who were shipping the two of them BECAUSE THIS IS THE INTERNET SO OF COURSE.
I’m waiting for the inevitable rom-com to come out.
I’m sure there’s a Chinese tv drama in production about it as we speak.
Oh gosh, I started reading this so cynically and now I’m having a quiet little sob at work. FRIENDSHIP!
I love this and also I feel like this is maybe a lost William Gibson novel from 1985?
Or an E.L. Doctorow novel from 2076.
This was GREAT! I have been wondering where it all ended and… it hasn’t! Also, it is nice to see guys unafraid to be such intimate friends.
Well damn if that didn’t warm the cockles of my ice-cold heart. Guys being dudes!
That picture of them with the red ribbons after they had each wished that they’d be friends forever!!!
His enthusiam is so great! I would not be able to handle this much insanity with the grace the two of them have. If someone said, go meet a stranger and let people take a billion pictures of you, in a place where you can’t understand what is happening, and also karoke….I’d die. Instead this guy is like, “OK! ALSO lets pose in engagment poses!” Bravo him, its so earnest and generous and I love that these two dudes shared that kind of, “alright lets go for it!”.
and the part where Matt cancelled all of his hotel reservations ’cause Bro Orange said he had everything covered. wow. i wish i could say i’m the sort of person who could wing it on such an EPIC level.
I know, they’re such an inspiration! I also feel I would fail the test of “just enjoy everything in the moment” if I were there. The language barrier itself… But he’s right that translation apps these days are amazing.
THANK YOU FOR LINKING THIS OMG. I’ve heard so many amazing internet stories and even experienced some myself, but THIS is really special.
Sorry to c&p such a block of text, but this whole paragraph made my eyes bug out. Every sentence just intensifies.
This lecture should put students at ease knowing that religion and science need not be at odds. Of all the lectures I give, this one provokes the most discussion after class. And yet it often results in students expressing concern that I might not be saved. I never say anything about my personal religious beliefs, yet it is assumed I am an atheist. One student told me she hoped I could find God soon. When I again pointed out that John Paul accepted evolution—and he certainly wasn’t an atheist—the student countered that Catholics aren’t Christians. Several simply let me know they will be praying for me and praying hard. One student explained that as a devout Catholic he had no choice but to reject evolution. He accused me of fabricating the pope’s statements. When I explained that he could go to the Vatican website for verification or call the Vatican to talk to a scientist, he insisted that there was no such information available from the Vatican. He then pointed his finger at me and said the only way he would believe me is if Pope John Paul II came to my class to confirm these quotes face-to-face. The student then stomped out, again slamming the auditorium door behind him.
I mean… wow. WOW. It would take true passion for education to put yourself through that every semester. Teachers are so important.
I agree but would ALSO like to know about this Vatican scientist you can call. Do they have like a scientist call center for people to call in and ask faith-related science questions?
oh my gosh yes, “Vatican scientist” is an amazing job description and I would like one as a pen pal.
I know they have a Vatican observatory! One of their astronomers has published some very beginner-friendly stargazing books.
Brother Guy! He comes to SFF cons sometimes, he’s great.
One of them was on NPR not too long ago! He sounded like a cool guy.
ALSO creationism is definitely not Catholic teaching, even I managed to learn that from half-assed listening in my mediocre Catholic grade school. That kid is not only wrong, he’s wrong about why he decided to be wrong.
Yeah there are a bunch of different kinds of Catholics though, and even the regular Catholics aren’t always that familiar with specific Catholic teachings as you would expect.
Oh yeah– I mean all those years of Catholic school and it wasn’t until I was an adult that someone explained what “infallibility” actually means. But it’s one thing to not have heard about a teaching, or to misunderstand it, and another thing to somehow adopt a nonexistent principle and then become so serious about it that you’re willing to pick a fight with your professor?
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that Catholics and Episcopalians aren’t real Christians, I’d…have a lot of dollars.
It always makes me ragealicious to hear about Evangelicals and the like doing missionary work among the Catholics and Lutherans. As if their “personal relationship with Jesus” trumps 2000 years of considered and deliberate theology.
What does one even DO in that situation? And how does one get to the point where they refuse to question the things they have been told, even to the point where they are terrified to look at other information even from a source like THE VATICAN which as a Catholic I would pretty much trust on matters of faith?????????
I imagine that poor kid being all, “If only Catholic colleges and universities were a thing that existed!” That poor, sad kid.
Reading things like this makes me very happy that I grew up in a church that, although I was taught that evolution is not real the earth is 6000 years old etc., I was ALSO told that it is a necessary part of a christian’s life to question your faith and explore it. Otherwise it’s just blind belief and not really your own faith at all.
I went to a religious university in Utah, and this was the way our Biology 100 class approached things.
Listen, if I were to point & laugh & be baffled at people resisting change and/or challenge to their belief systems I would be Little Miss Ultra Hypocrite, so I do understand the EMOTIONAL need of these sts to refute the theory of evolution (or, what it stands for in their brain)
HOWEVAH. If there’s one thing that I have never never never never understood it’s the idea that ‘Catholics aren’t Christian’s.’ It’s – just- kgggk -kkkk- cogs in brain going grrrnxxx. They are like the ur-Christians. The trunk from which pretty much all variations of Christianity branched off. I am fb friends with a guy who is now unfortunately really into Ueber Evangelical Missionwork (puke), and he’s gone off to Italy to save the Heathens and spread Christianity. ITALY FFS. Ok….sorry…rant over. Stillllllll.
I seriously fine the idea of sending missionaries to Rome hilarious.
“Bless our brother, for he is going to darkest Italy to convert the heathens. Pray for him!”
Making the Pope turn out the lights and pretend he’s not in when they knock on the door. “Yes, thank you, I have actually accepted Jesus Christ as my personal saviour.”
OMG I would totally pay money to see Pope Francis punking earnest young evangelicals.
“Jesus? Jesus CHRIST? Hmmm. Never heard of him.”
(My spell-check automatically changed “punking” to “punching.” Not quite as funny, but I’d pay money for that too. Superhero Pope!)
It’s such a weird thing that I’ve only found so far in the South, this idea that “Catholics aren’t Christians.” They’re the original Christians! Where does that even come from?
It seems tangentially related to a surprisingly common belief among evangelicals that the US is God’s chosen Christian nation.
If you accept the premises that there are certain ideologies that one must believe in to call yourself a Christian (transubstantiation vs. consubstantiation, salvation by faith vs. salvation by faith and works, saints vs. idolatry, the trinity vs. idolatry, Mary vs. idolatry, the Bible as literal truth vs. the Bible as spiritual truth, and so very, very many other things) and your sect and Catholics disagree on those ideologies, then Catholics must not be Christian. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic education from age 5 to 24 (and ended up an atheist) and I took a bunch of classes in apologetics (the defense of the faith) over the years because this stuff sorta fascinates me, even today.
To be fair, so many Catholics have told me (a baptized Methodist) that *I’m* not Christian that I felt a thrill reading this passage. Tit for tat, Catholics! 😉
It does look terrifying to have to throw yourself down stairs! On the other hand, my cat’s never seen stairs and so doesn’t understand the concept of storeys, meaning she’s always confused by noises from our upstairs neighbour.
haha, my old cat used to like to go exploring the hallway, and then he’d go down the stairs to the floor below ours and run *directly* to the door of the apartment *directly* below ours and sniff under their door. I don’t know if he also did not understand storeys and thought maybe that *was* our apt., or if he did know, and just wanted to check out the source of the noises he heard from down there!
My cat does this with the apartment directly below us too, and I wonder the same thing! She must know it’s not our apartment because it smells different, but does she understand why?
Aww, I wonder if he was thinking, ‘Did you guys know there’s another one down here?!’
Has anyone seen the front page of The Washington Post? I am referring to the article about Tammy Darvish, victim of misogyny within her own family: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the…
She sacrificed to build her father’s company for 30 years, then dad give the company to her brothers.
Wow that article just made me so mad. I couldn’t even finish reading it I was so mad. I hope she wins a zillion dollars.
Holy shit, that dad and the brothers need to take a long walk. The people in the company say they don’t even know who the brothers ARE?! I hope she gets more than one third.
Ugh I read this part:
“But Tammy was never one to lean in. She bent over backward. She believed that if she worked hard enough, played by the rules and trusted her father, she would be rewarded one day. This is the other road of feminism: not marching forward but being stopped in your tracks by a final, intolerable outrage.”
And almost started crying.
So much anger on the train this morning. Tammy Darvish’s story is pretty much a perfect exemplar for how the patriarchy works, and for why feminism is still necessary. You can work hard and just suck it up for 30+ years, as many proponents of the post-feminism “meritocracy” model of modern America will insist. And yet your dad will still give the company to your seriously under-qualified brothers. Put her story right next to Ellen Pao’s under “just can’t win.”
Agree with jillheather. I hope she gets ALL the money.
Oh my God, that is completely infuriating, I have trouble absorbing it. I really, really, really hope she wins the suit.
I can’t stop thinking how even the misogyny is inconsistent. If it’s your belief that only sons inherit, that daughters will have husbands to provide for them, WHY THE FUCK DID YOU MAKE HER CALL OFF HER ENGAGEMENT? Darvish’s father wants it both ways. He likes how his new country allows his daughter to fully participate in business, so he takes advantage of her love for him, her dedication to long hours, and her intelligence to to build a very successful business. No marriage for her, need her in business. But then no inheriting the company for her, since she’s not a son.
I hope that father dies of slow, painful illness, alone, without hope, without wealth, without agency.
By the end of the day, John Jr. had contacted the managers of those locations. His father, he explained, had misspoken: Tammy would not be running any dealerships. He and his brother also made a YouTube video introducing themselves to employees. “As some of you know,” John Jr. says, “Darcars is entering a new era of leadership as Jamie and I have accepted new roles within the company.” There was no mention of Tammy.
These fucking guys.
What a wonderfully written article on teaching evolution. It was somehow very riveting. I took a course on evolution as my second level science gen-ed requirement. We spent a good section of the course just talking about how important it is to engage in discussions on evolution, watching Flock of Dodos – whose main message was that scientists were losing the battle of evolution education since they found it undignified to even address the absurdity of the other side. But we must continually engage, and teach. Very inspiring read.
I’m having a nachtmare day at work, so surreptitiously listening to Jesus Christ Superstar and counting down the hours til the end of the day. Very grateful today is the last working day of the week. Got too much heaven on my mind!
I was singing this to my cat on the way to the vet this morning. (Poor thing, she’s got rotten teeth and kidney problems, not to mention having to listen to me sing. Take this cup away from me!)
I was doing that at work yesterday! I really, really prefer the original version over the revival, do you have thoughts on this important matter?
I’m really sorry about your horrible day.
Thank you. There are 15 minutes left, I can do this! And when I finish work I’m going to buy myself some new bed sheets as a treat.
I am also an originalist when it comes to JCS. Ben Vereen and Yvonne Elliman, I mean c’mon!
I actually really like the movie version. It’s definitely the only time I prefer movie cast over original cast…possibly because most of the original actors are in the movie. Plus, two MORE songs and none cut!
I’m very sad about the Archipelago going away. Please enjoy my essay on Dread risk and irrationality that was published there:
https://medium.com/the-archipelago/how-to-avoid-a…
A scientific theory
Isn’t just a hunch or guess
It’s more like a question
That’s been put through a lot of tests
And when a theory emerges
Consistent with the facts
The proof is with science
The truth is with science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty33v7UYYbw
Sometimes you do want to drive around in the Blues Brothers’ loudspeaker car blasting “In God We Trust, Inc.” I’m glad the Johns have a friendly scientific argument (which apparently is still circulating healthily in my system, though we’re down to one copy!) (I always pimp the Johns’ kid albums to mothers)
Also all the storming students made me think of Professor Frank and “YOU’RE supposed to be an American.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZixyCDJk0U (audio NSFW)
I’ve explained gen-ed requirements to Dutch people multiple times, as they don’t have them here – my students are admitted to our department, take classes in our department, and then graduate from our department. If they want to switch departments they have to basically drop out and then re-enroll. I do think sometimes that it would be better to have something like non-major biology here.
Do they have better high-school graduation requirements there, in terms of general education?
I think so? I’m actually laughably unaware of Dutch high school, which is something I should probably learn about. But my colleague did ask “didn’t you learn that stuff in high school?” so I assume that yes, their high-school requirements are better.
I can easily imagine someone asking the same question in the States–biology is a standard part of the high school curriculum, and you have to take a required number of years of language, science, and math. If you don’t strictly have to take those classes to graduate, you still need to take them to get into college. The difference (it seems to me) is that the US liberal-arts philosophy assumes there’s value to also having some experience of those disciplines at a post-secondary level. I had a great tenth-grade biology teacher, but we didn’t get the rigorous semester-long study of evolution that’s described in the article linked here.
Isn’t Utrecht University dabbling with a liberal arts curriculum? (http://www.uu.nl/bachelors/en/bachelor/university-college-roosevelt) But yes, it’s uncommon.
Yes, and they’re not the only one! But it’s sort of ~experimental~ and for top students. Not the standard as of yet.
Oh that evolution piece makes me so happy! My cousin, the coolest person I know in real life, left her job at Harvard a few years ago to teach evolutionary biology at the University of Kentucky. I hope she and the author hang out being badass science crusaders together.
Betcha wish you had the Fourth Amendment (Terry v. Ohio) now, Canadians!
Whoo! ‘Merica!
I think we’ve got basically the same stuff in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it’s just that like in the US, sometimes it gets ignored until the courts glare at the police about it.
Also, it took me ages to figure out what the equivalent was, because apparently ‘Mericans think that being unreasonably detained by police is a subcategory of unreasonable seizure, where the thing being seized is you. In Canada we separate those things out into two different sections of the Charter, like sensible people. So the section that looks obviously equivalent to your Fourth Amendment is section eight, “Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure,” but the section that seems like it would be relevant here is section nine, “Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.”
Also also, I am not sure why I bothered to read that much about this. I guess vague references and easy access to information have their downsides. *shakes fist at Wikipedia*
Is it me or was John Lennon kind of a garbage person?
It’s definitely not you
he used to be cruel to his woman he beat her
And kept her apart from the things that she loved
But he’s getting better all the time!
To me, the fact that Paul McCartney wrote Hey Jude, a song intended to reassure Julian Lennon as his parents divorced, has always been the most damning evidence against John Lennon being some sort of secular saint, as the Boomers would have it.
What a jerk.
Not this boomer. Lennon was a very fine musician, in some ways uniquely talented. But a failure as a human.
I don’t think I actually ever really studied evolution in school! In my (public!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) high school in the Midwest we spent about one day learning about 5 different theories of evolution as if they all had equal merit and my teacher said that the one she believed was creationism. (and in college I took Astronomy for my science requirement.)
I definitely did not learn about evolution in school. Went to public school in the south; took AP Bio, and we learned mostly about plants. AP Bio exam included essay questions on evolution, genetics, and animal reproduction. I was the only student in class who passed the exam, for which I credit my adolescent love of Michael Crichton and all things Jurassic Park.
My dog is a corgi, so teaching him how to use the stairs as a puppy was a hilarious and adorable thing (he was very scared.)
My corgi basically kicks up her back legs as she barrels down the stairs, just so they’re out of the way. It took her ages to get near the stairs as a puppy, though.
my corgi can’t figure out how to get up and down the stairs at anything other than a full sprint.
Oh yeah, now he drags me down those things like he’s never been outside before in his life.
Get #ferrantefever is is the best you will never regret it except for regretting that you put it off this long. I am MAD MAD MAD for Ferrante!
That *must* be it. My smaller adult dog refuses to descend stairs if they are steep. My dogs have no tails. You nailed it.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that Catholics and Episcopalians aren't real Christians, I'd…have a lot of dollars.
It always makes me ragealicious to hear about Evangelicals and the like doing missionary work among the Catholics and Lutherans. As if their "personal relationship with Jesus" trumps 2000 years of considered and deliberate theology.
OMG I would totally pay money to see Pope Francis punking earnest young evangelicals.
"Jesus? Jesus CHRIST? Hmmm. Never heard of him."
(My spell-check automatically changed "punking" to "punching." Not quite as funny, but I'd pay money for that too. Superhero Pope!)
My corgi basically kicks up her back legs as she barrels down the stairs, just so they're out of the way. It took her ages to get near the stairs as a puppy, though.
Oh yeah, now he drags me down those things like he's never been outside before in his life.