What Happened To Sandra Bland? (I can’t stop thinking about this piece, and I really hope people are as willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, having seen the TAPE, as they were to assume the drunk white lady who drove the wrong way wasn’t really drunk, on no evidence at all):
While we can’t rule out the possibility that Bland actually did commit suicide, those close to her have stated that there was no indication that she was feeling anything but good at this point in her life. Mental illness and depression are complicated beasts, but so is the American system of policing. When it comes to the death of a Black person in police custody or during an encounter with officers, what reason do we have to believe “official” accounts of what happened, when videos and witnesses have made liars of officers over, and over, and over again? When people of other races are routinely stopped, questioned, arrested (or NOT stopped, NOT questioned, NOT arrested) and somehow manage to live to see another day?We need to know what happened to Sandra Bland but what clarity can we expect to get from the same people who arrested and jailed her? Police departments investigate themselves and return with an emphatic “nothing to see here, folks, the system is working!”
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But CNN’s dalliances with ISIS propaganda are only marginally less shameless. CNN’s talking heads breathlessly report on each new clip and feature titillating stills from certain videos, including one documenting the execution of American journalist James Foley, all over the network’s website. They do everything but post the videos themselves. And just about every major media organization has put together a package on the growing “sophistication” of ISIS propaganda clips, analyzing the footage as if ISIS were an avant-garde Scandinavian film collective that also happens to hold large amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria.
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Progressive feminist music for the wee children!
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An explainer for the Jade Helm conspiracy theory:
Like many of the rational residents of the United States, we have been amused to watch the emergence of the conspiracy theory known as Jade Helm 15. If you are one of the rational residents of the country but have not heard of Jade Helm, it is the sweeping theory that an upcoming eight-week military exercise stretching across the Southwest is actually a secret plot by the Obama administration to seize land / oust traitors / otherwise be evil. If you are one of the irrational residents of the United States, you are not reading this because the tin foil hat slipped over your eyes and / or you are too busy eating Vietnam-era MREs.
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This is a very sad and beautiful piece by a labor nurse about when things don’t work out, and you don’t get to go home with a baby. Nothing helps, but I hope that if this ever happens to you, or has happened to you, it’s a comfort to know that your care providers mourn along with you.
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Jim Gaffigan is like The Beatles in Utah, despite being Catholic and not LDS, bc his humor is clean and based heavily on having five kids, so I anticipate this show may break big out here.
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But until the media’s recent preoccupation with the subject, close female friendships like the ones seemingly shared by Taylor, Lena, and Karlie have been curiously underdiscussed. And these relationships, to be sure, are by no means a 21st century phenomenon. A discernable culture of romanticized female friendship extends from 19th century Great Britain and America, with literature of the period reflecting idealizations of charged intimacy between women and girls. In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, for example, our beloved heroine tucks herself into bed with her dying companion, Helen Burns, so that the lonely children may keep each other close as they say farewell. (Oh, my heart.) Brontë’s Villette, for that matter, chronicles a more mature, fraught intimacy between protagonist Lucy Snowe and the preening Ginevra Fanshawe, a couple attached and physically familiar (if not especially friendly).
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Being prevented from reading a Daily Mirror UFO story by this survey is the most me thing that’s ever happened to me pic.twitter.com/4gPul9Hh4E
— Katie Heaney (@KTHeaney) July 16, 2015
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
This is what Rick Perry said in that article about the Jade Helm event:
“”It’s OK to question your government. I do it on a regular basis,” he told the Dallas Morning News. “But the military is something else. Our military is quite trustworthy. The civilian leadership — you can always question that, but not the men and women in uniform.””
Guys, look. My brother was in the Army, I got family going back in the armed forces for like a hundred years, I don’t have anything against men and women in uniform.
But this kind of talk makes me really, really nervous.
This is exactly the kind of mentality that meant Russell Williams could fly under the radar for so long. Who the fuck says shit like that?
This is the kind of mentality that leads to endless imperialism and military juntas. The Pentagon is already almost a shadow-nation — a separate, nearly-ungovernable empire that gets money and troops from the US but is otherwise disconnected. I’m not sure that we’re really doing ourselves a favor by declaring every member of the armed forces morally invincible.
Listen if our Founding Father’s were right about anything, it’s that government is untrustworthy and the military is very good. That’s why the president takes orders from the Joint Chiefs.
Serious question, does he know that the military is a part of the government? Is he maybe not fully aware of that?
Or, i mean, where does he think soldiers come from? They’re not from space or something, they’re not a secret race of supermen that we dig up out of the ground after planting a bunch of dragons’ teeth.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SUPER-SOLDIERS??
</mulder>
Does he know HE is part of the government? Is he telling us we shouldn’t trust him (pretty sound advice actually).
I think it’s code for “a Democrat government isn’t a real government”
seriously, this is right out of one of those “If we reported on America like we reported on developing countries” pieces. Regional administrator appears to be preparing citizens for military coup!
and at least among folks I know, the ones in the military are the first to criticize & question it…
I mean, I definitely have not heard of any kind of screening process that the military has put in place to screen out complete fucking assholes. Are we supposed to just take it as a given that bloodthirsty psychopaths are simply not interested in joining the army?
Yes, because nothing the military has ever done has ever been questionable or wrong in any way WHAT THE FUCK.
Seriously, it’s shit like this that makes me want to move to another country.
This is one of those things that always gets me in a kind of ethical bind, because one of the ways that other countries have for giving people a realistic idea about the military is mandatory service. Which is something I kind of don’t agree with! But on the other hand, the more people who have to serve in the military, the fewer people who have a ludicrous idea about is heroism.
There’s also something to be said about compulsory military service reducing our overseas commitments and involvement in wars. When the American public has more invested in going to war, they are far, far more reluctant to commit troops to conflict. Selective Service is a weak compromise. I’m not necessarily in favor of re-instituting the draft, but I do think we as a nation have an unbalanced, detached, and idealized version of the military that does though who serve no favors.
yeah, it’s a tough spot; I would definitely refuse to be drafted under most circumstances, but at the same time, if the overseas conflicts that we’re up to our asses in blood and bodies in are so important, then why isn’t there mandatory military service?
I wouldn’t object to a year or two of compulsory (and government funded) military or some other public service–like, you have an option of how you serve, but you have to serve.
We only got rid of the draft a few years ago (every male had to report, but wouldn’t necessarily be picked for service), and the pacifists had the option to choose something like community service if they were picked.
Well, that’s just the thing – they deem those conflicts so financially important that they don’t want influential members of the public making noise about them.
The removal of the draft lottery after the backlash of the American-Vietnam War was extremely politically savvy of the US government. The middle and upper classes are less likely to protest wars when they won’t have to get killed themselves. There’s a convenient underclass for that.
I feel like, if anything, it makes less sense when you’re close to someone in the military. You get a close up example of how terrible they are at planning. My family’s had a multi-year roller coaster of “your brother’s getting deployed” “nope nevermind” “actually for real this time” “oh nevermind, we didn’t really mean that” “but actually, now it’s for real happening” “nope, not this time.” Most trustworthy institution in the world guys.
Oh yeah, definitely. My brother’s unit actually lost him while he was training in the United States. Twice. The staff sergeant had to call my mom to find out where he was.
The only people who say things like that are utterly unfamiliar with the military in general. “Time to deploy! Wait, just kidding!” Ah, pure trustworthiness.
It’s also idiotic, because the military is intended to report directly to civilian command. The military is not an organization autonomous from the civilian leadership — it is a tool of civilian leadership.
I just…I just can’t. Venerating the military as though it were above politics or not deeply connected to the political realm is a complete abrogation of the entire system on which the civil-military relationship is constituted.
“Supporting the troops” is one of the last great American Sacred Cows.
This just so much reminds me of what is going on in Egypt, where it sounds like the military is the only institution people really trust, and that has led to multiple military coups…
I’ve been listening to a lot of Pete Seeger recently, so this feels especially apropos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4
“quite trustworthy” doesn’t mean “infallible” It is made of people and people make mistakes in every organization. Nobody is perfect and always makes right decisions, so no group of people can either.
Do you mean that literally, or in the context in which Rick Perry is using it, when he is contrasting the military’s trustworthiness with “you can always question” the civilian government?
Also, are you trying to explain to me that the military, because it is essentially an enormous bureaucracy, is capable of making many often staggering mistakes? Or are you trying to explain to me that there’s no reason to consider the possibility that many people in the military might not only make mistakes, but might in fact be bad people who are using the powers of the US military to pursue bad ends?
I was kind of just pointing out (obvious) flaws in Rick Perry’s statement. I’m pretty tired and not feeling great, so maybe I was too vague in my statement?
I think people are too often surprised when organizations (military, corporate, government, charitable, religious, etc) make mistakes, and expect them to be perfect, when that’s impossible. Mistakes don’t necessarily mean that evil people are directing things, but it doesn’t not mean that either? Some decisions are just made with bad or incomplete information, and some people do have an agenda.
I think I need a nap
I am outraged and want justice, but please read this statement from Sigma Gamma Rho (Sandra Bland’s sorority) regarding her family’s wishes. https://celectcdn.s3.amazonaws.com/files/0038/528…
Thank you for passing on this information– I made a few tumblr posts last night, but will delete them as soon as I’m back from work.
It actually seems that message was not meant for the general public: https://twitter.com/stopbeingfamous/status/621840…
Also, via her Sandy Speaks videos, it seems that Sandra Bland saw social media as a powerful and important tool for speaking out against this very thing. If it indeed comes down to it, I would honor her own stated wishes above her family’s.
Yep, the sense I am getting (from Jamilah, who wrote the Ebony piece, among others) is that that is meant for sorority members, and that Sandy’s wishes are pretty obvious from how she lived her life.
Thanks for the update.
The Atlantic has an excellent companion piece for the resilience link yesterday.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07…
All that self control and discipline needed to climb out of poverty has a physical cost.
Thank you for posting this! I found the article from yesterday to be really moving and also illuminating about some aspects of my own personality that I’ve always had trouble putting my finger on. But it took me so long to read and digest that I didn’t really have a chance to discuss. I look forward to reading this companion piece, hopefully in time to talk about it here.
Ok, now that I have read both pieces, here are my thoughts. Warning, it will be a jumble:
For me, the take away of the Resilience is Futile piece is that the non-profit and academic community have a bad habit of stating the obvious when it comes to interacting with people in poverty. From the example of the cortisol study: “The hypothesis for this study was: people in low-income communities suffer greater levels of stress. The incentive for the initiative was that it might procure funding that could then be used to establish concrete measurable findings which would then in turn substantiate the need for more workshops on resilience, more outreach, and ultimately more funding.”
The quote from the researcher sums it up: “It’s the extreme unfairness of the circumstances in which people find themselves that’s problematic, not the self-control.” However, I found the article a bit difficult to read, because, as someone who was on the self-control path to upward mobility, it was just a little obvious. Of course there’s a physical cost and barriers to that mobility. Even knowing it would age your cells, is there anyone who wouldn’t make that trade off if they could? I doubt it. Also, they followed the kids from 17 to 22, which I think leads to an incomplete comparison, because yes someone who remained low-SES might be physically healthier at age 22, but if they stay in an unsafe environment and remain cut off from healthcare into their 30s and 40s, that picture is going to change. So, I guess perhaps it was just the write up that bugged me given the limitations of the scope of the study.
But broadly I agree: we should advocate for less focus on neo-liberal behavior modification for the poor, and more focus on actual amelioration of the circumstances around poverty. It seems so obvious, and it’s just not apparently.
Yes, I would definitely agree with your conclusions on hte limitations of the studies/articles and the obviousness of REDUCING POVERTY as the means of reducing the stress/poor health/whatever of people in poverty.
That is fascinating, thank you for sharing. I have been trying to sort out my feelings about that piece yesterday. I’m in the nonprofit sector and yeah, we talk about resilience a lot. I think that three things are absolutely, totally crucial to avoid being That Nonprofit: (a) making absolutely sure at every stage that the community is telling us what THEY want and we’re listening, not giving them what we think they should want, (b) generating strategies for long-term fixes (e.g. helping people get and keep jobs that pay a living wage), and (c) working to enact policy changes that will support those long-term fixes
It’s a struggle isn’t it; to be working at alleviating difficulties for the person who needs help right now without falling into the charity/good works model while trying to work for long term justice.
That article about stillborns… I did not expect to be crying this early in the day, but that was just beautiful and heartbreaking and I’m so glad I read it.
It doesn’t count as crying if I hold the tears in my eyes, right?
I have been staring at the ceiling tiles in my office a LOT today. This today plus I only just read my Galactic Rabbit horoscope yesterday (she posts them late and unpredictably) results in a puddle of tears around my desk.
THANK YOU for informing me Galactic Rabbit still exists! I loved them on the Hairpin but she stopped posting them there. I still go back and read my old ones.
Apparently she had a dust-up with the ‘Pin editors … as far as I can tell, she wanted to write something (in the intro of one of the horoscope posts) about Michael Brown back when the backlash and riots were first developing, and they wouldn’t let her or tried to edit it down or something. So she hosted her horoscopes on her tumblr for a while and now she has a website.
I’m right there with you. My left eye is doing fine, but my right eye is about to spill over. Time to look up and check the overhead lights for a bit.
I already teared up several times this morning reading this surprisingly heartwarming NYTimes article about two guys who pick people up from prison, so I think I will skip stillborns for now.
When I was about 6 months pregnant, I went in for a regular appointment and was examined by a different OB – my usual OB was in the other room with a couple who’d gotten emergency bad news about their baby. I could hear the mother’s sobs 3 rooms down. It was heartbreaking, and I still send prayers to that couple today, 13 years later.
I don’t expect Gawker to have particularly high standards, though I do like some of their writers. But this was infuriating, https://twitter.com/Choire/status/621842225224417…. What the hell? Does anyone have even a semi-plausible explanation for why this was ok to report in this way?
and yes, as Rusty Foster pointed out on twitter, this is actually about ethics in journalism. https://twitter.com/rustyk5/status/62185920086872…
David Carr had a piece a while ago on Gawker’s obsession with ‘outing’ people: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/business/media/…
I have tried to stop reading Gawker many times but it’s a little hard to escape, they publish so much good stuff but then make such appalling editorial decisions so I feel horrible supporting them. I should really just quit.
yes yes yes yes yes.
I thought it was gross and unnecessary, and the dude was trying to hire a sex worker in an ethical fashion.
It’s been taken down, and Denton put up a statement which was not an apology about it.
The too pale to fly article, I think its just an incendiary headline!
I read it a few days ago, and my understanding of the quote from the staff was that she was looking pale and sick, and she was leaning against her mother, leading them to think she was ill. It had nothing to do with her actual skin complexion.
So yeah, its silly click-bait being blown out of proportion.
It might be clickbait to a certain extent, but when her parents said she was fine, and a paramedic at the airport said she was fine, and they STILL had to call her doctor for an okay… that just seems a little outrageous.
And then the airline lost their luggage on top of all that. I feel sorry for that family.
It was obviously handled badly, and the staff over-reacted But it happened in Manchester, its not like there was a language barrier.
The situation is obviously crap, but the other article I read was positioning it like the airline staff were worried about her health in a hot country because she is pale. And they didn’t include the holiday destination, just the airline, so it was implied that she was going to the middle east.
I’m a pale redhead and I usually look horrible and exhausted and vaguely nauseated at airports–I like actual traveling, but the prep and airport navigation (especially if I’m alone and hauling my suitcase on public transit) wreaks havoc with my fibromyalgia/complex regional pain syndrome/anxiety disorder.
I think the clickbait/ginger oppression! stuff is beyond asinine, but I also really hate the idea that an airport employee could decide I look too sick to fly just for being pale, tired, and blah-looking.
I figured they were strategically placing it to bring the “pale people/redheads suffer and are mocked and discriminated against and it’s JUST LIKE RACISM YOU GUYS!!!!1!” crowd. So yeah, not just click-bait–a particular sort of click-bait.
(Full disclosure: I am a pasty inhabitant of the north woods, but I can also tell the difference between being asked “Are you feeling okay? You look tired” a bunch and, you know, experiencing police violence.)
People are always asking me if I have suncream on, or laughing at me because I’m hiding from the sun. ITS TOTES DISCRIMINATION Y’ALL.
God, the comments on the article I read (I wanna say it was the Daily Fail similar) were all ‘What would you be saying if this happened to a black person! see discrimination works both ways!’ and ‘The lefty liberals bla bla bla”
*vom*
(It’s amazing that some people seem really determined to equate “people are expressing concern for my well-being when I’m totally fine” with “people are calling the police on me for existing because my skin color freaks them out.”)
An ode to a new baby, the second one:
http://www.yarnharlot.ca/2015/07/dear-frankie/
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is extraordinary, and even though her letter to this wee baby is wonderful, her explanation of the meaning of the blanket is *almost* better:
“Just like theirs and now yours, this blanket is as unique as you are. The middle part is an old Spanish lace pattern, to honour the Spanish part you get from your Father. In the border is snowflakes, for the Canadian half that is your mum. (You’ll learn about winter later, my summer boy. It’s coming. I’ll make you a sweater.) I also chose trinity stitch, and then diamonds, for the incredible thing that you’ve done, turning a little knotted family of three into a sparkling, whole, four sided structure.”
Between this and the nurse who wrote about her mom and baby patients, I’m basically going to cry all morning, I guess.
oh, god that whole thing was beautiful – the letter and the blanket.
A lovely meditation, indeed. I just had our fourth babe (after two boys from my first marriage, and a girl from my husband’s first) three weeks ago, and this keeps being true after the second child. The new kid is Gloria Rhiannon, by the way, and as a result will probably sometimes be known as Gloriana to us, so I will consider that link a gift in her honor. Thanks for sharing it.
That is totally a super-heroine-in-the-making kind of name.
that part about second child magic? weeping.
I love pieces about the blurry lines of female friendship.
LOVE.
Speaking of, I just watched the trailer for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s new movie coming out on Christmas! I haven’t followed their careers or shows closely, but I’m just really happy for their success and that they get to make movies starring themselves. Yay for another movie with two female leads! I hope it’s super successful.
Whichever grief demon compelled me to click the labor nurse article: I curse you. I curse you to hell.
To the other creature inside of me that compelled me to close the article when I felt the feelings rise up: thank you. You are good.
*hugs*
<3
Wishing you a good cup of your favorite tea, a nice walk in the sunlight, and my virtual hug.
Mmm, tea. <3 Thank you.
Loki: The Search for the Jade Helm.
Loki controls top military officials, creates fictional military exercise as smokescreen to search the desert for the lost Jade Helm of Asgard.
her bosom pal and occasional live-in houseguest
hmmmm
Just two gal pals, playfully canoodling on the beach. You see, gal pals can just get so close to each other it even looks like they’re kissing! Such are the bonds of female friendship.
In happier happenings, I’m enjoying all the #BlackOutEid tweets today. https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackOutEid?src=hash
Happy Eid Mubarak!
With apologies to the saner people of Texas:
In Texas they are battening down hatches
Stocking up on canned foods and tin foil
Checking all the door and window latches
ready to protect their desert soil
‘Cause a Muslim guy from Kenya is a-coming
to steal away their precious human rights
They know that it’s not ‘Dixie’ he’ll be humming
when he marches into Dallas in his might
So grab all of the guns that you’ve been hoarding
and cover your Dodge Ram in camouflage
set up all your iPhones to ‘recording’
and be wary of some librul sabotage
They’re closing all the Walmarts! Yes, the Walmarts!
To use for holding all the detainees
so you’ll have to buy your ammo at the Kmart
Before that commie brings us to our knees
Now, I know that it’s the Army that’s invading
and Texas is a state of this great nation
but don’t believe them when they come persuading
they are not here for a simple short vacation
No, they’ve come to take our desert and our women!
They’ll take our guns and leave us all buck naked!
and when the oil is gone they’ll end their mission
and leave us with the silly lives we’ve wasted.
I live in Indiana, so it’s hard to make fun of Texas and feel no shame.
I’m a Hoosier who married an Austinite, so we partly bonded over mutual shame.
Hello fellow Hoosier (and also fellow librarian?). It’s rough to feel such pride and disgust in your home state at the same time.
I am a mere tech support guru, not a lofty librarian 🙂
Oh we librarians love our tech support gurus. At least at my library, where most of my coworkers are hanging on long past retirement age and aren’t really sure what they’re doing when it comes to technology.
Something something Booth Tarkington!
Hey, (former) fellow Hoosier here. My condolences.
But I’m now in Wisconsin. And thought that would entail LESS political powerlessness / deep frustration / shame.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Apologies to the whole country, now. Looking forward to seeing Scott Walker getting his ass kicked on the national cultural stage, though. It’s already starting!
That’s “buck nekkid”. And I accept your apologies, love your poem, and would appreciate your sympathy for being one of the saner people of Texas.
Whoa everyone, so I’m catching that the mocking of David Brooks’ reaction to TNC’s book is trending on Twitter, and I can’t bring myself to read Brooks’ column because I want to stay calm and even-keeled this mroning. Is it as ridiculous as Gene Demby (NPR’s Codeswitch) implies when he says he wants to punch the column in the face?
It truly, truly is.
I know it’s ill-advised to mock someone for writing something you haven’t read, but I’m so tempted to just tag him in many, many tweets with variations of this gif:
I mean obviously TNC can defend himself and he’s made it pretty clear in his interviews that he’s not writing this stuff for white people, but.. uggh.
You can probably safely use that gif any time David Brooks writes a column.
I made a new year’s resolution not to read David Brooks back in… maybe 2011?, because I realized that reading him never made me more informed– only more bilious.
EASIEST RESOLUTION EVAR.
He so consistently misses the point… that is a perfect gif
SO CLOSE
“Maybe you will find my reactions irksome. Maybe the right white response is just silence for a change. In any case, you’ve filled my ears unforgettably.”
SO CLOSE
This comment is even better if you read it to yourself in Louise Belcher’s voice.
Ok, I’ve read it! And I agree … that he should just shut up. That bit, yes. The rest … bleurgh.
lol this is the best response I’ve seen.:
http://www.theawl.com/2015/07/see-you-in-aspen
Although, to be fair, you could remove the words “Ta-Nehisi Coates” and I would still agree 100%. This man who is paid by numerous media entities to grace us with his opinion actually wrote “Does a white person have standing to respond?” LOL. Have a seat Mr. Brooks. Do you need a moment?
I quite enjoyed this response, not least for the title.
http://jezebel.com/listening-to-ta-nehisi-coates-…
I found myself a little disappointed in the pilot of the Jim Gaffigan show, due mostly due to its overall blandness, but even more due to the running gag in it about people thinking he’s being abused by his wife, because apparently the idea of a man being smacked around by his spouse is hilarious?
Ughhhhh.
I know he’s popular with the fearful/conservative christianist fundies here in Texas, including a few I know well. They like bland. Flavor scares them, mostly because they cling to tradition and are fearful of new experiences. Strict gender roles means they cannot imagine, have never heard of, men being victims of abuse. Men in this camp who have been victims certainly cannot admit to it. So, yeah, hilarious.
Thing is, I do like some of his stand up stuff. I’m also kinda surprised to hear he has a lot of religious fans, since he does have entire blocks of jokes about religion, as it’s been my experience that really religious people of most stripes do not have a sense of humour about their own religion. But aside from that, yeah, a guy on stage mostly making jokes about food and with a minimum of cursing is certainly going to be more appealing to them than Louis CK or something.
I most likely won’t end up seeing the show, but despite being very queer and a fan of edgy, even over the edgy (i.e., downward-punching roast-type humor) comedy, I love his stand-up material. It can be squeaky clean or virulently anti-my-own-specific demographic, but if the craft is on point I am probably going to laugh. *makes whale noise*
Does anyone have good resources to share with someone who has lost a child in the manner described in the article? Books or communities that would be comforting? Actions and words that were appreciated or not appreciated? I’d like to gather some resources if possible.
I know a woman whose baby died in utero the day before her scheduled labor inducement. She used her scheduled maternity leave to drive around the southwestern US for 4 weeks. She carried with her a doll and her child’s ashes. She took photos of the urn and the doll in various places she found beautiful. She also scattered a few ashes at each site. It seemed to help her.
Regarding the child loss article, my friend (who is also a labor nurse) works the overnight shift, and she noted that the nurses, in addition to their usual care and duties, will take careful and tasteful photos of stillborn babies to present to the parents (along with a footprint in clay and a few other small items). It’s a wonderful service they provide, but I also know there are quite a few volunteer groups out there who take photos of stillborn babies in hospitals, and I asked her why the nurses took that on instead; she said that, because the photographers are volunteers, none of them are going to come to a hospital at 2 am to photograph babies.
This piece of information has been ringing in my head since she told me. I don’t know if I’m able to take on that volunteer duty of photographing during the overnight hours, but surely there are other people out there who can? It’s such an important, beautiful service to provide to these parents – I want them all to have access to it, no matter what time of day their baby is born.
In my experience as a hospital RN, it largely depends on the hospital’s policies. None of the places where I worked allowed volunteers to be present between 9pm and 6am, so that might have something to do with it? I encourage you to ask, though, because that may not be the case across the board.
I was very disappointed when it turned out the sick or scottisch article was NOT a Buzzfeed quiz, which I incidentally would have ACED.
Coming out of lurker mode to thank you guys for posting the link to the feminist music kickstarter! A song about how to politely turn down a hug is perfect and exactly the type of stuff I want to teach my daughter. Hope she raises enough b/c I NEED this cd!
ME TOO! I couldn’t plunk down my money fast enough for that one!
Paul Rudd managed to play the Mac & Me clip again on Conan and I love him all over again.
http://www.avclub.com/article/once-again-paul-rud…
Twice! in the same visit! Too funny
that part about second child magic? weeping.
He so consistently misses the point… that is a perfect gif
Hey, (former) fellow Hoosier here. My condolences.
But I'm now in Wisconsin. And thought that would entail LESS political powerlessness / deep frustration / shame.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Apologies to the whole country, now. Looking forward to seeing Scott Walker getting his ass kicked on the national cultural stage, though. It's already starting!