Enjoy your reproductive rights while you can:
Senate Republicans are expected to achieve two goals on Thursday that have long eluded them — they’ll pass a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood and repeals the Affordable Care Act. The House has managed to vote more than 50 times to repeal all or part of the health care law, but it’s always been tougher in the Senate, where Republicans don’t have the 60 votes needed to pass bills Democrats oppose. This year, they’ll have a special procedure at their disposal to get around that.
But first, let’s make it very clear — nothing that happens on the Senate floor this week will ever actually become law, because any bill that repeals the Affordable Care Act and defunds Planned Parenthood is going to get vetoed by the president.
Emphasis mine: it’ll get vetoed by THIS president. He ain’t the president for much longer.
‘‘The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning’’ is the title of an essay Claudia Rankine wrote for The New York Times Magazine after the Charleston church massacre. Sitting with her essay in front of me, I asked myself what the condition of white life might be. I wrote ‘‘complacence’’ on a blank page. Hearing the term ‘‘white supremacist’’ in the wake of that shooting had given me another occasion to wonder whether white supremacists are any more dangerous than regular white people, who tend to enjoy supremacy without believing in it. After staring at ‘‘complacence’’ for quite a long time, I looked it up and discovered that it didn’t mean exactly what I thought it meant. ‘‘A feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements’’ might be an apt description of the dominant white attitude, but that’s more active than what I had in mind. I thought ‘‘complacence’’ meant sitting there in your house, neither smug nor satisfied, just lost in the illusion of ownership. This is an illusion that depends on forgetting the redlining, block busting, racial covenants, contract buying, loan discrimination, housing projects, mass incarceration, predatory lending and deed thefts that have prevented so many black Americans from building wealth the way so many white Americans have, through homeownership. I erased ‘‘complacence’’ and wrote ‘‘complicity.’’ I erased it. ‘‘Debt,’’ I wrote. Then, ‘‘forgotten debt.’’
She lost her six year-old brother at Sandy Hook, and not much has changed:
Whenever I feel discouraged, much like I do today, I think of Noah. I am reminded of how full of life he was, how funny and mischievous, and how he deserved to go to school and come home safely. I think about his twin sister, who was in a classroom across the hall during the shooting. I think about how she has to live the rest of her life without him.
I did not watch The Wiz: Live! bc there’s no point to doing anything you can’t tweet about (I just drank some scotch and watched Trainwreck instead, bc my mom had just seen it and, despite having not dated since the late 1970s, informed me it was “very realistic,” and now I have so many questions about my mom in the late 1970s.) Tell me about your thoughts on The Wiz: Live! at the current time.
(Trainwreck is good so far, but I had more scotch than usual! I just started trying scotch, it’s pretty gross. Ron Swanson lied to me.)
More than a hundred years ago, the hapless traveler might have encountered a supernatural hound on the grounds of England’s Dartmoor National Park. This moody, quiet moorland inspired one famous mystery writer to pen a tale about the family Baskerville. Today, however, joyriders around Dartmoor more likely to encounter another frightening sight: a glow-in-the-dark pony.
A new pilot project in the southwestern English town involves a fluorescent strip of paint used to protect the native ponies from dangerous drivers.
Public Enemy hitches a ride to their own concert with a fan:
“They were such nice guys, we had a right laugh,” Wells told The Telegraph of the ride. “We were chatting away, but the phone was constantly going as their management were clearly worried.”
At one point during the drive, they were all belting “Bohemian Rhapsody”. “Then as we were coming through Attercliffe, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, by Queen, came on the radio,” Wells said. “Everyone was singing the words and rocking out in the back of my car, it was like a Wayne’s World moment. I was looking in the rear view mirror thinking, ‘Is this actually happening?’”
The Mary Sue takes on the Kilgrave fandom with gentle probing instead of INSTANT HORROR AND JUDGMENT like I do, which is prob for the best (also, I was very pleased with the final episode, if someone wants to start a thread for spoilers):
The problem is actually much, much bigger than the tiny Kilgrave fandom, although some of the attitudes within that fandom seem to be symptoms of this larger systemic issue. And that issue is, these are the only types of relationships that we see. It’s not that individual women and young girls are “problematic” or “fucked up” because they want to believe in these “reformed abuser” narratives – it’s that these narratives are everywhere, so how can we possibly blame anyone for believing in them? Fandoms exist for real-life serial killers, sure – but also, real-life abusive relationships and gaslighting happen every day.
My girl Lisa Hix (we have never spoken, I just love her stuff at Collectors Weekly) Skyped with the Victorian couple you know and don’t love from a few months back:
Collectors Weekly: I’m curious about your grooming routines. Do you wear deodorant?
Sarah: I wear a salt-base deodorant. In terms of washing, I wash with a bowl and pitcher every morning. When I wash my hair, I get into the clawfoot bathtub, and I use castile soap from a company that’s been around since 1837, a bar of soap that I have to lather up. The castile-soap trick is one I got from a ladies’ magazine from 1889. I’ve found that because it gets my hair so much cleaner than modern shampoos, the hair is not as slippery, and it’ll stay in the Victorian updos is a lot better.
Gabriel: I don’t wear deodorant, and I never have. It’s no particular change for me. When we wash our clothes, our outer garments, we wash them a lot less frequently than modern people wash their clothes. It just isn’t required. It wears the clothes out.
Sarah: I have quite a few undergarments. I don’t think most modern people wash their winter coat every single day because it’s not contacting the skin very much. Because all our clothes are made out of natural fibers, the fabrics breathe very well. It’s not like a synthetic fiber. Polyester doesn’t breathe and builds up sweat. That’s why synthetic clothes get very stinky.
Gabriel: Wool, especially, is amazing. You can wear wool week after week and never wash it; it’s fine.
O REALLY, GABRIEL? Also, they don’t approve of women’s suffrage, I could read this all daaaaaay. THEY ARE MY OBSESSSSSSSSSION.
I love Ask a Manager updates more than life:
Remember the reader whose coworker kept calling her “baby mama” after she returned from maternity leave, even going so far as to refer to her as another coworker’s “baby mama”? (And that other coworker was simply another person he disliked, not the father of the letter-writer’s child.) Here’s the update — and it doesn’t end up where you think it will!
No one would be more delighted at the coconut’s rising star than August Engelhardt, a sun-worshipping German nudist and history’s most radical cocovore.
From 1902 to 1919, Engelhardt lived on a beautiful South Pacific island, eating nothing but the fruit of Cocos nucifera, which he believed was the panacea for all mankind’s woes. Except that a coconut mono-diet proved to be a terrible idea. At the end of his life, der Kokovore was reduced to a mentally ill, rheumatic, severely malnourished sack of bones with ulcers on his legs. He was only 44.
this story is great, but also my Chrome plugin helps make it PARTICULARLY good for me:
In 1902, Engelhardt boarded a ship with his library of books and sailed to the Bismarck Archipelago (now Papua New Guinea), where he bought a plantation on the island of Kabakon. He built himself a thatched hut, began to trade in Klingon bloodwine, and prepared to establish his cult, called Sonnenorden (Order of the Sun).
On WH Auden’s poem about blowin’ dudes (it is not euphemistic in nature, it is straight-up about blowin’ dudes, bless him):
I admired the texture, the delicate wrinkles and the neat
Sutures of the capacious bag. I adored the grace
Of the male genitalia. I raised the delicious meat
Up to my mouth, brought the face of its hard-on to my face.
The ban on gun violence research is so laughable and ridiculous and bad, it seems difficult to fathom it’s actually a discussion.
Autostraddle’s top twenty queer and/or feminist books of 2015!
American women can now (officially) serve in all combat roles previously closed to them, which is great, and I also hope this helps motivate the various branches of the military to work on their MASSIVE sexual assault problem, which impacts male and female victims alike:
The decision opens the military’s most elite units to women who can meet the rigorous requirements for the positions for the first time, including in the Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces and other Special Operations Units. It also opens the Marine Corps infantry, a battle-hardened force that many service officials had openly advocated keeping closed to female service members.
“There will be no exceptions,” Carter said. “This means that, as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before.”
Matt “Ofjaya” Lubchansky did this great short story for Vice, I love it. I love Matt, obviously, so I am biased, but it’s also really good.
Ruth Graham gives a helpful dose of reality to that weird Atlantic piece about “prayer-shaming” (in related news, “…-shaming” is my least favourite formulation):
And let’s be clear: This week’s prominent “prayer shamers” aren’t really against prayer. They’re against platitudes. The problem is when “thoughts and prayers” are the only response to a public event that calls for political action. It’s hard to imagine that even the most dedicated atheist objects to Ted Cruz kneeling by his bed at night to pray for the victims of yesterday’s shooting. What Cruz chooses to do in his bedroom is his own business. The issue is that politicians like him continue to offer thoughts and prayers and nothing else: no assault weapons ban, no universal background checks, no federal gun registry.
Choire on the future of men’s locker rooms (I am SUCH a proponent of individual shower stalls, which more women-centric gyms are going for these days, while men’s locker rooms still so frequently look like the shower scene in Carrie, minus the blood, so I am definitely Team Millennial here in many respects):
But gyms are still unable to provide the one thing younger men in particular seem to really want: a way for them to shower and change without actually being nude.
Each day, thousands upon thousands of men in locker rooms nationwide struggle to put on their underwear while still covered chastely in shower towels, like horrible breathless arthropods molting into something tender-skinned. They writhe, still moist, into fresh clothes.
no but thank you:
Gabriel: I was originally studying computer science until I realized that I didn’t like what the technology was doing to people. I didn’t like the fact that everything was becoming these impenetrable black boxes that taught you nothing in and of themselves. I wanted to pursue and study the transparent technology that I saw as being a gateway to learning, that encouraged people to explore, to try things, and to fix things themselves..
Neither of us identify with the -isms because we don’t want to be blanketed in with other people. We have our individual set of opinions, and we don’t care if there’s a group out there that shares them.
And he never uses deodorant. What a prize this gentleman is
Also, Sarah: All that’s down there is the digestive system. It’s made up of very thin, hollow organs. Think latex thin, like sausage casings, which are animal intestines. The only thing giving them their shape—ahem!—is semi-digested food, to put it delicately.
…I can’t put my finger on it, but something about that doesn’t sound right to me…
Are there not muscles in the intestines? Or are they really just sausages through which food only moves by the power of gravity?
You literally have an entire branch of the nervous system (the enteric branch) dedicated to your digestive system. There’s a whoooooole lot more down there than “hollow tubes”
mmm, gravity sausages…
So if you fed someone a ton of sausage and then pulled out their intestines and twisted them into links you could make more sausages? To feed to someone else… It would be sausages all the way down.
Sausage back and forth forever.
It’s sausag-ception.
I don’t really want to read this piece, but now I am dying to know why the shape of the digestive system even came up in the discussion.
Also, if she’s so Victorian, then why is latex the first comparison she comes up with? I know the Victorians knew rubber and natural latex existed, but it still sounds jarring.
It’s in relation to her wearing a corset 24/7. Basically she’s like “as long as you keep your parts down there in the same shape all the time, it feels great!”. But of course, she didn’t start wearing them until Gabriel bought her one after SHE EXPLICITLY TOLD HIM NOT TO
Separate spheres, dontcha know. Clearly deciding what a woman should wear is firmly in the male sphere.
Just slogging through this read now and my face looks like I have been sucking on a lemon but may permanently be in this position after getting to that gem. What.
He gave her a corset as a birthday present. That’s all you need to know.
I gave my partner a corset for her birthday, but you know, we admit we’re kinky.
Also, I wasn’t explicitly told not to, and she sure as hell doesn’t wear it most of the time.
THEY ARE MALLORY’S SEX ALIENS
THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH.
I have this link open and haven’t read it yet, but this is my face right now: O_o
I can’t wait to see what my face does when I’m finished reading….
As I suspected, I am maybe 3 paragraphs in and already EXHAUSTED by these two. Blegh.
i got sucked into doing a full read before having even had breakfast or my first cup of tea. i now find my energy stores fully depleted. help! send sandwiches!
Weirdly enough, I am about to leave work and pick up some sandwiches for an afternoon planning session. What would you like? I imagine there may be some damage in shipping, though.
I just read Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age, which is way in the future where it’s the new “in” thing to join the New Victorians and wear top hats and such. Only the men work, and the women stay home and work out all day so they can fit into their corsets. So depressing that a zillion years into a sci-fi future, people would still be doing that to themselves.
I read this when I was far too young to actually notice the implications of this. REALLY? THIS WAS A THING?
I find myself incredibly disappointed in Neal Stephenson, right now.
Yeah. Plus, there were underground orgies (with only one rogue Victorian) that ended in the ritual sacrifice of a woman, so that was fun. Plus side, though – the heroine was great!
Well, the whole setup of the novel is that this society is economically successful but culturally disappointing, so someone decides to reinvent subversion. I read it a few years ago and it never struck me as an argument for actually going back to Victorian mores, just an exploration of what that might look like and under what circumstances it might happen.
Well it ends with them admitting that they don’t have to explain this to their friends because they don’t have any. Is there an emoticon for schadenfreude?
There really, really should be. For this and other similar situations.
I laughed so hard at “We can’t get any of our friends to come over and play parlour games with us” like, DUH. I mean, I feel kind of bad, because they do seem kind of lonely based on that interview, but it’s their own fault for being completely insufferable.
So much wrong with this. I just…ugh.
Series of tubes series of tubes!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I cringed so, so much while reading this!
Uh. No. Clearly said by said by someone who doesn’t actually eat like a Victorian. Sausage casings are thin because they are treated and stretched out. Intestines are complex organs. They’ve got muscles to mix and move the food–they’re like a tube of toothpaste that squeezes itself. They’re lined with tiny projections called villi that increase absorption area. And there’s nerves, blood vessels, lymph vessels all connected in. And probably a lot more that I don’t know about.
Also semi-digested food is pretty much a liquid most of the time. Wait, does she think that shit is moved through the large intestines by gravity?
Maybe she spends her after-meal hours slowly rotating herself so her food makes it through the large intestine loop?
We can only hope.
I guess being largely ignorant about the human body is historically accurate, if they really want to be Victorians…
They were talking about health care, clearly they have not watched The Knick (I mean I know they haven’t ’cause no TV, but they should really watch The Knick).
But they have Skype!! 🙂
True, they have internet access. So they should torrent The Knick.
The Victorians definitely knew more than that. These folks are, like, William Harvey-era, at the very latest.
Sarah: I have a lot more sympathy with Frances Cleveland [wife of President Grover Cleveland] and the anti-suffrage movement. They felt strongly that women had a lot of power, which they would lose if they got the vote. It ties into the concept of Separate Spheres, which most modern people don’t understand. It’s a complicated concept—the idea that women are better at some things than men and men are better at some things that women.
THIS INTERVIEW JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE AND WORSE
That is NOT EVEN what separate spheres is about!!!!!!
Indeed! There were even suffragists who argued that women should be able to vote on the basis of separate spheres.
Quote from a banner used in one of the original suffragist protests:
Objection: “Women are TOO PURE for the DIRTY POOL of politics”
Answer: If the Pool is dirty THE TIME HAS COME TO CLEAN IT. Women have had Long Experience Cleaning up after Men.
A+ to that banner. A++ even
Game, set, match.
Also, Alice Duer Miller:
A Consistent Anti to Her Son
(“Look at the hazards, the risks, the physical dangers that ladies would be exposed to at the polls.”—Anti-suffrage speech.)
You’re twenty-one to-day, Willie,
And a danger lurks at the door,
I’ve known about it always,
But I never spoke before;
When you were only a baby
It seemed so very remote,
But you’re twenty-one to-day, Willie,
And old enough to vote.
You must not go to the polls, Willie,
Never go to the polls,
They’re dark and dreadful places
Where many lose their souls;
They smirch, degrade and coarsen,
Terrible things they do
To quiet, elderly women—
What would they do to you!
If you’ve a boyish fancy
For any measure or man,
Tell me, and I’ll tell Father,
He’ll vote for it, if he can.
He casts my vote, and Louisa’s,
And Sarah, and dear Aunt Clo;
Wouldn’t you let him vote for you?
Father, who loves you so?
I’ve guarded you always, Willie,
Body and soul from harm;
I’ll guard your faith and honor,
Your innocence and charm
From the polls and their evil spirits,
Politics, rum and pelf;
Do you think I’d send my only son
Where I would not go myself?
A+, thanks for sharing. That is some great scathing sarcastic poetry.
Well how should she know? They don’t read history, it’s *biased.*
Then how do they learn about the Victorian and what to do???? If they didn’t read they would just make shit up………….
REVELATION
By reading ladies’ magazines of the era on google books? And apparently there’s no substitute for using antiques in your daily life. That’s all that you need to know about history, is what kind of stuff people owned and how they washed their hair.
This, apparently, is how they learned that everything modern is a lie, and that the social problems of the Victorian era were NO WORSE than anything we have today, in our deluded modern society where nobody washes their hair correctly.
How committed to this is Sarah? Is she willing to be locked in the attic when Gabriel meets someone new*?
*I’m assuming there are more people like them out there because if you can see two crazy people that means there are dozens more that you can’t see.
Now I’m imagining these two a la Arrested Development, so thank you for that.
“There are dozens of us! Dozens!!”
I imagined this in Arrested Development because Alia Shawkat played Frances Cleveland in Drunk History.
i remember rolling my eyes at them on xojane a couple of years back, and was SO DISTRAUGHT when they started entering my sphere again this year because i thought there was another victorian couple out there
They are actually sad because they looked for more people like them and couldn’t find any!
What’s sad to me about this, is that I can understand the appeal of what they’re doing. Hell, I’m planning to make a whole head-to-toe Victorian outfit, corset included, along with a good friend of mine, and I’ve started learning how to make tatted lace. And hells yeah, I’m gonna wear it out of the house. And I love the way houses of the era looked, and I’m dying to try one of those trikes like she has.
But I don’t pretend for one hot goddamn second the Victorian era was BETTER. No fucking way. No. No. You’ll have to take my iphone and modern medications and ability to VOTE from my cold, dead, hands.
Lady, I think you have got the wrong notion about why we don’t like the concept of “Separate Spheres,” because it’s definitely not that it’s too complicated for us to understand.
There were women anti-suffragists at the time — I almost wrote my undergrad thesis on them — and they lost miserably, in part because women realized there was too much shit in the world to leave to men.
(Please tell me she won’t let Gabriel drink alcohol. Please.)
That would make me feel so much better about everything.
I have a strong impression that Gabriel does everything and anything he wants to. Then uses Victorian conventions to justify himself and coerce his spouse to go along.
And that kind of old-school “complementarian” marriage works for lots of people! I mean, there’s a lot of reasons why women end up better at housework, and it’s not because we’re just magically innately better at it. But if a married couple has one doing home-making full time while the other one works for income, and it makes them happy, yay!
But the idea that EVERY MARRIAGE should be that way? Oh HELL no. It makes me want to break something, I’m so cranky.
I actually said “holy shit gabriel shut the fuck up” halfway through that sentence without even realising I was saying it out loud.
Gabe has a car? Gabe has a car. GABE. HAS. A. CAR. Car of Gabe. Gabecar. Cabriogabe. Get me out of here. help. help. help.
But it’s from 1993, so.
1893, 1993 no big deal.
I just imagine him tooling around in a 93 fiesta with his top hat and knee socks and want to hurl. their neighbors must hate them.
I hate them.
Thank you for sharing that, a little fire of fury just lit somewhere in my series of thin, hollow latex-like tubes.
He has a car because he works at a bike shop 50 miles away on GD Bainbridge Island. There’s like four bike shops in Port Townsend! Put on some goddamn jeans, suck it up, and go play nice to work close to home and save some money! You can wear your stupid clothing to work and back on your stupid bike!
You’d think he’d embrace the commute as a perfect opportunity to ride his penny-farthing or velocipede around town.
Thank god they found each other, right? Imagine siccing these assholes on the rest of the dating pool.
Actually that would be hilarious, come to think of it.
Like Sydney Smith’s line about it being so good of the Lord to have the Carlyles marry each other and make two people miserable instead of four.
My husband and I have a picture frame, displaying one of our wedding photos, engraved with the words “so that others may live in peace.”
Although we also still hate this couple.
Spoiler alert: I read her first book. And I noticed that in one section she mentions never dating in high school….and then later mentions that she met Gabriel as a college freshman.
I’m 99% sure she’s never even dated anyone else.
It was bothering me a little, but I doubted. Now I am convinced. She needs help.
IN SUMMATION:
Gabriel: Yeah, we’ve been working on getting those sorts of household implements. But honestly, we’ve mostly avoided fabrics that need tons of ironing.
Sarah: I iron plenty.
Gabriel: She does iron a bit. Most of my clothes don’t need ironing.
Sarah: You just don’t see me ironing because I do it when you’re at work. Show some appreciation.
SARAH. BLINK AT US IN MORSE CODE IF YOU WANT TO BE RESCUED.
There are SO MANY red flags in this relationship I’m not even sure I can finish reading the article. If I’d been on that Skype chat, well…
You know what kinds of fabrics don’t need tons of ironing? SYNTHETICS. You know what kind of fabrics do? NATURAL WOOLS, COTTONS, SILKS, AND LINENS.
Gabriel you asshole.
God, I love my linen shirts, but I hate all the goddamn ironing.
I wear my linens un-ironed. Not to work, though. I do make sure to hang them up while still warm from the dryer. They come out wrinkly, but uniformly so, rather than big, glaring creases.
I hang them in the bathroom while I’m showering, and that tends to help. But still.
How, though? I’ve read for years and years about people putting their clothes in the bathroom while they shower, and it doesn’t seem to help my wrinkled clothes at all. Am I not taking long enough showers? I want this to work so bad.
It helps to have a small bathroom with poor ventilation and to live in a humid climate. This trick never worked for me when I lived in arid Arizona. But it was wonderfully efficient in my tiny bath in my un-air-conditioned Civil War era building during steamy Philadelphia summers.
Yes. It doesn’t work in the “high desert” where I live, either, but, like Wallis, I want this to work SO bad.
I always just have to get out my “travel” steamer that never actually travels but puts in many more hours of labor than my iron.
My bathroom does have poor ventilation, but maybe it’s not small enough? It feels small, but that doesn’t work for me, so I guess not.
notreallydorine, that’s exactly what I do. If the wrinkles don’t come out with the travel steamer, then I’m wearing something wrinkled because that iron almost never gets used.
I also use the travel steamer for steaming myself for sinus/asthma purposes, but a warm shower does actually work for that sometimes.
Gabriel: We don’t hate all feminists. But we think that there are more—how to put it exactly?—constructive things that feminists could be focused on.
The wooooooorst
who wants to donate to my gofundme for travel expenses to go to whatever hellhole Gabriel lives in and punch him in the face?
Me. I will.
Me, too. Right now. Just tell me where to send it.
Please don’t – you might hurt your hand. The throat is a much softer target and with luck, will prevent him from speaking for the foreseeable future.
This is what tools are for. Perhaps a sad iron, even.
I’ll wear old-timey boxing gloves. He’ll love it.
Go for the thin, latex-like abdominal tubes!
They are in Port Townsend which is about 2 hours from me. I’d be happy to accept the subcontract for this.
Kickstarter for a Toast investigative journalism report! I.e. we pay for gas and food so octopoda can drive over there and hide in their bushes.
A friend is moving to just outside of PT and I’m legitimately excited she will hopefully see them in the wild. I feel like I wouldn’t have such a mad-on for them if they weren’t so excessively pretentious– if they just wanted to do their own thing and not try to monetize their supposed superiority, I wouldn’t care. But don’t tell me you’re better than me because you want to put up a bunch of ugly-ass wallpaper and play parlor games.
A friend of mine saw them in a train station and took a photo of their backs while in line to get on the train, and sent it to me. “Have you heard of these people?” YES. YES I HAVE. Poor guy got several emails of me shouting “AND ANOTHER THING….”
HOLY CRAP MY SISTER LIVES THERE
I just texted her and asked her if she knows them, she said “Of course, we all do.”
(O.o)
I will report back
This is entirely unsatisfying. I asked if the woman needed rescuing or something, because the whole thing just doesn’t sound healthy, and she said,
“There are folks in PT who are quite attached to other times, plus the place is discernibly haunted…she’s here cause we’re not all there.”
Sorry, my sister is lovely but also a giant hippie
Breaking news: My sister just told me that the car the guy drives is a DeLorean.
Aaaand my head just exploded.
NO WAY
I am under the impression that he sold that ages ago and now drives a truck, so that they can move their huge heavy bicycles from place to place.
Of course he does. How do you think they get all their authentic antiques?
Like… not feminism? “Feminists, we really think it would be better if you focused your energies on the exact opposite of the things you care about.”
Oh god, now I’m having flashbacks to Joss Whedon’s explanation of why he prefers the term “humanist” to “feminist.”
“we think” <<< translation: “I think, and as my wife’s opinions ought to mirror mine as I am the head of the household, she therefore thinks”
When I got to that line, I might have very loudly said, “LIKE WHAT? TELL ME, GABRIEL. TELL ME ABOUT ALL THE CONSTRUCTIVE THINGS YOU FOCUS ON.”
It’s probably a good thing I’m working from home today, because I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t have done the exact same thing if I was in my cubicle instead.
I can’t make it through this whole interview, but I’m definitely getting the impression that Sarah (for all her own faults) needs to run the fuck in the opposite direction of this douche’s influence. You don’t need to do this, Sarah! There are less shitty men in the world! You could be a decent person!
hahaha precisely the line that made me go “ok I gotta go back to the Toast and make sure this one got called out in the comments.” She doesn’t say ironing is relaxing or good exercise, so…that means she hates it, right?
Those irons are gorgeous tho.
ME TOO! i was kinda on board with their super nerdy coupleness (aaaaw, they found each other) and then the ironing bit happened and i was like NOPE! this dude’s an asshole.
“I’d suspected he was thinking about giving me a corset, so I told him not to. But he did. ”
oh god
I’m saying this as a librarian who went to library school, but OHMIGOD OF COURSE GABRIEL IS A DUDE LIBRARIAN WITH AN INTEREST IN ARCHIVES. OF COURSE. That was the least surprising thing in the entire interview
Oh good I’m glad we had the exact same reaction. Plus of COURSE he’s working in a bike shop. Honestly if bike shops aren’t recruiting at library schools they’re missing out.
I am refusing to read the actual article but am nevertheless appalled I share a profession with this dude.
You don’t. He doesn’t use it. He’s a bicycle mechanic.
Another librarian here (and longtime lurker) chiming in to say YES, OF COURSE HE IS. I feel like I went to library school with a couple of dudes JUST LIKE THIS.
GAAAAHHH.
Thanks for making me feel a little better about never getting to pursue my dream of getting a Masters in Library Science. I COULD NOT handle being around people like that.
lolololololololol seriously that is the least surprising thing ever.
Oh noooo I keep seeing this too – so many sensible, practical, forward-thinking lady librarian/archivists and then occasional smug dudes who enjoy LARP-ing (which, FINE, but it’s not a professional qualification) and think it would be fun to play with old paper.
HE SHAMES ALL ARCHIVISTS.
I SHALL SUMMON THE ARCHIVIST CABAL AND HE SHALL BE A BIKE SHOP MANAGER FOREVER.
(the archivist cabal, like most archivists, has no actual power).
My sister was an archivist, and she would be totally on board with this. She left her last archivist job in part because the man who became her boss was so much like this and also knew nothing about how to take care of the stuff in their collection, was a sexist, and was generally an idiot who thought he was much smarter than he actually was. So, you know, exactly like this guy.
But I assume that the archivist cabal is well organized and all their statements are well documented.
“It was what we in the bike industry call the First Bicycle Boom.” barffffffffff
(Okay, but this is true? Among people who talk about the history of bicycles, which includes a lot of people in the bicycle industry, that’s…..that’s what it’s called. Is it his wording of it that bothers you?)
I think saying “we in the X industry” is pretty pretentious in general; when coupled with the rest of his pretentiousness it reaches unbearable new heights and produces barfing sounds from strange women on the Internet.
NO THANK YOU WE DO NOT WANT HIM
I…would kinda love being a bike shop manager. 🙁
Unless you’re at a big corporate shop, it pays crap. Like, worse than managers in most grocery stores make. And you’re working really long hours during the time of year when you’d like to be working the least. If you’re lucky enough to find a niche and own a shop that does well, you’ll be fine, but even most shop owners are barely scraping by, and working 80-hour weeks in the summer.
Sincerely, someone who looked into being a mechanic herself before deciding OH HELL NO
It also really depends on where you live, and you will almost certainly need to have a second job during the winter. My shop closes from January through March.
Lol I live with a dude archivist and he can be annoying as fuck sometimes but hooooly shit, it could be so much worse
!!! And yet they print their primary sources from Google Books, instead of finding actual print copies???
The anti-suffrage thing was my obvious tipping point from “harmless weirdos” to “WHAT EVEN”. Their lives sound so lonely, though.
I started wondering that about halfway through. “Do these people have friends? Like, actual friends, not Gabriel’s coworkers or people who awkwardly nod at them when their enormous stupid bikes take up the entire street?”
It doesn’t sound like it. The irony is that they could probably find some on the internet.
i have to admit i felt a wee bit sad for them that no one responded to their parlor game invitations. invitiations which i am sure were loving hand penned with quil & ink on beautiful hand made paper.
Maybe they requested an RSVP by telegraph or carrier pigeon and everyone was like nnnooope.
“Please respond on personal stationery with hand delivery to our home.”
Because — as I noticed from hate-reading her first book — they think they are better than literally everyone else they have met (or haven’t met).
I am refusing to read this but I have so many reactions to the excerpts I’ve read here so I think the one I will publicly post is just [silent, unending scream].
Collectors Weekly: My understanding is that the safety bike gave women in general more freedom to move about by themselves.
Gabriel: It gave everyone more freedom.
Gabriel is terrible
Gabriel is unambiguously THE WORST
Gabriel is a monster
He’s just going for 1880’s realness! Don’t hate the player, hate the game!
(no, he’s actual garbage)
#allliberationmatters
I’m a huge nerd about how the bicycle boom was a huge deal in the lives of a lot of women. Bicycles gave women an unprecedented amount of freedom! So much so that it freaked out a lot of moralists, because who knows what kind of hanky-panky unescorted women could be up to! The saddles might sexually excite them! Or injure their baby-making parts! Not to mention how many women took to wearing short dresses with long bloomers, which was so scandalous that the first women to try it were spat on and called terrible names.
The popularity of the safety bicycle is partially credited, ironically enough considering Mrs. Chrisman, with ending the reign of corsets.
I wanted to pursue and study the transparent technology that I saw as being a gateway to learning, that encouraged people to explore, to try things, and to fix things themselves..
Wait, so I never used my computer to learn Spanish, or figure out how to fix my dishwasher, or share election news with my friend stationed in Iraq, or learn how to cook Chinese food?
NO WAIT I DID ALL THOSE THINGS.
The internet is even useful for old-timey things! Learning how to knit would have taken much longer without handy youtube videos, and I find most of my patterns on Ravelry.
Seriously! I’ve learned so many knitting things from the interwebs!
Right?!? My world would be so much smaller without the internet allowing me to befriend people who live across the world from me and to figure out what was wrong with my vacuum.
I have no idea why this made me laugh so hard I almost cried, but it did. A+ laugh, would laugh again.
I used the internet to fix my garbage disposal once. I was so proud of myself.
“I’m a Victorian now, because computers are hard.”
Also, does he think all of the Victorians were sitting at their kitchen tables taking apart their labor-saving devices to figure out how they worked?
News at 11: Man Fails Computer School. Goes to live in 1890 Out of Spite.
You know who likes Victorian technology? My dad. Who is a computer science professor. These things can coexist, people!
The Society for Creative Anachronism (which covers 600-1600) is also obsessed with the way life was a long time ago–but all the members I’ve met are also in love with their modern technology. I have met my share of people who make their living in tech and adore their ipads, and who also can tell you (as an example), in detail, with references, how to make an item of clothing the way you would in, say, 1200’s England.
If you can’t design your trebuchet using CAD software what’s even the point?
Man Fails Latin Exam, Goes to Live In 200 BC Out of Spite
Man Fails Geology Exam, Goes To Live In Interstellar Space Out of Spite [this is fun!]
Right? And I’m pretty sure the Victorians weren’t all socially conscious of where their oil, spices, tea, etc were coming from.
“Ah, what a lovely cup of tea. While I enjoy it, let me ponder the life of the simple Indian plantation worker, whose care and energy have brought me this delicious beverage. I certainly appreciate that work.”
Where is that amazing twitter rant ripping apart their romanticized view of Victorian history. I need it today.
There were several, but maybe you mean this one?
I adore that one. Particularly because she adores Ruth Goodman and all the BBC shows as much as I do.
This is the exact antidote I needed after reading the interview. “Girl, take several seats” indeed… thanks for dredging it up from the depths of the internet <3
There was another one. That really went in on racism in Washington State.
https://storify.com/Knitting_Kninja/ranting-about…
You are excellent.
Unlike Gabriel, I use my library science degree for good.
Gabriel: I don’t think necessarily that everyone should do what we’re doing. That’s not what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to provide a bit of an example for people of how things could be different.
Sarah: When he says that it’s not that everyone should do what we were doing, we’d love it if everyone did. But it is every individual’s or every family’s choice
They would hate it if everyone did what they did. Then they wouldn’t be special and would have to come up with a new way to feel superior to everyone else.
If everyone else did what they are doing, no one else would be doing it for the right reasons like they are. And no one else would be doing it the right way, except maybe rich people, but only because rich people have more money and YOU GUYS DON’T FORGET THEY ARE JUST SO POOR.
When the first big article came out about these two earlier this year, my editor thought it would be a grand idea to interview them for one of the magazines my company puts out (I work for a weaving magazine and we also put out a historical knitting/needlework one) and it was the first time I flat out told her Oh Hell No. She thought it was steampunky and appealing (she hadn’t read the story, just heard about it from her daughter) and I explained that these two were The Worst and putting them in any of our magazines was a terrible idea. I’m soooo glad she agreed with me.
i can see thesse two being into sterampunk but then deciding it wasn’t exclusive enough.
They shit-talked steampunk in another piece, I think.
They did, she thinks it’s “unrealistic,” which–yes, but LOOK AT YOUR LIFE LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES
Is that…not…the whole point of steampunk?
They threw a little shade at it in this one!
He is a prize for my Friday reading. I needed to feel superior to someone and damn that interview delivers.
She actually threw shade at Nellie Bly! Called her investigative journalism gonzo and stunt journalism! I was prepared to let a lot go, but nobody insults Nellie on my watch. Excuse me, I have to go find my ass-kicking shoes.
Yes! I have to admit, I hadn’t heard much (if anything) about Elizabeth Bisland, so at first I was like ‘hey! a new ye olde times lady journalist to learn about, yay!’ but then the Nellie shade started, and ugh.
Not that you need any help at all, no, you’re more than capable, but please let me hold her down for you.
………………
…………………………………
SOMEONE HOLD MY PURSE
Like she’s in any position to criticize stunt journalism…
Ugh I read all your comments and have only just starting the interview and I can’t even get past this: “Sarah and Gabriel Chrisman love to go cycling.” He rides that goddam high wheel bicycle on the regular in his natty bicycle suit and doesn’t wear a fucking helmet. This makes me furious. People die, you prick. Just wear a fucking helmet.
especially since they don’t have health insurance!
I don’t wear a helmet most of the time myself. He probably should because of the high-wheeler, since helmets aren’t intended to save you in a car accident, but are only tested from impacts equivalent to falling-over head first while stopped, which he is actually likely to do.
I really don’t want to start Ye Olde Helmet Argument here, but really, a helmet is not even close to the be-all end-all of bicycle safety that some people think it is, and not all of us helmetless people are idiots, thanks.
“Gabriel: I could speak to that. I was home-schooled as a kid. I grew up without TV. I, of course, loved it. But definitely it separated me from a lot of other people.
Sarah: I grew up in a household where the TV never got turned off, so I got totally overloaded and sick of it. This is bliss.”
I think Sarah is secretly trying to signal us for help. SHE IS NOT BLISSFUL.
Goddamn Gabriel, why do you have to drag others down with you?
Realizing I’ve made rather a lot of comments in this thread. I’m weirdly obsessed with these people and I know it. Also, I work nights on the weekend, and what else have I got to do, apparently.
And I know it’s because I like a lot of the same things they do–old bicycles! Victorian clothing! –but their superiority about the whole thing, and refusal to admit that life has actually improved for the vast majority of people since then, just pisses me off so much.
As an aside, for anyone who doubts her stories of being harassed in public: it has been my genuine experience that dressing unusually attracts a lot of attention. And most of it, for me, has been positive; but friends of mine have had strangers touch them and lift the hems of their dresses (“how does it stay poofy like that?” surely you can ask without TOUCHING), or been told to their faces that wearing frilly dresses is an insult to adult women everywhere, and had their photos taken without permission in public.
That Auden poem is hot as hell. Esp this part :
Slipping my lips round the Byzantine dome of the head,
With the tip of my tongue I caressed the sensitive groove.
He thrilled to the trill. “That’s lovely!” he hoarsely said.
“Go on! Go on!” Very slowly I started to move.
Also has anyone read the Jhumpa Lahiri essay about learning Italian? I was surprised by how much it touched me. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/teac…
*SPOILER* (?) : the note at the end which made me realise the essay was actually translated from the Italian was such a lovely, lovely moment.
That’s certainly a much better image than “the onion dome of the head.”
or mushroom dome
i’ve known some ugly domes
I adored that essay! And I totally share her love for Rome and Ovid. I speak and write Italian just ok, but I really related to her description of feeling a new world open up with a new language. Somehow you’re still you, but a different you, one maybe you didn’t have access to before. Lovely, indeed.
i really connected to it as a multilingual person – the feeling of being alienated from the languages you were born into and those given to you by your family and then the catharsis of discovering a language that is all your own and that seems to give a sense of wholeness that you never felt with words before.
when i realised she wrote it all in Italian, i had to blink back my tears. maybe a bit over the top for an essay about learning a language, but there it is!
Totally! And when you figure out you can be funny in another language and have a sense of play with words…it’s like being a child again. I really curse myself for letting my italian go fallow. Ah well, there’s always 2016!
Thanks for linking that essay by JL. I love her writing, and I have a similar love-from-afar relationship with the Italian language. One of the proudest moments of my life is using the conditional clause correctly, in Venice…to tell a man that I thought the men’s bathroom was free and he didn’t need to wait in line.
Hopefully I can move to Italy one day and have a similar linguistic metamorphosis.
Thank you for sharing the Jhumpa Lahiri essay. It was lovely and her act of writing of a diary in a foreign language seems like a great way to gain better fluency and confidence. I’m going to steal that idea!
I shared the Auden poem with The Partner. Because the last metrical verse he read or listened to was Hamilton, he is reading it in the voice of Hercules Mulligan, even though he (IMO mistakenly) feels that Auden is too decorous for that.
Man, a thing that I have found about being a new parent is that I now have too much empathy. It’s not like I wasn’t empathetic, before — I definitely was not inured to stories about people losing their children (especially young children). But now it’s like the volume is turned up to a level that I didn’t even know was on the dial. It used to be that on bad days, a story about a dead kindergartner is going to fill me with profound sadness, but now it’s a kind of choking paralytic panicked anguish.
On Twitter I saw someone write about the person who made the “Last Text” Tumblr and just seeing the twitter excerpt from it is enough to make me horrified.
I KNOW oh my god. This morning on the way to work NPR played two stories back-to-back – one with a parent of a six-year-old girl killed in Sandy Hook, and one about one of the first American children to be diagnosed with AIDS, back in 1986. I mean COME ON.
Also I think I’ve listened to Hamilton’s “It’s Quiet Uptown” all the way through maaaybe once. It’s emotional terrorism for parents.
“choking paralytic panicked anguish”
Yup. The opposite of the overwhelming love you feel for a child is the horror you feel knowing you can’t protect them.
it is un-fucking-pleasant
Same. I remember after my first daughter was born, this seismic shift of oh my god, everyone feels this way about their children. It isn’t that I didn’t get it before, just that it all became much more gut- level.
“Oh, yeah, I get it, of course it’s extremely sad when you lose a child.”
“ohhhh, no actually what it IS is completely emotionally devastating to even THINK about losing a child ohhhhhhh”
I cannot even read/watch anything these days without verifying first that there aren’t dead children in it.
^ That. Also, for me, children coming to harm or being tormented in any way. Jessica Jones snuck one up on me last night and I felt ill for an hour afterward.
It extends beyond children dying! I distinctly remember watching the original Parent Trap for the first time with my twin sister and my mom. When Susan and Sharon realize at camp that they are twins, I looked over at my mom and saw she was staring at the screen with angry tears in her eyes. My sister and I were like, Mom, why are you crying at this movie, and she burst out, “HOW COULD THEY DO THAT TO THEIR LITTLE TWIN GIRLS?!!!!”
And ever since then, even though I love The Parent Trap (both versions!), I also think the parents are horrible, shit parents because they were totally fine with separating their twins daughters and not even telling them that the other one existed. I cannot imagine not having grown up with my best friend, let alone not knowing she existed, and those fictional parents make me so mad. Thanks, Mom.
…no, seriously, those parents were *not okay*. And any judge worth their salt should never have allowed that agreement, because seriously? “Oh, yes, Your Honor, we’ll just each raise one kid to never know that HALF HER FAMILY EXISTS.” Who even does that? What’s wrong with everyone in this film?
I can deal with it more in the original, Because The Fifties, but the one in the nineties? THE HELL?
Unless the dad is a Sith Lord that shit is never acceptable.
Oh, right, there is an exception. But just the one.
I feel exactly the same way. I will excuse the one from the 50s, or at least tell myself that I can excuse it because I love Haley Mills and Maureen O’Hara. But the remake is Not OK.
I heard this once, and it’s so true – having a child means consenting to forever wear your heart on the outside of your body.
I remember a friend of mine telling me about her reaction to Law & Order SVU after her daughter’s birth – that she could no longer watch episodes that featured children. I didn’t get it then. I get it now.
I try to translate that agonizing anguish to something good – I’ve been donating the hell outta my paycheck to UNHCR lately.
YES. I’m a pediatrician and when I came back to work after maternity leave I really struggled to regain the professional distance I had before I had my son. Some of the cases I see are really heartbreaking. But most are not and I’d find myself all teary-eyed thinking about a kid having even a minor illness that she’ll recover from in 24 hours! Ridiculous.
I cried at Girl Waits With Gun at the plotline of a mom being seoarated from her baby while my baby was on me, breastfeeding, so obviously still there.
I stopped watching Luther once a mom was abducted from her house and the baby was left behind. My Idris love has limits.
Stopped watching Orange Is The New Black after my daughter was born because I couldn’t cope with the fact that many of the women are separated from their kids.
Spencer Hall, a sportswriter for SBNation, wrote a piece once that talked about this. I’ve always liked it.
If you’re born without an emotion chip, this part can be installed at a later date. if you choose not to order this part, it will be forcibly installed upon the birth of your first child. Systems calibration will not be offered, and is not available anywhere. Systems may overload unexpectedly and without warning. No recalls will be made, and no improvements made on this faulty part. No apologies, The Management.
Other parents will tell you it “makes you realize what’s important.” This is partially true, if only in the sense that it makes you realize everything is important. I have gone from being a casual guest at the restaurant of life to a part owner, and it all terrifies and obsesses me. The lack of salt in the shakers before the lunch rush concerns me in a way it never did before. The empty tables on a Friday night fill me with dread. The pleasure of a well-organized kitchen working in perfect sync delights me like it never could before, and so does its collapse into complete anarchy. I no longer leave the plates on the table and assume someone else will bus them away, and I will not walk into a restaurant ten minutes before closing time and order food, because the person behind the grill is me. (And this is a dick move, and the last person I want to be a dick to is me.)
It is in part because you have something depending on you, but also because this space and time just became more finite and precious. It is the first bite of fall in the air of an endless summer, the hint that you have crossed into something else, something with falling leaves, a chill in the air, and a gradual shortening of the literal and metaphorical days.
It’s about college football and family and winter.
I used to be able to read books with things happening to children in them (even off-screen) but since I had kids, NOPE. I refuse to apologize for my steady diet of romance, YA, and fantasy. My jerkbrain and the real world give me quite enough “go hug the dudes” moments without inflicting more on myself via fiction.
Same, same, same. I can’t read that Sandy Hook story because otherwise I will be broken for days.
Oh god yes. My media consumption of anything with kids in danger (even if they turn out fine) or parents separated from kids came to screeching halt when my first baby was born. “[C]hoking paralytic panicked anguish” sounds about right.
Also, as a side note, I think your baby is about the same age as my new baby! Enjoyed the cute baby pic in the link thread awhile back, with the adorable monster outfit!
I cannot believe The Atlantic, of “PC culture is destroying everything” unironically published something about “prayer-shaming”.
Hey, they somehow manage to have Jonathan Haidt and Ta-Nehisi Coates in the same publication. Rich tapestry, etc.
I bet Coates raises his per-word fee every time they publish something ridic.
Them hiring David Frum is what tipped me over to cancelling my subscription. I am going to buy any books TNC publishes to support him.
Also: BLACK PANTHER SQUEEEEEEEEEE
SO EXCITED. You saw the concept art, right?
As it turns out, PC culture destroys everything/millenials are too sensitive/college is a time to see things you disagree with/etc UNLESS you are conservative and Christian in which case why does no one care about you?
I think the Atlantic will publish literally anything.
I have two links to share:
An incredibly moving and insight reflection on miscarriage from the Globe and Mail’s Alexandra Kimball. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/unp…
The definitive list of good Christmas carols http://www.blairthornburgh.com/the-only-christmas…
Excellent carol list, EXCEPT they forgot the comma: it’s “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.
The gentlemen in question are not merry. Their resting is merry, due to the Savior’s birth.
Ha, someone in her comments made the same point. 🙂
I think we should take this on as a project.
What are you doing for Christmas?
Resting merry. Just. Resting. In a merry sort of way.
Great carol list! The Boar’s Head Carol is one of my favorites. These are the only types of carols that I like.
My choir used to sing it every year at the school holiday dinner. There was usually at least one tenor singing about the “King of Swiss.”
The presence of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, “Good King Wenceslas”, and “Gaudete” almost make up for the lack of “Adeste Fideles”, but I may also have Wrong Carol Opinions, so.
I’m glad someone in the comments mentions “The Friendly Beasts” because one of my favorite Christmas pastimes is to rhyme all the words at the end of the lines with “rude.”
Excluded is my fave, We Three Kings. Don’t care about lyrics (I’m a former instrumentalist), but I’m there for the inclusion of both major and minor keys, and for the rolling camel gait achieved.
Nope!!!! Natural fibers can still smell bad!!!! And while it’s true that people in the Victorian period (and before) did change their undergarments much more frequently than their outer clothes….THEY STILL SMELL. Especially if you are not wearing modern deodorant. ESPECIALLY if you are not observing modern bathroom hygiene habits. (The split crotch bloomer is not a model for perfect cleanliness. I will leave the reader to imagine why.) Wool still gets smelly. That is just…that is just how it works.
“Amazingly, wool never gets smelly!” — someone who has never met a sheep.
But isn’t there that distinctive wet-wool smell? I know it from unceremoniously throwing my snow-covered wool coats into too-packed closets and then nearly choking to death on that not-smelly-at-all wool smell the next time I wear them.
Yes. Wool is also pretty good at holding the smell of body odor, which you tend not to notice because your brain screens out smells that are constant and pervasive, so I am sure these guys definitely think they don’t smell like anything.
(Is this a metaphor for all of Victorian revanchism? Hey, you know what)
Yep yep yep! We wear a fair amount of wool, smart and otherwise, and yeah, it is NOT somehow immune to stench.
I’m of the opinion that smelly wool smells better than smelly polyester, but contrary to claims by every single fancy wool t-shirt maker, I can definitely smell myself after one days’ wear. And I don’t sweat or smell excessively.
It’s so dependent on body chemistry! One of my exes can wear the same fancy wool t-shirt for a week and doesn’t stink at all. Mine, same weight from the same company, is stinky after a day.
That was my thought!
I used to wear a uniform that had wool blend pants, and they often smelled bad when they were CLEAN, because if I didn’t get them 1000% dry, they would have that damp wool smell (which, if you imagine that the part hardest to get dry is also the part least likely to get aired out during the day…)
Yep yep yep. Even though I grew up in Wisconsin, I never owned a wool coat precisely because of this– I did buy one once at a Goodwill, and it was so warm and snuggly, but the air were even slightly damp I smelled like my labrador retriever after she went for a swim in the swamp. So, naturally, as a high schooler, I never wore it rather than be warm and smell kinda funky.
I wear a wool beret and I love it but I smell like a wet dog. I’ve kind of adjusted to it but I’m still on a hunt for a better beret.
It’s kind of amazing that these chowderheads thought that “cleaning clothes so they don’t smell” is something that no one even needed to worry about until polyester was invented in the 1950s.
What the hell did they think people were doing nine hundred hours of laundry every week for?
Fun and healthful exercise?
To gain an appreciation for the inner workings of laundry technology, and to develop an awareness of where their clothing comes from?
They probably don’t know people did that, since they seem to have a very upper-middle-class view on the era…
To be fair I think Gabriel makes that comment so it is entirely possible that Gabriel has this belief that victorian clothing never smells and is rarely laundered because Sarah is the one spending the time and backbreaking effort to constantly launder all the clothes while he is at work.
He’s still a chowderhead.
My comment should not have been seen as a defense of Gabriel more like an indictment! I should have put the sarcasm s/ thingy in there.
I love the exchange about ironing.
Gabriel: Oh, haha, we never iron.
Sarah: EXCUSE YOU VERY MUCH, WHAT DO YOU THINK I DO ALL DAY
No, but please go on and tell me why women actually have less social power now we sully ourselves with voting.
Seeing the phrase “Victorian period” next to undergarments makes me wonder…what did they do to deal with menstruation? I can’t imagine anything that would not produce a ton of laundry.
I suggest reading the divine Ruth Goodman’s book “How to be a Victorian” for deeply detailed answers to that and other questions. “Being on the rag” is not a euphemism for having your menses for nothing. Seriously great book – you finish with a sense of wonder that anyone of any class in Victorian England actually lived past childhood.
I love that book (and I adore Ruth Goodman)
Yes but HOW DID THE RAGS STAY IN PLACE?
Sometimes, getting answers doesn’t actually make you feel better. This may be one of those times.
When they wore anything at all (apparently bleeding into your clothes was not that big a thing), it was apparently a cotton pad with either washable or disposable material like rags held in place with a kind-of garter belt. True story – and note that I’m pretty sure I am way older than most of the Toasties here – but I used a 1950’s-era version of one of these for a few months back when I first started my period in the early ’70’s. My parents were super religious, sex ed was never discussed at home, and I had no idea such things as tampons and sanitary napkins existed. When my period started my mom gave me some super Kotex and my grandmother’s old pad garter belt made of clapped out elastic with a couple clips for holding the napkin sort-of in place. My older sister, who had never acknowledged my existence much up until then took pity on me and bought me a box of tampons (that I had to hide from my mom) and some of the new pads with a sticky strip to hold it in place.
I think like many Toasties I heard about those garter belt things from Judy Blume. I guess I didn’t realise how far back they went. Also I am going to now go and wash all my clothes 57 times and make a shrine to modern sanitary products now, bbl.
My mom talks about them, but her favorite was a pair of “underpants” with elastic bands that you slipped the pad into. She also talked about doing laundry with her grandmother, who wore one piece underwear with a overlapping crotch opening. In the 60s!
The answer is: a ton of laundry. No real other way around it. Fun fact: mothers would frequently keep an eye on bloody rags in the wash monthly to ensure their daughters were not pregnant. How To Be a Victorian and The Body Project are fascinating and dispiriting books that will make you thank the stars for modern menstrual technology.
Now I’m wondering what that specific weird lady does, since she’s acting like her ~lifestyle~ does not require incessant laundering.
Also, I am definitely picking up those books!
At the time of writing her first book (the only one of hers I’ve read) she was still using modern undies and a pad during her period.
as deeply as i dislike her, i am happy for her in this one small regard
I highly recommend Longbourn by Jo Baker, which is a retelling of Pride & Prejudice but from the housemaid’s POV (and not bound by the story arc of P&P). The opening scene is laundry day, and all the Bennett girls are bleeding at once of course. So there’s one bloody bucket of soaking rags and many other buckets of clothes soaking to be scrubbed and starched, all by Sarah (the POV character) and her 12-year-old coworker (because child labor laws are NOT A THING yet).
One of the best ruthlessly realistic historical fiction novels I’ve read, but it’s not all terribly grim! There’s romance too.
This reminds me of conversations I’ve had with a number of my hippie friends. “You don’t NEED soap, people just WANT to smell nice, but they don’t NEED it. It’s not me that smells anyway, it’s the bacteria that live on me.”
It reminds me of hikers who know they smell, but have gone immune to themselves, so they don’t realize HOW bad they smell.
One of my good friends had a summer job where she and a group of similarly adventurous hippies maintained trails in a national park all day and then camped at night. She said it was her best job ever except that the guy who came to pick them up at the end of the summer was visibly ill at the smell of them.
This whole thread is reminding me that I need to clean my wool coats. Wool is the only way I can stay warm in winter but I do basically have to do twice as much laundry – related labor.
Wait, this thread is making me rethink my entire life, because my mom always taught me that wool doesn’t hold smells the way cotton does, and I’ve always thought it was true. I wear a lot of wool sweaters, and I will wear a sweater a bunch of times before I wash it. I just check to make sure it doesn’t smell, and it usually doesn’t. Same with wool long underwear, which I wear every day in the winter because I live in a cold place. Long underwear is expensive; I can’t afford more than three or four pairs, and I can’t get myself to the laundromat every three days, so I’ll wear a pair for a few days to a week and then switch it out. And this doesn’t mean I’m cavalier about cleanliness; I often change my shirt halfway through the day because it gets sweaty. I’ve just always thought wool was different.
It depends a great deal on your body chemistry–a lot of people do find that wool doesn’t stink or hold on to stink the same way cotton or poly does.
Long johns are less likely to be stinky than something that touches your armpits, especially assuming you wear undies. If it passes the sniff test, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Internet tabs math:
“We have our individual set of opinions, and we don’t care if there’s a group out there that shares them.”
plus
“I erased ‘‘complacence’’ and wrote ‘‘complicity.’’ I erased it. ‘‘Debt,’’ I wrote. Then, ‘‘forgotten debt.’’”
=
Vomit.
What is the procedure that allows the Senate to not need 60 votes? The NPR article didn’t explain it and I have having trouble finding a clear explanation online.
if you only need a simply majority, that’s 51
I think that it’s just a procedural change in the sense that before, they weren’t letting votes go to the floor unless they were filibuster-proof, but now they are.
It might also be that you can’t file a filibuster when you’re talking about tacking on amendments to the budget, which is what these are, rather than specific bills.
They used reconciliation. By linking it to a change in the budget, they can limit debate and avoid a filibuster with only 51 votes.
My dad is a huge scotch drinker, and I grew up thinking it was naaaasty because he only ever buys the cheap stuff for himself. Then, between trying some fancy stuff he got as a gift, and keeping a bottle of Glenlivet at the house for when he comes over (and drinking it myself when I ran out of wine and got desperate), I discovered it’s not that bad? As long as it’s a certain quality? I mean it’s never going to be my drink of choice, but I sort of get it now.
But his usual plastic-bottle Grand Macnish tastes like paint thinner.
Try Oban. It is my favourite.
Eschew all non-single-malts. It is possible to make a good blend, but for the most part, just void them.
The Congressional GOP response to mass shootings is, to me, a thing of such utter absurdity that it somehow comes back around into a thing of beauty.
A man with a history of criminal violence gets a gun, shoots up an abortion clinic; the GOP’s solution: keep the guns, start banning clinics.
“It’s not the guns! He was mentally disturbed!” The GOP says; the solution: eliminate healthcare for the mentally disturbed.
This isn’t even a coherent political philosophy! You’re just doing the opposite!
This is the darkest of dark humor and not at all serious, but … so, if I want to ban guns, I should do a mass shooting at a gun show?
unfortunately, that might not be a terrible option. o_O
we’re completely screwed.
(I’m with you on the darkest-dark humor. sometimes, it’s the best coping mechanism there is.)
You just gotta go in with a LOAD OF body armor. Basically so you’re a ball of armor with one hole for the barrel to poke out. And make it so you can roll away. (Like that cute new Star Wars robot I’ve seen a glimpse of.)
Learning to Love Scotch: An Anecdotal Tutorial
Step 1: Spend an extended period away from civilization, drinking only extremely cheap rye whiskey. Realize that it is disgusting; disavow all brown liquor.
Step 2: When stressed, tired, and cold, be given small amounts of expensive single malt for medicinal purposes. Realize that it is effective at restoring a certain level of equanimity.
Step 3: Try a sweet, mild scotch, like Macallan 12, while spending quiet time in a local bar with friends.
Step 4: Try a peaty scotch, like Laphroaig. Notice that it tastes like a freshly mown lawn next to a burning chemical plant; shudder.
Step 5: Return to Macallan. Decide you have found your scotch.
Step 6: Hook up with a musician who brings over Lagavulin. Try a sip. Realize that it tastes like a driftwood campfire. Make him pour you a glass. Give him points for style.
Step 7: Ditch the musician. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP.
Step 8: Enter a long-term relationship with the Lagavulin.
Congratulations, you are now Someone Who Drinks Scotch. And we should hang out and not talk while enjoying our drinks, because the beauty of scotch is that the flavors take their time in opening up; conversation just gets in the way of noticing how the taste evolves. Start pricing leather armchairs.
and bonus, you have the same favourite scotch as Ron Swanson, everyone’s favourite fictional libertarian (whom we would probably actually hate if we met him IRL)
I was just about to say, Lagavulin will never not remind me of Ron Swanson. Also, I read an interview lately with Nick Offerman where they asked him about Ron’s politics for some reason?? and he basically said “Ron has great views and I agree with them” and I was very :/ about it. I would not agree with Ron IRL.
Maybe it’s not poltical views? I’m very not a libertarian, but I relate to Ron in so many ways that I’m surprised by it. Maybe he’s refering to say Ron’s paranoia about personal information or Ron’s understated dedication to crafts.
Do I have a gift for you, or what. Nick Offerman has a youtube video which is just 45 minutes of him sitting by a fire, silently drinking Lagavulin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS-ErOKpO4E
(It has, for some stupid reason, been flagged as “for adults only” which is silly since it’s just a guy quietly sipping alcohol – no debauchery to be found! So you have to log in and promise to be a grown-up in order to watch it.)
if you like lagavulin you might still like other islay whiskeys like caol isla islay (12 year) or bowmore islay (they’re less intense than laphroig, which i love). that smoke.
I quite like Jura Superstition – to me it’s got juuuust enough peat. Enough that you know You Are Drinking Scotch but not so heavy that the aftertaste stays with you until the next morning.
I second the Jura Superstition! I had it at a tasting earlier this year and it was so well balanced with the peat it quickly became a favorite.
And if you like smokey alcohol, but want something to drink in the morning, you might enjoy lapsang souchong!
lapsang souching is the best!
It’s true! My husband LOVES peaty/smoky whiskies and when we were having tea at a nice tea room he was so overwhelmed by the tea menu he had me order for him. I chose the lapsang souchong because it was smoky, and he fell in love immediately. It’s now his new favorite tea and he even bought a special tea-infuser bottle so he can easily brew the whole-leaf stuff at work.
My favorite commercial for any liquor ever is this one for Laphroaig.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_ivP4xqeZo
Confession: once or twice a year I love a glass of Laphroaig. It’s so in your face and unapologetic about its flavor.
The woman with the grey hair could be my mother, who thinks Lagavulin tastes like cat’s water. In unrelated news, I covet that guy’s gingko-print waistcoat.
Why are you trying to hurt Laphroaig’s feelings like that. It’s just sitting over here being delicious and nutritious and amazing and you gotta go saying mean things.
“All that’s down there is the digestive system. It’s made up of very thin, hollow organs. Think latex thin, like sausage casings, which are animal intestines. The only thing giving them their shape—ahem!—is semi-digested food, to put it delicately. So when that’s being forced into different shapes all the time, that can get uncomfortable. But when it’s just got one shape that it stays in, it’s fine. It just takes on that shape.”
nooooooooooooooo
*throws an anatomy textbook at their heads*
i feel like if you threw a victorian anatomy textbook at their heads it would still be more accurate than this?
You could throw a copy of Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica at their heads and it would be INFINITELY more accurate.
Just make sure you’re throwing a reproduction. Wouldn’t want to damage the book.
Reminds me of the ex who (TMI warning) thought because he was the first person I’d had sex with, it meant that my vagina was now shaped like his penis. Inverted, I guess.
… I was young, okay.
I think that’s only true for ducks. And even then it’s reversed.
Ok Congressional Republicans. You know Obama is going to veto that budget. Maybe there’s a time for symbolic votes but that time is not now, when a budget needs to get passes asap or the government shuts down. Again. Before the most expensive time of year for a lot of people.
We actually do have a budget until March 2017 now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still utterly absurd that Congress is wasting time on passing bills they know will get vetoed, including the umpteenth attempt to repeal the ACA, but there’s no imminent government shutdown crisis.
I may be wrong but it was my understanding that the current CR expires December 11th. A possible shutdown was addressed in my federal office’s all hands meeting this week so I’m pretty sure it’s still a thing.
Out of curiosity, what are the different “levels” of Kegels? If I had to hazard a guess, my current level would be 7/10, or “I’m pregnant and doing them in a panic of warding off post-partum pants-wetting.”
Masturbating with a glass dildo is far more effective than kegels for strengthening your pelvic floor. Also more enjoyable. I only have anecdotal evidence for this plus I read a vice article where a gynecologist said that orgasming round a dick shaped object is the best thing for your pelvic floor, but for real, I got a super strength pelvic floor from like two weeks of using a glass dildo and years of kegels did fuck all.
Sounds like I’ve got some experiments to do!
This is seriously the best news I have had all year, thank you
“Gabriel has his clothes made by a local seamstress, which is less than a businessman would spend on his clothes.”
But he’s not a businessman. He’s a BIKE MECHANIC.
Bets on if/how much the seamstress is underpaid?
Oh, if she’s like my mom, who ran a tailoring business out of our living room, she saw him coming and immediately jacked her prices by 75%.
I hope so, oh I hope so.
Wait. wait wait wait. Does your mom have any tips for finding a good tailor or sewing person? I want some clothes made for me and some taken in, but I never know how to find the right person.
As a once and future bike mechanic I would like to smack him in the face with a pedal wrench. #OBVIOUSLYnotallbikemechanicsjesusfuckingchristthisfuckingguy
I so wish our profession didn’t attract such douchebagels.
Ooo, do you have any suggestions on how best to learn bike mechanic-ery? Mostly I want to be able to fix my own bike, but I am also thinking about fun ways to make a little spare cash during the summer.
Yes! Pick up a copy of Park Tools’ Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair to get started, and ask around at your local bike shops about training classes. Not everyone will offer them, but they are really useful.
Thank you! I do have the Big Blue Book and it’s been helpful, but often I don’t know how to diagnose the problem. A training class would take care of that, though! And then the next time I try to fix my own brakes I won’t end up having to walk it to the bike store. 😛
The one my shop offers is called Park Tools School, which is a delight, but I’m sure there are others. Have so much fun!
this was my one positive takeaway about this couple: Sarah told him she’s not making his fucking clothes, too. get ye to a seamstress, Gabe!
Okay it’s official, I GOT A NEW JOB yaaaay! They were able to accommodate my religious observance, so I accepted the offer! With a pay raise! I’m so excited! I start Jan. 4. Speaking with an employment lawyer today about navigating the processes of resignation and telling the new place I’m pregnant. I know that my soon-to-be-ex boss is going to make things unpleasant (I’m steeling myself for massive guilt-tripping) and probably saddle me with a shit-ton of work to prepare my replacement (I’d walk out today but I can’t afford it), but la la la I’m getting out y’all! Thanks to my Toastfam for your advice and support during these last few months!
Yay!!!
There was an answer at AAM I think yesterday about telling your new job you’re pregnant, if you wanted some wording to get started with! I just want to say — I wonder if your horrible terrible current boss has skewed how you are anticipating new workplace to react? Most people understand that babies happen, sometimes at times when they are less than convenient, and I’m sure your new employer will be fine. Good luck, and congrats on getting out of there!
Hooray! So happy for you!
Is it weird that I’m really really relieved that you’re getting a new job?
You are not alone. I am so very relieved, as well. If it’s weird, I don’t want to be normal.
Wait, I’ve never wanted to be normal.
Who cares? I’m grateful! Let’s be weird and relieved together!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaay! I’m so happy for you.
YES! GREAT NEWS!
Hurray Hurray! So glad for you!
So happy it worked out!!! Hope you get good, reassuring advice.
Most important — whatever pile of work your current boss gives you, YOU DON’T HVAE TO FINISH IT BEFORE YOU LEAVE. Only work the regular hours you originally signed up for, and whatever you’ve finished will be finished. (This has been vouched for in past AAM posts, I’ve seen it.)
YESSSSSSS, this.
I’m so happy for you!! I’ve been aghast reading about your terrible boss and wishing fervently that you could escape!
Just remember: however she acts, whatever she wants you to do, it will all be **not your problem** very shortly. Don’t feel like you have to knock yourself out finishing it or transitioning it to someone else– that’s her problem, and an integral part of her job as a manager.
Here to talk about The Wiz! Was anybody following the great @FeministaJones providing black dramaturgical commentary at #JonesingfortheWiz? It was great; I learned so much.
Altogether, 1000% better than the mostly-white production I was in at the Jewish Community Center of Metro Detroit in 1996.
That commentary was EXCELLENT.
Shanice Williams was amazing and I need the cast album! (Things I have never said about tv live specials before!)
I haven’t seen it yet because I had to work last night (booooooo), but I did go back through my TL and every The Wiz related tweet was so joyous and lovely that I kept getting goosebumps. Can’t wait to watch it this weekend!
“Picture a pair of men’s boxer shorts and slash out the crotch. They’re designed so that a women doesn’t have to take anything off when she uses the restroom, which is very convenient. Because they allow air flow down there, they are far healthier from a gynecological standpoint.”
I feel like… there is something wrong with this?
Like….I don’t want to be too indelicate but if you’re a woman and you get periods….you’re going to have issues here. And also if you experience the occasional bowel movement. I am just saying that your undergarments may not remain pristine.
I know – we all want to avoid using the distinctly unladylike term “scratch-n-sniff petticoats” when referring to that not-so-fresh feeling a girl gets from having a her monthly visitor.
Also, doesn’t the lack of crotch mean that extra things get dirty? Like now if she sits down there is direct contact between her lady business and her petticoat or whatever, which… why even wear the bloomers then???
I can answer this! Drawers (not bloomers) really came in in the late 1850s, with hoop skirts. Hoop skirts mean fewer petticoats, which is great (less washing, less weight, less cost of fabric). But it’s hella breezy under a hoop skirt, and if you fall over, whoa nelly all over the place.
So you can wear a narrow petticoat under a hoop skirt (which is what people did under a corded petticoat, the predecessor of the hoop skirt), or you can wear drawers. Mid-century ones got narrow down at the knee, to make double-sure you weren’t flashing anyone when you fell over, but by the 1890s wide and floppy at the knee is pretty common. (Because people didn’t wear circular or oval-shaped hoopskirts any more either.)
I’ve worn split-crotch drawers around the house (never while on the rag), and they’re fine-ish. Reports from re-enactors — a whole huge portion of the internet that clearly disdain the Chrismans — are that the easiest way to pee in a modern toilet in period clothes is to basically lift your petticoats at the front and sit on the bowl backwards.
Things you didn’t know you needed to know.
I love this place and the people in it.
Also “hoist everything up and sit on the toilet backwards” is also the way to go potty in your wedding dress.
Scotch makes so much more sense in Scotland, where sometimes a coat is not enough for the winter and a fire is not enough light and you also need to be warm on the inside before you can think of venturing out of your also-freezing house into the evening but it has all been evening because the sun set at two, plus it’s not quite raining, but it’s doing that thing where it’s still wet out, just not wet you can fight with an umbrella, but thick mist that continues into the library.
Also, my favorite is Balvenie.
I lived in Edinburgh for 7 years, and it took me until year 4 to like whisky – the rest of the time it was like I was drinking astringent fire. But now I love it and am somewhat of an expert on it! So, to love whisky, give yourself Stockholm Syndrome regarding it. And then develop a very expensive habit.
I like to peaty ones (although the Cardhu is nice, and that’s a lot sweeter). One of my favourites is the Ardbeg Uighaedil.
I still don’t like whisky, although I took to haggis immediately upon arrival.
I’m sorry, did you say Scotland or Seattle?
See also: Seattle
I’ve been going to hot yoga to try and get ahead of the winter blues, but maybe I need a bottle of scotch instead/as well?
Luuuurve Balvenie. I had the misfortune of trying Laphroig as my first real whisky, and thought that I was therefore not destined to be a whisky drinker. Nope, it turns out I simply don’t like super-phenoled super-peaty ones.
That Auden wrote about genitalia is not a surprise. This is the same man who wrote a poem about the satisfaction of a bowel movement, dedicating it to Christopher Isherwood.
The New Forest did a pilot project with reflective paint a while ago for the ponies, but it all just washed off in the rain. At the time there wasn’t anything that was durable enough and non-toxic so hopefully that has changed. The New Forest ponies wear refelctive collars which does help, but does rely on them being the right way round for your headlights to see them.
If there’s one thing I learned from Twitter last night it’s that EVERYONE’S all-white middle school did a production of The Wiz.
Ours didn’t, but they did do Fiddler on the Roof and had all the boys TAKE OFF THEIR YARMULKAHS during “Sunrise, Sunset”.
If only I hadn’t broken my ankle and had been able to be there as their Jewish consultant…
My CATHOLIC school did Fiddler on the Roof. I don’t think the costumes even had yarmulkes!
One of my friends on Twitter was in her (all-white) middle school’s production when Chris Evans played the Tin Man. I told her if she has video, she needs to sell it to TMZ immediately.
my mostly-white middle school did Once On This Island, because our (also white) choir director had done it in college and didn’t think it was weird to make suburban white children put on a production about people from the Caribbean. It was a very confusing experience for everybody. There are so many explicit references to being black in that show.
I was in a mostly-white summer production of Once on This Island. To the director’s credit, he did include a note about the issue in the program, which might have been the first time someone I knew in real life tried to grapple thoughtfully with race and representation. But, yeah, why pick that show?
Still, it was much better than the HS production of West Side Story in which the white kids were made to dye their hair and put on spray-tan if they were playing Puerto Rican characters. Glad I bowed out of that one early. Crikey.
I kind of remember them removing some of the “brown skin” references from the lyrics, but I think that might be wishful thinking. The girl playing Ti Moune most definitely did not have brown skin. womp womp
My dad’s (all-white, rural Ontario) high school did West Side Story back in the seventies, but at least they didn’t put the kids in brownface. Instead, Dad played a Shark with flaming red hair and abndant freckles, and everyone politely refrained from commenting.
My all-white PRIMARY SCHOOL did it. That is, 5-11 year-olds. What were they thinking?
I was the Wiz in seventh grade. It was my big return to the stage—two years after I played York in a pageant based on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. (Which, holy shit.)
My mostly white high school did it and the guy who played the scarecrow is now a country music star (Eric Paslay).
The Wiz Live! I loved it. I have never seen any other version of it, so I have nothing to compare it to, but the cast was so strong, the songs great, the choreography so well done! Watching it and being on twitter last night was so so amazing.
Definitely my favorite was Shanice Williams, the 18 year old from NJ who was previously unknown and hit it out of the park. Fuck anyone in Hollywood who says it is just hard to find talented black actors and actresses when all it takes is actually looking. She was great.
Huh, I guess the time at Galvin when they had a school-wide assembly during Black History Month and made us all watch the movie in terrible sound quality must have been after your time, then.
I’m looking forward to watching it this weekend, assuming I can find it on the internet somewhere.
omg that is such a thing that our 99% white suburb would have done and I am glad I missed it. Watching the Wiz in school would have been fine, but under those circumstances, yikes.
I’m completely fascinated by the contouring/highlighting job they did on Queen Latifah.
Yes! Honestly my only critique was that it really needed a studio audience. Applause after the big numbers, laughter at the jokes, and a curtain call with a DAMN STANDING OVATION would really have added some life to it. I mean, I applauded alone in my living room, but still.
I really enjoyed what I saw of it – just the first hour before I had to go to bed – but I really think these live musicals on NBC would benefit from having an audience. There were pauses after jokes clearly meant for laughter, and the total silence surrounding them was just kind of weird and uncomfortable. They don’t need to sell out a whole theater, but couldn’t they get an SNL-sized audience in there at least?
It was especially surreal when nobody applauded after Mary J Blige’s number. A small audience would have helped so much (can NBC just hook a middle school drama class up with free tickets?)
The Awl currently has an Internet Announcement Board up. The latest message? “Magic Mike XXL is the greatest movie ever made”.
I want to add a message, but no idea how I’ll be able to improve on that.
I clicked on it, and it said “leggings are pants.”
Needless to say, I will be clicking on that link often.
I got,
“YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE
is to fart around”
I like it.
OMG, that “baby mama” story. Ugh. I’m glad the problem was resolved, but what a nightmare in the meantime.
I’m a high school teacher, and pregnant with my second child. A former student (he was in my class last year, now a senior) referred to me as his baby mama in front of one of his other teachers, who then asked me, “Is there some reason why this kid is referring to you as his baby mama?” Uh, other than the fact that he is a horrible, sexist monster? Yeah, that’s not how I would have phrased that question. I did speak to the assistant principal about it; I’m not sure that anything was ever said to the kid, but why would anyone, even an 18 year old, think that’s okay?
Anyway, #banmen
Ugggggh. “Is this okay?” was definitely never one of his considerations. More like “Is this making a female teacher uncomfortable and getting me attention, okay great, that was my goal.”
Jingle Rock Bell is so much funnier than it has any right to be.
I have come to the conclusion that men do not understand why Kilgrave is so terrifying. I had to explain it thusly to a co-worker:
“Every woman knows at least 1 dude that is like Kilgrave who, if given the same powers, would use it like Kilgrave does against women.”
They responded “Really?” and then I went to a near by co-worker and was like “Do you know a guy who won’t take a hint no matter what? And if given mind control would use it to control the women they like into sleeping with them?” She said yes.
Male co-worker was horrified.
….yep just thought of three dudes without even trying. Ugh.
Pretty much. and I want to drop kick them all into space where there are no people… or oxygen.
😀
No, no. Give them a little oxygen. Just enough to prolong the terror. Not enough for comfort, though.
We WISH we only knew one. I live among civilized, educated men, and at least six of them would do this.
Not to go all #NotAllMen or anything, but I have yet to talk about the show with any guy who doesn’t get it. Then again, I’m lucky not to have to deal with bros very much.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes y
When watching the first few eps with female friends, we were all shocked and vulnerable and had deep conversations about our personal histories and stories about consent. Shit came up in a real way.
A male friend didn’t even register that there was sexual violence even HAPPENING. We had to clue him in. Men live in a different world.
him: this show is gritty and the actress is hot.
me: i really appreciate that all of the lead characters are female, that the story telling is so feminist it occasionally strays into misandrist, and that it’s facilitating a lot of discussion about both the overt and covert emotional and sexual abuse that women experience in relationships.
him: are we watching the same show???
me: how about you just sit there and look pretty and don’t say anything ever again during Jessica Jones, k?
I LOVE HIM, I DO, BUT GAAAAAAWD SOMETIMES.
Guys. I got very drunk at a work thing last night and proceeded to pinball\spiderman\just fall down a lot all the way home.
I think I broke my ankle, I have an amazing graze on my knee and my coat is covered in muck. I deduce that I fell down and lay in the road at some point.
And if the hangover doesn’t kill me, the shame might. I was *smelling* people at some point.
Good lord.
(((empathetic sigh)))
in addition to objective shame, i strongly believe the after-effects of lots of alcohol include some sort of chemical shame. i feel shame waking up after a night when i did NOTHING weird.
that said, it sounds like you were fun and silly and that is SO MUCH BETTER than being hostile or handsy.
I actually think that might be true. Maybe a Toastie with more biological knowledge can confirm? But I really do think I’ve read this before.
i have certainly read this — that the aftereffects of alcohol activate some part of your chemistry normally intended to produce Shame Hormones — but also i don’t CARE if it’s true, it’s my story and i’m sticking to it and please, science-inclined toasties, if you are going to refute it preface your denial with some sort of warning or disclaimer
I believe the official science term is “hangxiety”.
The Fear is real.
Part of it I think is that the memories only come back slowly and on flashes; you’re happily dying in bed and trying to watch something inoffensive when you have a vague flash of telling someone they smell lovely. No context. No memory of before or after.
texting with a friend to try to reconstruct the evening and then learning that one of the people present, whose opinion matters to you, was sober. LITERAL NIGHTMARE HELL
I don’t know if you will find this comforting, but I am a fragrance nerd and have told multiple people that they smell lovely while stone cold sober. (Sometimes I even guess the fragrance correctly.)
Maybe they will just think you are a perfume / lotion aficionado?
Oh no. Did your interview on Wednesday (or was it Tuesday?) at least go well?
Yeah I think it did, thanks for asking! I still have some misgivings about the company (growing very fast without any real plan, sound very busy and not too well managed)
I haven’t heard back from them, and I’m starting to think I won’t, but that’s life!
But wasn’t this the sexy ad agency? What about Tom Hiddleston??
No, seriously, it’s good that you feel confident about how it went. And even if you don’t hear back from them, it’s another experience and one can’t have enough of those.
Don’t let your shame prevent you from having your ankle checked out! Best be quick with things like broken bones.
Yes to this-I have a relative who used to work in sports medicine, and one day a woman came in and said that her leg hurt and she thought maybe she sprained it? Idk what exactly made him suspicious, but he took an xray and said, Nope, you have a broken leg. Your fibula is broken, go to an ER now. And I guess she had just been walking around with a (non-compound) fracture in her leg and didn’t know cause it wasn’t a weight bearing bone that was broken.
Sometimes I think that having a high pain tolerance is a real mixed blessing. This situation is a very real fear of mine.
It’s not really broken, I’m just exaggerating. I can put weight on it, its just turning that hurts. I just twisted it badly I think
Oh no, I hope you’re ok! Are you going to go get your ankle checked out?
Relevant to yesterday: http://www.konbini.com/en/lifestyle/creepy-dolls-…
OH! Forgot to say: The first printing of Auden’s poem, complete with its, er, potentially unusual binding materials, is available for purchase at Abebooks for less than $50, if you’re stuck for Christmas gifts.
YOGA FOR YOUR LADY PARTS
okay but NICOLE do you remember the pitch about “the holistic taoist jade egg practice AKA vaginal Kung fu” ????? Because I will never, ever forget.
“ANCIENT CHINESE PRACTICE”
I’m still trying to figure out which of my parts are not, in fact “lady parts”.
Vaginal Kung Fu?
it’s gonna CHANGE YOUR LIFE
I’m afraid to google that. What even is it?
I am just shocked that Victorian Couple has not many friends. Shocked.
And disappointed that we have yet another interview with them that doesn’t tell us what she uses for her period. Does she just drip out of the open underwear?
“Well, first we have to find people who want to play parlor games.”
YOU DON’T SAY
Hey, the Victorian parlor games I learned as a teenager volunteering at local historic houses (we’d dress up in long skirts and lacy blouses and play with the kids who visited whenever there was an open house) are a big hit with my niece and nephews. Who are children. (We mostly play Hunt the Thimble and guessing games and alphabet games.)
There are fun ones! But I’m guessing their social issues are mostly because they’re smug, regressive, bastards.
That dude makes former homeschooled kids AND archivists look bad and as a member of both groups, I am filled with shame that we share anything in common.
You’re right, that wasn’t fair of me. Reading that interview has gotten me weirdly worked up and knee-jerking to everything Victorian.
It probably should read “well, first we have to find people who want to play parlor games with our smug asses.”
I was agreeing with you, really: most adults should have more enjoyable things to do, when spending precious leisure time with their friends, than playing “The Minister’s Cat.”
I have so many thoughts and feelings about those two I could write a book of my own about them, probably. The tl;dr would be something like “hiding from an uncaring and unjust world, that needs your help, in nineteenth century fripperies is morally no better or no worse than hiding from it in twenty-first century fripperies.” She’s right about our era having child labor and poverty that’s so bad it’s a crime against humanity and racist laws and monstrous industrial pollution and all the things that were bad about the 1890’s- we’re even going to lose antibiotics if we don’t shape up, stat. But the heroes we remember from the 1890’s weren’t cool because they wore corsets or rode old-school bicycles; they were cool because they tried to fix this stuff.
Like, I can’t get on my high horse about her brushing off the evils of the world to putz around with an icebox and read old journals if I’m brushing off the evils of the world to paint my nails and read whodunits.
Gabriel is a real horse’s ass, though.
/headdesk
So much misunderstanding on my part. I just reread your comment.
This couple has really disrupted my morning. I’m kind of surprised (and yet not really) at how quick and fiery my response to them has been, and I would absolutely read your book about Thoughts and Feelings On This Couple. (Especially how Gabriel is, indeed, a horse’s ass.)
Gabriel is Turner D. Century from this: http://www.cracked.com/article_20599_the-6-least-…
I love parlor games! My ideal party strongly resembles a meeting of the Society for the Suppression of Unladylike Conduct in What Katy Did At School. And yet I would not hang out with these people if you paid me.
Spare rags and condescension. She’s probably one of those people who thinks the chemicals in a Diva Cup give you cancer (and the type that “doesn’t like chemicals” unironically).
Wad of wool because you don’t have to wash it, right?
And it doesn’t smell! Bonus!
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH
When I am being a Victorian I just stuff a small sheep between my legs. this works particularly well if you are playing 1850-1870 and have a large crinoline cage. Sure, sometimes people wonder what that noise is coming from under my skirt, but I tell them those are genuine Victorian farts from eating only real, wholesome Victorian foodstuffs.
OMG STOP IT I AM MAKING SUSPICIOUS NOISES IN MY CUBICLE
OR, OR you could stuff a large sheep between your legs and just ride it around. I bet “appearing to move without walking” was totally a virtue in Victorian England.
Great idea! A big sheep means I can have something soft to fall on when swooning like a proper lady! So much more convenient than that fainting couch I pay these filthy urchins to drag around behind me. Right, ragged orphans, back to your gutters before I clip you around the ear!
I went and looked at a couple sites to see what Victorians actually did wear. Looks like the answer for most of the 19th century may in fact have been nothing, with some belt and cotton pad with washable/disposable fillings were coming into use by the very end of the century. Here are links to a couple sites if anyone is interested: http://www.mum.org/whatwore.htm https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3…
I’m going to go solidly that she uses modern tampons because he’s not willing to deal with anything that squicky. Remember- he still drives a car, she has to use Victorian laundry tech. The second something makes his life less comfortable it goes in the “not actually necessary for us” pile.
Is that a real Chrome extension you mention in the section re coconut or am I missing a joke?
My Chrome changes “coconut oil” to “Klingon bloodwine,” and anyone can do it!
My personal favorite is the one that changes “millennials” to “snake people.”
same one changes “great recession” to the “time of shedding and cold rocks.” I had to turn it off cause I wasn’t sure when people were actually writing snake people or not, but it was fun.
I have this problem where I have this extension so I have no idea what “time of shedding and cold rocks” actually is originally because the extension just automatically changes it.
yeah i hate when i can’t tell if people are actually writing snake people
You know, some days I just really love the internet.
Is there a Chrome extension that will change “smoothie bowl” to FUCKING SOUP?
THE VERY PURPOSE OF A SMOOTHIE IS THAT YOU DRINK IT WITH A STRAW
My grandma, who is pretty much made of 1970s Sunset magazines, used to make chilled fruit soups.
Last time I was home my father spent an hour teaching me how to properly drink scotch. It was Dad Magazine come to life <3.
I don’t understand how you could do it wrong? Pour into a glass, add any mixers you feel are necessary, tip down throat. Repeat.
By adding mixers you feel are necessary. My grandfather, whose scotch library is bigger than my book library (and I have problems letting things go along with my 2 English degrees), suggests that you will only ever need tiny amounts of pristine water (no, the stuff that comes out of your tap is Not Good Enough). Ideally, this water will come in a separate bottle, with the scotch, and come from the SAME SPRING that was used to make said scotch.
Not all of m grandad’s advice is that terrible, tho. He also suggest that the proper way to pour scotch is by “tipping the bottle way up, like this”. Neither of us are ever very sober during our visits.
Slate’s silly response to Choire’s piece is silly.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/12/03/loc…
>” and they expect their gyms to build locker rooms that accommodate that desire.”
Well yes they also pay those gyms ludicrous sums of money to accommodates their desires. This is not an unreasonable expectation.
Isn’t that kind of basic supply and demand, etc etc?
Shhhh the market is a club I use when and how I want to make points
the market is saying that public nudity sucks and the gentleman over at Slate is having none of it. the market will see to him.
I LINKED TO THAT PUBLIC ENEMY STORY LIKE THREE DAYS AGO WHEN IT WAS IN THE SHEFFIELD LOCAL NEWS NICOLE. DON’T STEAL MY THUNDER.
YOU DID AND I READ AND ENJOYED IT THEN THANK YOU!
Just in case you need a witness…
Excuse my ignorance, but does it always happen that when a President is of one party the Senate automatically is dominated by the opposite party, and their job, so to speak, is to challenge the President’s policies by proposing and voting on bills? Is that part of the balance of power? So if the next President is a Republican will they be facing a Senate full of Democrats?
Following from this: how likely is it that PP will be defunded or ACA be overturned as a result of these bills? Definite? Unlikely? Hard to know?
Follow up Q: when I was expressing anxiety about the prospect of “President TRump” (gaaah!) my partner said it won’t happen because even if Repub voters support him the party itself will block his nomination behind the scenes, and that this is something that happens a lot in US politics. True?
Sorry again for my ignorance, obviously no one’s obliged to explain all this to me, but if anyone feels like it I’d appreciate it
Excuse my ignorance, but does it always happen that when a President is of one party the Senate automatically is dominated by the opposite party, and their job, so to speak, is to challenge the President’s policies by proposing and voting on bills? Is that part of the balance of power?
No. In fact, it’s often the case that a new president will usher in dominance by his party in the Senate, which is what happened when Obama was elected the first time — a bunch of democrats came out to vote, and they elected both Obama and a bunch of democratic senators.
But unlike in a parliamentary democracy, the election of the president is essentially separate from the election of Congress, and often, especially with two-term presidents, the electorate feels “presidential fatigue”, so in mid-term elections (the ones where no president is running), voters for the president’s party don’t come out to vote, and voters for the “opposition” party DO come out to vote, which is what happened last time — two years into Obama’s second term, the control of the Senate switched to the Republican party.
It is almost impossible that the ACA or PP will be defunded over these bills, since the President will certainly veto them, and the Senate doesn’t have enough votes to over-ride the veto.
It is possible that if a GOP candidate wins the presidency and they retain control of congress, that the ACA and PP can get defunded — a Democratic president would veto it, though, and there’s a good possibility that if a Democrat is elected president, that Democrats might also pick up additional seats in Congress, weakening (or even eliminating) Republican control.
It is POSSIBLE for the GOP to block Trump’s nomination for the presidency; it doesn’t happen altogether that often, but it can be done. In past primaries, GOP candidates who knew they were losing insisted to their supporters that they should vote for one candidate or another, that sunk one person’s chances.
The parties also control “superdelegates”, who can depart from the popular vote to elect one candidate or another, but the prevailing wisdom is that the GOP is risking enormous problems with its constituency if it tries to overthrow the primary vote this way.
Thanks for the reply; it’s very illuminating. So does that mean that if he continues to have high support among Republican voters, Trump has a plausible chance of becoming the Republican presidential candidate?
(I think part of me wants to hear/believe that Someone is going to Step In and Stop This Nonsense before he actually gets a chance at power which, yes, I acknowledge is a fundamentally undemocratic impulse, but, argh, Trump 🙁 I think my partner’s conviction is overly optimistic; he seems to base a lot of his thinking about US politics on TV shows, which of course are going to emphasise political machinating)
So, 1) yes, I think Trump has a plausible chance of becoming the nominee. I think there are a lot of conditions prevailing against him — this is very early in the process, for instance, and so polls tend to count only the most enthusiastic and weirdest voters. (33% of “likely Republican voters” should really be understood as 33% of “likely Republican voters that we talked to who responded to our poll”, which is a tiny fraction of “actual human beings who might participate in the primaries).
2) The *particular* problem with Trump is not just that he has a chance of getting the nominee, but that he might also precipitate a pivot by the rest of the GOP. The GOP has always been this weird hybrid animal, that is like 20% rich people who don’t want to pay taxes or follow laws, and 80% angry, racist bigots. That 80% has, for a long time, basically been conned by the 20% into voting Republican despite not actually getting much of anything they want out of it — Planned Parenthood is still open, Abortion is still legal, Gay Marriage is legal, there are still black people &c. Those are the guys who are lining up behind Trump, and the GOP has got to make a real decision about whether they want to lean into that, and that decision is going to have massive consequences, for all of us, for decades.
3) It’s probably still pretty unlikely that Trump is going to get the nomination.
4) Despite not being as impressive, many of the people lined up to take his place would be exponentially worse.
I agree with you, but there is some overlap between the rich people Republicans and the angry, racist bigot Republicans.
Yeah, it’s not a complete division, exactly, but it’s a surprisingly stark one, for all that.
I don’t know that the angry bigots get conned, at least not completely. Those rich guys fund a lot of the state level efforts where they are systematically making abortion effectively illegal in much of the country, especially if Kennedy effectively overturns Roe by not striking down the new abortion restrictions. They both work together to mistreat black people as much as they can get away with, for instance my lovely governor John Kasich cutting food stamps in urban locations but not in rural locations. I may disagree with rural voters, and their anger about their economic precarity is misplaced, but they are not completely irrational in my opinion.
Trump highlights the two biggest disagreements. The 20% rich people want more immigration, preferably with little labor rights, and the 80% don’t care about lowering tax rates on the wealthy, especially if they get to keep social security and medicare.
He also makes the subtext text in a way that discomfits the GOP. His policies aren’t particularly more out there than Rubio or JEB!, even immigration he is only a bit more to the right.
I think this is a fair distinction; it may be that that 80% isn’t getting conned, per se, but they also weren’t running the party the way they thought they were. It was the money that was running the party, and was giving the bigots something to chew on while they did it; one of the GOPs advantages is that it enjoyed a certain amount of flexibility, because the GOP elite used to (before the rise of the rich-angry-bigot hybrid candidates) not really care that much about the hardline positions, and could abandon them in states or municipalities where they didn’t sell.
And so, yeah, this is exactly right, this is a place where suddenly, instead of the hardline bigot position being a supplement, or incidental, to the money position, they’re in direct conflict.
It’s interesting. Because one could make the case that the rich money folks have more influence because one billionaire can keep a candidate in the running (see Sheldon Adelson and Newt Gingrinch in 2012) but yeah, enough rank and file are supporting Trump to keep him more relevant than anyone expected.
Yeah, I think that was definitely true for a while, but it maybe underestimated just how much power the rank and file had when they felt like they were being fucked with. There was a period in there where maybe this was working exactly as planned, but now JEB is crashing and burning despite the fact that he’s basically swimming in money, and Trump hasn’t spent a dime except to rent his own hotels to himself for campaign events.
I agree with you there, at least right now. We’ll see in 3 months. And no kidding on Jeb! crashing and burning. Also a good reminder that my predictions are as likely to be wrong as anyone not named Bill Kristol, as I thought Scott Walker had a great chance at the nomination, because he could sweet talk billionaires and xenophobes.
Walker’s failure I think was pretty interesting, and it makes sense in retrospect when you look at how he succeed in Wisconsin — his strategy seemed to be to either avoid questions about specific things that he wanted to do that he knew would be unpopular, or to just outright lie about them, and then do them once he got elected. He created a kind of weird absence that allowed conservative voters to project onto him what they assumed a conservative candidate would want, and then he just used his money to stick around until the dust settled; looking back, it’s obvious why that didn’t work in the overcrowded GOP primary — nobody needed a cipher when they had actual candidates to choose from.
He might have been much more dangerous in a field of five or six candidates, despite having the charisma of a boiled potato. Right now I think, it’s actually Rubio that’s managing that strategy.
Trump is also doing, I think a really interesting thing with language — for a long time, the GOP, in order to accommodate the conflicts between its two branches, created this sort of linguistic space that was full of words that were essentially meaningless. I remember seeing a Donald Trump interview where he was talking about how his education plan was predicated on getting rid of “Common Core”, and the thing is that the way he was using it, “Common Core” doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a word, it’s like saying, “I’d get rid of all the flaptebarp in the schools.”
But that’s the thing, the thing is that, in the GOP, Common Core never meant anything, it was designed to not mean anything; it was part of a careful strategy that the party was using to keep everyone together, that Trump just stepped in and hijacked it.
You’re doing a great job with this whole thread braak- really nicely breaking down some recent political history which is not easy to do.
I get it. The GOP has a kind of existential choice – to be a populist, extreme right-wing party or an elite billionaire’s party. Neither is good, but the former choice does lean closer to USA taking massive steps backwards in terms of democracy and freedom. Trump is more like a symbol of the problem than the actual problem.
Yeah. I don’t think Trump is an actual fascist; I think he’s a narcissist who’s co-opting the language of fascism because he thrives on the attention that it gets him — but he’s not tapping into nothing. There’s real fascism here, and fascism is a loser’s strategy — it gains power because party and government elites perceive that they’re being marginalized, so they try to tap into it, they regain prestige but only at the expense of alienating anyone who isn’t a fascist, so they’re forced to rely more heavily on it in order to maintain power, until they’ve finally Called Up That Which Ye Cannot Put Down.
How the GOP and the body politic goes forward with this is…going to be something pretty major.
*unpopular opinion warning*
Well, now, as a former Republican, and friend of many current Republicans, I feel obligated to point out that while the party does harbor a number of selfish rich people and angry bigots, it also harbors a much larger group of kind thoughtful people. I think the majority genuinely want the best for our country and believe there is a different way to achieve it than a large benevolent government. Yes, many of those people are poorly informed, deluded (lower-middle-class-to-poor Republicans), or hopeless idealists (Rand Paul), and fail to understand the critical point that “our country” is not the same thing as “people like me”. However, I think it is unhelpful to a good democratic discourse if we characterize the whole party based on its most extreme members. It is a real shame that the angry bigots receive the most air time on the news, but I suppose they give the networks higher ratings–who wants to listen to a calm well reasoned argument when Ann Coulter exists? After all, people like her give Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher their jobs.
The policies Republicans support are largely not kind nor thoughtful. Maybe the people are, but in terms of the actual actions taken by Republican voters and Republican politicians, it seems apt. Maybe they do not use the language of Trump, but I am not basing my opinion on Ann Coulter, but on the actual policies supported by Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
This is really good point- for decades now there have been reasonable-sounding intelligent men (and a handful of women) saying over and over again that the taxes are too high, that government regulation is hurting business, and I can’t fault people for believing them. Because, hey, taxes do hurt consumption and regulation can hurt growth. The goal is to find an optimal point were the taxes and regulations good is maximized and harm is minimized. And for almost forty years now the Republican teaching is that if we haven’t reached the optimal point, then obviously we have to keep cutting until we get there. The more Democratic thinking is that the current inequality and near-collapse of whole swathes of the economy proves we’ve gone too far in the wrong direction with that.
Although it happens a decent amount, there’s nothing mandating that the Senate majority is “opposite” the Presidency– in the early days of the Obama administration, if I’m remembering correctly (I wasn’t 18 yet) the entire government leaned blue, Pelosi was speaker, etc. Senators and Representatives are elected the same way as any other government official.
The Trump thing is a whole ‘nother can of worms. The results of the primaries have no official sway on party nominations, but if Trump does win the primary, the GOP has to weigh the benefits of not having a psychopath as their candidate versus the risk of losing the faith and votes of their constituency if they entirely ignore primary results.
Hope that helps– there are probably many more politically savvy Toasts out there who could give much better answers!
To your first question: No. Presidential elections and congressional elections are independent of each other. Quite often the Senate majority is democrat with a democrat president and vice versa. Presidents are voted for by the entire nation while members of Congress are voted for by their specific states and districts within that state. So sometimes they result in the same party, sometimes they don’t. There is no guarantee that if we elect a democrat that the Senate majority will be republican. The checks and balances comes into play with the roles of the Senate v. the President. Congress is the only branch that is allowed to make laws. The President’s job is to implement those laws or veto them if he doesn’t agree with them, but he can also issue executive orders and influence his own party to some extent. That is how he balances out Congress. Congress can override a veto and do some other things that act as their balance to him.
I’m not sure about any of your other questions though. HOpefully that answer helped some.
The Senate is not automatically of the other party. There is no reason to think, in the upcoming election cycle, that it will swing Democratic. So, should a Republican win the presidency, shit is going to get real fucked up. (Senators are elected for six-year terms, but on a rotating schedule – every two years, some will be up for election, and others will not. Persons elected to the House of Representatives (the other half of Congress) serve two-year terms.)
Unlikely as a result of these particular bills, but there are always more bills!
There is certainly behind the scenes machinating. Who knows how much or to what ends!
The Senate and House are both set up to favor Republicans. Also,in off year elections the electorate is smaller, thus older and whiter, and so Republicans are more likely to win. In presidential election years, the electorate is generally bigger, so younger and browner, and thus more advantageous for Democrats.
Trump being blocked behind the scenes would be unusual in modern American politics, and be really fascinating since Republican activists would be livid. Any prognostication with Trump is tough, because Presidential elections are relatively rare and he is so far not following the scripts both pundits and political scientists expect. It is early though, in 2004 at this point Howard Dean and Wesley Clark were leading the Dem primary and neither came that close to winning.
How do the House and Senate set-up favor Republicans? Besides the off-year election issue.
Not that I hope it gets to this point (well, maybe a small part of my hopes), but it would be fabulous for Trump to get the nomination, the party bigwigs to block him, and then the whole Republican implodes! One can dream.
The Senate is primarily because small rural states get the same amount of votes as large blue states. Wyoming having 2 votes and California having 2 votes is absurd. Brooklyn alone has more people than like 15 states, but all of New York State has the same amount of senate votes as North Dakota and other tiny states. Dems can overcome that by running kind of terrible Dems (hello Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp) but it is tough. This overrates the states that are more likely to be rural and Republican. Something like half of the Senate can represent as little as 15% of the population. (though this doesn’t only help Republicans, as evidenced by Vermont being tiny but being represented by a socialist and a Democrat.)
The House is honestly less clear, but I do think gerrymandering has to be part of it. For instance, in 2012 more people voted for House Democrats than House Republicans, but House Republicans still had a majority. Look at Pennsylvania,
(political scientists think gerrymandering is overrated as the reason for this, so take my thoughts on the House with a larger grain of salt than you would with the rest)
Ah thanks! Never thought if it that way with the Senate. My house district is gerrymandered to hell, so I’m with you on that one.
Ooh, this is a very helpful explanation. I’ve heard about the disparity of votes and population before, but this is the clearest I’ve ever seen it explained. I presume the system was set up to ensure population dominance didn’t automatically lead to political dominance – similar to systems balancing the interests of minorities in some governments – but it looks like it could do with an overhaul now.
Yep, your presumption is correct!
Yes, the system was absolutely set up to do this intentionally– the senate to give states an equal say (and thus giving both small-and-dense states and large-and-sparse states a fighting change in representation), and the House to give dense populations power.
In terms of the big picture, this is really smart, and a really good plan. There’s plenty to argue about the exact rules and roles of each body of congress, and issues of money and gerrymandering have seriously affected things, but the basic idea is a good one.
It’s worth keeping in mind that while Idaho gets two senators, so does Rhode Island. The Northeast has a bunch of small blue states the reliably elect Democratic Senators (and a handful of Republicans that are comparatively centrist). So the Senate isn’t all bad news for liberals.
House of Representatives, once you look at nonsense gerrymandering, is an entirely different story.
I still think it’s bad that the Senate is set up this way. It was and is inherently anti-democratic. Senators weren’t even directly elected until 1913, and it is usually the Senate where good legislation dies, from anti-lynching in the 1930s to cap and trade in 2009. I would abolish the Senate if I could. It also reduces the accountability of the federal government. Unicameral legislatures are just better, in general.
There’s no reason a resident of Vermont should be that much more important than a resident of California.
I can’t reconcile this statement of “the Senate is where good legislation dies” with how crazy the House of Representatives currently is. Gerrymandering has given Republicans (specifically Tea Partiers, the “Freedom Caucus”) a truly undemocratic representation in the legislature, and they have tried to do countless batshit things in the last few years, from defunding Planned Parenthood to killing the Iranian treaty process to killing Obamacare fifty times over.
“There’s no reason a resident of Vermont should be that much more important than a resident of California.”
But why should residents of California have more say, just because there’s more of them? Without the Senate, the big states would rule the country, no matter what effect on the small states. That’s what the Senate is about: because residents of California aren’t worth more than residents of Vermont, just because the former outnumbers the latter.
It is a really interesting question of how you define democracy and what states and regionalism means. I think it’s going to be a steadfast truth, though, that the citizens of one state will have distinctly different interests than citizens of another. Especially when it comes down to where funding goes.
I really don’t think if we just had the House of Representatives, residents of California would have more say. Each legislative district could be made relatively equal. so you would take the number of residents in the US in total and divide it by the number of representatives. So for California 38.8 million/ 53= 738,000, which is a little over 100k more than the number of people in Vermont represented by a single representative. Not all of those people in either state are registered voters, since children are included in that total, but for simplicity sake, it means that each voter controls 1/738,000 of the vote for the rep in California, and 1/626,000 in Vermont. Vermont voters are still slightly over represented there, but it’s not a huge deal.
For the Senate, this is not the case. Each Californian gets to be 2/38,800,000 parts of a Senate vote whereas Vermont gets 2/626,000, which is way way more unequal.
Representatives in California who are Republican agree far more with their Republican colleagues than they do with their Democratic reps from the same state.
I do think the House would be better served as a unicameral legislature, even given the current makeup. It’s always hard to argue a counterfactual, but if Pelosi’s policies had passed 2008-2010, maybe the Republican wave election of 2010 doesn’t happen (or at least not as strongly). Also, accountability would be more straightforward. People don’t know how extreme the House is and don’t know who to blame when government is shut down, but they would if there was one House arguing with Obama.
Okay, what you’re actually proposing is a complete reconstruction of the legislative branch, which is a lot less alarming to me than just “kill the Senate,” aha.
It is hard to argue counterfactuals and to know what that alternate unicameral universe would look like, if it would have even allowed the baby USA to get off the ground the way the existing Constitution did (Hamilton has reminded me how amazing and unlikely an event that was).
I can’t say your idea is better or worse than what we have now, but it’s also good to remember that most citizens are too busy to prioritize staying informed with the workings of government and who’s really to blame — when things go wrong, they fall back on whatever their partisan background is.
So would they reasonably deduce that it was the unicameral legislative rather than executive branch at fault for X event, considering how so many people now blame the POTUS for things like what they pay at the gas pump, or the recession he inherited rather than created? I’m not so sure.
Born & bred West Virginian here to say FUCK JOE MANCHIN SO HARD. My dad used to work for a government agency that sometimes required him to brief members of Congress on policy stuff, and he has confirmed everyone’s suspicions that Manchin is possibly the dumbest person who has ever lived.
I’ll never forget Joe Manchin shooting the cap and trade bill in a political ad. As someone who worries about climate change a lot, I can’t stand him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIJORBRpOPM
I actually don’t dislike him as much as I did Joe Lieberman, because Manchin is better than a West Virginia Republican and it does seem as an outsider unlikely a better Dem would have much of a shot of winning in WV. There was no reason for Lieberman to be as terrible representing quite blue Connecticut.
That ad was kind of a work of art in how truly, epically awful it was.
And yeah, WV Dems tend to be pretty bad, but WV Republicans are actual monsters who crawled directly out of the depths of hell, so.
Part of the issue with the House is that Democrats are more likely to live in dense, urban areas. If you have a state with three or four congressional districts located in cities, where the Democratic representative gets 80% of the votes every two years, and then five or six rural districts where a Republican gets 53% of the vote, that state will send more Republicans than Democrats to Congress even though there might easily be more Democratic voters.
But the whole POINT of the Senate is to give small states and big states the same amount of say! That was intentional on the part of the founders, it’s supposed to help keep more populous states from riding roughshod over the less populous states.
Gerrymandering, on the other hand is a HUGE problem. And the people in power have no incentive to change it, because many of them would lose their power if the districts were drawn in more sensible ways.
Clearly smart Toasties disagree with me, but I clearly enjoy thinking through things like this (how to make the US government better, in ways highly unlikely to ever happen).
The senate is inherently anti-democratic. It makes a mockery of each US citizen having an equal vote, when it clearly is not currently true that each US vote is equal. My vote in Ohio is not as important as it was when I voted in Maine.
If you add in the filibuster, The 20th smallest states only equal 10.3% of the US population. They can control what happens. “States” are not things that matter as much as people. Particularly given that small rural states tend to be whiter than the average, so it gives more political power to rural white people than it should.
I know it was the point, and it’s a point I think was maybe politically necessary but far from optimal. I don’t know why at the founding Delaware’s residents were more important than Massachusett’s.
Another thing I’m uninformed about: Do ordinary voters – of the kind that support Trump – directly vote in the presidential nomination? Or is it decided by a party vote, by the party members who are elected to Senate and Congress?
Ordinary, registered voters can vote in the primary elections, where the candidates within the same party run against each other. In some states, you have to be a Democrat to vote in the Democratic primaries, and Republican to vote in the Republican primaries. Other states have open primaries, where you can vote without being registered in the particular primaries. Every state has delegates who vote for the state primary winner at the party convention, and the delegate votes determine the nominee. Usually! But in theory it would be possible for the party to pick someone who didn’t get the delegate votes.
Some states also have caucuses, where the states party members show up and decide who the delegates are going to vote for. Caucuses reward smaller but more passionate party members. In 2008, Obama did better in caucuses than Hillary. There are also differences between parties. I think Republican primary states are sometimes proportional and sometimes winner take all, whereas Democratic states the delegates are divvied up proportionately.
These things also change and I can’t find good sources for this stuff from this year, so yeah. ETA: This from the Washington Post is a decent run down, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/…
Also edited for word choice, don’t think people who don’t show up to caucus are not savvy, they just have other things going on.
In my state, you don’t have to be registered with a party to vote in that party’s primary election, but you can only vote in the primary election for one party. Several of my left-leaning friends and I all vote in the republican primary in an (often futile) attempt to help the more moderate candidates win. We know there’s an almost guaranty that the republican candidate will win in the general election.
This thread is very educational and clarifying, thank you all so much for your replies!
also, no need to apologize for ignorance. I’m learning from this thread too and I majored in this stuff and read a lot about it. The US is too complicated, it is always good to become more educated.
I just want to thank everyone who’s responded to this, because it’s been very educational.
I also want to express gratitude for Canada’s political system, which is very much not without its issues, but at least it’s clear how someone becomes a party leader and where the senate comes from.
yeah, it worries me how complex the US political system is. It is easy to imagine a constitutional crisis where no one is quite sure who has the final power. It’s why most other governments set up like the US end up collapsing (Chile being one example). It also makes the US more anti- (small d) democratic because it is so difficult to apportion blame correctly and there are so many veto points, it’s hard to make changes. I’m not saying the US is going to fall apart like that, but it is something I think about.
We can and do have shutdowns, which are shameful, but a constitutional crisis like you describe doesn’t seem particularly realistic to me. Yes, the American system is very complicated and often impedes progress, but when it comes to actual disagreements about how to enact the constitution, we have the Supreme Court, and its decisions are binding and have been enacted even when everyone was fighting about whether they were correct (see: Bush v. Gore). I mean, we’ve *had* a crisis where the country split in two pieces that fought a war against each other, and we put the government back together after that.
There are a lot of problems with the American system, but I think any wide-reaching changes to it will have to come from a concerted popular movement or a crisis that surpasses the Civil War, not from internal self-destruction by the mechanisms of the state. The US Constitution isn’t nimble, but it is sturdy.
I wonder if no one wants to come play parlour games because these idiots hate feminists and don’t bathe? I feel like there’s a strong correlation between those things…
BINGO
I am so mad at Congressional Republicans, and it isn’t even all about the political disagreement. It’s that if I were to undertake a doomed project at work just to make a point, I would be fired so fast! DO YOUR JOBS. GOVERN. Argghhg
I took “Trainwreck” out from the bottom of my stack of 2015 DVDs (I belong to a critics’ group that votes on awards, so I get a lot of them) because this past week’s events called for a comedy and I can assure you that your enjoyment of it is more about the scotch than about the movie.
though also i found the first half of trainwreck kind of enjoyable (the part where she’s just living her fucking life) and the end unbearable, so maybe if you were steadily drinking scotch the whole time it would all remain a fairly consistent mediocre.
I hate -shaming as a construct too but I was afraid to say anything.
I do agree with everyone saying that The Wiz needed a live audience. A live band wouldn’t have hurt either.
Is Nicole engaging in -shaming-shaming?
READ MY SLATE THINKPIECE!
This whole phenomenon of “live theater broadcast on TV into your homes” is a pretty weird one.
Yes but I what I would give to have Hamilton with the current cast broadcast to my home. (I don’t live in the US so seeing it in the theatre is not really an option right now)
True, I would have no objections to that! But Hamilton is different because it was created and performs for actual live audiences who exist during the show, whereas…I don’t think the Wiz or these other theater-broadcast events actually have studio audiences!
It’s just weird when the primary intended audience is TV, rather than people viewing it in the same room.
oh man you were -shaming-shaming-shamed.
Collector’s Weekly continues to be the best damn publication when it comes to social awareness and the discussion of privilege. I’m totally going to give the Victorians a proper WTF read when I have some time (I vowed not to do this anymore but this week has been stressful and I need to focus on something silly) but for now I’m just loving this paragraph:
“When we focus on a specific collectible or object, like, say, a chatelaine, we often think about how functional and beautiful it is but not about the people who didn’t have access to it, let alone the miners who labored to extract the metal from the Earth, or the blacksmiths or factory workers who put their sweat into making the object.”
I’m starting to think I should require students to read Collector’s Weekly when they take archives heavy classes.
I really love how the interviewer really tries to push them on some of their assumptions (say, about women in the period, and about people of color)
I’ve been really really impressed with all the Collector’s Weekly posts I’ve read. They are doing a great job of finding (and hopefully paying) great writers.
It was such a well done interview with such insufferable people. Also was the use of the corset ads throughout the article shade?
I believe they are shade. Or at least a nod to the “collector” part of CW.
I’m just getting around to reading it in full, now, and the bit implying that pennyroyal tea is a decent substitute for reproductive rights makes me want to shove my head through drywall. And then donate a large sum to PP.
I went off about her interpretation of pennyroyal tea somewhere else in the comments here. I’m 100% sure she is not actually using that.
So tempted to post that Victorian couple article to my fb with a smug ‘See? They hate feminists and she doesn’t see the point in having the vote.’ but I don’t want a repeat of the shitstorm that went down when I posted about them before, which made me aware of some of my acquaintances terrible opinions (thankfully, all my friends/people I admire were on side).
That Matt Lubchansky comic makes me want a long sci-fi graphic novel from him. It was so good!
For more immortal goo covered homo celestias: Spider/Jeanne Robinson’s Stardance.
yes I would like that a lot.
I think what really gets to me about the Victorian couple is the lack of privilege recognition that they seem to have. They’re making the choice, for example, to not have a fridge and instead to use an icebox. Cool, pursue your happiness. But recognize that even getting to make that choice is a privilege. It’s great that doing things as close to the era as they can is their jam. At the same time, getting in the car or riding their bike every day to go pick up more ice for the icebox is a privilege of time, of money, of resources. It bothers me that there seems to be no admittance of that in their discussions, unless I’m missing it, and I think that’s really the thing that upsets me. Also feminine hygiene issues must kind of suck.
Yeah, when you see them pushing back on being asked to think a bit about those issues…and just coming back to the same point of “but current-day people wear sweatshop clothes and use unsustainable technology!”…it sounds very defensive. If you’re publicly saying you’re doing your thing because you reject “black boxes” and “overconsumption,” you’re going to get these questions.
oh my god I just tabbed back over to the interview and read this part:
Sarah: The intellectuals were in the best position to understand contraception. We talked earlier about how we’re more aware of resources that are being used, and honestly, having a child is the absolute worst thing a person can do for the environment. [eyes bugged out]
Trying to personally mitigate your own over consumption is a very fine thing. But in 2015, we also know more about how to efficiently use resources for managed, small levels of consumption than the Victorians! So yes, their whole shtick is weird and makes no sense.
Her whole spiel on Victorian “knowledge” of contraception like much of what they said was just plain wrong. Jezebel had a really good long article on how dangerous those advertised abortifacients were. (http://jezebel.com/the-history-of-abortifacients-1658993381) Plus I don’t think the victorian equivalent of Mifepristone/RU-486 is technically contraception since it really isn’t preventing conception.
Also I want to know if there are really using either of the Victorian methods of contraception she described which means either dodgy abortifacients or vulcanized rubber condoms.
i know! The interviewer is clearly trying so hard to ask without coming out and asking. It’s none of my business what anyone else uses but I’m shamelessly curious.
It’s totally none of my business but I am also definitely shamelessly curious about this and also what she uses for her period.
I’m convinced they’re either ace (asexual) and therefore celibate, or that they use withdrawal. For a while I was convinced they were using modern contraceptives, but considering Mrs. Chrisman won’t even take painkillers for migraines or a broken foot (per her first book), I doubt that.
They constantly tout the fact that they’re “poor” and don’t have tons of money, and sort of skirt all the privilege discussions that way. “Oh, well, it’s not like we’re living in luxury! Poor people in Victorian times would have horses and we can’t afford one! Isn’t that fascinating ahrejldksf;ja;slfj”
But it’s like, well, you know what, you still chose this life. There are many, many people in this country who live without health insurance, electricity, without a car, without a fucking refrigerator, not because they want to, but because THEY HAVE TO. They don’t have another choice.
Meanwhile, these Victorian-redux assholes don’t have health insurance, but they also seem to be relatively healthy and not disabled (they don’t go to the doctor, so who knows what might be lurking.) She makes her own clothing–which, while it may not cost as much as a full modern wardobe, still costs TIME. She washes clothes by hand–again, TIME. She goes berry picking: TIME.
Some of us just don’t have the time to do this shit. We pay money for convenience, but you know what, I’ll gladly pay the extra few dollars to keep my freaking lights on at night so I can have a social life, or hell, just cook dinner!
i’m side-eying the ‘I make my own clothes!’ thing. Decent fabric is pretty expensive now, and according to my mom who sews, it’s no longer cheaper to make clothes yourself.
Also side-eying the prioritizing of buying antiques over paying for insurance.
Yeah I want to know where she is buying her fabric. Fabric is definitely not cheap especially if she is sticking with the 100% natural fibers for all her fabric.
as someone who loves making historical garb from natural fibers: NOT CHEAP!
Well sure, but women’s time doesn’t have value, so the clothes-making/laundry/berry picking is basically free!
(I started taking a very different approach to convenience meals/other modern things when I started pricing out all my time by my hourly wage at my job – not that that’s necessarily a meaningful comparison, because it’s not like not cooking dinner automatically = more money in my bank account, but it took away a lot of the “guilt” I might have felt for just getting a damn burrito instead of making a meal for myself.)
“Well sure, but women’s time doesn’t have value, so the clothes-making/laundry/berry picking is basically free!”
Other commenters have already pointed it out, but: it was very telling when Victorian Douche was like, “oh, we don’t iron our clothes!” and his wife was like, “um, YOU don’t iron our clothes.”
There are few greater expressions of privilege than “If I don’t see it, it doesn’t happen!”
(Also applies to toddlers. Coincidence? Probably not.)
The health insurance thing kind of bothers me too. Again, go do what makes you happy, that’s fine, but also recognize that one of the benefits of the modern era is that you get to choose to do that; and you also have the privilege of your health in order to be able to make that choice. There’s still at least something of a safety net in place – if you have a real emergency, you’ll be treated, and sure the no insurance will cause a whole host of issues. But you won’t be turned away (I think? I hope not). Or, you know, die of sepsis because doctors wash their hands now and have things like sterilizing technology.
Ha, I’d love to see them ask a doctor to treat them as they would in Victorian times.
“Well, no anesthetic for you! Drink this whiskey and chomp on this belt while we sew your wound shut!”**
**clearly I am no history expert.
Here in the US a hospital was eager to treat me (white, cis, het, middle-aged) when I was without insurance (before Obamacare). Then they billed me directly at ridiculously high amounts for a ridiculous number of line items. Just making up shit to add to the invoice. They didn’t count on me insisting they negotiate with me. You know, the way they negotiate pricing with insurers.
In the US, if it’s an emergency, and the hospital takes any government money at all, they have to take you, because of EMTALA. This is the vast majority of hospitals. It is not, however, everything you’d assume is an emergency— a non-complicated pregnancy delivery doesn’t count (probably, anyway).
I suspect she secretly uses tampons.
I mean surely – the alternative seems a little . . . awful. Or at the very least, time-consuming.
I am laughing so hard at the fact that this discussion, apparently, has resulted in a top-of-page banner ad for Vagisil wipes.
– The full text of that Auden poem, which I looked up because the excerpt in the link above didn’t have my favorite line from it: “I rocked at the shock of his cock.”
– Sadly, I can’t say that I’m shocked at their being a Kilgrave fandom, after finding out that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had/has one.
– There’s a Chrome plugin that inserts “Klingon bloodwine” into text? Hmm.
I don’t think I’ve seen this link shared here before and it seems really relevant to Toasties’ interests. It’s about how we actually know of a pretty effective way to reduce gun violence (not all of it, and not the people perpetrating these mass shootings that get the most coverage), but because it involves working with more of a focus on the black community, cities have a hard time getting and maintaining the resources to keep the programs going:
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-gun-co…
(Feed line): What’s an updo?
A somewhat fancy hairstyle where the hair is piled on top of the head. Sometimes derided as “prom hair”.
What’s a feed line?
It is to go up! But what is a buttfor?
It refers to things for a pig’s shoulder.
But the real question is, what is “updog”?
It’s a shame your comment is buried down here.
Once again I feel that reading drunk Anna Kendrick’s reactions to The Wiz were almost definitely better than watching it. Also, her pinned tweet is something I hadn’t noticed before and it’s relate-able as Hell.
https://twitter.com/AnnaKendrick47
Y’know, as someone who does in fact think people get weirdly antsy about how ridiculously often they wash their clothes, and refrains from telling people how long it takes for me to “just wash jeans when they’re dirty” because everyone in turn gets weirded out, I am calling BOLLOCKS on that wool thing. Wool is something you usually have to wash pretty damn often in my experience! It’s absorbent, it stinks easily, it stains! Denim, sure, I wash my jeans waaay less than is socially acceptable these days, but wool?!
From my old Ren Fair days, I changed and washed all garments that touched my skin daily, and the mostly wool overgarments were brushed, spot-cleaned, and hung up on the clothesline in the sun for a couple days after every weekend of use, and only hand-washed at the end of the season (barring accidents, like dropping a beer on them). I wore deodorant (unscented), dusted with cornstarch and wore modern underpants so that helped. Mostly I found the wool didn’t need to be cleaned that often unless I was sweating heavily so long as it had time to hang out and remained very dry. When I pulled it out of storage periodically odor was never a problem. Still, I wouldn’t want to be indoors with a lot of other people through the winter wearing damp, smelly wool.
For anyone curious about my FML saga of lameness, today I had a job interview and I think it went really well. Next up is the most stressful event du jour: doctor’s visit of shame, where I will have to admit to YET MORE STRANGERS in the doctor’s office that I, an asexual grown-ass adult failed at birth control (you would think ace people should be better at it simply by virtue of being less interested in sex? I guess that doesn’t necessarily follow). I’m worried that it’s going to involve a lot of being stabbed at with needles, which I am terrified of. Possibly it will also involve admitting that I have avoided regular gyn appointments for the last 7 years, and have in fact only ever had one such appointment appx 8 years ago. Such fail, so wow.
I’m also needle-phobic. Tell the person stabbing you. I always say I’m going to do my very best to distract myself and remain conscious and upright, but they must do their part by letting me sit down for the stabbing and avoiding any description other than “Almost done.”
I’m sorry you have to deal with BC failure. It’s OK. Please don’t feel shame. And I’m happy for your good interview!
*lie down* I meant lie down for the stabbing.
Congratulations on the interview!
You will be OK at the doctor’s and they will not shame you (if they do they are WRONG). I think people who have sex often might actually be better at BC because we spend a lot of time thinking about it and have tried lots of different things, maybe.
And you are taking care of yourself and going to the gyno now, so good for you! It will be OK. Good luck and report back!
Nicole! There is a novel about Englehart! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22929496-impe…
I’m just shaking my head at the dude in the Choire article.
“We had an attempt at a coed sauna, thinking it would work well,” Mr. Kavanaugh said. “But it didn’t. I was surprised at the amount of puritanical behavior around mixing the sexes. I guess it goes to wanting more privacy.”
“If there was a man in there, women wouldn’t go in,” he said. “If there was a woman in there, men wouldn’t go in. It became very strange. I’m surprised at how less enlightened we are about crossing and mixing genders.”
Do you know why I won’t go into a sauna with a man in it? Because if a dude on the street will pull down his pants to flash me, I don’t trust the fucker who only needs to move his towel to get the job done.
Like, bro, I experience enough sexual harassment when everyone has all their clothes on that I am just 700% unwilling to hop onto the “naked around strange men” train here. Guys feel entitled enough to comment on my tits when I have a winter coat on. I’m not going to deliberately give myself more situations that make me angry.
Yeah, and a lot of decent dudes probably recognize that and refrain from walking in when women are there so as not to make them nervous. It’s not just “puritanism” and unenlightened-ness that keeps people from instantly handwaving away centuries of patriarchal culture.
I was at a co-ed spa-going event recently. I was one of four women in our party; there were maybe 10 men? And most of the people who were not in our party were men.
I was *so* irritated with the woman in our group who kept steering the conversation back to how prudish anyone who was not cool with co-ed nudity must be, and how much of a performance for the men it seemed like to me, that I went off to swim by myself for a while.
I love the feeling of warm pool water on my skin, and I like that feeling better without clothing. What I get out of that place isn’t its co-edness. It’s the sensation of the water and steam, and I am okay enough with the co-edness (being a civil person who doesn’t stare at or comment on other people’s bodies, and being so nearsighted that if someone is leering at me, I can’t tell) until someone in my party starts talking smack about women who are uncomfortable being naked around men. LIKE THERE’S NOT A PLETHORA OF REASONS THAT COULD BE THE CASE.
I am not a prude in any way, but the thought of being nude in public with strange men makes me BIG NO.
How does one see the Wiz without cable? Does anyone know if it’s likely to be rentable on Amazon or some such thing?
NBC has it up on their website!
Awesome! Thanks. And now I feel silly for asking a question that Google probably could have quickly answered, but now anyone else wondering also knows.
My dear, asking things we could ask google but would prefer to have answered by sensible yet often whimsical feminists is one of the great benefits of The Toast commentariat.
It’s streaming on NBC.com
We get people who love what we’re doing, and some people who just hate it. Some of them probably can’t even articulate why they hate it. But it’s because it’s essentially a challenge to the American way of thinking about progress and technology.
NO, IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE INSUFFERABLE. LORD.
Not to mention- what the rest of the world isn’t currently working pretty damn hard to embrace progress and technology? It’s only Americans who get it wrong, but everyone else is successfully integrating new tech into their lives without suffering any bad side effects?
And he is completely missing how enthusiastically real Victorians embraced anything that smacked of progress and modernism. What ol’ Gabe is really embracing is an extremely non-Victorian view of life. When the opportunity came along, your average Victorian threw out the old with both hands and welcomed the new, weird and innovative into their homes.
All those crazy inventions sure didn’t happen because people were happy with the way things were!
When I worked at a YWCA last year, we started a remodeling project in the locker rooms and sent out surveys asking for suggestions for new designs/arrangements/policies. You would not believe the number of responses we got that said, “stop letting people be naked in the locker rooms.”
ALSO, I liked Trainwreck while I was watching it, but then felt bitter/hollow afterwards because of how totally unsubversive it was.
Yeah, Tom & Lorenzo had a good review on their podcast about how disappointing it was that she had to be “beaten down, taught a lesson” in order to get her guy.
” I am definitely Team Snake Person here in many respects”
plug-ins for everyone
“Enjoy your reproductive rights while you can”
Come to the United Kingdom! We have reproductive rights and people opposed to them are rejected as cranks! Also, we have a National Health Service (for now, at least) and Americans are acceptable kinds of immigrants!
Unless the bit of the United Kingdom you’re in is Northern Ireland, where abortion is potentially punishable by life imprisonment. 🙁
That little thumbs up and +1 is not enough. BESTEST.
That coconut story is FANTASTIC but I feel an extra bit of nerd pride because one of my German professors is Christian Kracht’s German-to-English translator
I'm really looking forward to the year 2120 when a couple will attempt to recreate life in the 1980s based only on the remaining editions of Cosmo and Playboy that are available to them.
Lots of people boycotted sugar as part of the abolitionist movement in early 19th Century Europe. I think there might even be a reference to it in Mansfield Park.