Link Roundup! -The Toast

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YES (I also think the Washington Post could have made better pronoun choices when describing Bailar’s life before transition, but remember how old and easily confused people who read the Washington Post sometimes are):

She was the quintessential recruit for the women’s swimming team at Harvard University: a nimble breaststroker with a fierce work ethic and sharp intellect. But when Schuyler Bailar jumps into the school’s Olympic-size pool this fall, he instead will be a member of the men’s team, the first openly transgender collegiate swimmer in U.S. history.

Emerging from a tortuous year of self-reckoning and a lifelong quest to feel comfortable in his own skin, Bailar, 19, will be navigating far more than the usual freshman challenges; he also will be a pioneer and role model as society openly grapples with shifting mores about traditional male/­female gender lines.


Docents Gone Wild (this is what happens when you hire Charlotte York):

Kat Braz, a graphic designer from West Lafayette, Ind., was visiting the Iolani Palace in Honolulu this past December when she said a guide scolded her for straying from the group. The docent, an older man in a Hawaiian shirt, insinuated that certain people on the tour were fat, she said, and mocked them for not knowing obscure historical trivia. Ms. Braz, 35, couldn’t wait for the experience to end. “I’ve never had anybody be so rude before,” she said.

More arts-loving baby boomers—educated, experienced and recently retired—are hustling to become museum tour guides. The number of volunteers ages 65 and older is projected to climb nearly 23% to 13 million in 2020 from 10.6 million today, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency focused on volunteering.


Rich. Tapestry:

Wheatcroft is now 55, and according to the Sunday Times Rich List, worth £120m. He lives in Leicestershire, where he looks after the property portfolio of his late father and oversees the management of Donington Park Racetrack and motor museum (which he also owns). The ruling passion of his life, though, is what he calls the Wheatcroft Collection – widely regarded as the world’s largest accumulation of German military vehicles and Nazi memorabilia. The collection has largely been kept in private, under heavy guard, either in the warren of industrial buildings Wheatcroft owns near Market Harborough, or at his homes in Leicestershire, the Charente in south-west France and the Mosel Valley in south-west Germany. There is no official record of the value of Wheatcroft’s collection, but some estimates place it at over £100m.


Zookeepers are living the dream:

In a 2009 paper for Administrative Science Quarterly, J. Stuart Bunderson and Jeffery A. Thompson studied zookeepers and found that the profession was about the closest anyone in the modern, secular world comes to having a calling—the sort of intensely meaningful career that Martin Luther said could turn work into a divine offering. Zookeeping is dirty, repetitive, and poorly paid. And yet people volunteer for years, move across the country, and accept major sacrifices in their personal lives to be able to do it.


Scalia is such a turd.


NOPE:

A husband of a friend of mine received this email from his workplace:

“You have the opportunity to attend a Retreat at ____ Church, on Friday from 9 am-4 pm. It will be a day guided by Father ____, on finding Peace and God with your fellow colleagues in the workplace. Continental breakfast and lunch will be served. If you would like to attend, this will be a paid day. If you choose not to attend, we will try to accommodate you by opening the corporate office. (This will be based on attendance) Please respond by email to Mary and myself if you will be attending or not. Response needed, no later than 3 pm Monday.


Alessandra is going to go do what she was born to do: write about rich people. Who is your favourite TV critic and how do we get them her old job?


You are not Sherlock, do not hound people:

Could you send us a phone log confirming you were where you say you were the night Jessica died? Why does your white truck look like the white truck that a commenter said might belong to the murderer? Care to explain that 2003 drug possession charge? If locals engage with their interrogators, they end up arguing all day with people they’ve never met. They can’t avoid suspicion by staying offline, either, because when they do so, they appear even guiltier.


The fuck is thisssss oh, I would FLIP OUT, like, I would live in a haunted house, absolutely, but I would NEVER stay in a house that some weirdo is obsessed with:

“I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming,” one of the letters reportedly reads. Two others allegedly refer to the couple’s young children. “I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me,” one reportedly says. Another asks, “Have they found out what’s in the walls yet?”


I enjoy Charlotte so much (I do think that it’s possible to hire a sex worker in an ethical manner, and I do not think that the act of paying a professional for sex is inherently bad or shameful or should be illegal):

Be reasonable. Your sex worker isn’t there because of their lust for you, or even their like for you. They’re there because it’s their job. Interrogating them about their own tastes, proclivities, and the authenticity of what they wanted you to believe was an orgasm is boorish and will cast a sour pall over the proceedings. “What do you want to do?” is one of the most groan-worthy things you can say to a sex worker, because odds are they want to be texting their friends, watching a Bravo marathon, or fucking the person they’re dating instead of you.


Did you read the piece about lithium?

Lithium, a mood stabilizer that can help stop and prevent manic cycles, is usually the first medication tried with bipolar patients; it’s effective for most of them. Including me. I was discharged and sent back to high school with an apple-size bruise on my hip. For two decades since then, I have been taking lithium almost continuously. It has curbed my mania, my depression and, most significant, the wild delusional cycles that have taken me from obsessing over the value of zero to creating a hippie cult (my uniform: bell-bottoms, psychedelic sports bra and body glitter, head to toe). As long as I take those three pink lithium-carbonate capsules every day, I can function. If I don’t, I will be riding on top of subway cars measuring speed and looking for light in elevated realms.


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Pilot Viruet is a really good tv critic. I think she would do great work for the Times. Someone who actually likes and understands tv would be a welcome change. I have no idea how to get her this job, as much as I wish they would hire her.
4 replies · active 509 weeks ago
I have ideas for new tv critics! First and foremost: Molly Lambert. Alternatives I would also find acceptable: het Grantland colleague Andy Greenwald (love his snarkiness), Alan Sepinwall, Sarah Mesle.

Honestly, there's a lot of great writing about TV lately. I love it.
HELL to the NO with that house watcher nonsense. How is it not traceable who's sending that stuff? This seems like something you shouldn't be able to get away with in 2015.
Love that guide to hiring a sex working. I interviewed a professional domme for a column I write, and she was so smart and savvy and so utterly uninterested in putting up with bullshit. It was refreshing to see a woman in any professional field field be so self-assured; it was doubly so to talk to one who refused to equate her own sex work with any degree of victimization or violation. It was so, so clear that her boundaries were just as important as any client's, no matter how much he was paying, and that is a trait that I definitely felt like I could use some mentoring on.
I have family friends that live in Westfield and it is ALL THE FUCK OVER THE NEWS here. My sister sent me a link to the nj.com article at work the other day and it scared the bajibblies out of me.
2 replies · active 509 weeks ago
Aw, the docent piece bummed me out! My retired mom has been a docent for 5 years now (she wrote me about getting her 5-year badge last week) and it's something that's really enriched her life since becoming an empty nester and leaving the work force. She has the opportunity to teach to a lot of students every year (the majority of the tours at the regional museum) and I think she's been able to incorporate some really cool lessons that would be obliterated with "canned" tours and monologues. (#NotAllDocents)

But on the other hand, I can see how the position would attract some bad apples, and how dependent it is on individual judgement. If there are so many willing volunteers, they should be able to just "fire" the bad apples... and on the other other hand, I get the sense that often docents are also donors, and if those categories overlap, it might be financially detrimental to "fire" them.
12 replies · active 509 weeks ago
UGH that Docent piece. 50% of my job consists of wrangling docents and let me tell you, some of those stories hit a little too close to home. I had a elderly (white) male docent who, during a school tour in our exhibit on slavery, turned to the tall black young man standing next to him and said, "Now YOU would make a great field slave!"

It made me completely and totally sick.

There is a prevalent thought amongst some of my slightly older coworkers dealing with the docents that "well, they're of a different generation, they don't know any better" but my argument is always THEY DON'T LIVE UNDER A ROCK, THEY LIVE IN CURRENT SOCIETY. There's no excuse for that kind of talk or behavior, especially when impressionable young people are concerned. This should be an institution of not only learning, but inclusion and SAFETY for heaven's sake.
19 replies · active 509 weeks ago
Who on earth would ever think a religious retreat with work colleagues was a good thing? Or even a thing? My response would be a very angry email citing the 2010 Equalities Act (if it was relevant in Michigan, which it is not).
10 replies · active 509 weeks ago
Working for one boss is hard enough
at least when work is over you can leave
when your second boss is Jesus then it gets tough
especially if you find you don't believe

When your boss decides that it is time to team up
with supernatural managers you'll find
some policies that only Lot could dream up
and silliness will join your daily grind

These imaginary supervisors - have they
gone to Vegas for team-building meets?
and have they MBAs from UC Davis?
or interned for investment banks on Wall Street?

So in the interest of employee morale
Either run a business or a Christian Church
Don't try to sing a capitalist chorale
Jesus memory will only be besmirched
FOUR BOXES.
5 replies · active 509 weeks ago
I lived next to a mini-cemetery for a year in college and that wasn't NEARLY as creepy as that Watcher shit, jfc. That is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.
I just finished the buzzfeed piece (A++ for the header Troll Detective, btw), and I don't know whether to be horrified or fascinated. Probably both? And it goes on in the comments!

Also, the mom used the n-word (specifically in the context of telling her daughter she didn't want her to keep dating a black guy) but maintains that she didn't mean it in a racist way. That's quite some cognitive dissonance, there. It's almost impressive.
1 reply · active 509 weeks ago
I went on a docent led tour at the New Museum through the Chris Ofili exhibit a few months ago, it was a wonderful tour. Only about 5 of us chose to go on it. While we were waiting to start, an older woman asked to take a picture with the docent. The docent was not super nice, but obliged. I was thinking "wow, this is going to be a long tour...grumpy docent, picture happy customers," but it turns out it was her MOM, who has been a docent at the Met for years and years, and I think the daughter was just mildly embarrassed. They both knew so much about art, and I was really charmed. (And the mom stood back and let her daughter do her thing).
Whoaaah I am just hearing that the Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 in favor of same-sex marriage
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2015/06/scotus-marriag...

Does this mean I have to get gay married now?
27 replies · active 509 weeks ago
Epigram

it's bad enough I have to work
but when it's church as well
my feeling's I should tell the boss
that he can go to Hell.
2 replies · active 509 weeks ago
I linked to that Guardian piece a few days ago and it's just a massive pile of NOPE. What kind of 5-year-old asks for an authentic SS helmet for his birthday? Why did his parents even buy him one??

I try not to answer when people accuse me of being a Nazi,” he said. “I tend to turn my back and leave them looking silly. I think Hitler and Göring were such fascinating characters in so many ways. Hitler’s eye for quality was just extraordinary.”

That's really the thing to remember about Hitler, he could really pick out the best curtain fabric for your top secret hiding-from-the-Red-Army bunker.

Also, if there's one thing I will never feel silly about, it's accusing a man of being a Nazi when that man has gone on the record as saying shit like "I think I could give up everything else, the cars, the tanks, the guns, as long as I could still have Adolf and Hermann. They’re my real love."

“I don’t show many people the collection, because not many people can understand the motives behind it, people don’t understand my values.”

YOUR MOTIVES AND VALUES ARE PRETTY CLEAR THOUGH.

“I want to preserve things. I want to show the next generation how it actually was. And this collection is a memento for those who didn’t come back."

Okay, sure, but: does preserving Hitler's favorite Coke vending machine or Eva Braun's gramophone contribute meaningfully to our knowledge of WWII?

As far as I can tell, this piece mentions the Holocaust only once, rather obliquely, when he says he bought a backpack that turned out to have undeveloped film on it which included some photos of the Berger-Belsen camp. It must have been very soon after the liberation, because there were bulldozers moving piles of bodies. No mention of whether those photos were kept or on display anywhere, no acknowledgement that those piles of bodies were his "real loves" Adolf and Hermann's dream come true. So by "those who didn't come back" he means the fallen Nazi soldiers.

Just, uughhhhh. Skimming over this piece again made me feel like I desperately need a shower.
5 replies · active 509 weeks ago
GAY MARRIAGE GUYS IT'S CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED ACROSS THE NATION WHOOOOOO
13 replies · active 509 weeks ago
I want to ask people who are complaining that "state no longer means state" exactly what state they think John Kerry is the Secretary of?
In Schuyler Bailar's story, I love the quote from grandma: "Well, I knew that. Now I have two grandsons from your mother.” Grandmas. They know you. And you cannot surprise them.
MARRIAGE EQUALITY YOU GUYS
1 reply · active 509 weeks ago
My boss just bought everyone donuts to celebrate the court ruling. Best. Day. Ever.
CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT THAT WATCHER THING???

It's got to be some dumb bored teenager who just read the Dionaea House, right?
1 reply · active 509 weeks ago
SCALIA SCHAEDENFREUDE THREAD!!

My favorite, favorite thing is how he reserves his nastiest bitching for footnotes.

Footnote 22: "If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: ‘The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,’ I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."

SCOTUSblog posted that, along with the masterfully restrained observation: "He is not happy with Justice Kennedy."
12 replies · active 509 weeks ago
Roxane Gay was excellent on morning edition today!
Yay to all of you from me in Ireland! Congratulations, this is such a milestone. I'm tearing up over here reading reactions.
(Mandatory: suck it, Scalia)
@lilah80 - Should we all send him some bedazzled paper bags to hide his archaic nonsense-spewing head in? The temptation, it is STRONG.
What a day!
1 reply · active 509 weeks ago
Re: the sex work thing, I was a (briefly) a phone-sex operator, and I def. got a lot of calls from dudes who would a) try to find out personal information (which you were not supposed to give them; even my name was fake) and/or b) start off by asking what I liked. It's not really relevant, bro, because you are not going to run into me at your neighborhood convenience store and start up a real-life romance, and you are the one paying for this interaction, so I will feign breathy enthusiasm for whatever it is YOU like, regardless of how I personally feel about it.
3 replies · active 509 weeks ago
jimjams panjandrum's avatar

jimjams panjandrum · 509 weeks ago

From the zookeeper article:

"An intense sense of duty is something any employer would love to get from employees, particularly if it means they’re so dedicated they don’t worry much about low pay or tough working conditions. Bunderson and Thompson refer to this as the “double-edged sword” of meaningful work. Zookeepers sometimes care so much about their job that they accept being exploited ... In other words, “meaning” makes workers more productive without the need to give raises or offer better working conditions."

It's a funny old world.

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