How NYC’s Chinatown has stayed Chinatown:
Here are portraits of what could be called the Chinatown Establishment: a collection of people with deep roots in the neighborhood and unusual influence in shaping its future. Some wield familiar levers of power, like political position and real-estate portfolios. Others are included for reasons more particular to the neighborhood: pastors to the devout, third-generation herbalists, restaurateurs, labor activists (who have more muscle in Chinatown than just about anywhere else). Their visions for the neighborhood’s future, and their worries for it, vary considerably. (Such is New York.) But overall, they stand a fighting chance of controlling the fate of some of the most valuable land in the city. Here are five reasons why.
On disclosing mental illness in academia:
For every Saks or McElroy, though, there are many more academics who choose not to disclose their disabilities. I reached out to colleagues who have chosen to keep their disabilities secret, asking them if they have any advice for others. They all expressed a strong fear of being discovered, even despite my assurances that I would treat their words with the utmost privacy. Most of these folks are contingent professors.
One professor who teaches in a full-time contingent position at an R1 university said she would only disclose her mental health issues “under subpoena.” She believes that disclosing would hurt her job security because “contingent faculty can be so easily terminated.” In her opinion, contingent—and even pre-tenure—professors simply don’t have “the luxury to volunteer stigmatizing personal information.”
When threats from men taught me how to be a woman:
I had an entire block of light from the CVS windows to walk through before my body could plunge into darkness, which I knew could either help me or hurt me. I feared the dark because there I was most likely to get beat up, but it could potentially offer me safety — in the dark, the parts of my body that might give me away as a trans woman didn’t show. As I walked those hundred yards to the next crosswalk, I prayed that those men’s light would change, so that we could go in our opposite directions.
But light was not on my side. A moment later, a man blocked my path, and said, “Miss, my friend really wants to talk to you.”
I raised my head and looked him in the eye when I heard him say “Miss” — there was the promise of respect in that word, the promise that these men would see me the way I saw myself. Back then, I didn’t know yet that the chance of getting respect from the kind of men who would bother a woman on the street was slim. I hadn’t fully absorbed that this was not the kind of attention I wanted, that this type of attention could so easily turn — especially for trans women. When men approach us to express their attraction, they also stand to punish us for threatening their masculinity if they find out who we really are.
My friend Carrie’s new puppy likes to gaze majestically into the distance/the bushes:
Two top Army generals recently discussed trying to kill an article in The New York Times on concussions at West Point by withholding information so the Army could encourage competing news organizations to publish a more favorable story, according to an Army document.
The generals’ conversation involved a Freedom of Information Act request that The Times made in June for data on concussions resulting from mandatory boxing classes at the United States Military Academy. The Times also requested similar data from the Air Force Academy in June, and from the Naval Academy this month.
This is an ODDLY GRIPPING tale of a scammy cosmetics company:
Courtney is one of the few outspoken Lime Crime bloggers who has not fled the conversation over the years. Many people have gone silent, leaving ghost blogs and abandoned instagrams in their wake. It’s not for nothing — it’s public knowledge that Deere has pursued litigation against bloggers based in the U.S who have written negative reviews of the brand. She sued the founder of the first Lime Crime-critical blog, Doe Deere Lies, Michelle Jasczyn, for just under $250,000 — not on the basis of libel or slander, but for copyright infringement.
Great British Bake Off contestant Tamal has become something of a heartthrob, with fans professing their love for him on social media every Wednesday evening.
So naturally, the question on everyone’s lips has been is Tamal available?
“I wouldn’t have a girlfriend, I would have a boyfriend,” Tamal tells us in this week’s Radio Times magazine. “But I am single at the moment.”
TOASTIES
LIN MANUEL MIRANDA SPOKE TO ME INDIRECTLY
So I’ve been fangirling “Non-Stop” about Hamilton, and my friend (who is 35 ah I have adult friends now) in my Intro to Queer class turns out to be old friends with LMM! So without my knowledge she sent him a note saying that Daisy says Anthony Ramos’ hair is my everything. So yesterday she pulls out her phone and theres a note saying “AND YOU ARE MY ANTHONY RAMOS HAIR, thanks for the note I really needed it”.
WHAT.
GAH.
In less exciting news us firsties beat the sophomores and juniors at trivia last night which means a whole bunch of points! If our costumes and song go over well, we might actually beat the sophomores at the end of the week!
!!!
That is amazing. Here’s my indirect LMM connection – a friend who went to college with him was at his wedding to witness this beautiful damn thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgZ4ZTTfKO8&f…
That was adorable.
I posted that video & one of my old coworkers was like, “Oh, hey, my cousin is one of the bridesmaids dancing.”
SIX DEGREES OF LIN-MANUEL
That was the greatest rendition of a Fiddler on the Roof number I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen the play innumerable times (and been in it twice!). Amazing!
I’ve been really busy for a while, and recently came back to the internet to find everyone insane for Hamilton. Can someone explain it to me? This is a play being performed in New York, right? Did everyone go see it in NYC, or is it touring? Is there a youtube version? I want to get excited about this too but I don’t know howwwww
They made a cast recording (produced by the Roots!) which was on NPR First Listen for a week! It’s no longer on there, alas, but if unlike me you’re in the US it’s apparently on Amazon Prime (and Spotify?).
It’s also amazing.
It’s a Broadway musical! As to how everyone’s heard it, NPR put up a “First Listen” for free a week before the cast recording was released. The musical is sung-through, so almost the entire musical is on the cast recording. The musical is still up on a Spotify playlist at the link: http://www.npr.org/2015/09/21/440925873/first-lis…. (I would be willing to bet that a significant percentage of us have how purchased the cast recording)
It’s the story of Alexander Hamilton, and the music is a mix of rap, hip-hop, R&B, and more traditional show tunes. It sounds odd at first, but it’s amazing. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.
Does it matter if you don’t know a lot about US history?
I would say no- I haven’t studies American history since eleventh grade, and I had no problems following it.
I’m not USian, so I only vaguely knew the history, so I learned a lot! There was an old NY Times puzzle posted this week with the clue “duelist Burr”, which I definitely would not have known before listening to Hamilton approximately 8 times.
IT WILL TEACH YOU US HISTORY.
Not going to lie, having SOME idea what’s going on will help.
If you don’t know the history, aren’t good at getting the words the first time when you listen to music, aren’t looking at the lyrics AND aren’t paying close attention all at the same time, you may miss some stuff (ie- wait, who’s dueling right now? and… why??) That said, even if you’re missing stuff, it’s still enjoyable, and after re-listening a couple times (and/or reading the wiki page for Alexander Hamilton) you should have everything important, history/plot wise.
I may be speaking from experience.
yes! the cast recording is on youtube!
Thank you! It wasn’t before, so I assumed they just wouldn’t put it on there 🙂
That’s so awesome. Last week, Leslie Odom Jr. fav’d a tweet of mine and I nearly lost my shit.
SWEET. I’d be giddily swooning, for sure.
Last night I read “Hip-Hop Hamilton,” posted much earlier this year on The New Yorker, and there were such great quotes from him:
“And then I saw ‘Phantom [of the Opera]’, and I was like, ‘Oh, shit!’ Because it’s about an ugly songwriter who wants to impose his will on the world. I related to that.”
This is fun! http://corbyn.benbristow.co.uk/
I totally enjoyed this! Especially, “Cuckoo Corbyn calls on immigrants to tell sick jokes about your family”.
I mean, if I have a duty… (not that I’m great at telling jokes, but we all have to make sacrifices).
We didn’t all already know about Tamal? Are people actually shocked? (I’m not shocked but I am a bit heartbroken.)
See also people SHOCKED to find out that Ruby Tandoh is queer.
Ruby is part of the reason I have now finally nailed down my sexual orientation. She is just so pretty.
Also, Martha.
I had a moment when watching last week when I realised the reason I was laughing particularly loudly at Tamal’s jokes was that my inept terrible flirting mechanisms had kicked in… What a lovely lovely man, by all accounts.
Can we still have an “If Tamal Ray Worked at your Bakery” article?
I, too, am not shocked, but am slightly heartbroken. I would like him, Nadiya, and Flora in the final, and then I would like Nadiya to win.
Also, Tamal’s sandwich comment is still the most solidly charming thing said on Bake Off all season. And I’m still here for a the plan a couple of us talked about last week (I think?) that Tamal and James should start a remote medical practice Orkney and solve crimes. The Great British Wait Who Killed All Those People Off.
YES I NEED THAT SHOW IN MY LIFE. And they wingman for each other because they are best friends!
His sandwich soliloquy was amazing television.
Midsomer Bakers.
I am not shocked, but I hadn’t assumed he was gay, being the partner of a 100% heterosexual man (he claims) who enjoys baking, knitting and musical theatre. I don’t even try to guess people’s sexualities any more, because I’m useless at it. (See also: did not really realise I was bisexual until last year.)
Oh, Tamal. I will have to give up my dreams of a romantic relationship in which we reminisce about our favourite sandwiches.
I am not shocked, but a little bit disappointed. Much like when I realized James from Season 3 (OH, JAMES) had a girlfriend. I just want a lovely British man who appreciates bread/sandwiches and will bake for me!
I’m still just thrilled I got to give him fashion advice recently (he asked where he should buy nice clothes in Manchester – I suggested a shop and he favourited the tweet). Also, my friend works at the same hospital as him! I’m trying to get her to find him and make friends.
I think the friend I watch Bake Off with his moving to Manchester to find Tamal (and he will probably never stop crowing about him being gay in my presence.)
Wait, weird sentence in that Lime Crime article (which is BANANAS by the way, oh my god): at one point were being stocked at all the favorite deep-Internet fashion retailers: Nasty Gal, ModCloth, Dolls Kill, Urban Outfitters
I….is ModCloth and Urban Outfitters “deep Internet” in some way? I don’t think UO was “deep internet” or “hipster-only” even like, five years ago, because I definitely shopped there in high school which was, ahem, MORE THAN FIVE YEARS AGO.
I shopped at UO, and knew it wasn’t cool, back when online shopping was still considered suspect…
Urban Outfitters is a Gap-like chain of stores, tho. Unless they closed them all since the 90s and went internet-only?
Oh no, they have opened NEW ones. (Including one that they put into an old bank building, including using the vault, and it’s actually a really fascinating use of the building that i LOVE and would want to support except for the part where it’s still UO and so I cannot.)
lol, no, if anything UO is getting bigger. In Austin they just bought a city block and are basically making a UO *mall*.
They have one of those in Brooklyn already. I actually wandered in without knowing what it was (the UO branding isn’t as obvious as the regular stores).
That’s incredibly weird.
But also, geez, I’m basically TOO OLD to have EVER shopped at Urban Outfitters
I shopped at the original (?) UO in Philly when I was in college in the late 70s/early 80s. As far as I can tell, they’re still selling the same stuff.
i regularly shop at H&M and forever 21 and going into UO i was all, “i am way too old for this shit”.
Modcloth is mostly internet-only; they have only one physical store that I can think of. They have some (IMO, at least) cute dresses.
As for UO, I ordered from them a grand total of once, about ten years ago.
She swears but constrains her expletives to those that begin with a ‘b’.
The Queen everyone: http://www.tatler.com/news/articles/september-201…
Reminds me of the old joke about the kid who’s trick-or-treating as a pirate. One well-meaning but officious adult inquires, “Oh, but where are your buccaneers?” and the kid replies: “On either side of my buckin’ head!”
Buck off is actually a swear in Northern Ireland, so I imagine this coming from a skin-headed Belfast roughian.
As you’d expect, the Queen takes her tea at teatime (that’s 4.30pm). She likes her lapsang souchong milky. She permits herself one sandwich – if she didn’t watch her weight she would like a couple more.
Come on, Lilibet, you’re 89 years old. Clock’s ticking. It’s high time to let loose and eat all the sandwiches you want!
That is such a damn charming couple of sentences.
Related, I would love both a tea time and a nap time in my daily life.
It seems very depressing that being 89 and the literal ruler of a country does not exempt women from watching their weight. (I realise it is not necessarily just a size thing – at 89, you want to keep an eye on your risk factors for diabetes, stroke, etc. – but still.)
Also, her mum (nicknamed “Cookie”) liked to snack and lived to 101.
One of my life goals is to have my photograph in Tatler.
If only! I am hoping that one day my horsey lifestyle gets me noticed and there’s a picture of me looking effortlessly cool in my dubarry’s on bank of the Badminton lake.
I can dream right?
It does happen, I think. I want to be invited to those parties.
I dream of being invited to those parties, if only for the sheer novelty (And totally not because I want to meet a boy who’s family have a big country estate that I can over-run with ponies)
There’s a Riding Club in London that’s specifically for horse-less horsey people living in the city and its eye-wateringly expensive, but I am determined to join. They have formal dinners with the Household Cavalry for gods sake!! I waaaannnnttt.
I once went to a party at a polo club near Salisbury, and it was everything I wanted it to be. There was a bouncy castle, and it was beautiful and misty, and in the morning instead of making breakfast, we went to the polo field and ordered egg sandwiches and mugs off the truck and ate it in the rain.
(I’m American, so my over-enthusiasm for traditional British activities is fine, right?)
I’m Irish, my over-enthusiasm for the British upper-class is not fine, but I tell myself I do it ironically and then go home and work on my RP accent.
It just feels like I should be over it after 4 years of St Andrews serving as an inoculation.
“The Queen has a particular fascination with space and space travel. She finds astronaut suits hilarious.”
Delightful!!
“The Queen and Prince Philip love a telly supper, which they eat on a sofa from tray tables.”
OMG she’s just like me
I honestly can’t tell if these are real or not.
I wish I could find this delightful, I feel like I am SO CLOSE to finding it delightful. But I just feel about the Queen how many people feel about the pope – she may or may not be a bad person, but I can’t ever look past the fact that she is the ruler of an empire (I live in a commonwealth country) an I’m a’gin that. And she has personally commanded that terrible things be done in the name of that empire. Personally. With full knowledge.
So I’m trying to read these and half of my brain is like ‘huh she still has ladies in waiting?’ and the other half is like ‘GENOCIDEEEEEE’
I totally understand; I actually don’t find this delightful at all, I shared it as a ironic, voyeuristic look into the private life of one of the most powerful people in the world
I’m totally the same (except that I’m in the UK). Stuff to do with the royal family (and, to a lesser extent, the aristocracy) just fills me with a seething rage, because why is it still a thing? Why do we venerate these people when so much shit has been done by that institution? I end up just shouting that we need to smash the whole system.
I guess I don’t get the controversy over concussions in a mandatory boxing class at a military academy. Training injuries should be avoided, but it isn’t like the USMA is college, per se. It is turning out soldiers?
They are still people who do not deserve to be saddled with the problems of concussions.
Yes, I agree. But at the same time, there is an unfortunate trade-off in lots of military training between safety and realism/utility, and this means that even with safety precautions the training can be dangerous or even life-threatening. That said, I’m not sure a boxing class qualifies as “real enough that the downside is worth it.” On the other-other hand, pugil-stick training seems much more likely to lead to concussions (since the stick provides a longer lever, and thus more force). All infantry soldiers go through that, and in my view it is super worth it to teach you how seriously you need to take the bayonet drills. So, I’m conflicted. Also, I’m not unbiased, as I am a veteran. So take everything I say with a shaker of salt.
Yeah, I am torn on this one. On the one hand, concussions bad. On the other hand, this is probably not the most dangerous thing that the majority of these students will be asked to do. On the first hand again, how often are these future Army officers actually going to box? Back to the second hand, as you note, many soldiers go through much more dangerous training, and why should this (very elite) group of future army officers be exempt?
The withholding documents thing, though, that’s pretty clearcut bs.
Potentially extremely naive question: can they wear helmets?
I can’t recall much boxing in any recent wars…
(Edited to remove Dad Joke about the Boxer Rebellion)
I agree with GruntledDave up to the point where the Army officials tried to squash the story and get competing news outlets to run more “favorable” stories. That makes me think there are more concussions than there need to be, or proper precautions aren’t being taken. I do think, though, that there’s much more of an argument for “we need this type of sometimes dangerous training for our military personnel, who will be in extremely dangerous situations after,” than there is for “these guys are playing a sport for the entertainment of millions of people and the safety regulations are a joke, they might as well be gladiators.”
Yes! I agree with everything you said. Definitely something fishy any time the military tries to suppress a story like this.
I think that there are important questions about what’s relevant training, what’s culture/community building, what’s hazing, what’s acceptable risk versus what’s unnecessary risk. Yes, absolutely, it’s appropriate that the average concussion risk of 4 years at West Point is going to be WAY HIGHER than the average concussion risk at your sort of standard small private liberal arts college. (although, in my experience, the sheer klutziness of many liberal arts students, even when 100% sober, adds some challenges*.)
But there’s some sort of annual pillow fight at the beginning of the year at West Point, and it seems to be an important tradition, and shit happens, so of course some people are going to trip or jam their fingers or whatever, there are going to be bruises and cuts and that’s fine for a freaking military academy. But apparently in the last couple of years, people have started doing things like putting BRICKS into their pillows, and that’s past *my* line. But the kid who did it was probably getting egged on by upperclassmen that he needs on his side to survive that sort of intense experience, and they’ve all been part of a very gradually worsening tradition, and someone needs to step up and reset the expectations.
And I don’t know enough about West Point, or boxing, or concussions, to know if this falls on the side of “acceptable risks” or not, but given how much important new research has been done about the long term affects of concussions in the last couple years, I would hope that everyone is questioning policies around just about EVERYTHING with a real concussion risk. Is the risk worth the reward? If it is, is the safety gear being used adequate? Is the medical screening/response adequate?
West Point is putting out people who will be making decisions at the highest level, I really really don’t want those people to have problems with memory or critical thinking because there was some sort of tradition that involved totally pointless head trauma.
*Like my friend that sprained her ankle when chasing squirrels.
West Pointers do weird stuff, that’s for sure (disclosure: I wasn’t commissioned via the USMA). And yeah, certainly putting a brick in a pillow is way over the line. Insane, even.
Hand to hand training on the other hand (e.g., boxing) is useful, and knowing what it feels like to get hit in the face/head, even with safety gear, is something that I think soldiers need to know. With our current cycle of continual war, it promises to be of more use than not, and in my view eclipses longer-term considerations, as it may be a contributing factor to immediate survival. That said, there are safer ways to spar than maybe are being followed here, and those should be followed if possible. I am guessing they weren’t being followed in this case, since the generals in question wanted to hush things up.
TBH though I’d be teaching those cadets Krav Maga. It is much more useful and useable.
Re: West Point– I have a “friend” who applied and didn’t get in (and then according to the gossip train didn’t make it out of basic for ROTC, but then enlisted in the Marines after getting his PhD in aerospace engineering. Yes, enlisted, I actually meant enlisted, I have NO IDEA what goes on in his brain), and I have a friend who went.
I wholeheartedly agree that hand to hand training is important, and I also agree with you that boxing doesn’t exactly sound like the best hand to hand option. And, you’re right, the fact that they wanted to hush things up makes it all WAY more concerning than it would be otherwise.
(so basically, this post was because I can only thumbs up once and I don’t know why the kid I ate lunch with every day for four years got a phd and then enlisted. okay. maybe i should go do some real work.)
Brick in pillowcases?! This makes me so sad, because I’ve hung out with a lot of West Point students (albeit back in the day so…5 years ago) and they were to a person exceptional, intelligent, & wonderful. I can’t imagine any of my WP acquaintances doing something like this, but I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. 🙁
Apparently I misremembered the “brick” part (or maybe somewhere else i can’t find now mentioned bricks???)—- but the pillowcases were definitely …. enhanced— NY Times:
“But this year the fight on the West Point, N.Y., campus turned bloody as some cadets swung pillowcases packed with hard objects, thought to be helmets, that split lips, broke at least one bone, dislocated shoulders and knocked cadets unconscious.”
I too have had very good interactions with everyone I’ve ever known from West Point.
Toasts, I couldn’t be with you yesterday because I had an all-staff meeting (ugh) but I have some important Canadian livestock news to share with you:
A goat was arrested by the RCMP after refusing to leave a Tim Horton’s
Now there are allegations that the goat was actually the victim of a kidnapping!. (Hehe… kid-napping.)
Also, cows were protesting on Parliament Hill yesterday and I only wish I could have seen it with my own eyes, because look at this!.
The cop on the far left looks like he’s grabbing his own head in pure confusion…
The reporting in the goat stories is stellar. I’m totally serious–I’ve been having a pair of yucky days and “stubborn goat” made me grin. The RMCP theorized he might have been “cold.” He was a “noncompliant citizen.” He was “very unhappy” with his experience being arrested!
Also, Billy, Sparkles and Goliath? LOL.
This is old, but this is one of my favourite local goat stories http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1854717/picture…
Who else’s social media has become a terrible place to be because of the Planned Parenthood hearings yesterday? A college friend was posting about Planned Parenthood on Facebook last night, and a friend of his (a dude, obviously) was all over the comments talking about how he just wants men to have equal say in whether a woman keeps her pregnancy or not.
Argghhhhh fuck that dude so much. I lost a damn 1500 ccs of blood when my second was born and that was an uncomplicated delivery. As of this week, I have been pregnant or nursing for three solid years. Come talk to me about your equal say when you’ve been sustaining two humans on your bodily fluids for actual years, dickbag. There is no equality in biology.
Argh, okay, rant over. I’m going to gaze at Nicole’s friend Carrie’s new puppy for awhile now.
“there is no equality in biology”
I frakkin love you.
I’ve applied for a Reproductive Health and Gender Equality Leadership conference here in Atlanta to get the basics of being pro-choice. I would need my parents’ permission, but it’s the day after I turn 18
*slides on sunglasses* I’ll be an ADULT.
You are so badass.
Mine is a little better than I thought, and I’m actually pleasantly surprised by how many people are giving their support to PP who I was worried wouldn’t be, but I think that’s because I’m prematurely jaded and now just brace myself for the worst.
Mine is too, but I also spent a couple hours last year setting up a very lean “safe” list that I almost always post to, relegating everyone else to “acquaintances.” That way, I can keep up with my spouse’s grandma (who always signs her comments “Love, Gran”) and check in on random people from high school if I’m so inclined, but my comments are largely friendly.
Love, Grandmaster Flash?
I watched a bunch of the hearing yesterday and holy fuck, it was so much worse than I had imagined. Cecile is some kind of bad ass feminist saint or something.
THE CONSTANT INTERRUPTIONS. I just could not with that. Like, we get it, you don’t actually care about the answers to the questions you’re asking but good lord, do you have to be SO RUDE?
“there is no equality in biology”
Well said.
Those men who whine about wanting an ‘equal’ say, as well as being dickbags, miss one very important point: The decision whether or not to continue with a pregnancy is a single decision with a single outcome. If a woman becomes pregnant, wants a termination and her impregnator doesn’t want her to, you have two exactly opposite and contrasting opinions which lead to two exactly opposite decisions. There cannot be a meeting in the middle like there might be regarding other disagreements – at the end of the day only one decision can be made. So even if it was possible for the man to ‘have an equal say’ (whatever that means), it’s an essentially meaningless ‘right’ because at the end of the day the decision only has one outcome, it doesn’t have two equal and opposite outcomes.
So it logically follows that the person who gets to make this single decision *has* to be the person who will be most directly affected by it i.e. the person who is pregnant. If the man desperately wants to be a father, that’s not an irrelevant opinion, but it’s essentially just that – an opinion. He may state it if he wants, but he doesn’t have an automatic or inviolable right to state it, nor does he have the right to expect that it will lead the pregnant person to make the decision he wants them to make. If the concept of ‘equal say’ is brought into the mix it’s utterly pointless and potentially dangerous, as ‘equal say’ can very easily be ‘reinterpreted’ as ‘attempting to force someone to stay pregnant against their will’. Which is a gross violation of both bodily autonomy and individual human rights, and unacceptable in all cases.
Right. There’s no compromise possible. Unless and until we invent uterine replicators that allow pregnancies to be transferred, if a woman does not want to carry a pregnancy through, she’s the one who gets to make that call.
Uterine replicators would be so great. I wish they existed.
And even if there were space-age artificial wombs, I wouldn’t agree to some asshat raising my biological child.
Uterine replicators are the single greatest SF idea that I wish were real. C’mon Bujold fans, make it happen…
As a healthcare lawyer who spends a lot of time reading bioethics articles and Star Trek fanfiction, I think about this kind of thing SO MUCH. So many intriguing ethical questions!
Exactly. What does this ‘equal say’ look like, in reality? Marching a woman in chains to get an abortion she doesn’t want? Forcing her to carry a pregnancy to term even at risk to her life? It’s horrifying in practice.
None of the people who say things like that ever carry it to its logical conclusion. Okay, so you have a “say”– then what happens in the real world?
Then everyone suddenly sees the light, agrees with them in an instant, gives them a cookie and says ‘thank goodness you told me, otherwise I might have had to make a decision by MYSELF!’ And then a unicorn farts skittles at them. Or something.
I think you’ve got it in one!
Best use of “you’ll never understand until you’re a mom” on social media.
Haha, I hope I am not actually coming across that sanctimonious. 🙂 I had a college ethics professor who was not-so-secretly VERY Baptist and pro-life forbid the women in the class to appeal to the fact that pregnancy affects women more than men, because – he claimed – if you’re a woman who’s never been pregnant, you know nothing more about the topic than a man. God, he was the worst. So yeah, my actual position is “you’ll never understand unless you’re a woman,” not a mother. I’m just ultra-sensitive on account of all these bodily fluids.
oh, not at all! I think you are reclaiming that sentiment from sanctimonious people and using it for TOTAL ACCURACY.
and yeah, even as a cis woman who has never been pregnant & never intends to be, I know I’ve spent a whole lot more time thinking & reading about what might happen if I were. I was a little mind-blown when I brought up the subject with my male partner and he was like, kids? Huh, never really thought about it, just kind of assumed I’d have some one day. I truly hadn’t realized the extent to which cis dudes could just live for DECADES past puberty and not seriously think about that decision.
That is mind-blowing. And some of them (like my awful professor) don’t even know what they don’t know, you know? Like inhabiting a body that could get pregnant is no different from inhabiting one that can’t.
“Oh goody– then let me tell you all my rationally objective and not-at-all-lady-inflected opinions about circumcision and vasectomies!”
I’ve noticed that for cis dudes of the ” I just assumed” variety, baby-o’clock hits at about 45 years old.
heh, in the same conversation he said he’d always thought it would be nice to have some cute lil kiddos to run around with and read good books to…I was like, is that the only part of having kids you’ve pictured? HOW? Thankfully “I just assumed” in this case meant “ok, that’s an easy assumption to undo, because I never actually planned on it or anything.”
But seriously. Dudes. I had no idea how little thought you were capable of putting into this before being straight-up asked.
Dudes: Not Thinking Things Through Since…Forever
I remember having exactly that conversation when I was nineteen, with a twenty-five year old man who became a boyfriend. Two men in their mid-twenties, two women in their late teens. They were both shocked that we had both given thought to what age we would ideally want to have kids and what that meant for the career paths we would consider.
#notallwomen, of course! But certainly A LOT of women and other people with uteruses.
How illogical. Even if you accept his bad thinking and agree that you need to be personally affected by pregnancy to have an opinon, it follows that every woman exposed to risk of pregnancy has more insight into abortion. That would mean everyone who is fertile and has ever had a penis in their vag. Actually, it should include anyone with a fertile uterus no matter if they have sex with men or not, because there’s a non-zero risk of rape, meaning that every person with a fertile uterus is exposed to the risk of becoming pregnant. This criterion unfortunately excludes pretty much all men and includes most women (almost all women, since most are fertile at some point). Unfortunately.
edit: actually, we should also consider that fertile MEN/testicle people are biased in the opposite direction. They aren’t merely “not personally affected by risk of pregnancy” (like post-menopausal women), they are “people who can cause pregnancy in others and can gain something (children) from doing so”.
edit edit: actually we’re all biased since we were all born through pregnancy. The matter should be settled by an egg-laying species.
Almost snorted lunch through my nose when I read your second edit, just FYI.
I nominate the platypus.
I imagine trans men get it, though, even if most cis men don’t.
Thank god you posted something about this, because I’ve baaaaarely been holding myself back from posting about it. The big thing that’s got me raging right now is how anti-choice people will offer adoption as a feasible substitute for abortion. THEY ARE NOT SUBSTITUTES because–hello!–having a baby permanently changes your body. Forever.
Last summer, I had a D&C for a missed miscarriage. It was devastating; I wept in pre-op. A few hours later, I was eating ice cream on the couch and, aside from a few cramps, had no other physical symptoms. A month later I got my period; the next month, I was pregnant again.
I’ve also had two uncomplicated term pregnancies and two normal labors and deliveries. EVEN EASY PREGNANCIES PERMANENTLY ALTER YOUR BODY, OFTEN IN UNPLEASANT WAYS. Side effects from a D&C? None. Side effects from a year of carrying and birthing an entire human being? Many. MANY.
Rage. RAGE.
100% yes. I am currently almost 38 weeks pregnant with a much-wanted and uncomplicated pregnancy. If possible, it has made me even more strongly pro-choice than I already was. NO ONE should be forced to submit their bodies to the kind of hijacking that pregnancy entails against their will. Even with an uncomplicated pregnancy, I was puking every other day for 7 weeks, I had painful sciatica for about a month, and in the last week I’ve suddenly lost my physical equilibrium, falling or almost falling constantly. Not to mention the fatigue, the inability to sleep through the night, the way that affects my focus at work. And these are just the physical symptoms.
Pregnancy is also a social condition. People comment on your body and on the impending changes to your life all the time. Strangers, friends, colleagues, family. It is visible, at least after a certain point. It would be a tremendous burden to have to have those conversations every day and either have to lie (even by omission) or disclose that you intended to surrender the baby for adoption. Because that invites all kinds of other conversations and judgment.
Finally, of course, there’s the fact that surrendering babies for adoption is often extremely emotionally traumatic. Not always, of course – but while “post abortion syndrome” is a lie, post-adoption depression is very, very real.
In case you can’t tell, the language of “well she could *just* give the baby up for adoption” makes me ENRAGED. There is so much pain erased in that “just.”
So well said! I wish testimonials like yours were mass-distributed so they were common knowledge. I hate that this side of it gets buried.
I have an almost three-month-old and I love her more than anything and I want more but NOT YET because my body is still healing from her. And it’s gotta still heal for a while. And it was an easy, uncomplicated pregnancy and straightforward delivery. Also, as I type this, she has been breastfeeding for 22 minutes straight. Any anti-choice dudes wanna volunteer for that?
Totally. Adoption can be a great option for those who choose it (though hardly an easy happily-ever-after for a lot of people), but society has tried that whole “hide pregnant women away, force them to give birth and then take their babies from them” scheme and it doesn’t end well! For anyone!
(My sympathies to you for your miscarriage. That sounds so hard.)
I think the point you are missing here is that poor women’s bodies are there to make children for adoption by richer people. I genuinely think that is part of the thinking of anti-abortion people: they want abortion restricted because they believe that a biological economy where poor women (young women, mentally ill women, some women of colour) should be producing children for adoption by richer couples.
It’s like when people say, “they want to restrict access to contraception, they want to restrict abortion, they want to restrict welfare to single months, do they not realise things are contradictory huh huh huh” – no, they do want all these things restricted, and the answer is adoption. But then you look at the Magdalene laundries in Ireland and think, holy shit, it’s not just that adoption is the answer to an inevitable problem, adoption is the GOAL. The problem is created to that end.
So then what does that mean for women of colour, whose babies get adopted at MUCH lower rates. Whose baby may never get adopted, may be put into state and foster care where things are not great? She should still adopt out, right, because we can’t be bothered factoring her into the calculation of how to get babies?
(Not directed at you, Mary, obviously. Directed at the heinous people whose policy this is regardless of the endless suffering it causes.)
Exactly! Relatively small example, my sister completely lost her sense of smell with her first pregnancy. He’s 5 now and she still can’t smell anything and has a seriously reduced sense of taste. To me, that’s TERRIFYING. Kids are wonderful if you want them, but the sacrifice of bodily autonomy that a mother goes through cannot rightfully be coerced.
I have this thing, which I have been floating around in my head and which is not particularly well formed or even quite possibly any good, but it’s gotten to where every time I see the “or just give the baby up for adoption” I think “carrying a baby that you don’t want for someone else has been clearly defined as work which is worthy of (often substantial) compensation- that’s what surrogacy is all about. And forcing people to do work they don’t want to do with or without compensation is…well…slavery?” But I really don’t have a non-terrible way of saying that, so I, just…don’t know. Am not a fan of defining pregnancy as “work” for starters, although it is? Like I said, poorly formed. But I would very much like to have complete bodily autonomy, thank you very much.
My mom had to get an emergency D&C for a miscarriage when I was 6 (I just found out about this last year). If a doctor had sent her home to “see what happened,” or some of the other anti-choice BS you hear, she could have died.
One of my FB friends posted a hilarious aside to this ridiculous debate: “I cannot believe so many politicians are pro-defunding Planned Parenthood. Have they stopped to consider where their mistresses are supposed to get contraceptives or abortions?”
A+
http://pandawhale.com/post/49374/ashton-kutcher-b…
One of Tennessee’s grossest legislators, Scott Desjarlais, is getting this kind of ribbing a good bit now that it came out that despite his sanctimonious commitment to forced birth he pressured his mistress into an abortion.
Yep, my social media went down in a flame war last night. I really do try to keep a civil conversation going – I’m from a very small town, and I know that some of the people that are giving me shit are legit good people. I don’t feel obligated to back down, though, and I had a lot of support over my VERY basic statement, but it’s disheartening. Progress is slow, keep fighting, etc.
For those of you Toasties who live near a Kroger and have a Kroger card, you can set it up online so that it donates a percentage of dollars of your purchases to your nearest PP!!!!! This is relevant. IT COSTS YOU NOTHING and it can donate up to several hundred dollars a year to your local branch! I set mine up in, like, 4 minutes. https://www.kroger.com/communityrewards
Just did that! I used to donate to my old church, but re-enrolled now for Planned Parenthood. It must have my location set to Texas still, because the Gulf Coast one appeared. I thought about looking for the one closer to me now, in Oregon, but nah…the one in Texas probably needs it more.
Oh my gosh, thank you for letting me know about this. Done and done.
Here’s my thing about men having an ‘equal say’ in reproductive matters; the ones demanding it are usually assholes.
Most guys would get an equal say, because they are in a loving, respectful relationship. Yes accidents happen, and if you’re in a good relationship you can discuss it. Yes people can have different opinions and feelings, and ultimately the one carrying the baby has to make the final decision, but you should be able to talk about it together without anger or blame.
If you are a guy who is with a girl, and are worried that you would not get a ‘say’ in if she did/didn’t carry the baby, THAT’S A MASSIVE RED FLAG. Either you have some fucking issues about control and trust you need to work out, or you’re relationship needs some work. Maybe you should review the relationship before pregnancy becomes an issue at all?
Similarly if you’re a woman who’s worried about your partner’s reaction to your decisions, or what you would like to do, then maybe he’s not a good guy?
So yeah, the men demanding that they control abortion access for their partners etc, all they want is control. You should be aiming for a relationship where you can talk about these things and both of you are allowed to have feelings without punishment
Yes yes yes. I’ve never heard a decent guy talk in these terms of having a ‘say’. The ‘say’, for the shitty guys, seems to translate as ‘having ALL THE SAY’.
And it absolutely is about control, control of women’s bodies, control of women, period (Heh). A friend described a discussion she had about breastfeeding with a group of hetero couples, and one of the male partners maintained that the man must ‘have a say’ (there’s that phrase again) on the decision to breastfeed or not. He either said or strongly implied that men (him) would justified in cajoling or coercing their female partner to breastfeed even if they didn’t want to. His “justification” was that “it’s for the good of the child”. That’s not how it works, buddy. You don’t lactate, you don’t decide. I feel sorry for his partner 🙁
Oh, and apparently the guy is also anti-choice. WHY AM I NOT EVEN A TEENY BIT SURPRISED.
A lot of men seem to think that having a sayopinion = having the final say.
Pregnancy children is a unique case because while one person physically has to do it, there is usually another person involved whom it will effect massively. So decisions around continuing pregnancy, childbirth and lactation should consider the other person (if said person is not a colossal cunt about it), and both people are allowed to have feelings and opinions, but in the end it is about a body that belongs to one of the people, so both people do not necessarily get equal opinions.
It seems like maybe men are not used to their opinions not being the most important?
Personally I believe that all decisions around pregnancy children are private conversations for the couple and are nobody else’s fucking business. And if it so happens that the man is not in a position to be a respectful part of the conversation than it is the women’s choice what she does and all the control freaks and god-botherers need to fuck off and get a life.
mmmmmmhm. and it’s such a strawman argument too, like, yes, obviously the man should get a say (a SAY, not a legal right) in a loving respectful committed relationship. I don’t think any pro-choice woman is disputing that! but have you considered the vast, vast array of reasons a woman might not want any input from the dude who impregnated her? Probably not, probably because you are that guy…
and, oh, let me guess how many dudes who think potential fathers’ rights are so important also want to hook up with women they don’t know very well for casual sex. A lot?
I don’t think any woman would deny a committed partner a conversation around pregnancy! But why are these guys so obsessed with the hypothetical situation where they knock up a girl and don’t get to decide if they have a kid or not!
First, why not take some responsibility? Maybe stop pressuring girls into unprotected sex cause ‘it feels better’
And then have a look at the girls you’re sleeping with? Why don’t you trust them?
Fucking men. Honestly why can’t they just butt out sometimes!
And these guys are NEVER the guys who are going to be doing… I was going to say half the work, but lbr, they won’t be doing ANY of the work. Not just the ‘carrying a parasitic human inside of you’ work, but the feeding and changing and disciplining and caring for and getting up at night and making hard decisions about when to go back to work or what you can afford. These dudes are not going to be doing that.
Ugh. As a guy, fuck that guy. To the extent that I ever feel inclined to publicly inject my (unrequested and irrelevant) opinion into this debate, it’s to stress that as the person who is not currently pregnant, I have no goddamn business having an opinion on what a woman should do with her pregnancy, but she absolutely must have more than one option for how to handle it (in other words: being forced to carry a baby to term is not “choice”). Bodily autonomy trumps all.
My own social media space has been overwhelmingly pro-PP (with even people I follow who don’t usually talk about social politics stuff chiming in positively to my surprise and delight), but that may be because I only really use Twitter through a third-party client (Tweetbot), where it’s harder for drive-by randos to inject their ugly responses in a way that everyone who follows the original poster can see them. I sometimes really wish that platforms like G+ and Facebook allowed you to limit not just who can see a post, but who can comment on it, beyond just an indiscriminate on/off switch.
I’m lucky that my social media has all been “fuck those assholes who want to defund PP” (my social media isn’t usually such an echo-chamber, but I’m pretty lucky about it in this case)
I saw something in passing about Pink for PP today, so I quietly wore one of my five pink shirts to work today.
Most people I follow are pro-Planned Parenthood and pro-choice, so not horrible for me, but all the comfort for you and others who’ve had to scroll through “WHAT ABOUT THE (CIS) MENZ?!” and any pro-forced parenthood drivel.
(Friendly reminder to Toasties that trans men and dfab non-binary people are capable of pregnancy as well.)
This cuts to the bone. I really appreciate the Onion sometimes.
*trigger warning for emotional trauma following rape/incest*
New ‘Anti-Abortion Pill’ Kills Mother, Leaves Fetus Alive http://www.theonion.com/article/new-anti-abortion…
Pro-life advocates celebrated approval of the new anti-abortion drug UR-86 by the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday, calling it a “safe and effective method” for terminating pregnant women while leaving their unborn children unharmed.
…
Gender-equality advocates praised the introduction of the drug, calling it an “innovative solution” to the highly polarizing national abortion debate.
“This is a step forward for equality,” men’s rights activist Charles Hackett said. “For too long, women have had an unfair advantage in the outcome of a pregnancy. UR-86 levels the playing field for husbands and boyfriends across America.”
…
Yet critics say UR-86’s prescription-only status and the fact that most health insurance plans do not cover the drug limit its effectiveness, as it is not available to those who need it most.
“If people can’t afford the drug or get it prescribed on short notice, they’re not going to have enough time to act, especially when their wives want to end the pregnancy fast,” men’s issues commentator Stan Dynes said. “UR-86 should be made available over the counter as soon as possible. It’s the husband’s right to choose if this drug is right for him, and neither the government nor the medical elite should get in the way of that decision.”
oh.my.god. This, this is what satire is. Amazing. So horrifying. This is a masterpiece.
Not my social media, but only because all of my friends and family are Commie pinkos like myself.
An emphatic “yes” to everything else you said!
I… want to have sympathy for mentally ill people in academia but I really wish someone would write about mentally ill people in corporate America or the trades, who are treated the same way or worse, plus an additional load of sexism, racism, and homophobia most academics never have to contend with.
Right. I’m mentally ill, and when I was working, if I let people know that my frequent mood swings had a diagnosis, my decisions were immediately suspect. And then people would sometimes try to guess what my mood was, and they had me swinging from mania to depression over a period of a few minutes. I wasn’t Ella anymore, I was BipolarWoman. And don’t get me started about how Human Resources would try to limit my insurance coverage, cuz sometimes bp can be expensive what with meds and frequent doctor’s visits. On and on.
I think that mental illness in academia may be similar to mental illness in the healthcare field. It feels personal, because the job is so close to the disability. I was just as disabled when I worked blue collar jobs, but I feel more threatened now that I’m a student (in mental health care, no less). Before, I could keep my thoughts to myself while trying to do my job, but now I can’t, because my teachers judge and grade my thoughts, and what if there’s something “crazy” in there… That feels threatening, more threatening than before when my bosses judged my work. That’s just me though.
Depending on where you are in academia, there is plenty of sexism, racism, and homophobia. Not sure why you think there isn’t?
ETA: In my experience a lot of academics like to be self-congratulatory about being more enlightened than the corporate sector, while behaving in ways (both in terms of institutional policy and individual interactions) that are as bad as you see anywhere.
I have only been in academia and not the corporate sector, so I’m not here to argue about which is worse, but I just want to confirm betsaroo’s statement that racism and sexism are definitely a major thing in academia (my experience is in the sciences, fwiw).
Not arguing against your call for attention to the corporate sector and the trades… Just a warning not to believe the academics who will tell you they have somehow transcended all that shit.
I am a Woman of Color who has GAD and is a history professor. Before I went back to school, I worked for a large corporation, and for the US government. My experience is that I deal with much more sexism and racism, both subtle and overt, in academia than I ever did in either corporate or government work.
I am a private person, and I have never felt the need to disclose my GAD, but I’m certain that the consequences for my tenure file would be nothing but negative, even though that’s in violation of many US labor laws.
I see a really disproportionate number of articles about “_____ in academia” and I generally assume that it’s because people in academia are more inclined to address a problem by writing a paper about it, not because those problems are in any way unique to that sector. But yeah, I think it’s worth pointing out that this stuff is way, way bigger than any one job category.
Re: the Lime Crime article. Hands up if you find the idea of the online knitting community doxxing someone absurd, terrifying, and “aw, how cute! What are you going to do, crochet me a blankie to dry my tears?” cute AT THE SAME TIME.
Are you on Ravelry? I haven’t seen anyone being doxxed, but I would be ASTOUNDED if it hasn’t happened. And, I know of at least 2 people who have separately faked their own deaths on Ravelry for various reasons–I think one was to get out of fulfilling orders to a yarn club. Knitters can be crazy.
What! That is like the perfect modern Miss Marple mystery.
“A Deadly Yarn” by Agatha Christie
“Baa Baa, Black Sheep,” a Miss Marple mystery. The BBC adaptation has a repeated refrain of a creepy children’s choir singing the nursery rhyme.
I am always shocked by the occasional weirdly hostile response to a forum question on Ravelry.
OMG, faking your own death on Ravelry is SO NERDY I LOVE IT.
Back in ye olde days of the intertubes, Ravelry showed up every so often on the stupid_free site and its spin off, sf_drama at livejournal. (Although they seemed not as volatile as the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab fan/swap communities.)
Ravelry wank was some of THE BEST wank back then, short of food wank.
I still remember the frosting vs icing wank, even if I can’t remember what the context was, or why it mattered SO VERY MUCH.
Context was out of control Harry Potter fanfic wank about using US terms instead of UK in fic: as usual SF_D decided to refight the battle in comments.
Olive Garden wank was my favorite food wank even though it got way nasty for no reason.
Why do I still remember these things.
ah, my wasted youth…
SF_d has been popping up all over the place recently. I made a lost_kite joke this week. In 2015. *hides in shame*
I asked someone if they’d heard of Lilenth!
SHE’S ON TWITTER.
I made a Silver Ravenwolf joke last week. Nobody got it.
Thank heaven for that.
It makes me feel like a college alum at a reunion, trying to impress the current students with how cool and with it I was lo, these many years ago.
OMG LOST_KITE. LOVECRAFTY NEXT!
*ahem*
I’m half convinced Lovecrafty was V*x D*y.
Where are the trolls of yesteryear?
I’m thankfully out of the current troll loop, since I’ve been neglecting LJ (except for Cleo’s journal). Does he froth and rage and go on about his genius?
He’s an SFF troll rather than an LJ troll (was behind much of this year’s attempt to game the Hugo awards), but yes.
That was amazing. British v American English communities often spiral into amazing amounts of wank, and it can be highly entertaining.
It takes a truly irrelevant topic to generate that much anger. If it’s something that matters, people will wind up getting too angry to type, is my theory.
There is all kinds of crazy stuff that goes on on Ravelry. There’s even a group just for watching the craziness.
As others have testified, it got VICIOUS like only internet dramz can.
Also, HEALTH MONTH TOASTIES, is the Toast team registered to play for October? I missed out on September’s game because I forgot to confirm my rules before the 1st (which is a silly requirement, I think) but I want to get back into it and it is so much easier to stay motivated if I’m in the team rather than by myself.
whoa, I’d reactivate my Health Month sub for a toast team!
What is this and how can I sign up?
It’s a little gamified habit thingy, where you set up rules for yourself — drink enough water 3x a week, go for a run every day, etc. — and then absolutely nothing happens to you if you don’t meet them. But there are teams/groups and if the group is active enough, it can be really great to have the team support.
It’s free for up to 3 rules, and then $5 after that, but I have a ton of sponsorships so if you want, just request sponsorship as part of your rules creation, and I’ll sponsor you (if nobody else gets to you first). Here’s the link to join our group http://www.healthmonth.com/teams/1179
Ah I have been off the wagon but I’ll set it up for October!
Edit: ok, set up for October: http://www.healthmonth.com/teams/1179
TAMAL. I hope he finds a lovely boyfriend who appreciates him.
I love both Tamal and Nadiya dearly. In baking news in my own life, I am currently eating a slice of Irene Dunne’s chocolate and vinegar cake, made by my deskmate who makes recipes by Hollywood stars. It’s amazing and the recipe is weird. Only 60g of butter, 5 tsp of vinegar, only 56g of chocolate and a lot of sugar and flour. Such little fat! Such a light and fluffy cake!
I love them both so much. I don’t know who I want to win, because they are both lovely.
Me neither. Sometimes I think Nadiya possibly edges it – when that guy baked his royal icing decorations instead of refrigerating them, her anguished wail was EVERYTHING. But then I always like the sound of Tamal’s food ever so slightly better, which I suppose is the point.
I think Nadiya is a bit more experimental/unconventional with her bakes than Tamal, which I think works in her favour (but Paul and Mary are sometimes sniffy about it) – I think she’s a slightly better baker than Tamal. But Tamal is also very good, and lovely, so I don’t want to root for one over the other.
I think after last night’s show that Nadiya deserves a win more. That peacock!!!
vinegar?
oh I cant wait for fall break when I can go back to my kitchen. Until then, live vicariously through GBBO.
Yeah! I suppose the vinegar reacts with the raising agent and that makes the cake rise. The cake does not taste acidic at all. She’s sandwiched it together with her award-winning homemade gooseberry jam. She is the best deskmate ever.
Can we talk about Kim Davis, the Pope, and if that did or didn’t happen?
It probably was a brief meet-n-greet with others included that the Vatican didn’t feel was important enough to put on the official itinerary. Kim Davis, slimey attorneys, et al felt the need to go straight to the press and rub everyone’s noses in it. Vatican probably wants to keep it on the down low (because Francis seems to operate like that) but Davis et al is incapable of the smallest bit of humility, grace or keeping the sacred sacred.
I don’t really care whether she met with the Pope or not but I DESPISE rub-it-in-your-face christians like Davis and her ilk.
She’s no different from the Pharisees, tbh. She’s done what she’s done (from her overt heterosupremacy to now) for the attention, the fame. I await her comeuppance.
this is one of those things that, as a non-Catholic person who does not want Davis to have any more attention than she’s already gotten, just makes me so angry that it is IN THE NEWS like we should ALL CARE ABOUT IT OR SOMETHING. Now I have OPINIONS on something so beyond ridiculous, where did THOSE come from.
I maintain that we crossed over from real life into a bad parody sometime early in the GWBush years.
I don’t understand why an evangelical protestant would put a high premium on meeting the Pope? The head of her cult, yes, but the Pope? Eh?
Because she and her lawyers know he’s popular with her enemies. :/ Like others said, they’re bragging to rub it in the faces of those they’ve been kicking all this time.
Apparently both her parents are practicing Catholics.
I feel like if they did actually meet, whatever he said, she is most likely editing it to make it support her views. I sort of doubt the pope would actually tell her she was right.
Eh, he did say elsewhere that he supports conscientious objection. And so do I, but that should have resulted in her quitting her job, not in refusing to do her job.
Yes, exactly.
My roommate burst in on my morning coffee this morning (first mistake) to tell me about this. Supposedly the Pope met her and told her to keep up the good fight. Even supposing that is what happened, I bet he had no fucking clue who she was.
I’m mostly annoyed that he met with her but not Stephen Colbert.
Stephen is an actual practising catholic, too! (at least, afaik)
Stephen Colbert TEACHES SUNDAY SCHOOL to this day.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/prom…
Mental illness in academia… yep, that’s me. I post in the open thread sometimes. I feel myself wanting to disclose all the time, but when I do disclose that I’m disabled (I don’t name it) it’s not great.
Also, my teachers are psychologists! I’m really scared that they (and my fellow students) can diagnose me… That happened once, actually, so it’s not an unfounded fear. My disability is super obvious and also pretty well known, because ADD is really common, I’m just “more” disabled than many other people with ADD. Or so I’ve been led to believe, at least. I’m really really not OK, even though I take my pills and use my calendars and apps and whatnot. And if you know anything about psychiatry and you’re dealing with a person who can’t show up on time and keeps screwing up details, you suspect ADD, and you’d be right.
Ugh, it feels like I don’t have any walls or boundaries. It’s like anyone can just take a look or walk around inside my head without my permission. I can’t even be closeted, my weaknesses bleed through and embarrass me.
I don’t work in academia, but I do have ADHD, and yeah. I’m super open about it everywhere but work!
OH Tamal, so so charming. Hope he finds a great boy who wants to reminisce about and rank sandwiches with him
I really wish there was a way to talk about “mental illness” that made it sound different. Like a non-stigmatized term. Like, “I have serotonin reuptake syndrome, for which I take daily medication, NBD.” Something that makes it sound really MEDICAL and not something where people will suggest things like “have you tried yoga/prayer/leading a less stressful life?”
“Serotonin reuptake syndrome” This is CRAZY GENIUS. And i am promptly stealing and using it.
Let’s make it a thing!
i am 100% on board with this.
Oh if only. People still suggest yoga/prayer/less stress/kale for physical disabilities, because people are awful.
“You just need to relax and be confident!” Oh, okay. I never considered fixing my anxiety by just. . .not being anxious, but by gum, it just might work!
Yes PLEASE. Make it technical. Make it nerdy. Make it so imposing that no one dares argue.
How about “sustained dysphoria disorder”. Or maybe CEDS – “cognitive-emotional dysfunction syndrome”. Stick an “intermittent” on there if you want, or “recurring” if that’s you. “Episodic executive functioning and mood regulation disorder”?
Wait, how about “[major/intermittent/recurring/chronic] monoamine dysregulation syndrome”? Now we’re talking!
(serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine are all monoamines and major players in depression)
But, as far as I know we haven’t actually found anything wrong with depressed people’s amount of serotonin or serotonin reuptake. SSRIs just work anyway! Why?? Nobody knows.
except when they don’t work!
i’m still really annoyed at the grauniad for that article and it was only confirming my own experiences, that many of the famous SSRIs might not have an actual effect (but they didn’t look at the studies for all of them, and didn’t look at SNRIs at all)
why am i annoyed with it? i don’t even know. maybe i liked having a Reason and Explanation for things.
Super interesting new (to me) podcast I’m listening to called “Science Vs” (like, versus) – the most recent one I heard was Science Vs Happiness, and it was basically looking at how much the whole, “Try to be happier, keep a journal, smile more, be less stressed” is an actual way to feel better or just a bunch of b.s. Good stuff. And Australian. Yum. 😀
Oh my gosh, automotive is a very conservative industry. At least that’s the impression I got when I used to work automotive events at my old job. It’s a real old boys club too, if my impressions were accurate. I feel for you, a lot.
WHAT. I mean, seriously? THERE IS NOT AN APP FOR THAT. NO ONE WHO HAS ANY OTHER DISEASE HAS EVER CURED IT BY AN APP, WHY WOULD SEROTONIN REUPTAKE SYNDROME BE CURED BY AN APP?” I’m seriously going to start using that. Except that I want to erase the stigma attached to mental illness, and if I can’t disclose mine as a somewhat securely employed person in a professional field, who can?
“I broke my leg the other day, but then I used an app! Then I ran a marathon the next day!”
Oh, I don’t have depression (…right now…), I have ADD, which fortunately is completely curable through the use of “an app”. Any app will do. In fact any system of writing will do! You may, for example, use a list or a calendar. The humble list has cured ADD for ten thousand years, allowing users to quickly jot down the number of oxen arriving for the sacrifice instead of embarrassing themselves in their pre-game meeting with the High Priest of Ur.
No, for depression, you need something more substantial, obviously. You need to bring out the big guns… you need to take “a walk”
Oh, Nicole Cliffe! This is just to say that, while I do not have time to do the MOOC, I told my mother about it and she is THRILLED.
yaaay!!!!
And remember that there’s a Toasties group!
Wait what where??
I think this is the right link:
https://novoed.com/how-writers-write-fiction-2015…
a thousand thanks
Thank you for this!
I am an Iowa grad (no, you haven’t heard of me) and had too many time/personal neuroses to check it out, but I hope it ends up being really cool.
As an Iowan keeping an eye on the shitshow which has been the UIowa Presidential search, I am wary of this MOOC business. Also, I might be an Old.
The “UIowa Presidential appointment,” I believe you meant to say. (Also Iowan here.)
I’m doing the MOOC *and* I got this rather amazing mint-condition carved liquor cabinet for free. It’s not art deco, but I am very excited about stocking it:
You know how people going to gastric bypass or lap band surgery make plans for that elaborate final meal before surgery? (Or, at least, people I know who have had it done have done so.)
I’m making plans for all the foods I’m going to eat when I’m on the other side of this. It’s practically a Pinterest board.
How are you feeling? Was thinking of you today.
Today was actually pretty cruddy. Like used-three-bags-on-my-commute kind of cruddy. I am currently sitting in my house, where my daughter has left half a banana from her dinner on the table 20 ft away and the smell is nauseating me. (It doesn’t help that I tried to consume a banana last night and it bounced right back out of my stomach.)
I never want to hear anyone talk about how “natural” pregnancy and childbirth are. Ever. My body HAAAAAAAAATES being pregnant.
I have discovered from today’s issue of The Guardian that “Netflix and chill” does not mean what I assumed it did. As someone who spends most of her evenings indulging in the literal meaning of the phrase, I am disappointed. (Also, I am useless at keeping abreast of the zeitgeist.) http://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2015/s…
I knew what the ‘slang’ meant, but I too indulge in the literal meaning of the phrase every night so I mostly ignore the slang meaning, haha.
I discovered this thanks to an article somewhere a few weeks ago, and that was the moment that clinched it: I am now definitely An Old.
I feel like I’ve only even been aware of the phrase for a week or two, and yet I’m still wrong. I am An Old. (I am 25.)
I am the same age and only just found out what this phrase means. Yaaaaaaay.
I overheard a bunch of young women conversing last night and they were saying stuff like, yeah, I gotta just relax sometimes, I NEED my netflix & chill at least once or twice a week.
And I’m like, wait, I thought it meant hooking up? Are they literally talking about needing a night in by themselves? Or are they sitting there in public discussing their sex schedules???
THIS SLANG IS AWKWARD
Yeah, the article joked in passing about a discrepancy between what dudes want to think that means,and what ladies want to think it means, in a hurr hurr “ladies don’t really want sex but dudes want it all the time AMIRITE” kind of way. I thought it was a pretty gross way of pointing out the awkwardness of people in general not using their words like adults.
…oh. A lot of memes I’ve seen make more sense now.
So, my subscription to a “Best of Tumblr” tumblr has really helped me keep a tad more abreast of The Youngs and Their Memes. And that means I derived a different meaning around this one than the writers of The Guardian. Namely, the both the literal meaning and the silliness of people being indirect about hooking up get used all at once and humor is found in the empty spaces. (As always, the “jokes” with only a single meaning aren’t really even close to humorous at all.)
Of course, now it’s on you all to explain John Cena back to me.
Well, to be more accurate, by “a lot of memes” I actually mean “that thing where someone rewrote Catullus 5 with fake!latin verbs for “netflix” and “chill” (except that they didn’t bother to make it scan, so what’s the point, really). And my reaction was, “I mean, sure? I guess watching Netflix is a thing that Catullus might do if he was on the internet…?”
I think I love you.
So what’s the new slang for actually staying in and watching Netflix? Help a girl out here.
I would suggest calling it “having casual sex”, just to drive the confusion in the opposite direction.
“slutting it up”
oh god damn it you guys, do I really have to Google “netflix and chill” at work? Or ask my students? Come ooooonnnn.
It’s like when you used to ask someone “wanna come up for some coffee?” and you weren’t talking about actual coffee.
Or “come and see my etchings” I think that’s even older!
One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons: “You stay here, I’ll bring the etchings down.”
Also I’m on twitter pretty much all the time but I had never heard of “netflix and chill,” I figure it’s one of those things that “everybody knows about” for the purposes of writing a trend piece.
I like this one because then the next day your friends can ask you ‘how was the coffee?’ and you can say ‘cold and bitter’. Or ‘hot and delicious!’
When I first heard it I thought it was Cockney rhyming slang*, so.
*Not sure for what exactly, I hadn’t gotten that far.
I mean ‘Watching Movies’ has been a euphemism for years with me.
I mean it is a handy way to make sure you don’t have to go out on a ‘date’. The sooner I can get to the ‘just come to my house, we’ll watch a movie and then have sex’ part of the relationship the better!
It used to be ‘Lets hang out ;)’
The boy and I used to “watch Dexter” a lot when we first got together. In all fairness, we did watch some episodes of Dexter. Have to spend that refractory period some way or other after all…
I made my boyfriend start watching Buffy from the beginning when we first got together, and refused to let him kiss me during important bits “because you’ll miss stuff”. We have been together six and a half years, so it amazingly failed to put him off.
GUYS the Toronto Zoo has a PREGNANT PANDA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgTm5HIDZ0M
edinburgh zoo is going to be SO MAD WITH JEALOUSY.
I’m repeating a comment I made earlier, but if you live near a Kroger you can set up your Kroger card to donate money to local organizations, including Planned Parenthood or local animal shelters, and it costs you NOTHING.
It takes like, 3 minutes, and even if you’re not down with PP you can view a list of eligible organizations, and the eligible list in my area also included stray pet adoption organizations and a local women’s shelter. If many people do this, it could really help out a local branch of whatever nonprofit you choose! https://www.kroger.com/communityrewards
Cool! We don’t have Krogers here, but I passed this on to my people who live in Krogers land.
You can also do this with Amazon – it’s called Amazon Smile. I’ve got mine set up to support the local Planned Parenthood as well. I think this link might work? https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/change/ref=smi_c…
Ah, Lime Crime history. Such a classic internet tale. My first thought upon reading that article was “Aww, I miss Lipstick and Lightsabers!”; Anastasia spoke to my inner glam nerd. Also, Phyrra continues to be an awesome beauty blogger and anyone interested in weird lipstick colours and/or poodles should check her out.
TOASTS have you heard about this horrifying app that’s coming out soon that’s being called the “Yelp for people”??!?!? People can rate you whether you want them to or not! How could this POSSIBLY go wrong?
whut
I imagine it will be populated only by the same set of people who join yelp just to rant about the pizza place that gave them bad service that one time. as in, it will be a godawful festering cesspool but most people will just be like “what’s that? Never heard of it.”
isn’t it turning into a vicious gossip outlet to be shared with strangers basically it going right?
I mean, what else is the intended purpose, here, this is like The Social Network but for middle school mean girls
Oh my god, it’s like someone took this comedy sketch from LoadingReadyRun seriously.
I feel completely underwhelmed by this idea. We already had Hot or Not, Tinder, and Rate My Professor. I ain’t scared of no rates! 😛
<< Positive ratings post immediately; negative ratings are queued in a private inbox for 48 hours in case of disputes. If you haven’t registered for the site, and thus can’t contest those negative ratings, your profile only shows positive reviews. >>
Welp, never gonna sign up for that.
It sounds like a slam book. As someone who tried to review the pre-Baby-sitters Club “classic” Slam Book by Ann M. Martin and could only express myself through increasingly appalled lolcats, I do not approve.
Our* new puppy is getting so tall!
*Fine, Carrie’s
I mean, just because they’re going to be doing risky things in the future is no reason that they should be taking unnecessary risks now? My dad always talks about* how back when he was in training– not even academy, but like “we’re about to hand you a gun” training, they used to limit the amount of water that Marines could drink during endurance exercises in order to acclimate people to harsh battlefield conditions. But getting hurt isn’t something you can acclimate to– you either get hurt now or you do it later. They discontinued that policy because people were getting seriously injured and even dying from dehydration. I don’t see why they can’t do the same thing with concussions.
*Naturally, this comes from some very Dad Magazine-esque lectures about drinking enough water
**god damn, obviously meant as a reply to GruntledDave
Yeah, I don’t think you can really “get used to” being hit in the head, nor is there any point in trying to do so– you just end up with more potential neurological damage and long-term problems.
Awesome article here on adopting your first pet – http://blog.allstate.com/htf-adopting-first-pet/