The next installment of The Intercept’s investigation of DuPont (my dad told me that when he was working on the floor of their nylon factory in Kingston, safety inspectors were required to give 48 hours notice before showing up, so the plant managers would just turn off 25-50% of the machines and hang “closed for maintenance” signs on them, which would get the levels of grossness in the air and the above-acceptable amount of noise down to the legal limit, then turn them back on when the inspectors left):
The documents Bilott received included studies showing that the company had known C8 could affect the livers of dogs and humans. The studies also indicated that C8 encouraged the growth of testicular tumors in rats, that exposed workers suffered more frequently from endocrine disorders, and that the company had also documented elevated rates of certain cancers, including kidney cancer, in workers. Bilott learned that the company had been quietly monitoring public drinking water outside its plant and, since 1984, had been documenting C8’s presence at potentially dangerous levels. As far back as 1991, DuPont had estimated the C8 in a stream from which cattle drank at 100 parts per billion — which was 100 times greater than an internal safety limit the company had set for drinking water. In 2001, DuPont quickly settled the Tennant case for an undisclosed sum.
Why are movies about queer women so frequently terrible:
Shannon: Totally. I do think that many queers are just so starved for any kind of representation that seeing A-list actresses tell this story could have been a big deal to them. But can we talk about the chemistry between Jenny and Kitty?
Brittani: There was a moment they hugged and I was like, “Oh no, they’re going to act like this is a hugging moment when this is clearly a kissing moment” — but then they stopped hugging and backed away from each other and went in for a kiss and it was so awkward that I wished they’d only hugged.
Shannon: Total kiss count, of the whole film: three. Right? Three kisses.
Ellen: One of which was filmed from like 100 yards away.
What if you’re afraid of whales?
Just Googling “whale phobia” led to page after page of confessions on web forums, personal blogs, and psychology message boards. I learned that the fear of whales has no offical name, but some people call it “cetaphobia,” from the Greekketōs, or sea monster, and phobos, or fear. Once I started looking, I found cetaphobes all over the place.
“I am terrified of whales, and I live in Illinois,” one commenter wrote on an article about cetaphobia.
“People always make fun of me because they say I’ll never see [a whale] in real life,” said another commenter from the Netherlands. “GOD NO. I’ll make sure I don’t.”
James Wood is a genius, and I even liked his novel:
Isaac Chotiner: Has writing fiction changed the way you think about writing criticism?
James Wood: It is some time ago that I wrote a novel. I am trying to write another novel—I hope a better one—now. I don’t know that it materially affected the way I read. I think for me that the creative and critical were always very intertwined. I do think that, though I was determined to deny it in a bullish manner in 2003 and 2004 when my novel came out, perhaps it did inaugurate a slightly milder tone in my own criticism. I just became generally a bit more sympathetic to how difficult it is to write a successful novel. It didn’t mean that I stopped writing occasional negative reviews, but I think there was some demonstrable change in tone.
Workout!
Tips for handling a picky eater:
It’s important to build positive associations with food, so fill your child’s favorite stuffed animal with Swiss chard.
My friend Carrie’s puppy has a fox toy:
Deleted comment of the day:
