As improbable as it might sound, I am a female scientist, and I agree with Tim Hunt.
First of all, Sir Tim’s comments are based on his personal experiences, and are therefore incontrovertible. Three hundred and fifty years ago, Isaac Newton saw an apple fall and decided that gravity existed. Three weeks ago, Tim Hunt saw a woman cry and decided that all women are unfit to be scientists. Science is based on observations, which are the same thing as universal proof. Even I know that, and I’m just a woman whose brain is filled to capacity with yoga poses and recipes for gluten-free organic soap. Once, I was lured into a trap in the woods because I followed a trail of Sex and the City DVDs for three miles into a covered pit. Do you really think I could do something as complicated as thinking about science?
Walmart, Amazon, eBay and Sears all announced bans on the sale of Confederate flag merchandise, amid an intensifying national debate over the use of the controversial flag.
I’m going to be writing hilariously about s2 of True Detective tomorrow, but in the meantime, this is a more serious look at the first episode. I loved s1 a whole bunch, despite having the same reservations as everyone else, so I’m both bummed and amused that s2 is proving people right about the problems with the show as a whole.
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ugh please read the middle-earth thing again and share it on social so we can lure more male pageviews
1. The origin story of “I’m in the Wrong Story.”
Stephen Sondheim admitted that the first and “only” line he ever stole from an actor is “I’m in the wrong story.” The “Any Moment” lyric came out of a conversation he was having with Joanna Gleason, as they tried to parse out the Baker’s Wife’s seduction at the hands of Cinderella’s Prince.
Fact-checking books (good for readers, good for writers):
By tradition and by default, books aren’t verified to anything near the standard of a magazine piece. Publishers don’t even consider verification their business. (Nor do newspapers or most websites, which don’t have the time for it; magazines are actually the anomaly here.) Every nonfiction book contract contains a standard author’s warranty: that every fact is true, and that its accuracy is the writer’s sole responsibility. Thus indemnified, the editor focuses on style and narrative, while a copy editor checks basic dates and names. Outside experts are occasionally consulted (but rarely paid) just to ensure that, say, some counternarrative of Napoleon’s death isn’t completely wacko. The publisher’s lawyer will review it, but only to flag libel, copyright infringement, and the like. If a writer wants to hire a fact-checker, she’s on her own. The house won’t supply one, help find or pay for one, or even build a fact deadline into the publication schedule. Any checker is effectively an employee of the writer, working on the side, and any writer who’s taken the trouble to hire him already has more than the average level of integrity and research funding. The rich get richer; the poor and the duplicitous just get printed.
Kate Harding, one of my favourite fake internet friends, on her anti-weight-loss-journey.
This is a long and fascinating read about people with craniofacial deformities, and the medical professionals who help them. It’s written by a man who has a bit of a phobia, but self-awarely so, and I think it’s well worth your time:
Seelaus gives him some practical care tips. Keep away from solvents, small children and pets – animals like to chew silicone. The ear will sink. “If you go swimming, if you’re in the ocean, wear your old ear,” she says. “Don’t put it on top of a radiator or toaster oven.”
I estimate the ear costs $10,000 – its fabrication took up most of Seelaus’s working week – and she does not contradict me. I also observe that Seelaus must be one of the few artists who hopes that her work goes entirely unnoticed by the public, and she doesn’t contradict me about that, either.
Happy though he is with his improved appendage, when I ask James if I could take a picture of him wearing his new ear, he refuses. He says he is worried, not about the photo’s appearance on Mosaic, but that it might later be lifted and included in some online “hall of monsters”. I ask several times in several ways, reassuring him that in my view this is highly unlikely. His answer is always the same: No. A reminder that looks are always relative, always only part of the story, and that our reaction to them fills in the rest.
deleted comment of the week failed to fly under our radar:
Trans parents on how they got there:
When Kayden met his husband, Elijah, a security guard at a pediatric hospital, they fell in love and got married, but never thought they would have kids. “To be honest, we didn’t change our minds. It was a surprise. I was off testosterone because I just had top surgery and wound up pregnant. We didn’t find out I was pregnant until I was already 5 months along,” said Kayden.
fck a friendzone. I’ll brother zone you. I’ll call you my uncle. I’ll invite you to a family reunion and introduce you as my favorite cousin
— farwz (@farwzaz) June 2, 2015
