Thousands have been displaced as a result of storms and flooding in Texas and Oklahoma. You can donate to Red Cross relief efforts at their website, by calling 1-800-REDCROSS, or by texting “90999” to REDCROSS (to make a $10 donation). Please feel free to leave links to other orgs doing relief work in TX/OK in the comments!
On the importance of cultural competence training for white teachers:
“Society generally has an aversion to seeing children of color as actual children,” said Jose Vilson, a middle school math educator in the Inwood/Washington Heights neighborhood and author of “This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and the Future of Education.”
Vilson said it’s important to make cultural competence for teachers a mandatory part of teacher development. …
“We need to speak up and say that cultural competence is professional competence, because you can’t teach students if you don’t actually value the students as students.”
SPEAKING OF WHICH, this story is very upsetting [h/t @mdawriter]:
PS 120 in Flushing held a carnival for its students Thursday, but kids whose parents did not pay $10 were forced to sit in the auditorium while their classmates had a blast. …
The must-pay rule excluded some of the poorest kids at the elementary, where most parents are Chinese immigrant families crammed into apartments and “struggling to keep their heads above water,” staffers said.
“It’s breaking my heart that there are kids inside,” one teacher said.
The teacher hugged a 7-year-old girl who was “crying hysterically.”
“She was the only one from her class who couldn’t go, so she was very upset,” the teacher said.
The girl told others, “My mom doesn’t care about me.” But the teacher said parents possibly did not see or understand the flier that went home or didn’t have $10 to spare.
“Are we being punished?” one child asked an aide in the auditorium as kids sat there with no movie playing, a staffer said.
Principal Joan Monroe tacked up a list of the number of students per class: “How many attending, Paid,” and “How many not attending, Not paid.”
Here is the actual list Principal Joan Monroe posted (with the names blocked out): over a hundred kids publicly humiliated and left out of a school carnival because their parents didn’t or couldn’t send in ten bucks. HOW is this a choice someone actually made?? The carnival company is now offering to throw a free party for the kids who missed out, which is great, but the principal should still have to answer for her actions.
“Equality in Marriage May Not Bring Equality in Adoption”:
With the Supreme Court set to rule on gay marriage in June, couples like Bode and his husband may not have to wait much longer for complete marriage equality. Yet, the adoption landscape in the United States is so fractured that a win for same-sex marriage might not translate to an immediate win for same-sex adoption. Legal experts say it will take time for certain states to adjust to a federal ruling that would require them to recognize gay marriages—and thus, gay adoptions—including those performed out-of-state.
Housekeeping note! We’ve been working hard to get rid of the auto-play ads on the site that cause trouble for some readers, but people smarter than me tell me that even though we’ve set up the ad quality settings so that auto-play ads shouldn’t slip through, sometimes companies self-classifying their ads misidentify them. So, if you see an auto-play ad and if you are so inclined, you could screenshot it and then send that — plus the clickthrough URL, if there is one — to nikki@the-toast dot net. And then I’ll shake my fist, and forward it to the aforementioned smart people, who can then block the clickthrough URL. Got that? I’m not sure I do, and all of you should feel 100% free to continue reading/enjoying the site while paying zero attention to the advertising — that is what I do, most of the time! — but I thought I’d mention it because some kind readers, in addition to voicing their understandable frustration with the auto-play ads, asked what they could do to help. And this, I’m told, would be helpful!
(Also if you see that horrible Asian ladies/”Asian beauties” ad again, send THAT to me with a screenshot/clickthrough URL; despite our best efforts to kill it, it seems to show up with some regularity on my many thoughtful and dignified posts about Asian Stuff, and I want it GONE.)
you know, just in case you were wondering
Sarah Hagi on sending money to her relatives in Somalia, and how this obligation has become “one of the most meaningful reminders” of her heritage:
We’re Muslim, and one of the major tenets of our religion is charity. Charity, we are often told, does not decrease wealth. Meaning: If you were in a position to give, your status would always be elevated in the eyes of God. If you were in a position to spread your wealth, it was an honor.
Once I had been working more steadily for a couple of years, my mom began to ask how much I had in my account. I was 17, and my fast-food habit meant there wasn’t much left over before my next paycheck. She never had to force me; it was very much a “give what you can” request. I didn’t always know who the recipient would be or what they needed it for, but I trusted my mom wouldn’t ask us to give away our hard-earned money for no reason. …
For much of my life, the entire process felt like going through the motions, like paying a bill or doing my taxes. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just something I did sometimes without putting much thought into it. Now that I’m an adult, I realize how formative this tradition is to what I value now.
There’s an interesting discussion over at Disability in Kid Lit about the romanticization of mental illness in literature, particularly YA:
JJ: The reason I would prefer to see a narrative from the PoV of the character with mental illness is that said character is the one experiencing the micro-aggression. And that is a much more powerful way to correct romantic notions—when you experience the micro-aggression along with the character directly. …
Lee: It’s a matter of figuring out how to make the history and experience of the character real for the normative reader. Which can be a real challenge. Especially for the reader for whom this is their first (or early) exposure to the concept.
Alex: There is a balance to strike. Ideally there would be plenty of stories within and outside of the perspectives of mental illness. Because lots of outsiders don’t really relate until they hear a story from the outside perspective.
No surprises here, being terrible to adjuncts is also terrible for students.
Toast contributor Christina Tesoro on how she learned to love being naked:
I once had a writing professor who stressed the importance of extending positivity and kindness to each other in a class where we bared our souls. We were naked in that class in a different way, but there’s still something revolutionary in looking at yourself with compassion, with love. Taking the time to see and appreciate yourself exactly as you are — I do it every day. I stand naked in the mirror and let warm shower water dry cool on my skin. I dance. I stage a revolution of one.
I have spent quite a bit of time in Bandon, though it wasn’t Our Usual Beach Town when I was growing up, and this plan to “develop” Oregon state coastal parkland by building a golf course (this dude’s SECOND golf course in Bandon, wtf) bums me out.
oh hey this seems perfectly tailored to my needs and desires: How a Lazy Person Cooks Indian Food
I’m not in charge of your life or anything, but I really don’t think you should see Aloha this weekend. I don’t think anyone should see Aloha. Just my opinion.
Sectioning off the kids whose parents didn’t pay for the carnival sounds a LOT like an experience I had in elementary school. It was a little different, since the party was held in a different building (I think, it was a while ago), but everyone whose parents didn’t send money just sort of got put in a big room with a babysitter. Nothing makes you feel more worthless than watching your friends come back at the end of the day with novelty glasses and cotton candy, having had a blast, and not having the first clue why you didn’t get invited. I’d hoped someone had realized that wasn’t a good idea in the two-ish decades since, but apparently not.
That story makes me want to rage cry.
That story DID make me rage cry 🙁 I was already feeling emotional this morning, imagining those kids sitting in a dark auditorium while their friends were outside having fun sent me over the edge. That principal should be run out of town on a rail. It boggles my mind how many people in education seem to actually dislike children.
In middle school we had a parents’ night where parents were supposed to come and meet each teacher on their kids’ schedules and a lot of teachers would offer grade bonuses, etc. if your parents showed up. Of course, lots of kids’ parents had to work or take care of other children (or just refused to go despite their kids’ asking) and couldn’t come at all–ridiculously unfair to those kids.
My favorite detail about “Aloha” is: Emma Stone’s character’s last name is Ng. Wonder how they’ll explain that?
…married to/divorced from an A/PI we never see/hear from?
Especially since the film is centered around her romance with Bradley Cooper. “Emma Stone”, “Bradley Cooper”, even their *names* are so, so white.
I go by a pretty typical Asian last name and I am very white. I “explain that” by being married to an Asian person. It is possible, you know.
Her Asian stepfather adopted her as a young child?
APPARENTLY she’s “one-quarter Hawaiian.” i.e., juuuuust Hawaiian enough that they could easily cast a white woman to play her.
Hey, why don’t we just cast white people in all the roles, no matter what? Oh wait, Hollywood already does that, all the fucking time.
I WAS WRONG SHE’S ALSO ONE-QUARTER CHINESE
I feel like anyone who buys a ticket to see Aloha this weekend should be “accidentally” given a ticket for Fury Road instead. I’m just saying.
Hope the Texas/Oklahoma Toasties are staying safe and mostly dry! I can’t even imagine that amount of water in one place.
Also, ABOUT GODDAMN TIME on those FIFA arrests. No way is Blatter ever going to step down unless someone forces him to. It’s not going to happen.
approve of this Fury Road plan, but for all movies in perpetuity
I really hope this leads to the World Cup not happening in Qatar, though I am not optimistic. How in the world are they still having the World Cup in Qatar in December. There are so many levels on which that is a bad idea, with so much suffering. Latest example, not granting Nepali workers bereavement to go home, http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2015/05/wo….
Is this a good place to tell you all about being flown to Qatar in 2011 as a performer for when they hosted the AFC Asian Cup and it was completely bananas? It was insane. They also had giant banners everywhere to get people hyped already for the World Cup in 2022. Everything about that trip was so thoroughly ridiculous. Like, we were treated pretty well as performers, but the whole time all I could think was how much money they were pouring into the event, and how poor the living conditions are for the majority of the people in their country who aren’t Qatari.
That sounds kinda surreal, you should propose an article! I’d love to hear more about that experience!
I’d be a little hesitant to do that, since I’m no longer with that dance company and wouldn’t want my views to reflect poorly on them (it being very poor form to insult your hosts/clients). Although I’ve probably put enough details here to out myself anyway at this point! I’ll give it a ponder.
I am rather gleefully excited about it. FIFA had it coming, I just really hope they can expand the charges to more people. Right now they’ve only arrested people from CONCACAF/CONMEBOL (the Americas) and haven’t even touched any other area of the world.
well, the FBI/DOJ’s jurisdiction only extends so far. It makes sense that there’d be more criminal activity in the US from CONCACAF officials than anyone else.
Buuut I’m hopeful that the Swiss authorities opening up their own investigation into the Qatar 2022 voting will lead to them indicting/prosecuting more Exco members, since theoretically more illegal business has gone down on Swiss soil or through Swiss institutions. Fingers crossed!
It was so nice to read such happy news on the front page for once and if I knew how to post gifs I would post that one of Sepp Blatter falling of a stage!
I am so damn excited about the FIFA arrests! I just spent a long time working on a law review article about FIFA corruption, so I am kind of geeking out about this whole thing. And to happen the week before the presidential election, too! Perfect.
I’m forcing the boyfriend to see Fury Road with me tonight (he did not require much arm twisting) thanks to the toasties’ enduring enthusiasm. Question: is it a popcorn and soda movie or a popcorn and wine-that-I-snuck-in movie?
Popcorn and holy shit my hand stopped midway to my mouth and I’ve been holding this piece of popcorn aloft because I cannot think or even process what is happening, it’s so overwhelmingly awesome. I’d go soda if only because you will not want to dull your sense or miss a single second.
Yes. You were correct about all of this.
oh my god i am a child of people who snuck food into movies to save money and i have NEVER THOUGHT OF DOING THIS.
what are my life choices.
I do not know of your life choices, but I will recommend this: transfer a cheap-ish bottle of wine into a 40 oz klean kanteen, stuff it in a tote, buy yourself a ridiculously large popcorn to alleviate the guilt, and HAVE AT IT. Every movie is better*
*apologies to those who viewed The Hunger Games: Propaganda with us when we began giggling during a very silent scene and could not stop. It was the first time I was shushed, and it only made us giggle harder. I am** sorry.
**not
Apropos of nothing, Google recently suggested that I join “Inbox”, which is what they’re calling the new interface for interacting with Gmail, and for the last several YEARS (really, since they announced killing Reader) I have hated nearly every change to the interface, nearly every beta product (or at least just felt deeply underwhelmed). But I’m about 24 hours into Inbox, and I LOVE it.
Yes! I am a terrible procrastinator, but somehow it helps to be able to schedule my emails to be re-sent. And I’m obsessed with keeping my little sun logo, so I have been actually doing tasks. It’s a freaking miracle.
How does one acquire this?
So, in general, info is here. I have a very limited number of invites, so, if you’d like, email me at cosetthetable ~at~ gmail and I will then hook you up from my normal gmail.
Although, normal caveats- it’s beta, so there are some features missing (although not as many as I expected), and if you’re not interested in implementing something very much like inbox zero you will probably think it is bad and annoying.
Mr. BHam has had it for a while (six or eight months, maybe?) and just yesterday I noticed he switched back to the “old” version. When I asked why, he said he wanted to see the exact number of unread emails in his inbox…which was 1,532. Mostly promotions/subscriptions, not “real” emails, but wow.
Archiving my email is so hard, because at a certain point, I am just looking at emails that are funny enough to me that I just enjoy looking at them every so often, and yes, I can shove them all in a folder that I can go look at later if I really need to, but even that process involves me seeing exchanges like “thank you for being my “sending fic to people who have fucked people i have fucked” etiquette consultant”.
I am straight up loving inbox. But I can’t figure out how to make phone calls anymore without going back to the old view. Is it hidden somewhere in the hangout/chat dropdown and I’m missing it?
Go to the Hangouts popthing, at the top should be a thing that says “search for people” or “start a new conversation” or whatever, and the type the phone number. I think that works, I didn’t test it out because i’m at work.
I LOVE INBOX it’s so much better and I only go to gmail now to occasionally clear out my promotional mail which for some reason inbox doesn’t show me but occasionally actually contains things I want (like coupons and whatnot). It’s SO much more useful.
I think you should be able to go into the settings on the Promos bundle to change how it shows them to you. (I currently have it showing them to me once a day in the morning. I don’t want that, I want it to show them to me once a day in the EVENING, but I haven’t yet figured out how to make it do that, so… boo).
Adjuncts: the gift that keeps on sucking! Fail your students! Fail yourself! Fail your rent and health care! All for nine monthly payments of Too Damn Low from your university!
Every article I read about adjuncting makes me more and more glad that I left grad school when I did. If I’d gotten my PhD I’d most likely either be adjuncting in a different subject or unemployed. (Now I’m on the admin side, which is a whole other mess, but one with a steady paycheck and predictable hours at least.)
You and I are in the exact same boat! My salary in higher ed administration is literally double what I was making as an adjunct, plus I get health insurance and paid time off and, you know, am not forceably unemployed in the summer.
I may be transitioning from a low-paid lectureship to an admin career and I have a lot of mixed feelings about it (esp. since so many of my peers blame the growth in admin positions for the rise of adjuncting and decline of TT jobs), but not being horribly exploited seems pretty great.
Oh man, I have a lot of feelings about the blaming of all college woes on administrative bloat! But probably more than would fit in one comment on a link roundup.
You know, I always do wonder how many of those higher ed admins who constitute the bloat actually *have* PhDs and couldn’t find a university job any other way.
I make peanuts and I still think I’m better off (healthcare, decent treatment) than most of the adjuncts I know. If that’s what using the doctorate means, NO THANK YOU.
That article about remittance is lovely! Its an insight into a culture I’ve never experienced and something that never occurred to me as a ‘thing’.
I’m an emigrant (Irish people are all emigrants, never immigrants for some reason*.) and I’m only now getting to the point where I can give money back to my mum, which she desperately needs, after she supported me through university; Its kind of nice that I can spare £100 in a month without thinking about it, but it makes a huge difference to her.
Now if only I could figure out a way of transferring money without being charged £25 by the bank, posting cash is not going to cut it for long.
*This is a joke. And also not a joke because its true.
Joint bank account? Also holy crap that is a lot of money for a transfer charge!
Its to transfer internationally, across currency. Within the UK its free, but my Mum lives in Ireland, with an Irish bank account, I kept my Irish bank account when I first moved so that my mum could give me money easily, I was just charged to withdraw at the ATM.
But seriously, bank charges need to fuck off. They are not a thing with my Irish bank and I miss it so.
With that kind of thing it would really be worth shopping around to see if you can find a bank/credit union or building society that didn’t charge so much for that. While it is always a hassle setting up a new account, the monet you might be able to save would be worth it
I’m thinking western union or something might make it possible. Its most the inconvenience, its so easy to make bank transfers online, I just wish I wasn’t charged! I just gave up and posted her cash, but I am going to get it sorted at some point (its on the list of 100 other things I’m going to sort at some point!)
Paypal worked for me with sending money from a US account to a British account. The fee was only about $.50. It was pretty easy to set up and once your bank accounts are hooked in you can just email money.
I can’t believe this is going to be the thing that pushes me over into finally commenting on The Toast, but I had a great experience with TransferWise (transferring UK to Canada). The exchange rate is really good, what you get if you type it into Google just like they say (although you get the exchange rate when they make the transfer, not when you set it up, so there can be some variation. You can set a limit on how large that variation is if you are willing to wait a couple of days for it to go through) and the fee is pretty low. I think there are other similar Internet-based companies and if you do regular transfers, maybe negotiating something with your bank or a Credit Union you could get something better, but for occasional small amounts, TransferWise seems like a good option.
Thanks, I’ve heard that name before, I’ll have to check them out!
Does anyone know of non-Red Cross options to donate to help people in Texas and Oklahoma? After the Pro Publica series on the Red Cross and their terrible mismanagement of the situation post- Sandy, I will not give them money.
Yesterday I came across this list of ways to help in central TX.
Thank you!
Here are some more lists of places to donate:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/37dixo/vo… http://www.myfoxaustin.com/category/300444/shareo… http://www.cityofwimberley.com/
In general, Austin got off pretty lightly, especially when compared with San Marcos and Wimberly, so if you’re giving to smaller local organizations I’d advocate looking south of Austin.
I live on Staten Island. I will never donate to Red Cross.
Hey, Minneapolis-St. Paul Toasties ( which tried to autocorrect to Tostitos, which makes me unreasonably happy), I’m going to be in town from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. What should I see/do?
I always recommend the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, because it is a good museum but also because it is free and you can stay for whatever length of time without feeling like you’ve wasted your money.
There’s a great farmer’s market in Minneapolis on Saturday mornings, right next to the Guthrie and the Mill City Museum, and another in lowertown Saint Paul right at the end of the Green Line train.
If you like plants, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden is an impressively wild spot in Minneapolis, and the conservatory at Como Park in Saint Paul is not wild at all but it’s very beautiful.
Or go to Minnehaha Falls and rent a bicycle to ride along the river!
My friend wanted to take me to Como, but now the Wildflower Garden sounds like an even better option than going to the science museum. But Minnehaha Falls! What a great idea!
Any current or former adjuncts want to lament with me?
Post-grad school, I taught for two semesters as an adjunct. I only taught around 1.333 credits, and my biweekly takehome was $150. This was after they pulled for the odd 401K I’d been provided and not opted into. When I left, I was told by Unemployment that I hadn’t made enough money to qualify for it.
I loved teaching, particularly at the collegiate level, but it just wasn’t sustainable. At all.
Preach.
I loved teaching, too. I dropped out and joined AmeriCorps, and I’m thinking about going back and getting K-12 certified with my education award because I miss being in the classroom that much and the job outlook is…marginally better, right?
I’ve been adjuncting for over a decade now. I started with the promise from older colleagues that tenure positions were juuuust on the horizon because boomers would be retiring soon. Those same boomers are still teaching with no whispers of retirement. The few that do leave are replaced by three adjuncts. When one adjunct quits, there are ten ready to take over.
The thing that really pisses me off is our workloads have been reduced in the last year and my dean keeps saying it’s “due to the Affordable Care Act.” No, it’s due to the fact that they don’t want to provide adjuncts with healthcare.
I’m dying for a career change I have so much regret about the path I’ve picked. I realize how much weight I put on the idea of having a flexible career because I wanted to have children. It burns to be see my peers in the private sector be treated so much better, especially in this regard.
Oh man, this sounds painfully like Libraryland. I’ve got an MLIS degree and work in university admin.
I’ve been adjuncting for 4 years, but since I needed the teaching experience and was still finishing my PhD (got it last summer) I was sort of deluding myself that I could fly from this life into the comparatively well-funded world of a postdoc! I … didn’t get any of the postdocs I applied for (though I came painfully close to a couple), so I’m spending the summer trying to burnish my CV/questioning my life choices.
One of my students asked me what I was doing over the summer and I alllllmmost said, “Living hand to mouth because higher ed is a broken system! How about you? Oh, an unpaid internship? Those are a scam too.”
WTELF was that principal THINKING???? My god.
I know you’re saying “ever loving f—” but I am just inordinately pleased by “what the elf”
Above by Leah Bobet is one of the best portrayals of mental illness and its effects on relationships in YA, in my opinion – it’s also a great story about realistic mutants and ugh I just love it.
http://www.amazon.ca/Above-Leah-Bobet/dp/05452967…
There have been issues with the American Red Cross going back to Katrina and 9/11, I would definitely would not encourage donations to that organisation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4851428.stm and
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health-july-dec05-….
… Sun logo? What do I have to do to get a sun logo??? Is this my reward for finally getting back to inbox zero? I have archived about 90% of my email in the last 24 hours, but the last 10% is going to take me the rest of the week (relationship-heavy emails, unsolicited mp3s from my father, health stuff, etc). Having something to look forward to will help : )
{this seems to be to be BOTH showing up in the right place, as a response to secondursula as well as its own comment. grrrrr.}
The sun logo is indeed the carrot on the stick for inbox zero. I did a big archive everything huzzah push this weekend, and since then I’ve basically only gotten junk mail that I can whisk away quickly.
I’ve yet to use the reminders/to-do list feature though. Have you been finding that helpful?
So, location based to-dos will probably not work very well for me, because both home and work are in comparitive cell dead zones, although they do seem to work okayish.
But normal reminders? SO EXCITED. I can manage to use evernote well for *projects* (ie, when i went to a wedding on the other coast, or when I moved), but when it’s just day to day trying to remember that i put leftovers in the work fridge that I want to take home to eat for dinner, having something pop up 15 minutes before i leave work without having to bother to schedule it in calendar is going to be SO GREAT.
After the remittance article, I’ve fallen down a buzzfeed hole about inheritance and found this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/chelseafagan/what-our-par…
And shit that hits home 100%. You inherit your money crap from your parents completely. I grew up in a single parent household on benefits and my mother could never get her head above water, partly due to lack of income, but also she’s a bit crap with money. A windfall would come in and she’d by new crystals to help the ‘energy’ in the house. And she’s been in debt for about 30 years. But she also always involved me in household finances from a young age, so I always understood about paying bills etc.
I’ve a tendency to blow any money I get in, but its usually on stuff I needed anyway but have been putting off, and I have a phobia of borrowing and refuse to go into any form of debt out of necessity. I’m only now starting to think about working on my credit score with some small manageable debt, despite my mothers constant insistence that I should save all my money and live on credit (Which sounds insane to me, do people do this?)
People sort of do that (save all their money and live on credit) but you have to be very very careful and know what you’re doing.
It can be a good deal if you charge everything on a good credit card that gives you a money rebate, and then you pay it off every month. That way you actually come out ahead because you were using credit wisely — you make a little money. But the killer, killer rule is pay it off every month — do not ever pay interest. The interest will be astronomical and destroy your budget (and why would you give money to immoral barracuda companies anyway?).
It is also a good idea to have a decent credit score if in North America. That gets harder to build up as you get older (and companies ask, well, why hasn’t she had credit up until now). And it makes things possible that you may want later in life.
I understand the theory behind it, but I just cannot handle that much stress, considering I’ve lived pretty much hand to mouth my entire life. I’m now in a (amazing) position where there’s money left at the end of the month, so I’m just sticking it all in a saving account. But as soon I started earning a regular income at 18 my mother said I should get a big loan to start building up a credit history and I was like, yeah no. I have no idea how long this income is going to stay regular. And thank god I did, because I’ve spend the last few years in crappy service jobs or no jobs and having nearly no income!
Luckily I’m in Europe, so credit score is not *as* important, but it is still important for mortgages/car loans etc. I’m going to get a really small limit credit card this year and just use it for small stuff and pay it off every month for awhile and then see how I feel. Honestly though, I wish this shit was taught in school, I did an accounting module at College, and my teacher was so cool so he always just gave us personal finance advice, but I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing being a grown up.
What I did for the first few years out of high school/through college was get a credit card with just a couple hundred dollars limit from my bank (the bank guy actually said, “Well we can get you something with $1,000 limit, don’t you want that instead???” and I practically yelled “No!”) and put any recurring payments on it, like Netflix, and my utility bill every month. Then I pay back the total balance from my checking account as I would have done anyway several days before the due date, using the online payment system. The net effect has been no different than just paying for those things out of my bank account, but I also have amassed a couple hundred dollars in “points” over the last several years, which I can use toward plane tickets should I ever need them. And when I finally did want to get a credit card with a higher limit for a major purchase, my credit score was apparently really good. So that is a system that works and is not too stressful money-wise because you know you can never go more than $300 (or whatever your limit is) into “debt” and you are only spending money you would have spent anyway on things you ideally pay off like clockwork each month. Hope whatever you decide to do works for you!
I think your approach is very sensible. I know a woman who saved up her babysitting money as a teen until she could buy herself a (used) car at 21. She had the entire price of the car in her savings account. But she only paid 20% of the purchase price and financed the rest with a loan. She made loan payments from that savings account, since she was still in college and had no significant income. That way, she paid a little more (in interest on the loan) than she might have, but considered it the price of beginning a good credit history. When she graduated a couple years later, she had an excellent credit score, even though she’d never had a salaried job yet.
I know nothing about credit scores (I don’t think it’s much of a thing in Europe? Credit cards aren’t used much, just debit cards) but I thought it was a really interesting article. I mean, from my mom, I always got the lesson that it was important to be able to provide for yourself: she’s a teacher and makes much less than my dad, to the extent that she could easily have stopped working, but she never did, both because she likes her work and because she never wanted to become fully dependent. From my dad, I get being thrifty most of the time but occasionally going on what-the-heck binges (which in my case are generally contained to a few hundred euro, and they’re pretty rare, so I figure it’s ok).
What I do differently from my parents is that whereas they each have access to each other’s accounts, the boy and I have a joint account (where we each put about half our salary, and from which we pay the mortgage and electricity and groceries etc.) and our own personal accounts the other person can’t access. I’d hate to have to justify purchases to him, especially since his spending patterns are so different. Also different: my mom takes care of most financial things (paying bills and the like), and I see it more as a joint enterprise.
I don’t know much about credit scores, I just know that having a credit history is important if you ever want a mortgage or things like that.
I’ve never had it come to the point of shared finances in a relationship; but I do pay attention to how guys pay on dates, more their attitude than what they actually spend, I don’t think you should split the bill on a date, but I’ve no problem getting the next one, or getting a round of drinks in if it feels right (some guys are weird)
I’ve more experience with friends, and I’m finding now that I have some disposable income, I’m more generous with buying drinks or getting dinner, I know they’ll get it the next time, but I don’t mind splitting the bill if that’s what the other person wants. The thing I hate the most is when people get into itemizing bills and all that, I don’t mind rounding up or paying a larger share if I had extra coffees etc, but like dude, be cool! When I was a waitress the best tables were always the ones that just said put X on each card and take the tip from the remainder.
I’ve got a few friends who I know have less than me, and I actually like getting dinner in or drinks, or cinema tickets or whatever, cause I used to be like that and I had some good friends who would buy the drinks or dinner and it was really nice being able to socialize even when I was broke. But I will be the first person to say ‘I can’t afford that’ because frankly people who feel pressured into spending above their means to keep up appearance are not very smart, yes it means I haven’t been on holiday with friends, but I’m totally happy not being in debt.
The boy and I alternate taking each other out to dinner from our “own” accounts, just because treating someone (as well as being treated to something) are nice!
As for the mortgage thing: I can only speak for the Netherlands, but I got a mortgage without any trouble and I barely ever use my credit card (and pay it off at the end of the month when I do). I think the only thing they checked was whether I’d ever been in trouble with debt collecting agencies.
I can see how that would be nice
The thing I can’t get my head around is married couples splitting who’s buying food and general house stuff, like ‘I bought milk last week, you have to buy it this week’, I don’t know if real people actually do this though. I know my brother and his partner have a bit of a weird arrangement since she earns more than him, when they got their apartment she bought the floors and the stove etc, and its very much her house not their house, I dunno if I could deal with that, I’d rather both of us put in an equal amount and then we see whats affordable out of the pot, but then I understand that if I want something that he’s never going to use (Like horses…) it’d probably come out of my own money.
It is a huge thing with relationships, and you have to be really mature to actually sit down and discuss how its all going to work I think
Your brother’s arrangement does seem weird to me. My husband makes over twice what I make, but we have a joint account and use it as our money. He works longer hours, so I do most of the cooking, bill paying and the majority of the house cleaning, though he has regular chores, too. The way we see it and have discussed it, we’re a partnership and partners work together. He’s able to make the money he does because of my support doing all the crap he doesn’t have time for. In the past, I’ve earned more than him and we keep the same arrangement, with him picking up more of the chores. The houses we’ve bought have always been our houses, regardless of who put the most money in for the down payment or into repairs. We don’t even track it.
I understand having your own account so you don’t have to answer to any purchases and also, as a child of divorce, I am careful to always have my own money somewhere just in case something happens, but dividing up who bought what just seems like so much work, to me. I don’t want to keep track of that shit. Of course, what works for someone else is their own business and YMMV.
Just following this really interesting conversation here, so I thought I’d contribute.
1. Me and my partner have a credit card together, which we use for everything. It’s in my name because at the time of application he was not an Australian citizen, but he’s an authorised user and has his own card. We got it for the same kind of nebulous ‘credit score’ reasons as you’re talking about, because we knew we wanted to buy a house at some point. So we used it very rarely and paid it off immediately and now we own a house, so I guess that worked? I don’t have any idea if it did work or not, as credit scores don’t seem to be too big a deal here, either.
2. Now that we have a mortgage, using our credit card for everything works well for us, as we’ve got an account that, instead of accruing interest, reduces the interest on the mortgage. So we let money bank up in there and pay the credit card once a month. It’s become a habit now, and we only use our debit cards if we need to withdraw cash, which isn’t often.
3. Joint finances, wow. I have never understood how people can be so separate in their finances when they are together in all other senses of the word. But then I also understand how not everyone is the same as me, and that’s fine.
We have had a joint account for almost as long as we’ve been together. It started because we knew that proving our ‘togetherness’ was important for any future residency visa applications we’d want to make, and then it just became normal. As someone with an unhealthy relationship with money – I hate spending it, I hate paying for things, I am really unpleasantly uncomfortable with it in general – I welcome the fact that he doesn’t have any of my hangups and is very good at arranging bill-paying etc. I am the main earner in our household, and the house is actually only in my name since he didn’t have a full-time job when we applied. So I get to call it ‘my house’ to other people who don’t know my living arrangements, and my dad gets to be proud that I bought my first house at the same age as he bought his first house.
Money, it is weird.
Yikes sorry I know this is not the place but I just got broken up with literally over the phone at lunch after 4 years and I feel like a non human garbage pile / trying not to cry on a conf call because of course I had to go back to work. This is going to feel okay ish at some point right
You will feel okay ish, maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but soon and then you will feel okay and great and meh and the full range of stuff, and it will all be alright. So sorry you have to hold it together at work. Can you say you’re having an alergy attack and duck out? That’s my ace in the back pocket move.
Oh bey, I’m so sorry. Anyone who would breakup with you by phone in the middle of the work day deserves neither beyonce nor pad thai. Focus on getting through work today. Promise yourself you can feel your feelings just as soon as you get home but until then keep yourself as busy as possible. Even if it’s just busy work to keep your mind occupied. You will feel okay eventually. Probably not today, or tomorrow, but you will.
Do you have one trusted, good human at your office you can confide in? Or via IM/text of some sort? I can sometimes find some help in such situations by occasionally putting the phone on mute, sticking my head into the work wife’s cubicle, spitting seventeen curse words through a clenched jaw, and returning to the call. Or just googling curse words in foreign languages, and then typing them, one by one, into FB messenger on my phone.
So sorry this is happening to you, and it can be a long journey to okay and good and great, but you will get there
I am sending you hugs from afar.
(Over the phone?? I’m pretty sure phone breakups are hardly acceptable past the 4-month mark, never mind 4 years. Oh my god. Who does that.)
And while the other person is AT WORK?!?! WTF. Asshole.
yeah, THAT person is the non human garbage pile, not someone who has the amazing username of beyoncepadthai1
OMG I’m so sorry, that is awful. Sending all the hugs. It WILL feel okayish, and then really shitty again, and then better than okayish, and eventually it will be fine. But it’s also ok that it feels like utter crap right now. Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself.
<3 I’m so sorry you are dealing with this, and at work too. I hope you find ways to be extra-kind to yourself.
Sending Jedi hugs and good thoughts to you! You will be ok eventually, I promise. Take care of yourself and treat yourself nicely! You are rad! That person is NOT rad.
Oh wow, I’m so sorry. Hugs if you want them, and you know how to reach me if you need to.
Thank you <3 Not sure I’m fit for any non blubbering interaction right now but I will text you tonight or tomorrow.
Feel your feels, but please know that while you may FEEL garbagepile feelings, we do not think you ARE a garbagepile person.
NO! I am horrified that someone would do that to you! In the middle of the work day!? A person who would do that is rubbish. Hang in there for the rest of the day; I’m pulling for you. And I’m so sorry.
You will feel better, and you deserve MUCH better. Take care and take deep breaths. So sorry this happened.
Man, I am not generaly a Kevin Smith apologist, but there’s a part at the end of Clerks where the one dope berates the other dope for acting like all of his stupid, petty, suburban personal dramas are these great tragedies instead of minor inconveniences in what is actually a pretty okay life, and this always struck me as:
1) very self-aware and surprisingly smart for Kevin Smith
2) definitely exactly about everything that Cameron Crowe has ever done
I’m with you re: Cameron Crowe except for Almost Famous. It’s like he only had one great adventure in him and then was like welp, guess it’s all about white guy ennui from here on out.
dang that’s what I keep hearing, but I have such general disdain for everything else that Cameron Crowe has ever done that I never get around to watching Almost Famous.
I have some affection for Singles because Seattle. All else is garbage.
There are two bits in Say Anything that I still like. One is when Lili Taylor’s character is playing this woeful song about her ex at a party; the ex shows up, and almost without missing a beat she switches to a hate song about him. The other is when Ione Skye’s character goes to the IRS office that’s investigating her father for some kind of fraud involving senior citizens in an attempt to get them to stop–I know, right?–and the agent starts asking her all these questions about her dad, does he make a lot of purchases in cash and things like that, and she yells at him about why is he treating her dad like he’s guilty? And the agent looks at her for a second and says, “Because he is guilty.”
And that’s about it. I always get the feeling from watching just about anything Crowe does that he wants you to find essentially unlikeable characters likeable. I haven’t seen Almost Famous, but I have watched the bits with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs, and even though he’s been canonized as the patron saint of rock critics, in the end that just doesn’t say much about rock critics in general.
I haven’t seen Say Anything since high school, but I think it gets unfairly remembered for John Cusack holding up the boombox and not the more interesting relationship between Ione Skye and her dirtbag father.
I love that scene with Lili Taylor’s songs, too, and I also recall liking the scene where John Cusak and Ione Skye Do It for the first time in the backseat of that car…at least, I remember it being sweet and romantic, and very appropriately high school-y. Which is not to say that I would feel the same way if I watched it tonight.
I also think Singles hold up pretty well, and I liked Almost Famous at the time but again – that was a long time ago. Otherwise, I am done with Cameron Crowe.
Huh, I guess I’ve only seen the censored TV version because I don’t remember that at all!
I generally refer to Kevin Smith as my problematic fave, and scenes like that are exactly why.
(Also, man I need to watch Clerks. I watched Clerks 2 and was pleasantly surprised by how much I laughed [“it’s the HOLY fucking bible, son”] but I’ve never seen the first one. I should fix that, even though the lack of Rosario Dawson will inevitably mean that it pales in comparison to the sequel.)
You know which one I really liked? Dogma. I know it’s real preachy in a lot of places, but it was a pretty bold piece, and I think at times even a pretty articulate piece about religion.
Also it ends with a Deus ex Machina that is actually literally a Deus ex Machina.
YES do not go see Aloha this weekend. See Fury Road in Boston with your favorite neighborhood misandrists. Srsly we’re working on the Boston Toastpin Facebook group to organize a field trip and you should come.
I live in OK, and am so tired of rain. It’s hard to stay motivated when it’s so rainy and dreary. We actually had a few hours of sunshine yesterday, and it was blindingly bright since we haven’t seen it in so long.
I cannot believe that principal did not let those kids participate…that makes me so angry! At my daughter’s school, they send home forms for field trip money, and have a box on there if you can donate extra to kids who may not be able to afford it. And the PTO uses their money from fundraising to send any kids who couldn’t otherwise afford to go. The fact that those kids had to sit there while their classmates had fun makes me sick.
right, this is what gets me, a school doing a fun thing that costs money is NOT NEW. from the sound of the article, the teachers at that school know plenty of ways to handle the situation, and I bet everyone here could name an experience with their school or their kid’s school where something like that was handled well. you’d have to WANT to make those kids miserable to go about it that badly 🙁
I think she probably feels it serves them right because their parents might be poor (and might not; there are a host of reasons I’ve missed notices/announcements sent home from my kid’s school). Her heart is two sizes too small.
My dad and I had to come up to Denver for a family emergency and made it out just in front of all the storms (we’re from South Texas). It’s bizarre to be watching everything that’s unfolding at home while we sit up here and wonder how we’ll make it home again if it keeps raining.
I don’t know where you’re flying into/ driving to, but drivetexas.org has been pretty on top of road closures for flooding. Of course, if you’re flying, you’ll also need magic anti-thunderstorm karma just to get where you’re going :/
1. Budnick and Donkey Lips still look exactly like Budnick and Donkey Lips (man, whoever came up with the names on this show, they are a mad genius who spoke directly to my 10-year-old brain). I would pay good money (ie my Netflix subscription) to watch a comedy where they’re roommates again 20 years later, minus all the fat jokes please.
2. This cartoon on how to greet people is lovely: link
3. The ad note reminded me to fiiiiinallllly set up a recurring Toast donation so I can justify ad-blocking to myself!
4. As for Aloha, the tagline “Sometimes you have to say goodbye…before you can say hello,” I keep seeing it on billboards around town and having a silent but deep laugh to myself. Someone paid a whole lot of money to develop that line and design ads with it and put them on billboards and it is so over the top ridiculously awful.
SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO SAY GOODBYE…BEFORE YOU CAN SAY HELLO
are you serious? lololol
I was telling my husband about Aloha — he was like, yeah that sounds like crap, what’s the plot, so I started reading it to him. He stopped me at “romance between a military contractor and”.
100% serious and I hope they are too because it’s less funny if they have any self-awareness about that line. I wouldn’t put money on them having any self-awareness.
Is Bradley Cooper just trying to cash in a second time on his success portraying a military dude to the American public? “Here’s another version of American Sniper without even a hint of moral dilemmas, plus a happy ending!”
Sometimes you have to say nah before you can say…nah.
YOU LEAVE THE OREGON COAST ALONE YOU DEVELOPERS (shakes fist)
dude is a DEVELOPER FROM CHICAGO and he already owns a fancy golf course in Bandon! He keeps claiming this is going to be great for the local economy and he will give high school students “job skills” through a caddy training program. I. JUST. CAN’T.
I grew up in Oregon and we went to the coast a lot, because my grandparents had an RV they would park there, and it was pretty much the only vacation we could afford. The whole point of Oregon’s public coastline is that it’s PUBLIC. FOR EVERYONE. This is just unnecessary, and the pressure from Kitzhaber makes it feel extra shady.
Anyone who has ever been a caddy knows that the job skills it develops are: 1, a strong back; 2, ability to bite your tongue; 3, ability to fake niceness to the tipping customer; 4, a split: either a toadying, identify-with-the-rich with a desire to emulate them and hire your own caddy someday—or, well, not.
I’m hoping this can be unwound. It looks shadier than Satan’s outhouse.
That article reminds me of my uncle’s garbage wife- she tried to get me to like her by telling me how much she loves nature and national parks. Except her dream is to develop national parks. Because wouldn’t people enjoy them more if they could also go golfing and ziplining and if there was a spa and some fancy hotels and maybe eventually even an amusement park?? And of course she plays the “local economy” card. GARBAGE!
I tell people, if the Grand Canyon were in Europe it would have funiculars and bars. I was joking. Apparently I said it too loudly where someone was listening.
I was on the coast just this last weekend. I love it there. So much.
Bug Juice!
“I’m having a problem with Asa” is a phrase commonly/constantly used in my home.
Toasties:
Magic. Is. Real. Witness the newborn deer that walked up to me on my predawn constitutional (mama was nearby) – https://youtu.be/3aX0kn3YpXw
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Tanith Lee is no longer the greatest living fantasist. She was a great woman and I am sorry and sad she has died (yesterday – I am sorry if you are reading this and care, but hadn’t heard. yesterday when you felt a pin pierce through your soul and your bones weakened but you didn’t know why, that was what happened. it wasn’t age and despair, it was the passing of greatness from the world.) I don’t quite agree with the angrier tributes to her which are furious on her behalf that she was never made a SFWA Grand Master or whatever other nerd prize has been conferred on lesser spirits (and they are all lesser). Shakespeare never won a Nobel Prize either. so what. She was the best.
I saw that yesterday and it made me sad. So many of her fairytale retellings made an impact on my when I was in high school. I’m going to head to the library later today and check out any of her books that they have.
I didn’t love everything she did (the sequel to Silver Metal Lover appalled me), but when she was on, man, nobody could touch her. “Like most loners, you carry the seeds of violent authority.”
I am always afraid to explain why and how I love her so much because I am afraid it will just sound dreary, like everybody else’s love of their own formative adolescent wish fulfillment stories. and much of her work is just that, but also unlike anybody else’s, because nobody else in the world supposes that adolescent wishes are what she supposed them to be, let alone thought of fulfilling them. Kelly Link has a Tanith Lee story in her latest collection – I forget the title, it’s the Egyptian one – I love Kelly Link as well but I got so mad about that, HOW DARE YOU write a Tanith Lee story, I thought, and then I looked for an acknowledgement in the afterword and there wasn’t one! shocking. the nerve. not but what I do not try to write Tanith Lee stories all the time.
& I love SML and Drinking Sapphire Wine as much as anyone but the ones that got me first were The Book of the Beast, Dark Dance, and A Heroine of the World – I don’t know if that one is much loved, nobody better say a word against it. I bought The Book of the Beast and my first Nick Cave cd on the same day, on my first trip to New York, I remember sitting on the train on the way back that evening reading it, filthy and hot and (I believe) fourteen. this is living! I thought. this is what life is all about, this is what glamour awaits. and it was.
She was the ultimate 70s/80s sword-and-sorcery fantasist for women, as Moorcock was for guys. Cyrion’s combo of Father Brown mystery and desert-themed Conan the Barbarian adventure was among my favorites. I loved how the one story ended with a young woman admitting that she’d stirred up various occult forms of trouble so she could avoid an unwanted proposal and go be a historian–and rather than going on about how much fuss it’s all been, what with the visions and poisonings and feigning dead and the rest, he just advises her to tell off her dad and putative suitor. “So much trouble. Weeks of it.” “Against a lifetime of it.” MWAH. Lynx-eyed sword-fighting life counselors forevah.
Ahhhh, A Heroine of the World! I started my no-idea-how-many times reread of it yesterday at work, came home to read of her passing and wail aloud.
I always wanted to ask her where the seed for Heroine came from. It reads like a fantasy world feminist deconstruction of War and Peace and I would love to know more about it. Tanith Lee, absolutely one of the greats, deeply missed.
Oh no, I hadn’t heard. 🙁
I just found out today and I am bummed. I discovered her via Black Unicorn circa middle school and was hooked for life. She was just so much weirder and darker and more interesting than other young adult fantasists, and she totally got the dirtbag-teenager-with-a-weird- relationship-to-her-mother-figure dynamic down pat. Certainly, not ok with everything she wrote but she was something special and there will never be another like her. She had at least three unpublished novels in her cupboard because no one wanted to publish her anymore! WTF!
Of course now some publisher will make a mint publishing said unpubbed works because she’s dead, which makes me hopeful of reading them but also annoyed because of the way that art is unappreciated until the artist is no longer there to create more.
Did any of you read the Claidi Journals? That series is the only Tanith Lee I’ve read but I absolutely loved it.
Because I clearly think this Link Roundup needs to be more somber, here’s an important link from The Telegraph:
Suicide is now the biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/11…
jesus. in some parts of the world, if you’re a teenage girl, you’re actually more likely to kill yourself than to die in a road accident.
and this:
In Prof Patel’s view, “fifty per cent of those attempting suicide in China and India do not have a mental illness. They suffer logical despair.”
That article is upsetting on so many levels, I’m not sure where to start. But the fact that the fifth largest killer of teenage girls is diarrhoeal diseases is a good place. That definitely shouldn’t be the case.
…
Also, waist training? Really?
Ugh god every time I see a preview for Aloha I can feel a Grumpy Cat expression taking over my face. Please, please, please universe, Hollywood, Goddess of Misandry, Llorothaag, whoever is out there – no more goddamn movies about Straight White Goddamn Manpain. Oh boo hoo Alec Baldwin yelled at me so I had to move to Hawaii in a fit of existential crisis, and now both Emma Stone AND Rachel McAdams are hypnotized by my boner, wahhhhhh. Literally cannot imagine a more boring way to spend 2 hours of my life.
Its been completely off my radar, but Bradley Cooper needs to stop doing military propaganda roles. I was really starting to like him.
Llorothaag feeds on straight white goddamn manpain, which is bad for us in the short-term; but given how many manpain movies, books, songs, etc. the entertainment industry has pumped out over the last century, soon She shall be so engorged that, like Ungoliant after drinking the Light of the Two Trees of Valinor, Her might will be unstoppable and Her dark webs shall shroud the earth and then shall come The Reckoning. ALOHA may well be the final sip of the straw.
This comment is my everything. I’m going to memorize it and recite it every time someone gives me grief about not liking going to the movies.
*Misandry solidarity fist bump* All praise be to Llorothaag!
If I can hold several children’s carnivals *for free* (call your local fraternities and sororities, friends, they all have volunteer requirements and $), a school principal can hold one that doesn’t cost an absolutely rigid $10 PER PERSON. That’s just poor financial stewardship and also a heart made of coal.
They apparently made a profit of 2000-3000. Which, you know, divided by 10? Means they could’ve easily let those 100 kids participate and still turn a profit.
Oh, so it wasn’t a carnival FOR the kids, it was a school fundraiser. A more-or-less mandatory school fundraiser. Grr.
I find that strange too! My daughter’s public school has plenty of fundraisers, and they also have parties for the kids during the school day (Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Field Day, etc.), but the two types of events are kept separate.
I am so into “lazy people’s ethnic recipes.” Here is my absolute favorite pasta recipe, which was first described to me by a man from Venice who called it “Italian Bachelor Food.” I use (at his recommendation) fresh parsley and chives in place of the dried basil, but that’s only because I’m an overachiever with an herb garden. http://www.food.com/recipe/quick-and-easy-tuna-pa…
I’m officially inviting anyone else to share their easy ethnic recipes here.
stuff in a pot + curry paste + coconut milk = curry. The best god damn curry. I feel like people would know this already, but I’ve been surprised before, I cooked my friends tomato pasta (tomato passata + stuff + pasta =yum.) and they were like ‘holy shit that’s so easy!’ this was my face: -_-
Also you can cook poppadoms in the microwave if you break them up first. No faffing about with hot oil <3
I only learned recently that other people don’t microwave them, and felt like my entire worldview had been shaken. (I told my sister, and she was equally horrified that we had been LIED TO for years.) I thought everyone did it! Frying sounds really odd. (In my parents’ case I think it’s a low-fat thing rather than a time-saving thing, but it has always been the default in our house.)
I wish my mum had known about this as a kid, I loved poppadoms but we never had them unless we ate out. I can’t believe I was lied to like this.
That’s already how I make curry! I thought that was how it was supposed to be made (I mean, unless you feel like sourcing the ingredients yourself which: good luck!)
I think the traditional way (as I gather from Rick Steins India) involves more mixing spices and variations on the liquid you add. My only problem is that I can’t figure out how to make butter chicken like they do in the Indian place, cause damn I want that.
I do this curry recipe and it’s the best and cheapest meal ever! I do add some fish sauce to main sauce but otherwise, this is exactly what I do. People give me crazy eyes when I tell them about it.
I tend to throw in whatever is lying around, and recently I’ve started experimenting with adding my own spices to the curry oil base, I only discovered that cumin was a thing about a year ago! And turmeric is amazing, I now put it in everything!
Back when Umamimart was a blog, and not a store in Oakland, they did a feature called “lazyass cookin” which featured the (mostly East Asian-American) authors’ quick and cheap meals, many of which are quite tasty. http://blog.umamimart.com/columns/lazyass-cookin/
Houston resident here: thank you for your desire to help out! If you’re not a fan of the Red Cross then I’d suggest the Salvation Army: https://donate.salvationarmyusa.org/texas/texas-d…
Any bit will help; due to the big dip in oil prices we’ve had a lot of layoffs in the area recently, and many people are still out of work and will need help paying for car repairs or flood damage. It’s scary to think about how quickly your life can change; several neighborhoods went to bed Monday night in safe, dry homes and woke up to three or four feet of water in their houses. I was lucky–the only inconvenience I’ve “suffered” so far is that my garbage cans floated down the street this morning!
My trash can floated down the street, too. We’re Houston Storm Twins.
One of our cars caught our neighbor’s can before it floated away, so I went out around 1 am to rescue it (and move the car into the driveway.) It’s the first big storm we’ve had in decades that didn’t put water close to our doors OR knock out our power, and since neighbors 5 blocks away were ripping out carpets from their muggy, un-lit homes, I’m not sure how we managed to escape.
Good thing you moved your car! One of my coworkers urged his roommate to do the same, he didn’t, and they woke up to find it 90% underwater.
Yikes. We were remembering a friend during Hurricane Allison who lost both cars – the one on the street was totally submerged, but also the one in her driveway floated up and smashed into their fence (their house was on pier & beam & they lifted the subfloor at one point & watched the water creeping towards them. Ended up with 15″ in the house, so there was no hope for the cars.)
Definetly do not give money to the Salvation Army, they’re homophobic, transphobic, and probably some other phobics too.
– That principal is evil. Part of my anger about teachers being demonized and having their feet held to the fire on account of the outcomes of these rifuckulous standardized tests is that principals and other school administrators seem to get away with this crazy abusive shit.
– I realize that this was before he was on whatever Nick show that was, I’m pretty sure, but how do you even mention Danny Cooksey without mentioning that he was John Connor’s friend in delinquency in Terminator 2?
– It’s funny that people are talking about having people see MMFR instead of Aloha, as I saw a trailer for the latter while waiting to see the former, and it seemed like some satire of Top Gun, which would probably be a bad idea even if Hot Shots hadn’t been made already. Two ways in which it could be genuinely amusing:
– The movie starts with setting up the basic love-triangle premise, and then in the middle of a shot of Bradley Cooper staring pensively over the ocean at sunset or some dumb fucking thing like that, you get a fake bursting-through-the-screen effect–it’s Nux in the car with Mad Max in blood-bag mode. MMFR then proceeds to happen.
– It’s framed as a full-length version of the “Ribald Tales” recurring sketch from the Phil Hartman era of SNL, in which the triangle is resolved through the matter-of-fact adoption of polyamory.
aaaah Jon Lovitz’ “Tales of Ribaldry”!
When I was in high school and my poor-as-shit parents hadn’t paid the fees (yes, the public school had fees) they would pull me out of final exams. Literally come to the door of the classroom and read off the names of the kids who weren’t allowed to take their exams, and we would all shuffle out and down to the cafeteria and sit there.
How is that legal? That’s horrifying.
Good lord! Now I feel better about having to hang out at school all day on field trip days. At least I wasn’t pulled from exams! Gawd, how horrifying for you. 🙁
My impression of the principal
“Carnivals are much too nice for children, nom nom nom.”
Oh man, there are not enough Matilda gifs on the internet (that I’ve seen, anyway).
My favorite anecdote about Sally Ride’s first trip into space. Apparently the scientist at NASA thought she would need 100 tampons for SEVEN DAYS in space:
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/26/8661537/sally-ride-t…
Mansplaining: I think that their concern may have been that tampons didn’t work the same way in zero-G that they do in gravity–maybe the wicking action that lets tampons absorb as much blood as they do wouldn’t work as well. And it was probably not a big deal to pack that many because they’re relatively light, and don’t take up that much volume (at least with OB-type tampons)–weight is the main concern for space cargo. (I should also admit that, even though I was married for several years to someone who menstruated, I have no idea how many tampons my then-wife went through per day during her period.)
(It wasn’t 20.)
Wicking, also known as capillary action, wouldn’t be affected by gravity (it is already known to function perpendicular to the gravitational force on Earth, which is analogous to the environment in freefall where there is no apparent gravity). For a while, at the time that this was happening, there were suspicions that menstrual fluid might not flow “down” out of the uterus but “up” into the fallopian tubes and cause problems that way. The suspicions have since turned out to be bogus (as any woman who menstruates while lying horizontally in a bed on Earth could have told them) but even if menstrual flow were affected by zero gravity, tampons would not be. If the blood reached the tampons, they would wick it as normal.
(edited because I didn’t like the way I phrased the bit about gravity the first time)
Thank you both. The more I know!
That could be, except that they asked her to tell them how many she needed. Which implies that this wasn’t a hitherto-unknown mystery of space so much as a mystery of ew gross uteruses.
Bleh, just watched a trailer for Aloha, and I shan’t. I was a little dismayed to see the article slam The Descendents, though, which I remember as being pretty thoughtful about race. (My favorite scene involved George Clooney saying something to the effect of, “Come on, let’s not kid ourselves, we’re haole as fuck.” I.e. “we have indigenous ties but we all benefit from looking super white.”) Also, as an urban planner, I looooooved the angst surrounding land use issues.
Holy crap this was a LOT of fun and completely relevant to my feminist musician-lady interests: http://www.thestranger.com/features/feature/2015/…
god bless the internet
I live in LA and the billboards for Aloha are so laughably bad that I cringe every time I drive by one. They make the movie look like none of the stars were ever in the same room together and the movie was just awkwardly cut together from outtakes of other movies. Also a friend who works for Sony said the movie only got a title a few weeks ago (basically the last possible minute before whoever had to slap together those billboards sent them out) so really everyone involved in this movie should stop pretending it was an important creative decision that they stand behind.
Working title: “Summer Chickflick, 2015”. Which they might as well just go with that, really.
is this an OK place to say I got to meet and greet Courtney Barnett this past weekend? because I’m still in shock. oh my gosh I smiled too big to speak the whole time, and just said “thank you” and “you’re wonderful” a lot. and then she signed my record and took a picture with my friend ahhhh it was amazing
http://www.avclub.com/article/kaitlin-olson-and-l…
Upcoming animated comedy by Archer creator. Cast: Lake Bell, Kaitlin Olson, Susan Sarandon, JB Smoove and Stephen Root.
I want to go to there.
Her Asian stepfather adopted her as a young child?
I saw a billboard for Aloha and hand to God I thought it was a joke I mean, “Sometimes you have to say goodbye before you can say hello”? Seriously?
I do this curry recipe and it's the best and cheapest meal ever! I do add some fish sauce to main sauce but otherwise, this is exactly what I do. People give me crazy eyes when I tell them about it.
I’m so glad the complaints about Aloha are getting national attention. The trailer started airing regularly here in Hawaii about a month ago, and after seeing it I could not understand why they bothered setting the movie in Hawaii if everyone in it is white. And then I wondered if it was just me, or if other people would have a problem too. Nice to know it’s not just me!
APPARENTLY she's "one-quarter Hawaiian." i.e., juuuuust Hawaiian enough that they could easily cast a white woman to play her.
Thanks, I've heard that name before, I'll have to check them out!
I wish my mum had known about this as a kid, I loved poppadoms but we never had them unless we ate out. I can't believe I was lied to like this.
I think the traditional way (as I gather from Rick Steins India) involves more mixing spices and variations on the liquid you add. My only problem is that I can't figure out how to make butter chicken like they do in the Indian place, cause damn I want that.
I tend to throw in whatever is lying around, and recently I've started experimenting with adding my own spices to the curry oil base, I only discovered that cumin was a thing about a year ago! And turmeric is amazing, I now put it in everything!