This is a really depressing piece (American teen Muslims in the age of Ben Carson et al):
Beydoun said: “I see a lot of awful things in the media; people dying, discrimination, politicians being disgusting, but this really hit home because that was me he was talking about.”
“I’m educated enough to know that what he’s saying is absolutely against the constitution, but what about all the kids in my area who don’t know that? Now they’re going to think that maybe they have to lie or keep their religion a secret, maybe they can never fulfil their dreams.”
Whoa:
n Sept. 26, 2014, more than 100 students from a rural teachers’ college in the Mexican town of Ayotzinapa set out to neighboring Iguala. They were traveling there for the commemorative march of the Mexico City student massacre of 1968. Forty-three of them were never seen again after that night.
The Guardian has a really fabulous piece about endometriosis:
“Endometriosis affects women in the prime of their life. It is not a lifestyle disease. It is not a disease you get later in life. It attacks teens, young women when they should be out being active, working, having children, having sex – 50% of them are struggling with sex because it is too painful,” she said.
It has exacted a massive social cost in broken marriages and depression as well as being a huge economic burden, partly because of the large number of women who have to drop out of the workforce.
Vulnerable patients confined on 72-hour emergency holds at the University of Minnesota hospital can no longer be recruited into research studies, an ethics panel has decided.
I just read Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl for the first time and now I am so FUCKING AMPED for Carry On that I cannot even.
Two basketball-adjacent stories today!
a) This one, which is a completely convincing account of a young woman who was molested by Kevin Johnson:
She’s 36 now, though. She lives in Virginia, far away from Arizona, and has three young children of her own. And she’s done staying quiet about Kevin Johnson.
“I’ve chosen to say what I want, fully aware of the consequences,” she tells me.
“I just felt like I wasn’t doing anything but protecting him,” Koba says of her years of silence. “Part of the way they got me to go along with the agreement was they told me it would protect me from his attorneys saying mean things about me. Well, I’m a grown-up now. They can say mean things about me if they want.”
and
b) This one, which is a DELIGHTFUL oral history of Vince Carter’s ridic dunk at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, in which he LEAPT like a CAT over a 7’2 French player:
Tubby Smith: It seemed like he was thinking: “Oh man, what have I done? I’m too far away. How can I correct this?” And his correction was to just elevate above it and over [Weis]. He just split his legs and went over him. I don’t know how he got that extra boost.
Steve Smith: I think time stopped for a second. Weis may have bent his head six inches to the side, but [Vince] clearly cleared this guy who was 7-foot-2. I had to gather myself, like: “Whoa! What just happened?”
Vince Carter: I took off outside the box, and I’m looking at the rim like, “Uh-oh.” And if you go back and look at it, you’ll see that I lean my upper body forward to reach as far as I can [to the rim] because I’m thinking I’m not going to make it. And when I got there, that’s where my excitement came from.
Nobody realized that because they didn’t know what was going on, what I was thinking. My challenge after I jumped was to just get as close to the rim as I could. I never thought about the guy under me.
Frédéric Weis: I had no idea about it. The only thing I remember was [teammate] Mou [Moustapha] Sonko was screaming from the bench like it was me dunking. He was raising his arms like it was us scoring. But it wasn’t me doing the dunk. I was on the receiving end.
My friend Carrie’s new puppy is feeling better, but today we have a special guest dog, Mr. Wilson:
The actor who was mad that the audience yelled at a woman trying to calm her autistic child is my fav person today:
The post was shared more than 8,000 times. In replies to readers, Mr. Loh wrote that he clearly heard a man who shouted to “get rid of the kid.” When Mr. Loh looked into the audience at the curtain call “and saw three empty seats where I knew they were sitting — I was heartbroken. I was heartbroken to know that she might never know that as a company (I must applaud my cast and crew) we continued the show and we were not bothered. I want her to know that she is a brave and should continue to champion her child. But I will continue to make theater for her. And that is the best I can do for now!”
AND it’s too weak. Classic “the food is terrible, and such small portions!” situation.
— Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) September 26, 2015
You repel me:
I’m terrified of getting tested for E in case I actually have it. Im waiting for marriage but still it’s scary….so that’s fun….
The real question is Nicole have you read Eleanor and Park? Do you KNOW the PAIN of that BOOK?! its so amazing.
WHAT WERE THE THREE WORDS RAINBOW
Theres only 1 thing
2 say
those 3 words
thats what Ill doooo
(I love you)
Either that or “Just stop, please”
“Hey, man, ‘sup?”
“I like pie”
“Police en route”
“Simon Snow rules”
Lots of possibilities I guess. But my headcanon is “I love you” and a happy ending 🙂
I just assumed we were supposed to infer “I love you”; I didn’t realize other people were imagining other possibilities!
Me too! I remember I recommended the book to my aunt, and she was into it all the way through, and then sent me all these exclamation point-filled texts after she finished it about how she was so bummed to have the ending so open ended. And I was like, well…I guess it is? But I sure didn’t have any doubts when I read it. The internet has given them to me.
ugh ugh ugh I’d successfully forgotten how badly I want to know the 3 words.
Also, I too I can’t wait for Carry On.
Okay I researched more and Im 90% sure this is what I have.
Thankfully the center for endometriosis care is nearby so thats nice.
I’ve been thinking about you because I also was concerned about going on birth control pills because I was waiting for marriage* and what helped me decide/was my go-to defense if someone tried to tell me that I shouldn’t, is that endometriosis can harm your chances of having a successful pregnancy later so keeping it in check until you’re ready to have children is a good idea. I’m not sure if that helps at all but I’m really hoping for the best for you whatever you decide.
*um ended up not waiting for marriage, but that’s a totally different story.
I feel like the fact Ive moved to Atlanta is a sign that I should get this checked out. Ill make an appointment and talk to a gynecologist because I have never been forced to because Im not ~active~. So that’s a first step for me.
Im not waiting for religious reasons, but I just dont feel like Im physically ready or emotionally ready. Its a process!
Do make that appointment. There is no downside to talking with a gyno. Your health is important. You deserve relief from all the pain, when you are ready to take action.
It’s still worthwhile to talk to a gynecologist even if you’re not sexually active, endo being but one of many reasons. It feels like a big scary deal the first time you do it, for sure, and it’s weird and uncomfortable, but it’s over fairly quickly and maybe you can improve your quality of life. Feel free to ask us all the questions!
Yay! That literally warms my heart. No one has the right to decide how you feel about sex but you.
Yay! No one has the right to decide how you feel about sex but you.
I have(had) endometriosis starting at the age of 19, and I had four laparoscopies for it – 3 in 1998, and 1 in 2000. The last one fixed it. I had to go to the best surgeon in the world (who has retired, unfortunately) to get it resolved, but it WORKED. I was in so much pain before the last one that I was very seriously considering having a hysterectomy – at age 20.
I’m now 37, still have all my lady bits, and had two children with no issues.
Ask me anything. 🙂
Today’s deleted comment: Gillian Anderson is a goddess. Full Stop.
UGH I firmly believe that endometriosis is in health afflictions category of “if this happened to cismen, the medical establishment would have long since identified a relatively simple and side-effect-free pharmaceutical solution to it”
My roommate is studying genetic engineering and every month I get angry and yell at her that she needs to fix my genes to make it better, which is apparently a thing we can do soon.
I was thinking about that the other week when cramps woke me up two nights in a row — and I don’t think I have especially bad cramps! I mean, I don’t throw up and can still go to work on ~5 Advil, so. But seriously, cismen have no idea.
Honestly, I have what I consider pretty mild cramps, and then not even every month, AND I’ve only just started having them the last few years, after decades of ‘hmmm, do I have cramps or am I hungry’. And I am positive that if a cisman were in the pain I get when I have my cramps he would 1) go to the ER* 2) call in sick from work. And yet it would not occur to me not to go to work, unless they got a lot worse, because it’s just part of my life, like, I have a uterus so I guess this is how it is, gotta pretend everything’s fine, gotta wait until the dudes leave the work kitchen so I can heat up my heat pack, and have to sit down while I wait for it because it hurts to stand up because of referred cramps all down my legs.
*and if a cisman went to the ER they would NOT be told that anything he’s experiencing is ‘period cramps, take an advil and go home oh whoops turns out you had a kidney stone or your appendix was bursting or… sorry, side track but it makes me MAD how many people I know who have turned up to a hospital with issues that would have been easily solved if the doc hadn’t assumed they were too dumb to know what their own body felt like, and that remained untreated and then became a massive issue.
My sister’s ex had a parrot. When she decided to leave she taught the parrot to say “F— you George! F— you,George!”
Suddenly feeling the need to date a shitty guy with a talking bird just to do this.
MR. WILSON!!! I remain, as ever, devotedly his.
<whispers> I can still stream Hamilton on the NPR website and I don’t know why but I of course just listened to it for the nth time </whispers>
The only Rowell book I’ve read is Attachments, and I really liked it. Plus, she’s a delight on twitter. I should really try the rest of her books.
Thank you for reminding me that “Non-Stop” is EXACTLY what I need to listen to at work this morning!
Fangirl is my absolute favourite, I didn’t think Landline was all that, I did like Eleanor and Park but it’s sad. I liked Attachments a lot, but she has improved since.
I’m hoping they will do some kind of nice book set of Fangirl and Carry On.
I also really didn’t like Landline, and I’m now afraid to read Carry On, but I think it will be better? Her YA stuff is always amazing. Fangirl is one of my favorite books of all time.
<shouted from mountaintops> If you have Amazon Prime, you can keep streaming it! </shouted from mountaintops>
I FINALLY listened to it last night! Well, started. It’s still streaming on NPR for me. I hope it continues to be available because I only got halfway through (and I am filled in equal measure with delight, and creeping dread)
Every year there’s a new ‘whipping boy’ for the GOP…Gays, the transgender, Japanese, Arabs, and now Muslims in general. It’s like they can’t exist with out an object of fear and hatred.
Oh, and don’t forget the poor.
Well, that’s a given.
“The poor are always with us” after all.
And women.
They are really narrowing the group of people they feel comfortable with, aren’t they? Soon it will be only Ted Cruz and Kim Davis.
Basically. Until they can make an animatron or whatever out of Ronald Reagan, their (Other) Supreme Overlord.
Except, of course, Reagan would actually be WAY too liberal for them now. Like, he sometimes raised taxes and had regulations and wasn’t openly racist most of the time? THE HORROR. People like to talk about liberals eating their own but it seems to me it’s the right that’s only getting narrower and narrower.
I think it’s that the GOP can’t continue to deceive its constituents without distracting them with their fears and hatred. What else could explain its constituents voting consistently against their own interests?
We can just shout Hamilton lyrics without meaningful context or anything, right?
EVERYONE GIVE IT UP FOR AMERICA’S FAVORITE FIGHTING FRENCHMAN!
MY DOG SPEAKS MORE ELOQUENTLY
*person I was talking to says something*
….BUT STRANGELY YOUR MANGE IS THE SAME
also DONT MODULATE THE KEY THEN NOT DEBATE WITH ME
I have been known to shout ‘On the Floor’ from ‘Keating! The musical’ when losing an argument
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/keating/onthefloor… (of note, all the things Keating says in this song are all ACTUAL things he said. In parliament, mostly)
If you consult one of the “every reference in Hamilton” guides, they’ll tell you Hercules Mulligan says “brrap brrap” in his intro rap because that’s how rappers refer to machine guns. If you consult @Lin_Manuel, he’ll say that it’s true, but he also loves saying “brrap.”
I think about that more than is healthy.
Who’s the best?
C’est moi.
I didn’t quite realize how young Lafayette was, too (like everyone else, I suppose). Born in 1757, he wasn’t yet 19 when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and on his 24th birthday, he was waiting for Washington to meet him at Yorktown.
It meant that 50 years later, he was still alive to serve as a pallbearer for General Jean Maximilien Lamarque, whose death sparked the uprising featured in Les Mis.
That is amazing and makes me feel inadequate.
Oooh, that means he was the same age as Hamilton (within a couple years, because he was born a bastard on some obscure Caribbean island, after all) and Eliza! THEY WERE SO YOUNG! And I can’t get over how Eliza lived to be NINETY-SEVEN. What a feat for someone born in the mid-1700s.
He died in 1834, catching pneumonia after being out in a thunderstorm. Which is about the same thing as did in George Washington. Revolutionary heroes were apparently vulnerable to cold water and nothing else.
I’ve been trying to find out if there’s a current Marquis de La Fayette, but it seems to have run down in the late 19th century. Our man’s son, Georges Washington de LaFayette had two sons of his own, but they both died without issue, and with entails and Salic Law or whatever, that was the end of it.
I’m not sure if there’s a ‘head of the house’ now or anything.
This factoid opens the way for a Hamilton-Les Mis megamusical.
(But why stop there when you could stage a Candide-1776-Hamilton-La Révolution Française-Les Mis ultramusical? Estimated running time: 13 hours.)
Is there a way to get from Les Mis to Ragtime? Les Mis had so few survivors.
my favorite tidbit in Lafayette’s wikipedia entry is the part where he’s a prisoner of Austria following the French Revolution, and Angelica Schuyler Church masterminds a breakout attempt (which was successful, until he got lost in the countryside and recaptured)
Angelica Schuyler Church is THE BEST.
I took Buzzfeed’s “Which Schuyler Sister Are You?” quiz and got her, which is a laugh, because I’m a total Peggy.
I need to lie down. This is all so fantastic.
I came from afar just to say bonsoir!
(also: You are the worst, Burr)
In my eightieth listen this weekend, I finally settled on my favourite rhyme, from “Washington on Your Side”:
JEFFERSON: I get no satisfaction witnessing his fits of passion
The way he primps and preens and dresses like the pits of fashion
I’m sorry, but “fits of passion/pits of fashion” is GENIUS and Sondheim wishes he’d written that rhyme like that is some ADVANCED RHYMING RIGHT THERE.
It’s a spoonerism.
I had to google that word and now I’m just so happy that it exists!
Reverend William Archibald Spooner! Such a good name.
My favorite rhyme, this minute, is King George’s same word/different meaning “No, don’t change the subject /’cause you’re my favorite subject.” But I’m pretty sure I’ll find a better rhyme in my next listen.
Mine is when he rhymes “mellow” and “Monticello”. GENIUS
“bank” and “cinq” is prob my fave bc it is so ridiculous
Currently:
No one has more resilience
Or matches my practical, tactical brilliance
holy shit how did I never notice that it’s SO GOOD
(in a similar vein, i love “sally in / on a stallion”)
My fav rhyme is currently:
Now for a strong central democracy
If not, then I’ll be Socrates
Throwing verbal rocks at these mediocrities
but honestly I will probs have a new favorite in a couple hours or so, everything is genius!
My favorite is quagmire/flag higher in Guns and Ships
How do we emerge victorious from the quagmire?
Leave the battlefield waving Betsy Ross’ flag higher?
Mine is “And New York City is Insidious”
LAFAY-ETTE!!
Chick-a-plao!
We are out-GUNNED! (What!) Out-MANNED! (What!)
“Right Hand Man” gets me so amped up.
Immigrants: they get the job done.
BURR, YOU ARE THE WORST.
Also I want to pick up Friday’s Hamilton thread about Funniest Lines, and nominate this exchange:
“Angelica, tell this man John Adams spends the summer with his family.”
“Angelica, tell my wife John Adams doesn’t have a real job anyway.”
Vice president slam! Always in style.
I kept the album on repeat this weekend, but I confess I’m starting to skip over “Blow Us All Away” because I CAN’T LISTEN TO PHILLIP DYING ONE MORE TIME. I need a long break, at least.
I cannot do It’s Quiet Uptown. Full-on ugly cry, sobbing and gasping for breath, every single time. It’s terrible.
I can’t take Eliza at the very end. I start weeping just thinking about it.
I don’t like Adams
Well, he’s gonna lose, that’s just defeatist.
And Jefferson–
In love with France!
Yeah, he’s so elitist!
I like that Aaron Burr!
I can’t believe we’re here with him!
He seems approachable…?
Like you could grab a beer with him!
I’m just saying, if you really loved me you would share him.
Ha!
It’s canon!
(h/t to some toastie who posted it in the Friday link roundup)
when are THESE colonIES gonna Rise Up?
THE COMMA
All I have’s my honor, a tolerance for pain
A couple of college credits & my top-notch brain!
I read this horrifying Buzzfeed article about a woman who was (wrongly) arrested for a false rape accusation, before I went to bed and was burning with anger, and woke up feeling the same. I can’t even summarize all the things that happen in this article, but please note it ticks a whole passle of boxes on the trigger warning list.
I don’t know how low a bar for the cruel buffoonery of the police and the courts I have to set before it admits the whole realm of possibility. Does anybody else want to set the world on fire with me? I’m ready.
Haven’t read it (can’t deal with that shit right now.), but last year I read a Guardian article about a similar thing; there’s a statistic going around that like 50% of rapt accusations in the UK (don’t quite me on the figure) are false, and that X amount of women each year are being prosecuted for making false accusations. All the MRA’s cheer, everyone is happy.
However what’s actually happening is that women are reporting sexual assault, then being bullied into retracting the accusation because there isn’t enough evidence, at which point the police arrest them and hit them with a charge of wasting police time.
Let me repeat that; Women are being bullied/scared into retracting claims of sexual assault, AND THEN CHARGED WITH FALSE ACCUSATION!
I must stop now before the rage over takes my entire day.
What’s even worse in this case is that she wasn’t planning on filing a police report, and then the police convinced her to. Then turned around and charged her. This story made me nauseous.
NONONONONONONO.
I do not have the energy for the level of rage required for this
Now I REALLY don’t have enough NOPE for that.
Also, it was her sister’s fiance. The false accusation charge fucked up so much that the now-ex-fiance got unsupervised visiting rights to their 15 month old child. The child was killed.
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE….
I wish I had enough of those.
HOLY SHIT
Things just get unbelievable so fast
Completely random musings:
Oooh doesn’t this look like a fun agency to work for, and they’re google affiliated, very fancy.
Oh. Its all dudes. Fun.
http://www.toasterltd.com/hackathons/
hehe their shirts say “arse”
How did I not see that! That has well cheered me up.
TOASTS TALK ABOUT BROOKLYN 99 WITH ME
I was so afraid Holt was leaving the show somehow and I’m glad that he is still around and also pretty obviously going to make it back to the 99 at some point — they can’t keep him separate from the rest of the characters for long. Also I TOTALLY CALLED the Vulture as their new captain.
I love this show so much, and am super enjoying the Holt/Wuntch plotline! This show has such a strong ensemble it is ridiculous. Any one of these people would be the star of a lesser show. Except that Andy Whatshisname; he could leave and I wouldn’t care at all.
ETA: Holt’s sick burns vs. Wuntch (and her return gibes) are some next-level genius, and I’m glad they kept them going.
Andre Braugher getting super mad (for tv reasons) is all I need in life.
I loved it! ALL OF IT!! Boyle’s extreme enthusiasm about Jake and Amy. Gina’s fragrance line/reality show names, and that Holt remembered “Gina in a bottle”??? Everything about Rosa.
Also, I didn’t expect to care much about this storyline but Jake and Amy are adorable. They get to me right in the same way that Ron and Hermione did. (Cause, come on, Amy is TOTALLY a Hermione. Jake is perhaps a less oblivious Ron?)
Oh my god Amy IS Hermione (with less of a mean streak). I love her so much. I don’t really watch reality TV but I would watch Linetti Set Go.
I HAVE NOT SEEN THE NEW EPISODE BUT I JUST BINGED SEASON TWO AND I AM SO FULL OF SQUEE.
As did I and I am DYING to go home and watch the new one!!!!!
I think I’m gonna hold out till the end of the season, like I did last year. I can be strong! Plus then I get a whole weekend of watching in the dead summer season! (This resolve will last 5 minutes from when I get home.)
Wow that is a lot more willpower than I have.
Its easier with the 1/2 hr sitcoms, spoilers are not to big of a deal; just ignore it completely until June and then watch it all at once and explode.
I get too lost watching it weekly anyway (what the hell is going on with New Girl? I am so lost with that show!) and then usually forget that I’ve watched it anyway
I got into B99 late (I bingewatched S2 last month when my sister told me one of the characters reminded her of me) and I love it. It’s filling the hole Parks and Rec left in my life.
Ooh which character? Are you an Amy? If someone told you you are like Diaz, be very complimented and then murder them (?)
Oh, totally Amy.
I just love it so much. It fills that Parks and Rec shaped hole in my life so well while also being its own thing.
I also really like Last Man on Earth and I’m mad that they still have friggen Family Guy in the middle of the two. Sunday night is one of the few times I watch tv live and it kills my flow to go away for half an hour.
It was fantastic, as it always is.
-A little sad that Bill Hader was so minimally used, but he was pretty much perfect in every scene. The webbed feet line had me rolling.
-The Vulture as the new captain! I can’t wait! Rosa’s crush on him in particular is never not funny.
-So glad that people from Parks and Rec also created this show, it gives me comfort that they won’t go the will-they-won’t-they on-off route with Jake and Amy. Michael Schur is really good at avoiding that nonsense. And Jake and Amy are so cute!
-I have missed Gina and Holt so much. And Terry. And all of them. Everyone in this show is the best.
The Bill Hader role felt a little derivative of Will Farrell’s role on the office a few years back but also whatever, it was funny then too.
I thought for a minute that this was just a general “yay Brooklyn-99!” thread, and then remembered that the US gets new episodes before we do in the UK, and it’s probably a thread full of stuff I have yet to see. Damn you, scheduling differences! (We normally get the new series in January. Not too long to wait!)
Aw sorry dude!
Ha, well, I suppose it’s reasonable for people to want to discuss the new episodes they’ve seen even if bits of the world haven’t got them yet. Just about.
TOASTIES, my best friend got a NEW PUPPY and she is EVERYTHING. Her name is “Marilyn Monroe” (“M&M” or “Em” for short) and I WILL NEVER TIRE OF BEING SENT PICS OF HER BECAUSE LOOK:
M&M is the cutest nickname imaginable for “Marilyn Monroe.” And it perfectly suits such an adorable puppy!
THOSE EYES
Right??? She’s just begging to be loved.
Right now she is playing with sticks, but ONLY sticks with leaves on them apparently. She is picky. 😛
As she has every right to be. Marilyn Monroe deserves the best.
Aww I remember when my puppy would flop in my lap like that. <3 <3 <3 (…okay, he took a nap in my lap just this morning, even though he is now far too big to do so.)
Dachshund puppy!!! They’re so little and sweet and stubborn!
I know why all the photos are of her asleep – it’s the only time you can get a baby daschund to stay still enough to photograph! <3 <3 <3
Haha, is that true? Makes sense, my friend was telling me it’s almost impossible to get pictures of her because she’s always moving! I did get some adorable (blurry) pics of her playing with sticks outside today!
True in my experience! Daschunds are just sheer balls of energy 🙂
After reading the article about Kelvin Moon Loh, I realized that I had seen him in Side Show at the La Jolla Playhouse and he was fantastic in it, so YAY ALL AROUND.
I had a friend who was hospitalized 3 times and essentially could not keep food down for most of her early twenties. She went to all the doctors in town – nobody could figure out what it was. She ended up going to the endometriosis center in Atlanta after reading a magazine article and matching her symptoms to the description. After surgery there, she’s 1000% better – she’s competed in two triathlons since! But it’s crazy that she figured out her condition from a *magazine article* rather than from any of the countless doctors she saw for several years.
Ohhhhhh that poor woman with the autistic child at the theatre! My heart! Good on Kelvin Moon Loh for condemning the audience reaction; I totally understand the impulse to act as a gatekeeper against people who don’t conform to contemporary theatre etiquette, but SERIOUSLY, where is your compassion?
My boyfriend’s daughter is autistic and loves musical theater (at least onscreen). I can totally see a mother’s urge to bring her music-loving autistic child to a performance. NO QUESTION. And that kid had every right to be there. Without the shaming, perhaps she might have taken him to the lobby until he calmed down, and then come back for further enjoyment. With the shaming, she fled with him. So so wrong.
Yeah, if you want a special needs kid to calm down at the theatre, maybe SHOUTING AT HIM is not the best way to go about achieving your goal!
HAMILTON NEWS: So I decided to download the biography that inspired the musical, because I’m the worst kind of bandwagon history geek, and managed to get emotional in the introduction, which describes an aging Eliza staring at her dead husband’s statue as if she could “never be satisfied,” YOU GUYS.
Also, somewhere around my 4th listen of “Cabinet Battle #2” this weekend, my 2-year-old started echoing Jefferson’s “And if you don’t know, now you know.”
what biography is that??? pls give
It’s Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. And it’s quite good! I am not a huge biography person, and I’m finding it very engaging.
I do believe my father (a huge Hamilton nerd to the point where my brother was almost named Alexander) has this at home. Im gonna swipe it at the fall break.
History geeks are NOT MAD when people want to know more about history. Enjoy it!!
I just looked it up on Amazon and they list it as frequently bought together with the Hamilton album, so it looks like there’s lots of people hopping on that bandwagon.
They are selling copies of it at the theater gift shop as well.
#fake(history)geekgirl. 🙂
I am reading it and it is so interesting. As a non-American I am learning lots, too.
I was like “oh, I should read that, let me pick up a copy at the library.” Turns out ALL the copies in the entire Brooklyn library system are checked out, as are all the ebook versions, and there’s a considerable hold list. EVERYONE LOVES HAMILTON, YOU GUYS.
The link about the Sydney 2000 dunk is my everything. I could watch the opening gif all day.
I finally scheduled this pregnancy termination. I couldn’t even finish the call for crying. I had to hand the phone to my husband to let him finish making the arrangements.
Of course, this is the day after my mother-in-law figured out that I’m pregnant. (August/September/October is the high season with more than half the family birthdays and anniversaries in an eight week window, and I’ve been avoiding all family obligations.) So now we’re either going to have to explain to her that we terminated–which… no… not a conversation I want to have with my mother-in-law–or lie and say it was another miscarriage. *sigh*
I hate everything today.
I don’t think there’s anything I can say, but I’m really sorry for you having to be in that position; its something I fear in the future (My mother would not take it well)
Jingles for you both right now!
Sending you all the love and support. I’m so sorry you have to be in this situation.
Hugs and lots of sympathy to you.
Sending all good thoughts.
(Insert prefered form of comfort here.)
All the hugs. please be kind&gentle with yourself. You can direct all MiL questions to us, we can handle them.
We will start with a gentle, loving, heavily edited version of the truth (Runbug was feeling terrible, all the time, and the pregnancy didn’t work out, and it’s very sad, but hopefully now she will feel better physically at least. Thank you for your concern, she can use your love and support but NOT your questions at this time). If she doesn’t want to accept that, we will get increasingly pointed (We understand you mean well, but please stop making this more difficult for Runbug) (I don’t think you quite have thought this through, please reconsider your words), and we can eventually move to doing things like rickrolling her with Schoolhouse Rock videos and sending her friendly emails addressed to other people entirely.
Its like the borg collective;
‘Hi, Runbug, how are you doing today’
‘Runbug will not be answering questions directly today, but we, The Toast, will be speaking on their behalf; Please note all comments will be filtered by ass-hatted-ness, and only comments rating a -1 on the ass-hat scale will be communicated.’
(That sounds more like a cult, but lets be honest, is a Toast cult in your time of need really so bad?)
Honestly it is very comforting to think that the toastborg would be there in a time of need.
I mean, it’s always easier to be compassionate and yet firm to people you’re not personally emotional about. I suppose my only question is whether it’s easier to just crowdsource everything (ie, we create a signup sheet for blocks of time, and those of us on call respond to the bullshit requests from family/bosses/etc during our scheduled shift) or we each get the bullshit of the toastie to our right. There are challenges and benefits associated with each.
Also, both scenarios are only so plausible.
I mean, it’ll be more plausible after we all move in to Castle Toast.
I think I love you.
But really, truly. I feel totally emotionally up to the task of dealing with Runbug’s MiL, especially if someone else deals with my mother on my behalf (I’m entirely useless there).
Hand her off, I’ve got it
Sending you so much love. I’m very glad you have your husband supporting you here. Please be kind to yourself in the days and weeks to come, and vent here whenever you like. You know we’ll talk to you and give you all the support we can.
I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
Whatever you decide to tell your mother in law is OK. You do what you need to do to make it through this.
I’m so sorry. I support your choices, no matter what they are, because I trust your judgment. You deserve nothing but support and kindness. At all times, but especially now. Fiction is your friend when faced with intrusive questions. Your MIL is not entitled to any information, therefore fiction is appropriate. It’s more than she deserves. Tell her anything you want to, or nothing at all. And I’m with cosetthetable: I wish you could let us Toastfriends handle MIL for you.
Take care of yourself in whatever way works best for you and I’m so sorry you have to deal with unpleasant convos (can that just be husband’s job?). I hope you’re feeling better very soon.
I’m so sorry.
“It didn’t work out” is a nice phrase you can use if you like.
Seconding this.
Jedi hugs and anything else that may bring comfort. I’m sorry you’re hurting.
I was thinking about you this weekend and wondering what you decided. I’m so sorry your mother-in-law is making this so much more stressful than it needs to be. Sending you good vibes in getting through all of this <3
I am so, so sorry.
Hugs and tears for you.
Just wanted to add to the chorus of sympathetic condolences and general support.
My mom had endometriosis and had to get surgery a couple times. I wonder if I can get, like, a preventative hysterectomy so I don’t have to worry about that stuff. I doubt my insurance would be down for it, though.
You could check out the endometrial ablation procedure (I want to say it’s called Nova Sure, but that might be the tubal ligation thingy?). My friend had it done for extremely heavy, painful periods (think passing out from blood loss), and it’s made a HUGE difference in her quality of life.
Don’t know if this still applies, but here’s my experience from the 1990s. With the right doctor, you can get insurance to cover such a procedure. My GP sent me to a surgeon when I asked to have a tubal ligation. My GP, a woman, warned me that since I had no children I might get pushback. She said to call her office if this surgeon was less than 100% supportive of my choice. Then she would send me to another surgeon who would “behave”, she said. She worked with a short list of surgeons to create the right medical jargon in a patient’s charts to get the insurance to approve what should be a doctor’s decision on what is best for a patient. It didn’t come to that, and my GP never said so directly, but I believe she would have invented a “condition” for me that would force the insurer to approve.
So what I’m saying is, it might be best to shop for a doctor who will go to bat for you. I knew I was in good hands when this GP casually said “Men can be real assholes about women’s health; but no one asked their opinion!”
And my hysterectomy last year was done by a surgeon who made it his patients’ decision how much time off they needed from work. “My patient must not return to work until [date].” As long as it was past what my surgeon considered the minimum, the patient decided the date. He Just did not mention that and made it A Medical Decree. I believe he is capable of creating paperwork that says whatever the insurer needs to read.
Well. Read the link about Kelvin Moon Loh, etc., and now I’m crying at work.
I was going to be instantly upset that there wasn’t a link to a video about the dunk, but then I actually clicked through and HUZZAH, gif to the rescue. I’m now embarrassed about my insta-rage and will soothe myself with pictures of puppies and piglets.
Also, endometriosis scares the bejeezus out of me, and like @damngoodcoffee, I am refusing to read the article in deference to my own stupid hypochondria (come on, Crysta, you’re an intelligent woman, get over it!) ah hem.
puppiesandpiglets, puppiesandpiglets…
I feel you on the hypochondria. I have MS at the moment. I’m totally 100% sure of it, I have watched West Wing twice.
TOASTS, A VICTORY. My partner is a ride-or-die 1776 fan and kept insisting that there was no way Hamilton could be as good. Well, we listened to Hamilton on Saturday and then I caught him listening to it again while reading along with the lyrics on Sunday so I feel 100% smug and vindicated. Sit down, 1776, you fat motherfucker!!!
But Mr. Feeny!
Personally, I thought the Hamilton backlash began with Mallory’s trolling on Twitter. 😛 Which brought me such glee because I am UNCOMFORTABLE with 100% positive reviews of anything (despite loving what I have heard of Hamilton.)
Is that bad? I prefer to have “the other shoe” squarely in my field of vision, rather than have it drop on my head. #pessimistlife?
I prefer to have “the other shoe” squarely in my field of vision, rather than have it drop on my head.
That makes sense to me. I saw the show just a couple days before the album went online, and I adored it whole-heartedly and am glad so many people have been getting the chance to experience the music, but it feels a little eerie when public opinion about something is so nearly unanimous. Hilton Als did write a piece for the New Yorker a little while back critiquing the portrayal of women in the show. I disagree pretty thoroughly; the way he talks about Philippa Soo in particular–he calls her genteel and therefore dull–seems to me to indicate a viewer/listener who can’t manage to sympathize with some kinds of female characters, rather than a problem with the characters themselves. But it still feels like a weird relief to know where the dissent lies.
Nicole’s attempts to convince Mallory to love Hamilton seem awfully optimistic, given how badly that went with Into The Woods.
mallory is a fucking bitch
Thiisss: http://www.buzzfeed.com/shannonkeating/thanks-fem…
Ugh why has feminism ruined so many good movies for me! I can’t even watch Top Gun any more. (Actually that is a lie, I just mute it and objectify the men.)
One of The Onion’s most real articles: Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show
Seriously you just have to do it sometimes; God dammit I just want to space out and watch 10 hours of Supernatural without having to think about why these two very handsome men struggle to get on with women at all and therefore refuse any company of women that isn’t for sex, maybe its cause their mother died?
SPN IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON I TAKE A BREAK FROM BEING A FEMINIST.
Admittedly, I quit watching in S9, but I think both Charlie and Jody Mills were exceptions to “interacting with women without sex.” But I’m glad I stopped watching before Charlie’s end, and I dunno what Jody’s status is now.
At any rate, no question that it’s a hugely disappointing show on a feminist level, from beginning to end. But I’ve taken the premise and brothers and run away to write my own much more satisfying AU, where I CONTROL WHO LIVES AND DIES. You know what they say about writers playing god.
I gave up early in S10, and I only stuck with it that far just to see what stupidity they will come up with next! It should have ended on season 5, was ready for it to end then and it would have been a great ending (which is rare for an American show). I got very sick of all the fandom pandering too, you can tell they write things in just because they know the fans will love it (I feel very much the same about Moffat and Sherlock and Doctor Who, that guy needs to get off tumblr and concentrate on writing a good script for once.)
Aisha Tyler defended it by saying its a story about men and brothers so its ok that there’s not many women in it. I love her, but noooo! The women who do make it into the show have always been brilliant! (There’s a skeptical part of me that says they don’t bring in many women/love interests because of the amount of hate it generates with the fangirls)
At the time, I was hugely upset about S5’s ending, but it really wasn’t anything fanfic couldn’t have fixed! And pretty easily, too! (We got the glimpse of Sam outside on the sidewalk, right, so it’s not like it actually suggested he was in the Cage for eternity.) And in retrospect now…God, how amazing would it have been to have closed on such a tight story. That’s rare, as you said.
I absolutely believe the lack of female characters is due to the fan screeching. Like you said, they pander to fans these days. And I hate what the actresses go through — Genevieve most of all.
I mean yeah, re-watching S5 its a bit loose in places, but at the time it was a tight storyline and you could see that there was a plan and a vision behind it (It was only ever intended to run 5 seasons). Personally, I prefer a really well done, tight story with a great ending, even if it is only 6 episodes or what ever; I think that’s generally the European attitude to TV, we like really well written mini-series, and we like a bit of mystery and suffering, where as the American audience like things explained to death and want happy endings, that aren’t really endings because they want to see the thing they like happen over and over again.
I would have left Sam in the cage (IMO they only gave us the shot on the sidewalk to let you know that there was going to be another season), how heartbreaking would that have been? These two guys fighting for Good and Evil and always trying to do whats right and dream of getting out and being normal, but in order for one of them to get out an be normal the other one ends up trapped in hell! That’s an ending! Fuck both of them getting happy endings (As you can see, if I were a writer I would be of the George RR Martin, scorched earth variety!)
I stayed away from most of the fandom side (just there for the fanfiction and episode reviews), but yeah I can’t imagine the hell she must have went through! Why can’t people just be happy for other people!!! (I do love the Con videos of all the supernatural guys though, but there is nothing worse than when a rabid fangirl comes up and starts asking about Destiel. Its just bad taste girls, they don’t wanna know about the filth you come up with.)
Nooooo! I cannot overstate how I emotionally over-invest in my obsessions (not everything I watch/read, but when a story and its characters really hook me, I’m all in), and SamandDean is one of them. I don’t want to say I’m a Samgirl, because that implies taking sides and I really don’t (one thing I detest most about what they’re doing now is how they’ve turned Dean into someone I can’t remotely cheer for or even want to repair his relationship with Sam), but suffice to say I could not have born the implication that Sam was lost for eternity in the Cage. There would have been an explosion in Texas seen from space.
And ugh, yes, those horrible oversharing fans are the reason I CANNOT attend an SPN con, because if I was even in the same room with one of them when they did something terrible…well, I would probably make a bad impression of my own as I take her out, let’s just say that. PEOPLE NEED TO RESPECT THE ACTORS AND CREATORS OF THE THINGS THEY LOVE.
I would’ve sent them into the pit together. I would’ve cried and cried and cried, but two brothers, inseperable and fighting for the world till the end would’ve been perfect.
And I never would’ve had to learn about the writers’ weird obsession with dog sex.
Better both than just one of them, for sure.
Lol, the recent seasons have brought so many unpleasant gifts.
I had to stop with Supernatural because it’s so horrible to women that I can’t turn off the feminism for it.
God, so true. I watch a lot of my old fave movies these days with mental blinders on.
The boy complains about this. Says he used to be able to just enjoy things because he didn’t notice the sexism/racism, but that now he can’t help but see it and be distracted.
I count this as one of my biggest personal victories.
My mother used to tut at anything on TV she disaproved off, and if it got really bad she’d make a big huff and turn it off; anything could set her off, violence, violence against women, women being strippers, babies crying, god so much stuff, it used to drive me crazy cause all I wanted to do was watch the stupid fucking movie and not have to think for 2 hours.
And yet, 10 years later; guess who can’t watch anything where babies are left crying. (Seriously, that Scarlet Johansen movie where she’s an alien in Scotland, Under the Skin I think? Had to turn it off after there was a 5 minute long shot of a tiny baby left on a cold beach in the dark, and he was screaming! I get that this was the point of the scene in the movie, but did they have to torture a child? You can see him looking off camera (presumably at his parents) and wondering why no one is helping, he’s so tiny that he can’t walk yet, only sit up, but he’s so distressed that he’s trying to get up and walk to get out of this shitty situation. The reverse of this is that I notice when film makers go out of the way to not have to torture the babies even when it affects the overall quality of the film.)
Also I recently watched the Beverly Hills Cop movies; Why all the casual sexism? For some reason its crucial that all meetings are held in a strip club, and that all female characters are only murder victims or girlfriends (or Bridget Nielsen)
I recently had A Talk with my boy because every time I grumbled about the portrayal of women in books/TV episodes/internet articles that we were both reading/watching, he’d get defensive. The talk went very well, but made me realize that I still have a bit of a ways to go in instilling feminism in my significant other.
You just described my favorite soft porn: American “Professional” Wrestling on mute so I can objectify all those nearly naked muscly men.
Oh man, WWE was a fixation for me in high school (when it was still known as WWF)… not so much for the nearly naked muscly men – muscles are not my thing – but definitely for the drama. So much drama! I was not allowed to watch soap operas, but my parents had no idea that professional “wrestling” was 100% soap opera.
You need Rugby in your live. Don’t ask questions, just go watch the Rugby World Cup and thank me later. (Pay particular attention to the butts. Those boys and their bums…. nnggghhh)
You are entirely correct. I looooove watching rugby. Don’t care for sports. Don’t know the rules. Don’t know the score. Don’t care who wins. Just ogling those luscious bods.
I have never been into guys bums, but those guys. THOSE BUMS. How to they do that? They all have these amazing perky butts.
…oh, damn. Did you include that endometriosis article because you read my thing in the Friday open thread? Probably not, but either way, thanks for that. Work on Friday was such a ridiculous mess that I forgot all about it and just spent the weekend inside with an electric blanket. Now, though…I think I have something else to talk about at my next doctor visit.
So, thanks.
You’d think that diagnoses for conditions like endometriosis would have improved in the last decade, since women have joined the medical profession in equal if not greater numbers than men, but apparently not. I hear just as many ‘it’s all in your head’ stories from people whose doctors are women.
I also get an icky vibe from the Australian surgeon quoted in the Guardian article.
“I have been dealing with endometriosis for 25 years. I just don’t believe that 20 to 25 years ago we were missing the sort of people that we see today,” he said. “I see young women in their early 20s with dreadful colorectal endometriosis and I can’t believe we were missing that.”
Yeah, cause misdiagnosis and women suffering huge pain alone rather than ‘bother’ the medical establishment is *definitely* not something that could have happened 20+ years ago.
“You see some of the most pitiful people with this disease – it’s awful.”
Nice way to describe your adult patients. Not patronising at all, no.
In the developing world, women may get no help at all. “There are a lot of countries that don’t even recognise its existence, especially the Middle Eastern countries,”
He made a point of singling out Middle Eastern countries as ‘not recognising’ endometriosis. No sign of accompanying statistics or studies proving this.
I know interviews are guilty of misquoting or putting the worst spin on what someone says, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. Hm.
*All* pain is “all in your head.” I just hate this idea that “it’s all in your head” means it isn’t real. J. K. Rowling settled this for us ages ago I thought in Deathly Hallows.
Ugh, doctors who (attempt to) gaslight their patients.
I think it might be getting better, slowly, as in, it’s more possible to find doctors who aren’t terrible. But there are still plenty of terrible doctors out there. (Anecdotally, my own, young, female GP is lovely. And when she’s referred me to young, female specialists they have also been lovely although I have had to change people a couple of times because they were nice but didn’t LISTEN. My GP was fine with this, and took notes on my experience to amend her list and wrote me a new referral. Any men I’ve been referred to have been… I mean… fine, mostly, I guess. You know.)
I think it won’t really get better until more women are teaching and doing research, and are top-level, super respected for doing so. And until the profession is a bit less combative and involves less hazing so that nice people who are open to others’ experiences don’t need to either leave or lose all their compassion.
I absolutely loved Fangirl. That book and The Perks of Being a Wallflower both have very natural plot structures. Every family member, friend, or acquaintance of the main character is sometimes a source of support and sometimes a source of conflict. And instead of one big overarching plot, different interpersonal problems just arise and resolve throughout. It feels very lifelike – and somehow it still makes a great story.
That being said, the Simon Snow interludes were not my favorite part of Fangirl, so I’m not going to get my hopes too high for Carry On. But maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised!
“Fangirl” was about the young woman who wrote fanfic for a school assignment among other things, yes? I read it when I was a relatively new Toastie but still an oldish person, and it was like being handed a dictionary to all the things people discuss here that sail right over my head. Canon =/= cannon was a big takeaway for me.
It’s okay, guys, in a couple decades Yusuf Dayur will be old enough to run for president and Ben Carson will be proven wrong once and for all.
Wow, I did NOT mean for that to sound as depressing as it does.
That story about the audience members shouting at the kid and his mom was ENRAGING and I’m so glad Kelvin Moon Loh spoke out about it. Disabled people should not have to lock themselves in the house 24/7 to preserve the delicate sensibilities of abled folks. (The post got some backlash from people going “buh-buh-but how do YOU know the audience was being ableist? Maybe they would have yelled that way at ANY kid!” but Moon Loh specified that some of them were making nasty remarks about bringing “a child like that to the theatre,” so I feel pretty okay with saying that yeah, they were being ableist fucktrucks.)
In general I hate the idea that going to the theatre should involve sitting in worshipful silence and not even fidgeting until curtain. Theatre is supposed to provoke an emotional reaction! Yes, yelping might be distracting, but the scene was- by all accounts- meant to be upsetting, so of course audience members are going to react. People fiddling with their phones is one thing, but gasping/laughing/crying in response to what’s going on onstage should be a standard part of the theatrical experience.
People forget that even Shakespeare originally had hecklers at his plays. LOADS of them. There was a TON of audience noise at the Globe.
Putting aside the individual incident, there’s a difference between gasping in response to a fraught moment and sustained shrieking, though. Let’s not pretend that having a number of people hollering at random points in most plays wouldn’t be pretty damn disruptive. I went to the Stewart/McKellan “Waiting for Godot,” and there was some kid wailing and moaning at intervals throughout much of the first hour or so, and, yeah, it was distracting and seriously detracted from the experience. (“Most plays”: obviously, not all productions are the same, and autism-friendly shows are a great idea.)
I feel terrible for this kid’s mom. Probably she gave careful thought to whether her kid could meet the standards of behavior for a Broadway show. She probably picked “The King and I” as a more family-oriented production where a little more noise would be tolerable. I’m sure it was really painful for her to have to leave (I would have been utterly mortified and probably hidden under the blankets for the next month, except of course you can’t do that with a disabled child), and I’m sorry that the people around her didn’t show her and her child more compassion. I hope she saw Loh’s post and felt better afterwards. But it was right for her to leave if the kid couldn’t be quiet. That’s what parents used to do all the time when they took their children places and the children got restless! I don’t think it’s bad to expect a standard of behavior at the theater that allows other people to actually experience what they came to experience–the play, not a lot of extraneous noise. And the more people push back against the very idea of a standard, the more people are going to wonder, when they hear a kid making inappropriate noise, whether the kid’s parent genuinely believed the kid could handle it and the kid had a bad day, or whether the parent just thought, “To hell with it, if I have to put up with my kid, these theatergoers can, too.” (That’s something you hear about children’s inappropriate behavior in other contexts constantly.)
“My evidence for this statement is that I have parrots.”
Can’t argue with the Parrot Defense.
Pretty compelling evidence, tbh.
On a completely different and much nicer note: did anyone else watch John Oliver last night? I hope Noujain gets to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umqvYhb3wf4
I really shouldn’t have watched that at work. Now I’m all teary and sniffling. Allergies. I’m sure it’s just allergies.
That was damn amazing.
Who wants to talk about QUANTICO????? Anyone? Bueller? I’m gonna talk at myself in the comments to avoid spoiling it for anyone…
YES I LOVED IT, ESPECIALLY THE TWIST WITH NIMAH WHICH IS JUST BATSHIT ENOUGH TO MAKE ME SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THE REST OF THE SHOW. It’s gonna be my new guilty pleasure, I can tell.
Also, I can’t tell you how pleased I am that there are already two characters down and both of them were pretty white boys. WELL PLAYED, SHOW.
That was my reaction EXACTLY, hahaha – way to get rid of the white guys first for once, Quantico! And yeah, the Nimah twist, amazing – it shows they’re willing to push this into a realm of batshittery that, while it could go VERY wrong, will at least keep things interesting as things progress!
Fuck yeah network TV show with a WOC lead playing an amazing/badass but not totally flawless character! And heck yes having WOC supporting characters as well with their own personalities and mysteries going on! Priyanka Chopra was awesome – she brought a lot of charm and wit and depth to the character already, even in scenes where the dialogue was really clunky or cheesy. I’m finding the mystery interesting so far – I think they set things up really well. I want more Nimah like whoa. The twists they’ve had so far have been pretty well-delivered, I think. It was definitely enough to keep me tuning in, and dang it, I want this show to succeed so we get more leads like Alex.
Did not like – is it just me or are all the men really boring and flat and incompetent compared to the women so far? The only one I’ve got the slightest bit of interest in so far is the gay (maybe fake-gay???) Jewish virgin dude, though he’s gotta stop creeping on Nimah, dang son. And was kind of interested in the Mormon dude until…well. (side note, show – can we NOT talk about a grown ass man “having sex” with a 14 year old? the word you’re looking for is rape.) Like, Alex was so much more interesting and vibrant and charismatic than Ryan, it was kind of beyond me why they’d have any real ongoing sexual tension (and the preview at the end of the show made it clear they’re going to continue their thing – though I did like the twist where apparently he’s spying on her….). He just was so boring/milquetoast next to her. And Caleb, ugh, so not interested in the manpain of an entitled rich white dude who’s got a chip on his shoulder cause of his parents – cause, you know, we’ve NEVER seen that kind of character on TV before. Also just got a resounding “meh” feeling about Liam. The whole assignment to have them investigate and interrogate each other – how the fuck did no one stop and say, that could go really fucking wrong, before one of them shot someone and killed himself? How the fuck did they let anyone bring a GUN into the interrogation room in the first place? Come on now. Also, why was Alex so eager to confide in him about her dad in the first place?
Love Miranda Shaw, though I’m hoping they flesh her out more beyond the “stern bosslady” type she was playing in the pilot. Definitely excited to see where they go with everything going on in this show!
I am tentatively excited… Fingers crossed they don’t eff it up!
OT type comment, sorry: An acquaintance of mine who is pregnant wrote a post about being frustrated with people saying, “I hope you have a boy!” and some dude has responded with not one but AT LEAST FIVE comments telling her she’s overreacting and thinking too much into it and basically needs to calm down and get over it. I don’t feel we’re close enough for me to step in and be like “BRO. NOW IS THE TIME TO STOP TALKING.” but I really want to. Ugh.
Over the weekend I posted the Biden quote about his personal beliefs and not imposing them on others. I got an email from Facebook saying “So-and-so [a former youth group leader of mine] commented on your post” … I deleted it without reading it, like I delete all those notifications (I have no idea why I still get them, but don’t care enough to try to figure out how to make them stop).
Then I went into FB to see what he and my other friends had to say. Turns out he had deleted his comment (!) so I went back into email and retrieved the comment … and it was a huge paragraph of text about how abortion is always wrong, you’re murdering babies, blah blah blah. BOY am I glad he rethought his decision to post that comment. Why do men NEED TO BE HEARD SO MUCH, when all they’ve had for millennia is the unrestricted freedom to talk? Are women so threatening that posting something on our own social media pages causes the irresistable urge to word-vomit Opinions everywhere? Ugh.
I probably delete nearly a quarter of the comments I type out here and on Facebook for that reason. It has taken some time to really teach myself that most conversations don’t need my voice (or sub in “another male voice”) in them.
Ugh. I reaction to this would be the old standby of “we just hope they’re healthy.” And taking careful note of who said that baloney. Those folks don’t get to babysit.
Also, bro. Ew.
i didn’t think any particular level of familiarity was required before telling a stupid dude to STFU. i do it whenever i can, wherever i can.
Fair enough! I was more thinking of my relatively low lever of familiarity with her (rather than him), and not wanting to turn her comment thread into an active argument, which could be frustrating, but yeah, STFU, stupid dude.
I did, however, end up posting a comment saying I’m sorry people seem to need to share their unwanted opinions on her pregnancy and how she should feel about it, and how much that sucks, and others did jump in to support as well.
There’s a post on FB from a woman saying “this is why you should not ask people whether they are thinking about having a baby” which went viral yesterday, over 50K shares. Pointing out that you have no way of knowing whether someone is just finding it annoying because they don’t want kids, or horribly, horribly upsetting because they are dealing with all the ways fertility can go wrong.
Clicked on the woman’s original post, and – yup, there’s a bloke telling her that they are just trying to be nice, and she should try being less mean and angry and maybe then she’d get a boyfriend.
I’m kind of suprised that nobody else seems to be horrified by patients on 72-hour holds being recruited for studies.
Beyond being complete nightmare fuel, I can’t believe that it was ever allowed. It really took the death of a psych patient 11 years (!!) ago for them to say “hmmm…maybe there’s an ethical dilemma here”?
I’m literally sitting at my desk clenching and unclenching my fists because I’m so angry about this that I have some kind of adrenaline surge happening and I don’t know what to do with myself…
I genuinely DO NOT GET IT. Who approved this? How? I mean, you’re supposed to get IRB approval for anything you do that involves ANY participants, even if the project is as simple as giving them a survey to fill out.
What’s similarly horrifying is that I think just a month ago, Stephen Pinker wrote an opinion column about how we didn’t need bioethics anymore because all of the important questions are solved and the rest of it is just luddite paranoia that’s holding science back.
Ooops!
I just read the article and you’re right–it’s similarly horrifying. He could have said “obviously some exceptions apply, such as ensuring the mental health of research subjects…” but no. Just a blanket “f-you, if we want progress there’s no time to hesitate because of ethics.”
Wow…
I was staggered when I read the article. It never occurred to me that patients on hold could be recruited for studies: the whole point of a hold is that patients can’t make good decisions about keeping themselves or others safe. It’s the entire reason that such a violation of civil liberties is permitted. How could they possibly be deemed fit to consent to participate in research? Who on earth was on the IRBs that signed off on these studies?
Ugghh Toasties this is just to say that I bawled with such intensity in my therapist’s office this morning & am now collapsed on the sofa in my apartment with a wretched headache & seriously you guys make things so much better in the world.
<3
Jedi hugs/kind thoughts/etc floating your way. I hope the bawling session made you feel a lot better – it usually does for me, once the headache wears off. Take care of yourself!!
Therapy is hard work, if you do it right. You are definitely doing it right. Kudos for taking care of yourself by getting therapy and putting in all that effort. Meanwhile, I’m guessing you feel a bit raw and/or fragile just now. Hugs, if you want them. Otherwise, a quick squeeze of your hand. I hope your headache departs soon.
<3 <3 to you & Alli525
I’ve been half-considering pitching The Toast with a post about the process of suspecting you have endo, and everything you have to do to actually get a diagnosis, and wanting kids but living with the fact that I could possibly be infertile (and could’ve been that way since before I wanted kids). I’m convinced that if I hadn’t advocated for myself and known my family history, I’d still be undiagnosed and in pain more days than not.
Stop considering and write that pitch! Please?
I want to read this!
Thank you for including the Endo article. I just had surgery 2 weeks ago to remove cysts and endometriosis tissue (success!!). While I had to jump through a lot of hoops to find the right surgeon, I am so thankful to have access to a specialist who really knows what she’s doing. If anyone is struggling with endo or needs surgery, I’d be happy to talk.
How did she end up having kids? Did they manage to salvage some of the eggs or did she adopt?
I really hope he wasn’t allowed to continue practicing surgery. Or at the very least, that his medical malpractice insurance skyrocketed after that.
I am semi-connected with Dublin (my partner's from Dublin, and we go over several times a year) and I read Broken Harbour close enough to the credit crunch and the troika taking over Ireland's economy and everyone talking about ghost towns that it really, really got to me. It's incredibly creepy.
I want to kiss that silky head!
Oh Runbug, that's so hard. I'm so sorry. You'll get through this, and you are so brave for doing what is right for yourself. I hope you feel better soon.
Yeah, that article on endo hit hard. It runs in my family, and no one figured it out until my aunt was finally diagnosed in her early 20s. She’s sure she had it through all of her teen years, but when she talked about her terrible cramps etc, she talked to her mom and older sisters, who all assured her that it was normal! Because in their family it was! Horrible debilitating pain and vomiting and other unpleasant symptoms! Just totally normal parts of being a woman!
When I threw up a couple times from cramps as a teen, she told my mom to get me in and looked at right away. Fortunately, I don’t have it, and I eventually grew out of the worst menstrual stuff. So given that history, I probably should not have been as surprised as I was at some of the worst info in that article. I just assumed everyone was as well informed as my own family, forgetting that it took forever for anyone in my family to get diagnosed either.