I have zero interest in being part of any of the Mars missions but am eerily fascinated by any and all press about them. GOOD MORNING, I GUESS:
One of these days, we may well do ourselves in; certainly we’re already killing off a whole lot of other species. But the problem with thinking of Mars as a fallback planet (besides the lack of oxygen and air pressure and food and liquid water) is that it overlooks the obvious. Wherever we go, we’ll take ourselves with us. Either we’re capable of dealing with the challenges posed by our own intelligence or we’re not.
(This article also tells you exactly how many dogs NASA killed to put a man on the moon. 🙁 🙁 🙁 You are forewarned.)
*
Attorneys representing the six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray have filed a motion to have their trial held “elsewhere in Maryland,” because, they say, the officers “cannot receive a fair and impartial trial in Baltimore City.” The defense lawyers also claim that State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby should recuse herself due to “conflicts of interest.”
*
Brit Bennett on “Addy Walker, American Girl” and the role of Black dolls in American culture:
For seventeen years, Addy was the only black historical doll; she was the only nonwhite doll until 1998. If you were a white girl who wanted a historical doll who looked like you, you could imagine yourself in Samantha’s Victorian home or with Kirsten, weathering life on the prairie. If you were a black girl, you could only picture yourself as a runaway slave.
Since 2013, a Change.com petition has gathered nearly seventy signatures demanding that the Pleasant Company discontinue the Addy doll. “Slavery was a vile, cruel, inhumane, unjust holocaust of Black Americans,” the petition reads. “Why would this subject matter ever be considered entertaining?” The petition accuses the Pleasant Company of “diminish[ing] the cruelty of slavery and instead glorif[ying] it as some sort of adventurous fantasy.”
I’ve never found Addy glib and insensitive, as the petitioners do—but she does trouble me. She is a toy steeped in tragedy, and who is offered tragedy during play? Who gets the pink stores and tea parties, and who gets the worms? When I received an Addy doll for Christmas, I was innocent enough to believe that Santa had brought it to me, but mature enough to experience the horrors of slavery.
“I didn’t even think about that,” my mother told me. “I just thought it was a beautiful doll.”
*
“Sexism does exist in comedy, and it needs to be discussed.”
*
Lyz Lenz on how evangelical churches protect abusers like Josh Duggar:
I recount these examples — and there are so many more — not to drag the church through a litany of accusations, but to show that what is happening with the Duggars is not an anomaly. It’s an epidemic in Christian faith. Christian churches wield incredible social and political power. And they are the the ideal context for domestic and sexual abuse. Abusive personalities seek closed systems in which to abuse, and the mainstream Evangelical church provides that in spades. …
There will be no meaningful change until Christian churches are forced to re-evaluate the idea that the locus of a woman’s power lies in her relationships with her male family members and husband. Until then, our world will always be filled with abused daughters of faith — girls like my sister, like the Duggar girls, and so many more. Girls who are stripped of their autonomy, abused, and blamed, who are told their silence is holy, while their abusers go free.
*
Over at NPR, Roxane takes down that all-white NYT summer reading list: “The problem is and has always been the exclusion of writers of color and other marginalized writers who have to push aside their own work and fight for inclusion, over and over and over again. We beg for scraps from a table we’re not invited to sit at. We are forced to defend our excellence because no one else will.”
If you’re interested, and of course you are, here’s a more diverse summer book list over at the LAT.
*
I just renewed my subscription to Bitch and am EAGERLY AWAITING my very own copy of the “Blue” issue. Some of the print articles are available online, including this one about depictions of postpartum depression onscreen:
Much of what we know about postpartum disorders flies in the face of what we see onscreen. As Postpartum Progress founder Katherine Stone says, women with PPD don’t hurt anyone, except maybe themselves, and most women with postpartum psychosis don’t hurt anyone either. The former condition affects about 15 percent of mothers; the latter affects 0.1 percent of mothers. Pop culture depictions wildly overrepresent and sensationalize postpartum psychosis, conflate psychosis with much more prevalent depression, and send the dangerous message that if you ask for help, you’ll be treated like the monster you fear you are.
*
Jenna Leigh Evans interviewed our own Mindy Hung, and this was my favorite part: I wish that a deity would blow into a conch and officially decree that my writing was essential to the world. I wish that every time I had doubts, I’d look up and flocks of birds would fly in a formation to make the words, Write, Mindy, write! For me, writing is a choice—every day it’s a choice.
*
Margaret Atwood wrote a book called Scribbler Moon that none of us will get to read, probably.
*
*
Remember how I said you shouldn’t see Aloha? You definitely should not see Aloha.
Aloha has already gotten preemptive flak for its lack of diversity and its appropriation of Hawaiian culture to tell the story of how a white dude gets his groove back. That flak is not unearned, though these points don’t come close to covering its many problems. The movie has an awareness of the state’s history and its makeup, but nevertheless tells a story that leaves most of its characters of color in the background. Its approach to Hawaii might be best described as uneasy and misguided if well-meant, from the kid (Jaeden Lieberher) who’s obsessed with local myths and insists that Brian is the god Lono to the way that Kanahele and the Nation of Hawai’i are used as shortcuts for authenticity, mysticism, and the moral high ground. But strangest of all is that the movie has Stone playing a character who’s a quarter Hawaiian and a quarter Chinese and who talks about it all the time — lily-white Emma Stone, with her big green eyes, flashing a picture of parents who look nothing like her and sitting in on a song with some native musicians.
I know it’s a ridiculous movie and you weren’t going to see it anyway. And even if you do, fine, no judging from me; it’s very hot outside and when it’s hot outside I also like to see ridiculous movies. But this is some undeniable grade-A fucked-up whitewashing, casting a white actress to play a character who is one-quarter Hawaiian and one-quarter Chinese. Why make her character “Allison Ng” multiracial at all if you just want to cast a white actress? Is it possible they are trying to pander to the hazy, unrealized wish for “diversity” in film without…actually…having…any…diversity? Did they think we wouldn’t REMEMBER that Emma Stone is white? Why did they think this was a good idea? WHYYYY?
*
Me: What are you writing?
7yo: A story about a girl named Girl Scout Cookies. Because today was Pick a New Name Day at School and we were all picking silly names and I picked ‘Girl Scout Cookies.’ So that’s what I’m calling the girl in my story. She has two nicknames! Guess what they are.
Me: Uh, I dunno, maybe ‘Girl Scout’ and…’Cookies’?
7yo: …
Me: Was I right??
7yo: yeah
Me: Who else is in this story?
7yo: So far, Girl Scout Cookies’ mom, her teacher, her best friend Mia, and Bossy Helen.
Me: Ooh, tell me more about Bossy Helen.
7yo: Her name is Helen and she’s really bossy! The story isn’t about her, it’s about Girl Scout. Or Cookies.
Tags: link roundup, the internet
I find great puzzlement in the number of Cameron Crowe fans trying to justify why they’ll go and see Aloha. Can’t you like a director’s work without having to see his or her entire film catalog?
I get it. I’ve gone out of my way to see some stinkers from my favorite directors (cough To the Wonder cough cough). The more puzzling question: Who considers themselves a Cameron Crowe fan?
ETA: Obviously this is a different creature than just a bad movie. But the completionist gene runs strong in certain people.
I really like Crowe, but you couldn’t pay me to watch Aloha or We Bought A Zoo. I don’t buy into the notion that you have to see every movie of a favorite director. Doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.
They both star actresses I love as well.
For me, that’s true about just about any artist’s work. Take Bowie, for an obvious example: even given that people like one phase of his or another, even within a given phase there might be an album that’s eminently skippable IMO–Lodger, even though I love “Heroes and Scary Monsters to death.
That’s a really interesting note about Addy. I had her as a kid, and I loved her because I identified with big parts of her story–I loved spelling and gardening and making up plays and I missed my family and went to church and felt lonely in a new place. Even at eight I didn’t want a Samantha doll because she was rich and as Anne Shirley put it, “there was no scope for imagination.” I spent so much time reading historical novels about the Civil War and escaped slaves that it seemed a normal extension to me–and there are many, many, many books that focus on that, even for young readers. Is it wrong that they exist to treat it as partly entertainment? Kids won’t read a book they don’t find interesting, and they aren’t textbooks. I think it’s a symptom of kids and YA books (at least in the 80s and 90s) as being less willing to incorporate POCcharacters as regular people instead of Issue Books–novels about young black girls were about slavery or the migration North or school desegregation, but novels about white girls were The Normal Experience.
Anyway, AG did release another black doll from New Orleans, who predictably did not sell well (nor did the Native doll nor Josefina the Hispanic doll), and money is of course at the root of all of this.
I have speculated this in the comments here before, but Cecille (the other black historical doll, as well as Ivy, their only Asian-American historical doll) was retired right around the time that Pleasant Company sold AG to Mattel.
Kaya and Josefina are still in production, though.
They sold it to Mattel back in the late 90s. The two you mentioned were retired last year. (oh god my embarrassing collecting side is showing…)
Ahhhh okay that makes more sense then, I guess they retired them around the time they brought out the BeForever dolls?
(It’s okay, I’m a Monster High/Ever After High collector and only know anything about modern AG through other collectors, you are safe here)
Yeah. The Cecile doll was brought out by Mattel at the same time as a white doll from the same period. They were’ eat friend dolls’ and their collection and books were shared. Overall the experiment was a loss, but the black doll was far more popular than the white one and was the first to sell out when they were retired in the recent friends doll purge. There’s a new black character coming out in 2016 and hopefully that doesn’t mean they’ll get rid of Addy in the spirit of ‘well, one’s good enough, right?’
The name of the company’s right there on their webpage and a short wiki jaunt will tell the history of it. It gets me a bit that the author kept calling it Pleasant Company throughout. Without Mattel it probably wouldn’t still be around 30 years later and they have done good things. /end collector explainy mode
Addy was always the one doll I wanted and the one series of books I reread the most. Of course, blond-haired, blue-eyed, Swedish surnamed me for Kristen. I have an Addy now. (Am relatively unashamed of that.)
I have no room to speak about racial things, but it always gets me when nostalgic American Girl things always categorize her as being ‘the slave one’ like Samantha is ‘the suffragette one.’ No. Addy was smart and brave and talented and there were so many other things, but I guess all anyone remembers is the worm. Well, if we must remember something…
We had all the books when I was growing up, and the Addy books are where I learned about slavery. I’m sure I’d heard it referenced before, but in the 4th grade I learned that it had existed, because of Addy.
Me too.
I have both Addy and Kirsten. I saved for months and months to buy those dolls when I was about 11 or 12 (oh god that was so long ago…)
On Addy “being ‘slave one'” – I agree with you there; obviously there’s her struggle to freedom, but then she gets other storylines, like having rivals in school and hoping for nice dresses, like the other AG characters do.
Addy was my favorite for a lot of the same reasons you list (and her story was so much more interesting than stupid Samantha’s). I never thought of her story as trivializing slavery by being entertaining, but I also definitely read a lot of novels about the Holocaust and play-acted being in the ghetto with my dolls where we had to keep everything very, very neat and had to deal with our rations where we could only eat one piece of bread very slowly…
…is that not normal play time for an eight-year-old?
Meeeee too. I play-acted all the horrors of world history with my Barbies and my paper dolls. I’m going to put on my smart hat and say we were attracted to those stories because of the humanity inside them: what would we do if we were asked to eat worms, or if we had one piece of bread to share? Would we share it, or hoard it, etc. etc. etc. (and you could always play a character who was cruel while understanding it was just a character, etc. etc. etc.)
(also understanding the privilege inherent in playing at food insecurity)
Yeah, I read about every single child-oriented novel about the Holocaust out there when I was about 8-9? I even did a school report on the Holocaust Museum. Which is kind of weird when you think about it, but I am Jewish and I think I was just trying to understand things, I guess.
I had an Addy doll which I liked because her name was very close to my age.
Josefinaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I have nothing else to add. She and Molly were my favorites, I think.
My sister and I had our first dolls given to us by our mom but when we pooled our resources to acquire a third, we picked Josefina. She was so great.
Re: Samantha: Same!!! I thought she was spoiled and nothing in her books was important til like the very end, when Nellie and her poor orphan sisters have real terrible orphan lives.
I actually didn’t own any of the dolls, but I read a lot of the books. All the dying in Kirsten’s books put me off as a little kid, but my favorites were Molly and Felicity; my dad was in the Navy and was deployed for some of my childhood, so I resonated with Molly on a life-experience level. <3 I felt like a lot of different emotional/political things happened in the Felicity books, and the plots didn’t all revolve around her. I have to say, I read the first three Josefina books (remember how they used to release JUST the first three to make you buy them and then have to buy them AGAIN when all five were released??) and I just didn’t find them interesting? It felt like nothing happened. :/
Oh, the wife bonus. I actually feel sorry for those women, that they think they’re doing great. I hope they also have a Wife 401K for when their cash flow–sorry, “husband”–leaves them or drops dead.
I’m sure (I hope) that there are some who are quietly socking away their bonuses, making sound investments for the inevitable “retirement”.
Although, now I’m wondering if there’s pressure for these wives to spend their bonuses on expensive clothes. Turning them into an object of display. Like in upper class Victorian homes: “Look how rich we are! See how decorative our unemployed women are!” Basically, turning wives into another status symbol.
Not this one, she saves for “things that matter,” like bespoke wedding dresses. Sigh.
I was actually sort of impressed that her dress was ‘only’ $4500, since based on her ‘bonuses’ she could have easily gone into the “Say Yes To The Dress” madness prices.
I actually also had a “bespoke” wedding dress, in that it was made by the seamstress who repaired the heirloom lace veil I wore. It cost nowhere near $4500.
for real, has none of them seen THE FIRST WIVES CLUB??
I mean aside from the important lessons, it’s also an outstanding film.
God, I loved that movie. I should go see if it’s on Netflix.
If it is, that’s reason #4,203 not to see Aloha this weekend.
This is so weird to me, in part because my husband and I view our money as “ours” no matter who earns it–that’s part of what marriage is for us. We ask each other about big purchases (and little ones, because we’re not rich) and talk over budgets together. If my husband doled money out to me I wouldn’t feel like I was in a marriage, I’d feel like he was my dad. Ew.
We do too, but I know a shocking amount of people who practice a lot of deception with money in their marriage–hiding bonuses, saying you earned less than you did and skimming off the top, all kinds of needlessly cruel stuff. I thought sharing was the norm, but I am sadly led to believe it is NOT.
Financial infidelity is so common. It’s easy to hide and within a relationship this sort of thing can seem normal because our culture doesn’t discuss money honestly to start with.
Yeah, I realized I didn’t make it clear enough that I’m not criticizing the women’s choice not to work–I am my family’s Domestic Engineer, after all–but the idea that Man Has Money, Woman Asks Nicely. That is bullshit.
At least in this case, she states clearly that 90% of the bonus is shared household money. 5% her husband gets to do whatever he wants with, 5% she gets to do whatever she wants with. I actually thought this particular essay sounded like a reasonable compromise, especially since the reason she’s a SAHM in the first place is that his job made him travel for long stretches, so she decided to just quit working and travel with him.
If you read between all the ridiculous brand-dropping in that article, what they actually do is both take 20% of his annual bonus for fun money and bank the rest. That…doesn’t seem like that weird a way to do finances?
Agreed. I mean, I still find the article completely insufferable, with all the completely ridiculous and unnecessary brand and price naming, but the actual concept of them each getting a portion of the bonus, with the rest going into savings, doesn’t seem weird to me at all. My fiancé and I put the majority of our salaries into a shared account for things like rent and food, and then keep individual accounts for our personal expenses. Not really a revolutionary concept.
I also think the joking she mentions is probably just that, and not evidence of him being a terrible, misogynistic person, but if I were her, I may have kept that little “politically incorrect” joke to myself.
That’s what driving me crazy — what they’re actually doing with the money is quite reasonable, it’s just WRITTEN to be as insufferable and galling as possible. UGH.
It wasn’t the brand-dropping that bothered me, personally (you do you, lady!), but if it’s so normal, why not just SAY “the money that’s left over is split between us”? Why call it a wife bonus, and why try to present the whole thing as feminist/progress? And I got that the whole piece was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but still.
I agree, it’s totally needless to put an inflammatory name on it. I don’t know why this woman decided to douse herself in blood and throw herself to the internet sharks … maybe the Post heavily edited her to make this more internet-outrage-worthy? I’ve heard the Daily Mail does that to people who write for them.
Why call it a wife bonus? To attract more readers. Click bait.
That’s what I thought. The actual idea doesn’t sound bad since it’s really just sharing finances. Her “bonus” doesn’t seem to be the same as the bonuses described originally, where the wife gets money based on her “performance” as a wife. So I’m not really sure why she calls it a wife bonus or feels the need to defend it with an article about all the clothes she’s bought. If I were a stay-at-home parent with a spouse who earned all of the income for the family, I’d kind of expect to be able to buy things with it too.
But not $800 high heels.
I agree, and I agree with the core idea that housework shouldn’t be seen as less valuable than a salaried job. BUT oh my god the conspicuous consumption! The blindness to financial privilege!
Yeah, her priorities are not my priorities, for sure. And in a boom and bust industry like oil, that kind of spending can really screw you.
Yep — it’s ironic how flippantly she mentions oil prices at the end, because…those aren’t doing so well this year! (It would be awful of me to hope she has a rude awakening and experiences a change in circumstances . Really awful. I definitely am not hoping for any such thing.)
I am sure the thousands of people who got laid off when oil prices dropped feel comfort knowing she buys such expensive things with the money she earned. It will make them feel warm and fuzzy when they get their unemployment check and consider applying for SNAP benefits that the money went to someone who deserved it so much more.
Yeah, they’re in essence splitting his bonus, ie, they’re treating the money as their money which is normal, I know lots of people who treat bonuses that way.
Tangent: There is a very tall, very white, very blonde, very fit woman who I see in my neighborhood frequently. Her favorite workout shirt is one that says MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK and I go between pity and rage every time I see her in it.
*slow claps at your intensedebate name*
I am super sad it is too lengthy to be a Twitter handle.
Tangent tangent: there’s a woman in my neighbourhood whom I frequently see in a workout shirt that says REPS FOR JESUS and has a drawing of a pair of dumbells with halos.
That shirt is PERFECT. (For everyone, including atheists, because I might actually consider wearing that.)
including atheists
Gettin’ swole for the Lord, y’all.
Now I know who buys those Jesus sports figurines!
http://www.catholicsupply.com/christmas/otherspor…
Hahahahahaha, yes! I didn’t know those were still being made! My best friend gave me a Jesus-playing-hockey figurine for my 16th birthday. (Both of us are/were atheist/agnostic.)
This article actually made it make more sense to me. I would hate that lady and her label-dropping but it does seem perfectly fair that she gets an equal portion of fun money from her husband’s bonus. She’s given things up for him to be in that position. In the oil industry her husband’s job will move a lot, and it won’t be an option to say no if he wants to continue to grow his career. That’s just the reality, and so facing that head on and realizing that one of their careers is going to have to be primary is an important thing that a lot of us are going to have to deal with.
And of course, she will have the right to a portion of the marital assets, including her husband’s retirement accounts and savings, if her husbands leaves her.
Loving the comments sniffing at her gauche New Money tastes. A $7,000 Tiffany ring? As if!
I recently finished reading Crazy Rich Asians and so many characters in that book sneered at Louis Vuitton products. If it’s not bespoke, it’s crap!
Bonuses can be tricky – the boy gets them at work, but I don’t (not for a few years, anyway). He wants to use his to pay off part of the mortgage, but I’m profoundly uncomfortable with him having paid for “more” of the house than me. We haven’t figured that one out – but I certainly don’t feel entitled to half his bonus just because I’m his partner. I mean, of course the situation is different because we both work (and otherwise make about the same amount), and both contribute equally to the household. But it’s part of why I’d never want to be 100% dependent on his income.
Hm that’s tough. I’m the bonus earner in my relationship, and I was happy to be able to contribute more to our shared finances. I think in the end I ended up taking us out for a good dinner, buying myself a nice bike, and dumping the rest in shared savings accounts. We talked about the situation for a good few weeks though.
last year I got a bonus and felt fiercely protective of it – it was MINE, I earned it, and I wanted to do something special with it (I THINK I ended up just putting it all towards students loans, which is depressing). But, now that I have had a baby and the guy is home as infant caregiver, personal assistant and domestic maven, I wouldn’t think twice about sharing it the way my income (our sole income) is shared. tl/dr: Babies change things
Not to ruin your totally good point with useless trivia, but, hey, it’s friday—-
The 401k itself is actually NOT the thing to be worried about, comparatively.
401ks are up for grabs during a divorce. Sure, if both people have similar earning potential and similarly sized 401ks, they may not bother splitting them in any way, but there are also plenty of situations where accounts will get split 50/50, even some situations where the entire plan will get transferred into a spouse’s name. They can stay as qualified retirement money, and other than the negotiation process, it’s usually pretty straightforward.
But most of the megarich don’t have most of their retirement wealth in qualified retirement plans (401ks, IRAs, etc). The yearly limits are often a miniscule percentage of their total income. So there are stock options and non-qualified plans and sometimes splitting that sort of thing is about as easy as the 401k, and sometimes it’s complicated, rarely done, involves big tax consequences no one really thought about when they decided to contribute to these sorts of things in the first place. And while 401ks have investment risk, the stock market does, in general, go up. But a nonqualified plan could be worth *nothing* if the company goes under before it’s going to be paid out…….
If he dies (*cough cough*) I’m sure she stands to benefit from a huge life insurance payout. Something to think about, ladies! You know, in the abstract.
I definitely read this in a Hey Ladies voice and I’m pushing for this to happen when they turn 40.
What gets me more than anything is how aggressively, deliberately DISGUSTING the article’s tone was. Like she’s literally thumbing her nose at everyone else! “My mom died and I used what she left me for a custom wedding dress.” It was actually WRITTEN to gall us, and I’m annoyed it worked, but what the fuck!
I mean, there was a way to write an entirely DIFFERENT article about the exact same thing, but with a different tack and angle, and it wouldn’t have raised my blood pressure so. I realize asking WHY is a stupid question, but uggggggh.
Also I fucking hate oil companies and am glad I’ve distance myself from that business. Not that I begrudge my friends and loved ones their comforts, or judge anyone individually for working there, but there is so much crap going on.
“He’s got a very politically incorrect sense of humor and joked it was to reward me for being a “good little wife,” which made me laugh out loud.”
*tiny screams*
GUYS IT’S SO FUNNY HOW FUNNY MY HUSBAND IS LOOK HOW FUNNY HE IS HAHAHAHAHA
YES SO FUNNY SO SO FUNNY HAHAHA EXCUSE ME WHILE I DEPLOY MY LASER BEAM EYEBALLS
It’s funny because if she was really a good little wife she would have borne him a son.
Remember boys, sharing your finances can be a little hippy-dippy–almost, you know, communal–so before you dole out an equal share of your bonus to your partner, sure to take a moment to remind the little woman that she’s your employee, like a good capitalist!
Hahah what about a movie that was about regular Hawaiians going about their lives while a bunch of white people vacationers try to get their groove back in the background.
Update: I like this idea because I enjoy making fun of things that we white dudes think are important, but also what about a movie about regular Hawaiians that has nothing to do with me?
Would also watch, but could use some giant demolition derby cars and explosions.
do you envision the Hawaiian characters being aware of/referencing/mocking the white people? Or would they be in a totally distinct story and not even notice so it’s like the white folks are desperately trying to get the camera’s attention the whole time and they never get it?
Well, my preference is that all of the sort of regular use of Hawaii in films is still there in the background, but that the main characters have nothing to do with it, they’re doing their own thing, and the white people antics are like a kind of constant background radiation.
I’m not sure how easy that would be to sustain over 90 minutes though, but also on the other hand, I’m not actually obligated to make this movie.
oh I am all for wild speculation about projects that should get made but no one will actually do them! So it’s maybe like a story about a beachfront bartender and every once in a while he serves a pina colada to a white tourist who’s going on to her friend about how, like, she’s trying to live a more authentic life, and she just wants something meaningful and different to happen and maybe this is the place, and then we cut back to his much more fascinating romance with the guy who runs the zipline company where some white dude is trying to regain my confidence after my girlfriend dumped me and my band broke up, yknow?
(ETA: not sure where the explosions come into that plot, but as long as we’re wildly speculating, we can make some happen)
Yeah, or you know, people are going down the street having a conversation about what’s going on in the movie, and in the background some white dude is going to elaborate lengths to woo his girlfriend back &c. &c.
My wife and I went to our honeymoon in Riviera Maya, and one of the rules about how land on the Yucatan is used is that basically Mayans can have it for free as long as they do stuff with it, and so there’s a lot of these adventure packages like ziplining and snorkeling and such that are run by all Mayans, many of whom don’t speak English or Spanish.
And I always thought that’d be neat, if you made a movie about these guys doing their own jobs and having their own problems and such, and the setting is like, white people ziplining past them all the time.
Basically like the Community episode where Abed has a whole subplot in the background that no one ever acknowledges.
Well, look, I am not saying no one’s ever had an idea like this before, I am just saying that it would be good it see it used to make fun of white people.
Which episode is that?! Apparently I never noticed and now I need to go back and rewatch it!
I really love this idea. Like, the guy running the ziplining company just politely listens to heartbroken white dude for a while as he’s hooking him onto the line, and then just casually pushes him off the ledge without a warning. <3
HA!!!!!!
Okay, here’s where we get the explosions: the bartender spends his/her off-hours practicing flaming liquor-bottle juggling at Waikiki Beach (admittedly minor, but I seem to remember that was a real thing that happened).
Or a kid playing soccer comes across some unexploded ordinance from WWII (this could really happen!)
Yeah, although there’s a tone question that we’d have to juggle here. Is the point that native lives are more serious compared to the frivolous white people lives?
I actually kind of like the idea that this is still a sort of screwball romantic comedy, it’s just that all the white people are background characters; I’m a little worried about the idea of reserving lighthearted antics solely for the white upper-middle class, you know?
yeah I am definitely picturing a light romance or a slice-of-life comedy, just gleefully mocking the tropes in the midst of a pretty good story.
I was picturing the white zipliner taking off and going reeeeaaalllly far into the distance and then just, for whatever reason, exploding. Would definitely pay to see.
A+++ Would definitely watch that movie
(I mean, the entire state is made of volcanoes, so explosions could totally happen.)
Do you know the Buffy episode, “The Zeppo?” Where the focus is on Xander getting into his own hijinks while the rest of the Scoobies are saving the world from another apocalypse? I’m picturing something like that…
Yeah, although I think this was generally a misnomer because there is no way that Zeppo ever got up to anything outside of the hijinks of his brothers.
Unlike Gummo, who invented an electronic heart monitor watch.
Actually, wait, I think that WAS Zeppo.
Still, fuck that guy.
Wasn’t that effectively Lilo and Stitch?
Well, yes, I guess so, but Lilo and Stitch was great! More movies like Lilo and Stitch!
I love that movie SO MUCH. Her photo collection of sun-burned tourists: priceless.
That would be such an awesome movie!
Seriously, is there a Toastie who can make this?!
A+ would watch this
Lilo and Stitch? xD
You basically just described my life. We spent A LOT of time in high school making fun of tourists.
I confess I am confused by this Future Library project… most of my bookshelves are books that are more than 100 years old. That’s how books work, with the persistence of matter and reprinting and all…
I mean, I guess if I was going to reproduce, and I thought I was spawning an unbroken line of hipsters, I guess it would meaningful that my great grandkid gets a 100 year-old book that nobody read before. Just think of all the smugness that could then be expressed.
My reaction:
1. annoyed that I know of the existence of a new Margaret Atwood book that I can’t reeeead
2. amused at how things from 1915 come across as weird and delightfully old-timey to me, and imagining how the project concept and design will come across to our 2115 humans. Will they laugh at it or find it profound or both?
I agree with #1 so hard. SO HARD.
I’m totally coming back for this one.
Guys, guys, guys, don’t you remember when we giddily learned that Margaret Atwood reads The Toast?? Maybe if we ask very nicely, she’ll drop a very discrete and anonymous link to her book in the comments.
Yeah, but people also leave themselves time capsules, and it’s not special because the objects inside are 10 or 20 years old or whatever, but the fact that they’ve been hidden, forgotten, and re-discovered. I mean, it’s an entirely orchestrated “hiding” and “discovery,” but it feels a little like discovering things that have been missing or hidden or lost for a long time.
Or they move every few years and often randomly discover moving boxes that were never unpacked, just moved from place to place for 15 years. Um. Hypothetically.
He’s got a very politically incorrect sense of humor and joked it was to reward me for being a “good little wife,” which made me laugh out loud.
SOUNDS LIKE A KEEPER YOU’VE GOT THERE IN YOUR FEMINIST RELATIONSHIP.
“He was actually pleased to have a tangible way to recognize the contribution that I also make to the success of our lives.”
He was ACTUALLY PLEASED!
yes, sounds exactly like politically incorrect humor and not… what he actually believes?
That is exactly what politically incorrect humor IS, I thought
Every time I think our country couldn’t have been worse to black people, I’m proven wrong. I mean, I knew about Sambo and pickaninnies, but even in 1900, who the fuck would buy a postcard showing “a white man throwing baseballs at pickaninny dolls in a carnival game called Hit The N-Word Babies?“
D:
Some white people would send postcards of themselves having picnics in front of lynched men and women so unfortunately, that’s relatively tame even by turn of the 19th/20th century standards.
Yep. Not only were lynch mobs not hiding their faces, they were practically shoving each other out of the way to get in the front of the crowd to put their best side toward the photographer, pointing at the body [trigger warning: graphic image of lynching] in case you thought they might have been just walking by or something, etc. Ain’t that America?
Having done a lot of research on the turn of the century, and specifically on race/WOC at that time, let me just say…the numbers are high enough to make me physically nauseous.
A lot. A lot of people. I worked at a university with a robust early 20th century sheet music collection with some amazingly racist hit songs of the period, mostly involving watermelons, fried chicken, and minstrelsy. This university also had the original photo postcard of a lynching in 1916 that became so widely circulated that it made my hometown famous/infamous.
Shit, when I was a kid in the late sixties and early seventies, we still sang songs like “Blue Tail Fly” in class. In the North. Old times there were not forgotten, either.
Crap. I should know better than to read the comments on a story about lack of diversity in reading lists, but I still did it. Ugh. Gross.
In any case, thanks for the LAT list! I’ve been making a serious effort to read more diverse authors this year (and moving forward) and it has been fantastic!
That comment section put me in exactly the right frame of mind to deal with my interns, which… I don’t get it either, but there it is.
Yes! The Toast has been filling up my goodreads want to read list this week, it’s so great.
Mine too! And goodreads has the added bonus of saying, “oh, you liked this book by a black woman? Here are twenty more you might like!” Which half bums me out because it tells me most users must have pretty segregated reading lists or else I’d just see those books under their genre or whatever, buuuuut it’s also half YESSS GIVE ME THOSE BOOKS.
And then those books are so good, even if they weren’t written “for me.” And then I get mad at how many mediocre books I’d been reading where I or a white dude were the intended audience. And then I look at my read list and realize it’s been nearly a year since I read a book where the plot was A White Man Was Sad. More than a year since I read a book where the plot was An Affair Was Had. Seriously, reading diversely has brought my reading quality way up, so how awful that it takes so much intention and effort to do.
What has driven me crazy about seeking out more diverse authors is seeing harsh criticism in the reviews sections for things that would make A White Man’s Book a classic. “Nothing happens in this book!” Oh, you mean like in that beloved American classic, The Catcher in the Rye? I wönder why we (as a society) are so willing to overlook (or reward) those flaws in books written by white men? It’s a tötal mystery.
I made a new year’s resolution that 50% of the books I read this year will be by people of colour, and I’ve been surprised that it’s harder than I thought it would be, just because I get so many more recs and see a lot more hype for books by white people. I have to keep checking myself and be very intentional about it. But yes, my goodreads recs are finally reflecting what I want to see and I have the Toast for book recs to, so I’ll be okay.
the comments are even worse than I imagined 🙁
“I don’t care what race the people whose books I read are! We should be colorblind!” — yeah, a 100% white list is sure to be pure coincidence. Yup, 3 out of the 5 last years. That’s just how statistics work!
Argh argh argh. If you truly don’t care about the race of the authors you read and just want to read the best books, maybe you *should* care how much the publishing industry skews the numbers???
Guys, guys, the white writers just happen to be the good writers.
I actually thought for a hot second about creating an NPR account just to chime in and tell Roxanne she’s write, wonderful, amazing, etc. but figured it would get lost in the sea of Bro Brahs commenting about the fact that publishers are just trying to put out books that will sell while ignoring the larger meaning of what they’re saying when they say that. Then I just wanted Feminist Hulk smash the world. (Seriously, the editor’s at NPR’s Code Switch blog are doing God’s work by putting out wonderful articles like this even though they probably know in advance what the comment reactions will be.)
Of course, Roxanne’s article did inspire me to check out the diverse book lists and I am looking forward to hitting the bookstore this weekend and getting some more summer reading material.
That wife bonus piece… I think I’m actually going to suffocate under the weight of that woman’s lack of self-awareness. Or is it satire? I can’t.
And then I read the comments!
GASP!
I think it’s a parody of satire
of COURSE!
Did Jonathan Franzen write it?
I am collapsing under the astounding understanding that she defines herself in relation to everything except herself, including objects.
And the fact that she sounds like a terrible human being.
Blerg. I really want to like Emma Stone, because she is awfully charming. But between her choices to do Aloha and Irrational Man I don’t know if I can anymore.
Her Revlon campaign still makes me buy lipstick. What is it about her?
But yeah, serious side-eye for recent choices….
Even Emma Stone can’t convince me to buy Revlon right now. Its CEO is a total racist, misogynist pig and I won’t contribute to his salary.
*looks up the plot for Irrational Man*
On a small town college campus, philosophy professor Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix) finds himself in an existential crisis, but he discovers a new purpose in life when he enters into a relationship with Jill Pollard (Emma Stone), one of his students.
IS WOODY ALLEN JUST MAKING THE SAME DAMN MOVIE OVER AND OVER NOW AND EVERYONE LETS HIM BECAUSE HE’S A SAFE BET AT THE BOX OFFICE? WHAT THE FUCK!
Seriously, did he not just make something like this (with Emma Stone, even!) last year??
Yes, he really is! Which, I mean, that is not even something I really object to. Other directors do the same thing and I put up with it because I happen to like the Platonic Movie they seem to be trying to make. But Woody Allen’s Platonic Movie is fucking BORING in addition to being gross.
You know, a real breakthrough movie for Woody Allen would be something like this:
On a small town college campus, philosophy professor Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix) finds himself in an existential crisis, but when he tells Political Science professor Angela Torres (Rosario Dawson) about it, she slaps him upside the head and tells him to get over himself. They then embark upon the enjoyable, normal relationship of two similarly aged people, with some fun sexual role-play on the side.
There. Fixed.
Me too! I’m still torn about watching Magic in the Moonlight, because besides Woody Allen, it has SO MANY people/things I like!
So, reading this article and then reading the tumblr made me want to boycott every Hollywood movie ever. You know how you think you know that things are bad for women in Hollywood and then you read this and you realize that you have no idea:
“Shit People Say to Women Directors” http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/05/shit-…
http://shitpeoplesaytowomendirectors.tumblr.com/
A sample from Lena Dunham:
I heard a guy on my show say into his microphone: ‘I hate this job. I can’t wait to be back on a show where there’s a man at the helm. Later, that same guy came up to me at lunch and said, ‘You’re really enjoying that buffet, aren’t you?’ ”
***
And another, which is so creepy that … I don’t even know:
I’m an Animator and Character Designer
I’m helping put together a pitch for a company’s new cartoon show, aimed at kindergarten girls. I submit my designs, and get the following notes back:
“Make her white. Only white people spend money.”
“She’s not sexy enough. Make her sexier.”
The character in question is eight. The producers of the show are all old, white men.
***
I worked in tech for a long time and experienced misogyny, but for some reason, reading or hearing about others’ experiences still leaves me breathless and stunned. Still.
Oof, the piece on abuse in the evangelical church. My dad may have left it when he a teenager, but their attitudes toward women rendered him (and all men in his family) incapable of healthy relationships. I grew up in a very different environment with an incredibly feminist mother, but the toxic gender roles still shaped my life and the lives of my cousins. Now that I live in an area where fundamentalism isn’t well-known, I have a hard time explaining to people how messed up and pervasive these attitudes are. I’m so glad this article exists!
I was involved in Evangelical churches for a long time (moved away from that part of my life about 7 years ago), and I think I’m still uncovering parts of my personal beliefs that are still steeped in really problematic views and attitudes. It’s…disconcerting to say the least.
hahahaha i can’t wait for our american war of imperialism to spread to more exciting locales like EUROPA, or when we torture “suspected” “terrorists” in the ice volcanos of io.
Funny you should mention EUROPA…
Emma Stone = Allison Ng
???????!
Come ON. Maggie Q? Olivia Munn? Kristin Kreuk? Right off the top of my head there ARE age-appropriate mixed-race/Asian actresses out there for Bradley Cooper. ESPECIALLY IF AN ASIAN/HAWAIIAN HERITAGE WAS KEY TO THE CHARACTER.
(Although I admit I kind of liked The Descendents though they were at least white Hawaiian – correct me if I’m wrong).
Someone has already made the following arguments to me about Emma Stone playing a multiracial part:
1) They wanted an A-list actor, or someone closer to the A-list, and can you think of any multiracial Asian actors who fit the bill? (IF NOT THEN WHY NOT, I WONDER)
2) They can’t legally ask actors their ethnicity so for all they knew Emma Stone IS part API, somehow, I mean how are they supposed to be able to tell
ppbbbbbttttttt
Pppppbbbtty, there is a Buzzfeed list of multiracial Asian actors for starters. Also Wikipedia (weirdly) often lists the ethnicities of famous people in detail. Basically, Google renders that second point moot.
YOU CAN’T EXPECT CASTING DIRECTORS TO GOOGLE, ANNA
I MEAN WHAT ARE THEY, MADE OF TIME
Hahaha I like that, “Look, guys, we just don’t see color that’s all! I swear, this isn’t weird and ill-considered!”
I REALLY think they were under the impression no one would notice this insulting bit of casting — or at least not call bullshit if they did. Which is just WILDLY TELLING.
yeah, well maybe YOU’RE the real racist for thinking that she isn’t Chinese!!!
I assure you, the It Is You Who Are The True Racist camp definitely exists and has definitely made this exact argument, and has also made the argument It Is You Who Are The True Racist for even noticing that she’s not Asian.
oh, actually, a long-held and important value in my culture is appropriating/erasing YOUR culture, so IT IS YOU WHO ARE THE RACIST
Ugh, I hate that circular logic – “Well, all the A-list actors are white!” HMMMM HOW DID THAT HAPPEN
Ooh, they wanted an A-list actor? This is how we solve it: Make Allison Ng a man, and then cast Keanu Reeves.
SOLUTION, I HAS.
(only not really because Keanu Reeves can’t act and still seems super-white, but still, that would instantly make this movie more interesting.)
I would TOTALLY watch a movie in which Bradley Cooper falls in love with Keanu Reeves.
Couldn’t they, like, at least, cast a dark-haired gal with brown eyes? I mean there must be AT LEAST ONE of those on the lady actors A-list?
That would not, in this case, make me happier, actually! Casting Emma Stone at least makes them look EVEN MORE ABSURD for not actually going with a multiracial actor.
Good point; that would imply that they’d put thought into it but were still like “lol nah let’s still go with a white actor.”
Serious question: but I thought casting calls can actually specify ethnicity/”look”? How can they do that and still be unable to ask actors their ethnicity? How does that make sense?
I think they can specify who they want to see for a part, but maybe they are not supposed to ASK the actors?? I don’t know! I doubt they put out a call for this role anyway, since it’s a leading role; they probably had some stars in mind if not Emma Stone specifically?
(I do not know anything about show business.)
I remember reading ages ago, when they cast The Hunger Games, the casting directors did NOT want to see any women of colour for the role of Katniss, and Suzanne Collins agreed with this, even though book!Katniss is described as having olive skin.
Makes me wonder if they refused to see Indian/Desi actors when casting for Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness.
Much rubbish. Very whitewashing.
Dept of Labor regulations prevent you from making hiring decisions based on race/ethnicity (http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf). So if you ASK, you may run afoul of those laws.
But, in addition, think about the way that helps Hollywood maintain racist depictions of different ethnicities. Let’s say you have a part where the character is explicitly written as Hispanic. The actor who gets cast for that part doesn’t have to BE Hispanic, they just have to fit with whatever the casting team thinks will visually cue the audience to know that. So the person who LOOKS the way the casting team thinks all Hispanic people look can get the part over an equally talented Hispanic actor who doesn’t look stereotypically Hispanic enough. (I don’t necessarily think that you have to be a member of a group to play the role, but I do think that Hollywood reinforces very specific ideas about what it means to “look” like a certain ethnicity or race or sexuality, etc)
You’re right. The writing team behind The Descendents makes it a point to talk about their heritage and how long they’ve been a part of the culture even though they are all white as can be at least a few times throughout the movie.
Dean Pelton won an Oscar for adapted screenplay, which is cool. I wish Robert Forster did more movies.
Apologies if I’m way off here, but isn’t Ng a common Vietnamese name? As in, neither Hawaiian nor Chinese?
No, Ng is a Chinese last name. You might be confusing it with Nguyen, which is an incredibly and absurdly common Vietnamese last name.
[Both of my grandmothers were Nguyens and were completely and totally unrelated to one another.]
You know what? I think we’re both right, in a funny way; apparently Nguyen is shorted to Ng in VN (source :http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Vietnamese/Ng). “Ng” completely on it’s own is Chinese.
Thanks Hieu! It occurs to me too that Vietnam and China share a border too, so there’s bound to be some crossover (pun intended).
…the officers “cannot receive a fair and impartial trial in Baltimore City.” The defense lawyers also claim that State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby should recuse herself due to “conflicts of interest.”
I was too horrified to click through, so someone please tell me — was there ANY sense of the deep irony and privilege in these statements??
I’ve been following this, and no. 🙁 They have been beating these drums ever since she announced she was going to press charges, so sadly I’ve become used to seeing this in the news.
good lord. well, cool, I’ll be waiting over here for all the white male state’s attorneys to recuse THEMSELVES elsewhere…
Her race/gender is only part of it; they’re claiming that because her husband is the councilman for the district (and has positioned himself as being against police brutality as hopefully any Black male politician might!) and because she received a campaign donation from the lawyer representing Freddie Gray’s family, that she has personal conflicts. HOWEVER, she also received campaign donations from FOP (HA) and you know, one could make the case that with a councilman for a husband, she might have the case to take the side of the State but none of them are considering those rebuttals.
It’s a mess. As a Bmore City resident (and someone born and raised in the greater metro area) I have to say that the officers wouldn’t be receiving a fair and impartial trial in the burbs either, but it would just be swung in the opposite direction. (Of course, that’s prob why they’re trying to lobby for it..) >.< I live and work in the city but my husband and other friends who work out in the burbs have some really maddening stories to tell about how many folks immediately outside of the City understood what was going on.
thanks for the background, so frustrating on many levels
The Addy doll piece was so great, and got me thinking once again about the sad story of Ivy Ling, the Chinese American American Girl doll who was one of the Best Friend” dolls in the AG universe. She was LITERALLY PART OF A WHITE DOLL’S COLLECTION. According to AG, she was very concerned with “making her family proud” and also described as “talented” and “lucky”!!!!! [Not so lucky now, of course; she’s been discontinued.] Ivy debuted when I was too old for dolls, and my family did not buy hundred-dollar dolls ever, but apparently this is the sort of semi-meaningless childhood-adjacent grudge I can nurse for YEARS. And the Asian doll selection out there, speaking as a parent, is still not great.
Oh, did she come with Lucky Bamboo and a Lucky Cat and a tattoo of the Chinese word for ‘Luck’ on her bicep? Cause if I was a white doll, I’d totally expect that from my lucky best friends.
FROM THE AMERICAN GIRL WIKI:
Ivy Ling (nicknamed “Poison Ivy” by Julie) is a ten-year-old Chinese American girl who wants to make her family proud. She loves gymnastics and hates to mess up in front of a crowd. Although Ivy seems to have a deep connection to her Chinese heritage, Chinese school is somewhat boring to her and she doesn’t like to eat Chinese food every single day. But by the end of her book, Good Luck, Ivy, Ivy learns the value of having Chinese background. Ivy has a larger family than Julie. Ivy often doesn’t understand Julie’s bouts into trying to change the world.
American Girl characterizes her as “talented” and “lucky.”
Family
Mr. Ling: Ivy’s father, who expects his children to do their best.
Marilyn Ling: Ivy’s mother, who is studying to become a lawyer.
Andrew Ling: Ivy’s older brother who idolizes Bruce Lee and studies kung fu.
Missy Ling: Ivy’s little sister who is three years old. She owns a beat-up stuffed lion named Roary.
Gung Gung: Ivy’s grandfather, who owns a Chinese restaurant, The Happy Panda.
Po Po: Ivy’s gentle grandmother.
—
I mean, KUNG FU and THE HAPPY PANDA JESUS CHRIST
I buy all of it except Po Po. Needs more Tiger Grandmother action. Otherwise, Ivy might discover it’s okay to mess up in front of a crowd, with only her two (Mr. & Marilyn) parents suffocating her with their high expectations and ambition.
Uuuuuugh YES. WHY did the 70s doll have to be another blonde white girl? What’s that, like four now, with the new 1812 one (plus Kristen and Kit – I’m not proud of myself for knowing these things). Why couldn’t it have just been Ivy?
As a Jewish woman, it is depressing/hilarious/hilariously depressing that the only “diverse” new doll in recent years is Rebecca the Jewish girl. Because Jews have money, amirite?*
*Speaking as one who had Molly as a kid and would have been elated if Rebecca existed then.
Ivy did eventually get her own books, right?
I was annoyed at the introduction of Rebecca, and also at how they tried to make her not look stereotypically Jewish (resulting in a doll that didn’t, you know, look like Jewish me at all), but I do like that she eventually became an actual social justice warrior.
yeah, I would have been ALL OVER a Rebecca as a kid because I was so mad that there were no Jewish girls, why did they all have a damn Christmas book
Even more annoyingly, Ivy is an adorable doll, with great clothes. IMO her story (Chinese-American kid growing up in 1970s San Francisco) is a much more interesting one than the main character doll, but I’m a first-generation American who grew up in SF at roughly the same time, so I am biased.
Once, in a flurry of sleeplessness, I wrote a treatment for an AG book about a character who grew up in LA’s chinatown at the turn of the last century. When I woke up, I realized I had ripped off the childhood Anna May Wong, whose biography I had just read. I still maintain it would make a great book/doll set.
I don’t think she looks SUPER Asian…? But she is cute, for a doll.
That’s fun that you wrote a story for an Asian American Girl doll. I often think the Asian sidekicks seem more interesting than the white besties they are invented to support. I’m always more curious about them, of course; I used to try to write stories about sidekick characters, too. THE SECRET LIVES OF ASIAN SIDEKICKS.
Yeah, I’m an academic historian, and at the time, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get a permanent job, so I was experimenting with writing historical fiction. (I might still someday, who knows).
Yeah, man, a lot of those minority sidekicks probably led interesting lives before they hooked up with whitey. I bought The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven expecting it to actually be about that. Alexie is a brilliant writer, and the stories are awesome, but I would love to see Tonto (that name!) tell his story.
The heads of all the AG dolls sort of look the same, IMO. Also I may be biased about her adorableness because she’s a dead-ringer for my childhood BFF when we were 7-9.
There’s a really lovely and sad graphic novel about the dogs used by the Russian space program in the lead up the Sputnik 2 launch. It’s called Laika by Nick Abadzis
I made the mistake of reading that on a long plane flight. I’m just glad someone I knew was sitting next to me, and not a stranger.
Oof, glad you had a buddy – it was hard enough in my own bed with tea for support.
Margaret Atwood wrote a book called Scribbler Moon that none of us will get to read, probably.
I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that we’re not missing out on anything.
In Atwood’s place, I would not hesitate to treat this project as an entirely delectable chance to troll the world.
In 100 years someone opens the book and find that Atwood has transcribed Twilight.
I like that in the Atwood-trolls-the-future-verse, she’s not transcribing 50 Shades instead.
I can’t picture her doing a straight transcription of 50 Shades and resisting the temptation to edit!
That would, indeed, take more willpower than even a human as strong as Atwood could possibly possess.
Exactly. 50 Shades would be too painful for Maggie to even contemplate.
It’s just a book of the tweet exchanges and DMs she has on Twitter with Rob Delaney.
I ship it.
I am super here to talk about space, but of all the weird space shit out there, this weirds me out the most right now: It is expected that by the time Kelly finally descends he will have stretched to five feet nine.
WHAT?!
oh, yeah, standing around in gravity all the time compresses your frame; astronauts usually gain an inch or two when they’re in space for a while.
That is super creepy cool.
They tell you to measure your kid’s height in the morning because they can be up to 1/2 an inch taller from lying down all night.
IIRC, once rigor mortis passes, corpses also “grow” a bit from relaxing.
And also a little bit of a logistical problem – they have to put extra folds and stuff in the space suits so they can expand to fit the taller astronauts on the return. 😀
Wait, I had something for this…
Wow, the piece about PPD was so powerful. It took me a long time to admit I had a very serious problem after having the Mini. I knew, deep down, that I was struggling with depression and anxiety, and that it wasn’t “just going away” as everyone told me PPD would. But I was so scared to admit it, and so scared of what would happen when I did. Ugh. I’m incredibly thankful I got good help when I finally admitted I was depressed and needed outside resources, but I stayed silent for way too long.
DAMN IT BOSSY HELEN IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU
unsurprisingly I really identified with Bossy Helen tho
I don’t know if the author in question will be able to contain her. I feel like every story that includes Bossy Helen is ABOUT Bossy Helen.
Yes, she sounds like one of those characters who is more interesting than the protagonist (the Mercutio problem)!
Please please relay to us the further adventures of Girl Scout Cookies and Bossy Helen. Please?
Dammit, we need a KITH “100 Helens Agree” GIF, STAT!
The 30 Helens! The one time I took a classics class I made a meme that said ’30 Hellenists agree Alexandria was better before!’ and no one got it. 🙁
Thirty Helens, I knew I had that number wrong! Aw, I would’ve appreciated your marvellous play on words!
Sent from my iPad
My friend has a cat named Helen and I’ve made a “30 Helens” joke about her cat and she didn’t get it either. 🙁 Though your reference is, of course, FAR superior.
My parents raised me in the Episcopal church, and while I’m no longer Christian it hurts my heart to read about the abuses that Lenz has seen in the Episcopal community. I had thought – hoped – that Episcopalians were better than that. 🙁
I didn’t think it was Episcopal – I thought she said that they were in that church now but once upon a time had been Evangelical. (Former Espiscopalian here, ready to defend the lax church-going of my youth, haha.)
That’s how I understood it, too.
I was confused by that in the article. I think the start of the article was there to indicate her parents had left the evangelical church? Unless the author considers Episcopal churches evangelical….?
THE SPELLING BEE, THOUGH.
VANYA!
…and Gokul, I guess. I mean, that was a bad-ass move there at the end.
It was totally baller. But still, VANYA!
It’s wrong to ship 8th-graders but I really want them to get married and birth the Spelling Messiah.
Re: colonising other planets. It’s always astonished me that apparently intelligent people (eg Stephen Hawking) can even begin to think that this is a possibility, or even desirable. Why do we not spend the money and resources and brainpower on “dealing with the challenges posed by our own intelligence “? (and isn’t that a perfect phrase?) (and isn’t it also a great challenge for science?).
It’s not as HUGE and INSPIRING if you just stay on earth and try to fix your problems, though! One of the more interesting tidbits from the recent Sally Ride biography (which was not super well-written, but still, a good read if you love Sally Ride as much as I do) was how passionate she was about taking care of our planet, and how she tried to push some earthbound initiatives at NASA that people were less than excited about because space exploration is obviously a more fun thing to think about.
Huge – inspiring – sexy – exactly. I do think eco projects can be fantastically inspiring – often so clever and out-of-the-box, but they simply don’t have the glamour of Mars, it’s true.
Re “the space that people take up”, I remember someone replying to a letter I’d written to New Scientist ages ago (when it was still just print!) telling me off for saying that we should eat less meat, because it was DISTRIBUTION that was the problem. This is true, but he made it sound like we just need more trucks, when what we actually need is a global, grassroots response to inequality and conflict, which probably includes people in richer countries eating less meat.
Also – I reckon people are not that thrilled by the Moon now that we know it’s a barren rock – all that slow-motion jumping by astronauts on black and white TV got old really quickly (cf the ‘Apollo 13’ movie, but I was alive at the time too). When/if we get to Mars it will go out of fashion or experience a backlash – especially as anyone who lands will have virtually no ability to travel about on the planet surface and we can channel-hop, unlike in 1969.
We can’t colonize other planets, we haven’t completely fouled up Antarctica yet. After we do that, then we’re good to go.
I had a friend who used to insist we needed to colonize Mars to solve our over-population problems, as though our over-population problems didn’t have to do with the distribution of water and arable soil, and instead were just about the actual literal space that people take up.
It’s the same reason we have crumbling infrastructure: Fixing things isn’t sexy, building new things is.
I appreciated the Calvin & Hobbes storyline that addressed this question.
I find it telling that wifey bonus woman needs to prove her self worth by buying super expensive things, instead of , I don’t know, saving her money for the future when hubby swaps her out for a newer model, or doing something worthwhile with all her excess cash.
Also what was she THINKING putting her actual name and picture in the piece?
I don’t know, not to be judgy, but this does seem like an example of an editor not protecting the writer from herself.
Serious question: to what extent does an editor have an ethical/professional responsibility to protect an author from their own poor judgment/bad instincts? If this woman is so proud of her financial arrangement and her Chanel flats and Burberry raincoat that she wants the piece to include her real name and several pictures, isn’t it ultimately her call to make?
It’s definitely the writer’s call to write it and put it out there if she wants! It’s not surprising to me that someone published it, and I’m not trying to say that was the wrong decision.
When you write ANYTHING personal and put it online, you can be attacked or misunderstood, etc. The editor can’t protect you from that. From an editorial standpoint, I think the crucial question is not “will this piss everyone off” or “will this be clickbait” but “is there real value to taking this and helping promote it out in the world?” (I don’t mean to sound all self-righteous. Lots of pubs do different things than we do here.) I like to think if I wrote something like this and showed it to people, SOMEONE (not necessarily an editor, but maybe an editor; maybe a partner or friend!) would be honest enough to tell me how it comes across.
It reminds me of a few years ago, when Marie Claire ran a piece called “Should ‘Fatties’ Get A Room?” which, predictably, pissed everyone off, and then it turned out that the author had anorexia, so the whole thing was basically an exercise in My Unreolved Mental Health Issues, Let Me Show You Them, and MC’s editors just sat back and let it happen.
I wonder if part of it is denial? As in, if she were saving her money and NOT buying (ha) into the image of this particular type of wife, she would be admitting that being traded in is a possibility, or admitting that what she is doing with her money right now isn’t worthwhile. By continuing to be a conspicuous consumer, she can effectively put blinders on to the potential ramifications of this kind of an arrangement.
Okay, maybe I’m reading way too much into this. ha! Armchair analysis!
There is a “senior content developer” job open at American Girl right now in Middleton, WI. I applied but am probably not sufficiently qualified. If I cannot have it myself, I want a Toastie to get it. Apply like the wind!
YES. Someone get the job and make an Angela Davis or Emma Goldman doll.
My husband’s cousin works there, directing photo shoots for the catalogs. She says it’s a nice place to work. Best of luck!
I AM LATE BUT AM HEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE TO TALK ABOUT THE ADDY DOLL AND HOW THE OVERSEER MAKES HER EAT WORMS FROM THE FIELD & SHE ONLY GOT TO HAVE ICE CREAM WHEN HER DAD FOUND A BROKEN MAKER IN THE ALLEY BEHIND THE PRETTY SHOP…
I never felt like it was insensitive. I thought the stories were a realistic depiction of what Addy’s life was like, and it was presented in a way that obviously stuck w me. But when I was 7 I really just wanted to have Samantha so I could imagine myself at a nice lakeside summercamp w great clothes and a canopy bed.
Ditto to all except wanting to be Samantha. (Felicity all the way. Because horses.) Seriously though, I remember more from her books than most of the others and as a history major I will always stand by their being important. Especially in a time when it seems like a lot of our teaching children about America and even about the Civil War just seems to gloss over slavery entirely.
Now, if they kept the doll as a slave throughout her books rather than just in the first two chapters and expected children to play with her like that… Yeah. That would be a problem.
Good news for Canadian Toasties who experience the joys of menstruation! As of July 1st there will be no more federal tax on tampons and other feminine hygiene products!
What a way to celebrate Canada Day.
Wave the red flag, there.
KLAXON KLAXON THIS IS NOT A DRILL
“Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine & Original Cast of INTO THE WOODS to Reunite in New York”
tickets on sale today for folks lucky enough to be near Brooklyn Academy of Music 6/21, which regrettably doesn’t include me, aghhhhh agony (AGONYYYY!)
MISERY
WOE
– I may have posted this link before, or someone else has, but it’s worth repeating as long as we’re talking about Mars: Why Mars One (the most publicized effort to get people on Mars) will fail.
– I have a sinking feeling that the defense lawyers for the Baltimore cops will look for a change of venue to the Maryland county with the highest percentage of Confederate flags on pickup trucks per capita.
– I feel that Bossy Helen and Girl Scout Cookies would be acceptable Fury Road names.
On the American Girl dolls, I thought part of the fun of them was that the clothes are all interchangeable? Were/are the story books really that important, that a child would experience dissonance from receiving say Addy with the WWII (Molly) stuff? I mean, Addy’s dad and mom would be working in the shipyards somewhere around San Francisco, and Addy would have a lot of responsibility at home because her mom was a welder… But if the children really rely on the books to contextualize the dolls, then that puts a big creativity-storytelling burden on the parents and not all parents are going to be able to do that.
I only have bought these things FOR children, I’ve never had a lot of exposure to how the kids actually relate with them. (Although I do know that the Samantha stuff had a cachet, partly for being the kind of thing a certain kind of largely imaginary grandmother would have in the house and attic.)
I think you can just collect doll stuff and pay no attention to the books, but each major doll DOES come with her own story. A lot of parents I know who are borderline-embarrassed about buying their kids $100 dolls with a bunch of $30 outfits defend this by saying the books are great historical fiction for kids. I think to some kids the stories are really part of the fun and excitement.
I had Kirsten and Josephina as a kid and was VERY invested in their stories and read all the books, like I never would have put them in another doll’s clothes because that would be HISTORICALLY INACCURATE, but I was also a huge nerd so I don’t know.
On the subject of “I don’t want my children to make their dolls act out upsetting stories,” there’s a NYT Motherlode piece up today that’s all “I don’t want my child to read upsetting dystopia books, but she craves them.”
YES. I mean, this is often a truth of childhood, right? Kids gravitate towards upsetting and complicated stories, or at least I did.
I should go check that piece out! It makes me think of this amazing piece by Sherman Alexie from a few years back:
Teenagers read millions of books every year. They read for entertainment and for education. They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads.
And there are millions of teens who read because they are sad and lonely and enraged. They read because they live in an often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestations of certain adults, that books-especially the dark and dangerous ones-will save them.
As a child, I read because books–violent and not, blasphemous and not, terrifying and not–were the most loving and trustworthy things in my life. I read widely, and loved plenty of the classics so, yes, I recognized the domestic terrors faced by Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters. But I became the kid chased by werewolves, vampires, and evil clowns in Stephen King’s books. I read books about monsters and monstrous things, often written with monstrous language, because they taught me how to battle the real monsters in my life.
And now I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for that. I write to give them weapons–in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.
wtf I’m a little over quarter Chinese, little under quarter Hawaiian and quarter white and I look NOTHING like Emma Stone
I actually also had a "bespoke" wedding dress, in that it was made by the seamstress who repaired the heirloom lace veil I wore. It cost nowhere near $4500.
Even Emma Stone can't convince me to buy Revlon right now. Its CEO is a total racist, misogynist pig and I won't contribute to his salary.
You know, a real breakthrough movie for Woody Allen would be something like this:
On a small town college campus, philosophy professor Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix) finds himself in an existential crisis, but when he tells Political Science professor Angela Torres (Rosario Dawson) about it, she slaps him upside the head and tells him to get over himself. They then embark upon the enjoyable, normal relationship of two similarly aged people, with some fun sexual role-play on the side.
There. Fixed.
I would TOTALLY watch a movie in which Bradley Cooper falls in love with Keanu Reeves.
…The wife-bonus story is satire, right? There’s no way this isn’t satire. The kid’s name is “Lala” for pete’s sake.