“BATH WHY? I is sleeeept”
Rob Ford has died. He was a terrible mayor and a really unpleasant person. He was also an addict, and was deeply troubled. I am sorry that anyone dies of cancer in their forties. I know that, personally, I just felt weird and sad when I heard about his death, because I know that part of why I hated him was that I was embarrassed as a Canadian that he was popular and that I liked to think of Toronto as being “better than that” when, in fact, Canadians are just as racist and gross as anyone else. I hope his family is okay. The cops got called out there pretty frequently on domestic calls, so I think it’s entirely possible they are.
Why “Judeo-Christian values” is hot nonsense and also let’s be honest, it just means “No Muslims/Homers Allowed”:
At the moment when liberal Protestants and others left Judeo-Christianity behind, fearing the tri-faith model was too narrow to capture the world’s diversity, evangelical Protestants seized on the idea of Judeo-Christianity. As they came to slowly accept the legitimacy of Jewish and Catholic faith, Judeo-Christianity became a way to withhold legitimacy from others. Abandoning their earlier commitment to a ‘Christian Nation’, evangelicals now accepted Catholics and Jews as important allies in the fight against abortion, feminism and gay rights.
ROXANE GOING TO HOLLYWOOD, BITCHESSSSSS
Just to play devil’s advocate here, what if birds are horrible monsters and we should only study them to learn how to fight them off more efficiently:
Today, Dr. Masello’s hands are covered with bite scars. He has had four operations to repair a broken knee, a broken nose — “the little accidents you get from working with parrots,” he said. Still, he has no regrets.
I would be sharing Nikki’s adoption series at Catapult even if she wasn’t one of my dearest, dearest people, and this one made me cry:
This piece is very sad and infuriating:
Nieto died because a series of white men saw him as a menacing intruder in the place he had spent his whole life. They thought he was possibly a gang member because he was wearing a red jacket. Many Latino boys and men in San Francisco avoid wearing red and blue because they are the colours of two gangs, the Norteños and Sureños – but the colours of San Francisco’s football team, the 49ers, are red and gold. Wearing a 49ers jacket in San Francisco is as ordinary as wearing a Saints jersey in New Orleans. That evening, Nieto, who had thick black eyebrows and a closely cropped goatee, was wearing a new-looking 49ers jacket, a black 49ers cap, a white T-shirt, black trousers, and carried the Taser in a holster on his belt, under his jacket. (Tasers shoot out wires that deliver an electrical shock, briefly paralysing their target; they are shaped roughly like a gun, but more bulbous; Nieto’s had bright yellow markings over much of its surface and a 15-foot range.)
Nieto had first been licensed by the state as a security guard in 2007 and had worked in that field since. He had never been arrested and had no police record, an achievement in a neighbourhood where Latino kids can get picked up just for hanging out. He was a Buddhist: a Latino son of immigrants who practised Buddhism is the kind of hybrid San Francisco used to be good at. As a teen he had worked as a youth counsellor for almost five years at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center; he was outgoing and participated in political campaigns, street fairs and community events.
Friend of The Toast Josh Gondelman is on Conan tonight, you should watch it!
Baltimore, transportation, and inequality:
The Baltimore riot of April 27, 2015, started with a shutdown of public transportation. When students got out of Frederick Douglass High and other nearby schools that Monday afternoon, just after Freddie Gray’s memorial service had concluded, and headed for Mondawmin Mall, the transit hub for some 5,000 of them, they found several hundred police waiting, mobilized by social media rumors of an after-school rampage that would start at the mall and head toward downtown, three miles away. They also found that the bus lines through the hub were suspended, as was service at the Mondawmin subway station. Students arriving via transit from elsewhere for transfers at the hub were simply being dumped there. “Students were trapped in the mess, whether they were choosing to participate or not,” one teacher who’d witnessed the scene recounted in a post on Facebook. “They were thrown into the middle of essentially a battle field.”
A cool piece on how women have been erased from our popular accounts of the Easter Rising (popular if you’re of Irish extraction, obvi):
Ms. O’Farrell’s act of bravery has become one of the iconic moments of the Rising, not so much for the act itself, but for how it was documented. In a photo of the surrender taken later with Pearse and two British officers, only Ms. O’Farrell’s boots were visible. When the photo was first published in a British newspaper, even the boots had disappeared.
Ms. O’Farrell claimed later that she deliberately stepped out of sight. But rightly or wrongly, “that photo” has come to symbolize the airbrushing — or “Eire-brushing,” as some have said — of women out of Ireland’s history. Now, as the centenary celebrations of the Easter Rising get underway, a determined effort is being made to reinsert the lost stories of female heroism into the male-dominated narrative of the struggle for Irish independence. As these stories come into focus, the doctored image could be said to represent something more that has consequences to this day: the removal of women from a public role in the republic they helped bring into being.
In a new interview with W magazine, Beecroft says of her work with West, “I am protected by Kanye’s talent. I become Black. I am no longer Vanessa Beecroft and I am free to do whatever I want because Kanye allows it.”
Unless ‘Ye can wave a magic wand, turn Beecroft into an actual Black woman who gets followed around in a Target by a suburban bigot willing to punch protesters for Donald Trump, this is not how any of this works.
A Toastie directed me towards literary trivia for a good cause! If you’re in Boston, check it out!
Q. Too picky about a nose picker?: My fiancé picks his nose. He has some sort of medical condition where he’s constantly stuffed up/sniffling every year from October to March. He thinks it’s just because of the cold winter air. I’d be fine with him picking his nose if he did it in the bathroom or in the other room, but we’ve had several fights about him doing it when we’re cuddling on the couch, sitting in bed, or working together at the table. To appease me, he won’t do it while we’re eating, but he thinks I’m not taking his medical issues seriously when I tell him to knock it off or go to the doctor. Help?
A: I am very sorry that your fiancé has sinus problems. I do not believe that “chronically picking his nose while eating and/or cuddling his significant other” is a very good medical solution. I do not believe that you should have to ask someone not to pick their nose while they are holding you, much less have to do so repeatedly. “Winter” is not a good excuse for constant nose-picking. Asking him to see a doctor is the definition of taking his medical issues seriously. There has to be a bar. Right? There has to be some kind of personal hygiene bar that a person needs to clear in order for a relationship to be successful, and I do not believe your fiancé is currently meeting it, or even trying to.
all of these people are being knobs:
Two agents in a team have been involved in a relationship for a couple of years. We’ll call them Sophie and Matt. From what I have been informed, Sophie and Matt are generally not too gross, but often do things like handholding/kissing each others hands/foreheads when sitting next to each other.
This is what they were doing last week when another agent (we’ll call her Charlotte) was sitting next to Matt. Sophie was coming over to his desk constantly throughout the day.
While on her work computer, Charlotte went on Facebook and wrote something to the accord of “people who can’t go a couple of hours without being all over their boyfriend are pathetic and gross. I can’t wait for this day to be over so I no longer feel the need to vomit.” She also sent a message through our internal messaging program to two of her good friends (Aaron and Nathan) saying “Sophie and Matt are about two seconds away from banging right here, I’m going to be ill.” About six colleagues liked the status, and Aaron and Nathan replied to the chat with messages agreeing that Sophie and Matt’s PDA is gross. (Sophie/Matt and Charlotte are not friends and don’t have each other added on their accounts.)
Sophie saw this on Charlotte’s screen and got furious at Charlotte about it. Based on the way monitors are set up, Sophie would have had to intentionally made a point of looking at Charlotte’s screen to notice it.
Those are crocs! Ancient Crocs. Croci? Croces? Crocodes?
Or possibly Medieval Crocs…
Toastie art historians, date that Croc!
Mid-twelfth century France! HIGH MEDIEVAL.
And as we all know, High Medieval Crocs are the Most Medieval.
But the Least Comfortable.
They were busy surviving the plague and stuff.
That tweet is giving me life this morning. CROCS!
It would be lovely, but I suspect they are booties of speckled cordovan leather. In medieval Welsh Arthurian tales, booties of speckled cordovan are the equivalent of Jimmy Choos.
Animals riding majestically upon other animals is perhaps one of my favorite things.
Strongly agree. I’m also here for unconventional animal buddies always.
Especially any time something makes friends with a bear. The best.
Oh my god yes. Although this may be me projecting MY desire to make friends with a bear.
Ha, same! I got to snuggle with a bear once that was tranquilized (humanely, for sound ecological research and preservation reasons) and it was as great as you’d expect, and only strengthened my unrealistic desire to bond with an awake one.
Pump the brakes there, Timothy, I’ve seen this movie.
You know about this book, right?
I did not, but I certainly can’t un-see that cover now!
In high school I job shadowed a keeper at a local wildlife park and the clear highlight of the day (the lowlight being cleaning up grizzly shit, which smells worse than anything my children have done) was going to the back barn behind the scenes where a very elderly black bear had her own grassy sunny enclosure and would go belly-up for pets. SO MANY BEAR PETS.
Bear wants tummy rubs?!! I will give bear tummy rubs!!
I’ve only seen black bears from a distance while on a bicycle in the Rockies, but I remember thinking “oh, but they look soft, I wish I could pet one.”
Please tell me they’re soft. Or have guard hairs but are otherwise soft.
Any animal + capybaras.
Yes! They are so sturdy and dignified. A++
I drove almost a full day across part of Argentina , and then back, to see capybaras (and baby capybaras!) in the wild. I have no regrets.
I would have done the same.
A relevant tumblr: http://animalssittingoncapybaras.tumblr.com
It is now my life’s goal to find a capybara large enough that I may sit upon it. Unattainable, you say? You’ll never anywhere with that attitude!
I follow this tumblr. Excellent content.
I GOT TO TOUCH A CAPYBARA ONE TIME! Their hair is really wiry.
Pacas look suspiciously capybara-like and are legal to own in Massachusetts. I’m surprised but gratified by this.
Birds are always gross with the exception of THAT bird serenely riding THAT happy dog.
THAT bird once bit me, it and the dog (who did not bite me but did lend himself to many snuggles) belong to a friend from my aimless 20s/graduate school.
WELP. Down with them all then I suppose.
If you haven’t already seen them check out Prariedogpack’s vines where prairie dogs ride on a goat https://vine.co/v/ivI9MYMvwgT
http://animals-riding-animals.tumblr.com/
This is why I can’t venture into the world of tumblr. I will get sucked into the vortex of cuteness and never come out.
There are so many vortexes on Tumblr. So, so many.
This one is obviously the best: http://36.media.tumblr.com/44751df8f59714939d5a03…
Oh my god, in addition to amazing content, that’s a gorgeous photo! Thank you!
See also http://animalssittingoncapybaras.tumblr.com/
The internet, man. It is always there for me.
Our chickens used to ride on the goats. They were both black and white, I wish I had pictures.
http://animals-riding-animals.tumblr.com/
Happy Wednesday!
I like this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOlsRcsSVDE
TOASTIES!!! I AM MOVING TO SAN DIEGO!!!! I just found out and I am SO PUMPED. I’m not putting in my notice at work til next week, so I’m trying to keep my cool. BUT AH! Had to share. Any Toasties in The SD area willing to share their apartment expertise? Don’t know what places are a nice mix of safe, pretty and affordable (a paradox, it seems).
San Diego is SO SO BIG. Will you be downtown? (I’ve lived in San Diego County for a while but I’ve never lived less than 30 minutes away from downtown.)
I have no clue yet. I’m working in Solana Beach, so I’d like to be near the office, if possible. I’d also like to be able to afford groceries, so I know there will be a trade off here.
Okay, you could also consider north of Solana Beach, in addition to what sprinkles6 has mentioned south of it. Carlsbad/Encinitas might be good places to look – they’re definitely safe but I haven’t priced them so I’m not sure if they count in that sense.
Solana Beach to places like Hillcrest/North Park as a distance will depend on you, I think. I know lots of people born & raised in Southern CA who will not look twice at driving that distance (20-25 miles) every day. Others, especially those who have no patience or don’t like driving will think that’s ridiculous. I’m not sure where you’re coming from, so you’ll have to assess for you what’s a reasonable amount of car time. (Play around with google maps and see what the estimated drive time is at different times of day maybe.)
Thank you for your help!! xx
Hello! Affordable in and of itself can kind of be a paradox, depending on what you’re looking for and how much money you have in your pocket. And probably as with anywhere, there are pockets – for example, I’m in the Clairemont area, and some stuff is old and run down, other stuff is newly developed and nice. I don’t know if you have a job waiting for you (or some other thing that might determine location) so it really depends on if you want to stay in the city of SD proper, or branch out into the northern or southern suburbs.
I don’t know too much about the area near Solana Beach, but I’ll tell you what I know anyway.
Anything near UCSD is crazy expensive. North Park seems to be where a lot of the young professionals are (especially the hipsters), but I love Hillcrest because I prefer to be near used bookstores over cool bars (and I don’t care about being close to the beach). They’re both really walkable, which is unusual for San Diego, but both would probably be too far away from Solana Beach. The southern part of Pacific Beach is apparently where the frat boys all congregate, so I’ve been avoiding it. Some of my friends do live in North PB and say it’s more young professionals. Don’t completely ignore Del Mar; one of my friends was actually able to find something affordable there (it’s rare though). When I was looking, I even found one or two in La Jolla that were affordable, but there’s always traffic in La Jolla.
Also, I had never encountered an apartment Craigslist scam before coming here.
My number 4 priority after affordability, safety and proximity to work is avoiding Frat Boys. That probably also ties into safety, so it could even be number 2. Thanks for the heads up. *prayer hand emoji*
Zero advice here but I’m jealous! I went to SD on vacation in 2014 and lately I’ve been dreaming of going back, it was so beautiful and interesting and fun.
As there was so much interest in the Open Thread last week, I will let everyone know that the first episode of The West Wing Weekly (with Josh Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway) has dropped and it’s delightful. Hrishi has the proper opinions on Mandy, so now I can go forward with an open heart and mind.
I will be relistening on my flights because Hrishi’s voice is so calming and I hate planes. Podcast therapy FTW
The fact that I was not offered to co-host this podcast feels like a personal attack but I will give it a try I suppose. Is Josh Malina ok? His Twitter game is…sometimes wack.
He’s fine so far! It’s interesting because this is the first time he’s seen the episodes since they aired and he and Hrishi have a nice rapport. It might get hairy once we get into the more problematic episodes, but no complaints so far
Oh good! I will download for this weekend!
Fave itunes review:
a thousand times yes
by N. J. S.
This podcast makes me feel good in my no-no parts.
I am listening to it right now! And realizing I should probably watch seasons 5-7 at some point.
I still haven’t watched those seasons either. For me the West Wing ended with Zoey’s kidnapping and Toby’s heartbreak.
Song Exploder is my favorite commute podcast. Just the right length, interesting without bombarding me with information, and builds to a nice final 3-4 minute crescendo for my final few blocks.
Ugggggh I just started listening and the theme song just makes me smile.
YES, I just downloaded it first thing this morning!
So it turns out that there are actually two west wing podcasts, one of which is about American history as it relates to the West Wing. Which is why I learned a fun fact about Reagan but did not hear Josh Malina. Listening to the real one now!
Man, West Wing is such a weird thing for me. I loooooved it and would have Barlet for America any time. But my husband started watching all of it and then rewatching it a couple of years ago, and coming back to it after many years away, I started noticing a lot of things that made me…sad. Like Aaron Sorkin doesn’t seem to like women much. (Not like like, but like. Respect.)
This is why I won’t rewatch it–I don’t think I could stop spotting the Sorkinisms everywhere and yelling about them.
Hannibal Toast readers with excess income could consider splurging at the Hannibal auction. All the women’s clothes are in size teeny, but if your wardrobe is incomplete without a double-breasted murderplaid, men’s size Mikkelsen, seek no further.
Oh gosh, I want the vinyl murdersuit. I don’t know what the hell I’d do with it, but I want it.
I am so tempted to get at least one of the blood-spattered shirts.
oh dang I wonder what size Mikkelsen is, I could hell of use a new murderplaid
aaaa he’s six foot, that suit wouldn’t fit me 🙁
I’m six foot! I’m a cis lady but if any readers with excess income want to buy me a new murderplaid I promise to do it as much justice as I can.
ETA can we take up a joint collection and SHARE the suit? Sisterhood of the Traveling Murderplaid?
Oh god please????
I want his brown velvet Luigi Bianchi topcoat!!!!! I am a square-shouldered woman and I have a feeling he might be deceptively fine-boned so there is a tiny chance it might fit? but why do they not list his sizes!!
I’ve set an alarm in my phone for April 3rd, just before they all close, to go in and probably bid on a bunch of cheap shit. I am ridiculous.
I want the therapy couch.
I also want like 1000 dollars to acquire said couch, but that’s not gonna happen either.
oh my god THANK you for mentioning this, I made a note of the auction date and then forgot all about it. as god is my witness I am going to come out of this with a murder tie or a murder watch or a murder pocket square or a murder psychiatrist’s waiting room artwork. it must be.
Oh. OH. Some of those women’s outfits are quite reasonably priced and maaaan that show has My Palette… good way to re-build a professional wardrobe, y/n?
I want all of Bedelia’s clothes. I just want all of Gillian Anderson’s clothes, especially those killer silk shirts from The Fall, she’s always dressed so well.
My first though was “I want anything Gillian Anderson touched.” Agree her outfits now are on point in all the shows, but your comment made me remember some of the less great clothing choices on 90’s X-Files.
It Was A Different Time.
I mean, I’m assuming the prices will go way up once the auction gets underway. HOWEVER, does anyone have any recommendations of where to shop in order to look like Bedelia du Maurier and/or Stella Gibson? Because that is definitely My Aesthetic in a big way, but I don’t even know where to start looking.
It looks like the auction provides label intel on at least some of Bedelia’s costumes–Tadashi Shoji, Diane von Furstenberg, et al.–and while they’re not inexpensive, they’re not quite at the “oh sweet hells no” pricing point, especially if you look for online sales or hit up consignment shops in well-to-do areas.
ahhhh I think about Hugh Dancy in that cozy outfit during the totem pole ep at least once a month, I NEED it. Also those wound man prints even though I already have one ughhhhhh
so like
i should bid on this coat, right?
Yes.
brb buying every single one of Alan’s wrap dresses
Am I being contrarian if I have some sympathy for the nose-picker?
I don’t think that Mallory gave a wrong advice, but body-picking can also be symptomatic of a compulsive tendency; if that might be the case, then a different approach might be needed. A lot of body-pickers feel pretty intense shame about it, and about their inability to stop. A gentler conversation, rather than a sharper Knock It Off, could be in order.
Either way, of course, a doctor visit is entirely called for.
Yup, there is a condition called rhinotillexomania (obsessive-compulsive disorder/body-focused repetitive behaviour) (that was a question at pub trivia a few weeks ago). But the fact that he only does this during the winter months makes me think that this might not be what’s wrong with him.
I have actually-diagnosed OCD and self-diagnosed body-focused repetitive behavior, and I have learned to take my compulsive gross pickings of various types into the bathroom with the door closed. I agree with Merripat anyway that the seasonality calls this kind of diagnosis into question.
tl;dr if someone in your life has gross picking tendencies, maybe talk to them gently about it first, but if their response is a solid “pssssssssh stop nagging” that tells you a lot about them!
wow, i am so glad to see this thread. because i do….this type of thing. and had no idea it was a Thing, as opposed to, i dunno, me being a weirdo with too much nervous energy. back to chewing on the inside of my mouth for no reason….
chewing the inside of my mouth was something I did as a kid and teen. I bit too deep once and it got infected and I had this swollen lip/cheek. That might have been when I switched to cuticles, or maybe the change just developed at some point that I don’t remember (like, maybe it was in university? I know I was a cuticle picker by 4th year because my first girlfriend was then and she did it too. It’s hard to keep track of something you’re not consciously doing.)
the only thing i’ve successfully stopped doing is biting my nails, and that was mostly because it was hurting my teeth. but, inside of mouth, lips, cuticles, feet; it’s been a thing for as long as i can remember, and far worse under stress. it’s so strange to actively know it’s a bad idea, and still do it unconsciously.
So I’m completely on board for Gwendoline Christie in Top of the Lake season 2. Guesses on what kind of character she’ll play?
Yeeeesssssss Top of the Lake!!!
omg, I loved Top of Lake it was soooooo beautiful, but jesus I hope their writers do a better job of creating a plot that’s not all over the place.
YES Top Of The Lake! It was so well-crafted, every aspect resonated with at least one other, usually more, in complex, nuanced ways.
YESSS TOP OF THE LAKE
I wonder if she’ll have to bite off another man’s ear.
We can only hope…
Birds are in fact horrible monsters and the things I have seen “love”birds do gives me literal nightmares.
Also they just poop way more than anything that’s not inherently evil should.
While I understand how ecology works, that aside I wouldn’t be sad if we just woke up tomorrow and birds no longer existed.
+1 for Look Around You.
… and Partario.
No, I’m sorry, I am here for the birds. I live next door to some Great Blue Herons, and I take pictures of them compulsively (but weirdly, cannot figure out how to post them).
Also, hooded mergansers during migration season. Those guys are hilarious-looking.
I am 100% Team Bird, in case my username didn’t tip you off. Like, Audubon-subscribing, suet-feeding, knowing-different-bird-calls level Bird Supporter. But at the same time, I’m not all that interested in having them inside my home.
NOPE, me either. I like seeing them where they belong.
I think of myself as more of a bird spotter than a bird watcher, but I love them all the same. Around me, it’s all about the grackles now. And the occasional chickadee.
Mergansers in their flotillas! Or possibly Mergansers doing their synchronized swimming routines! (They only know a couple of moves but they are amazing at them.) Mergansers coming through the fog in a slightly menacing armada!
LOVE.
We get the hooded ones with the white cheeks, who dive and then surface Very Far from where they went down. They’re adorable.
Herons are great. There is a small zoo near where my parents live, and every day when they fed the penguins a heron would fly in to score some free fish. I saw herons doing the same thing at Amsterdam zoo when they fed the sea lions. (I also saw a heron in Amsterdam peering through someone’s window, which was terrifying.)
I don’t know how to embed an image in a comment (pls help), but surely we have all know that the prince of darkness masquerades as THIS BIRD – http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lagzl8BdMV1qzk0…
Exactly. Well said.
My cat would be so very sad, sitting and watching them is her most favorite.
But honestly if we were left with nothing but pigeons… I got no beef with the pigeons. They’ve never bitten me, slapped me in the face, I’ve never watched on eat another one while the other one was still alive, they never pooped on me, and they make funny sounds. Pigeons are pretty chill for being rats with wings (but I like rats to soooo)
I hate to tell you this and spoil your delusion, but pigeons have flown into my head TWICE. Once into the back of the head, and once crashing INTO MY FACE AND BOUNCING OFF MY GLASSES. People mock me because I cringe from them. Pigeons: just as dickish as every other bird.
That’s me with sparrows! Everyone laughs because they are so small but they have never had one get tangled in their hair and then stick its wing in their mouth!
NIGHTMARE FUEL—> A falcon has brunch outside of Columbia Heights http://www.popville.com/2016/03/columbia-heights-…
#YESALLBIRDS
OH MY GOD THAT IS MY NEIGHBORHOOD. *shudders*
WHY would someone record that? AGH.
Better questions: why did I click on that? What was I expecting? Why did I think brunch meant he stole some pancakes?
I want that falcon’s confidence. I also want it to come eat all the chipmunks in my yard.
It is SO CONFIDENT and FULL OF DEFIANCE
raptors = second best (after corvids)
Never forget the glorious time a Cooper’s hawk got into the main reading room at the Library of Congress and bird puns ensued.
Someone suggested naming it Ad Hawk.
I’m going back to bed now.
I’m a general bird hater, but I have to support the falcon here. S/he went for another bird, which I value and appreciate. Good on you falcon. Good on you.
Also, my favorite Pho restaurant in DC is across 14th from there and haven’t been in too damn long.
There are a pair of peregrine falcons that nest every year near my old office, and I love them and their gawky chicks, but I did see intact pigeon wings just laying on the sidewalk a few times below one of their favorite “food prep” perches.
You’d better hope https://twitter.com/probirdrights doesn’t find out about this eliminationist rhetoric!
Birds creep me out so hard, except for birds of prey. I am down with eagles and vultures and the like, but songbirds can GTFO.
Here for this.
One time I wanted to describe what some stranger who was randomly stalking me both in the meat and internet worlds looked like to someone, and I asked Google to show me an “ugly bird” and this species was the first hit and IT WAS PERFECT.
That was a really satisfying google search and I admire this little dude’s attitude: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/07/19/article…
This bird is my style inspiration.
That is a snazzy bird but he looks like he could take your finger off if you tried to stuff him in a shoebox.
I also like that bird that dances and when it puts its butt feathers up they make the .___. face
The lammergeier: a weird bird that toast commenter braak will not shut up about!
That is the lammergeier! They paint themselves red to scare other birds! They push goats off of mountains and then eat their bones! A lammergeier killed the Greek poet Aeschylus by dropping a turtle on his head!
The lammergeier: nature’s feathered horror!
Who needs Lovecraftian horror when there are birds
Have you seen the Attenborough doc where they show how they eat? They can swallow cow bones whole because their stomach acid is powerful enough to dissolve them. It’s genuinely the most metal thing I’ve ever seen.
yeah and ALSO if the bone is too large for them to swallow, they fly it a thousand yards up into the air and drop it on some rocks to crack it open
You mean this bird? (Not the first bird in that clip. Check in around 02:15.)
That’s the one!
I’m impressed by you, dancing bird. You don’t need her and her snooty ways.
Here this one I guess
http://i.imgur.com/iSdGfGz.gifv
That caption, good heavens *shifty eyes*
Sometimes when things didn’t work out quite the way I wanted, I like to listen to Mr Attenborough tell me that “It’s hard not to feel deflated when even your best isn’t good enough.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7QZnwKqopo
When I start really THINKING about birds, I get creeped out and actually develop formication-type feelings in the back of my neck.
But then I thought some more…. and some more… and ruminated some more… and realized that all living creatures (INCLUDING US) make me feel that way. How are we all…. alive? With hearts and nerves and excretions and chemicals and eyeballs?
Birds are dinosaurs and it makes me anxious that people do things like pluck them and eat them or put them in cages at the pet store and sell them for $30 so you can keep them in their living room. Don’t mess with ancient predators, y’all.
And some of them KNOW they used to be dinosaurs. You can just see it in their eyes.
My neighborhood turkey pack definitely knows they used to be velociraptors.
I have said the same of the wren that lives in my backyard. It looks so little and cute, but that is one angry little bird.
On the other hand:
GIMME A BEAT
Heh, not to be all #NotAllDinosaurs, but not all of them were predators. Hey, they ate each other.
There is no what if, they are horrible monsters with dead eyes (flamingos have the worst eyes, owls are the most terrifying creatures)
NO ONE BELIEVES ME THAT OWLS ARE TERRIFYING BUT THEY ARE. Especially barn owls.
I do kind of like the tiny ones that look angry, but I know they’d still eat my face if given the opportunity.
“Beneath those fluffy feathers, the owl is what we call a byurd of prey, because it eats prey.”
I like all owls except barn owls because their faces are creepy as all fuck.
“The owls are not what they seem.”
The most frightened I’ve ever been in a movie theatre is during a 3D trailer for the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. Those bastards flew at me and I nearly peed my pants.
Seanan McGuire believes you! https://storify.com/lilrongal/seanan-s-epic-owl-a…
THOSE OWLS FROM THE FOURTH KIND! :O I still have nightmares about them.
An owls face is a lie.
let’s talk about the owl in Secret of NIMH, ye gods
Also, they have no arms and are thus constantly unbalanced.
The only thing in their favor is that their knees are usually hidden in the bulk of their body, and the joint in their leg that looks like they have backwards-bending knees are ACTUALLY basically their ankle joint (it’s the joint of their tibia and their tarsals).
Chiming in on Team No Birds. One of my friends keeps talking about getting one (he had one of those huge super-smart parrot kinds as a child) and his apartment is already such a disaster that I have a hard time controlling my facial expressions when I think about adding bird crap to the mix.
I do like birds of prey though. Those can stay, and be trained to do cool things, and I would hold one on my (appropriately padded) arm someday if given the opportunity.
THANK YOU. For some reason, my husband continues to tell me about birds he sees flying in the sky, despite the fact that we have been together for more than 15 years and I have never once in that time been interested. In fact, I have been actively THE OPPOSITE of interested. We have this conversation at least once a week:
Spouse: “Oh, look, it’s a [bird] on that telephone pole.”
Me: “Is it a penguin?”
Spouse: “No.”
Me: “Then I don’t care.”
AAAAH YES ROXANE
I don’t think I could handle seeing that movie. I’m glad I read the book once, but I don’t think I could do that again either.
That is the DREAM TEAM right there.
I mean I’m not saying all parrots are vicious psychopaths but I am sarcastically saying #notallparrots are vicious psychopaths.
No but after the NYTimes magazine article on parrots and ptsd, I have forgiven them for a lot. That piece was heartbreaking.
I didn’t see that but it doesn’t surprise me. I kind of don’t think parrots should be kept as pets, especially since a lot of people don’t understand what they need.
I should have linked, as it is a very beautiful piece. Yes, they are intelligent and long-lived flock animals who urgently need social bonds, and a human owner isn’t an appropriate substitute. This article is about abandoned parrots and war veterans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/magazine/what-d…
I am going to read this but I’m already terrified that it is going to wreck me for the entire day.
it is a story of hope, albeit a forlorn one. But I think it is meant to be not devastating? And the photos are stunning.
It turned out to be very sad but generally uplifting! Those birds and people have some really heartbreaking stories, though.
I’m with you, I HATE the idea and practice of keeping parrots as pets. Want a smart bird friend that is less intimidating and less upkeep? Get a budgie (but let the damn thing out of it’s cage and interact with it, Gawd). All the budgies I ever met were absolutely hilarious because their owners GOT IT and let’s just say don’t mess with a budgie’s circus props and never let them on the phone, they’ll take over the conversation, seriously.
I had a housemate with budgies and they were pretty funny. The only problem was the other housemate had a cat who really really wanted to play with the budgies. To the point that she left a dead rat at the housemates door in an attempt, I believe, to purchase them.
Also, international parrot smuggling is brutal and kills many birds, which are valued primarily as pets. Fewer birds bought as pets means less income for smugglers.
I owned a cockatiel once that I loved enormously. However, the experience convinced me never to own birds again or keep any winged thing in a cage. They are so extremely intelligent and social and they are meant to be free. Parrots are probably ten times smarter than cockatiels and I can’t imagine what captivity must do to them.
Senior year of college I did my final paper for my history degree on the women of Cumann na mBan, the women’s arm of the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence so you can imagine that I nearly screamed when I saw that article.
Also, the other day I was at a St. Patrick’s Day party and I spent 20 minutes lecturing two (nice but dumb) bros on Ireland. They were, “half-Irish” yet actually asked me, “Is Ireland a separate country?”
It’s only because I was two bourbons and three ciders deep that I didn’t start yelling.
I’m so glad Nicole included this link! I grew up in Ireland, and not only is Irish history pretty glossed over in education, there was absolutely no mention of any women taking part. Not even Countess Markavich. When we learned about the rising it was only about Connolly and Pearse and later De Valera.
Its such a long and interesting history, how men adopted womens values to win their cause but then erased them completely, I would have been so into that shit at school! But no, instead we had to learn the life history of the english guy who ‘gave’ the trade union movement to Ireland (who’s name escapes me right now.)
I have and deep abiding dislike for Eamonn De Valera. Most of it stems from his post-1922 policies of being a general dick to all women in Ireland, but part of me always found it to be a bit of a cop out that he was the only male leader of the Easter Rising that avoided execution because he was all “but I’m half-American!”.
I should note that I would have no issue of this get out of jail free card (literally) if it weren’t for the fact that the 1937 Constitution stripped women of many of their hard worn working rights from the 1910s.
And I have a soft spot for Michael Collins. I feel like de Valera got to play good guy in every situation and never took the fall for anything.
That’s crazy that you guys never learned about the Countess! She was such an incredible woman. Although my heart was always with Connolly’s daughter, Nora, and Kathleen Clarke (be still my heart do I love her).
Collins! That’s who I was thinking of. And since my family name is Collins I really should be ashamed.
The history curriculum in Ireland is strange, in primary school is pretty much just ancient history and bit of tudors/medieval history. Modern history is seen as too complicated for children or something, so you go from Romans and Medieval history in 1st year (about 13), to the revelations to straight into WW2 in 2nd/3rd year (15-16), apparently WW1 was too complicated to teach at that age so they leave it for our version of high school, and the Irish occupation and revolution is all crammed into 3rd year along side WW2, cause it happened at the same time I guess?
Basically you have to wait until you’re over 16 and choose to take history to learn anything more than top level Irish history, and even then you’re not taught to analyse it or check the context or sources unless you go to university. So basically we were told a populist version of 1916 as fact and told not to question it.
I’m not sure it was the same Michael Collins — Michael Collins was the head of intelligence and operations during the War. He was from Cork County and was killed in 1922 by some of the people he had previously trained after signing the Treaty that ceded Northern Ireland. But he was trying to avoid a civil war or English occupation and took the best he could.
But that’s so weird about WWI! It’s such an interesting time for Ireland. Even aside from the Easter Rising in 1916 (which was an utter tactical failure but had incredible propaganda value) and the subsequent war begun in 1918, that was an incredible era for the Irish cultural revolution. Although I suppose most of that predates 1914.
Another interesting lady from that era was Maud Gonne McBride. Yeats had a huge hard on for her.
All of the stuff with Yeats and Maud Gonne is so screwed up and fascinating.
I know, right? There is a great Cranberries song that kind of delves into it, as well.
No, its not Collins and now this is annoying me. I’m going to wikipedia.
My education wasn’t exactly ideal as well, which leaves me with massive holes and I left at 16, which is when they start teaching the good shit like Joyce and Yeats and more in depth history. It also depends where you go to school, I largely when to South Dublin Protestant schools, who are not big on the Irish pride and history. (South Dublin = Where all the English people lived during the occupation.)
FUCKING LARKIN. That’s who I’ve been thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Larkin
Oh yeah. I know less about him! I’ll have to read up more on that. My economic/labor history needs a refresher for sure.
Meh. He’s supposed to have been an amazing orator, but apart from that it’s all pretty boring. I only know more about him because I did employee relations as a module at college (it was a snore fest. Don’t ever do it.).
Ahhhhh, that would make quite a difference. Although I’m never going to be a Joyce fan, so I think you dodged a bullet there.
If it’s any consolation, I’m totally blanking on the name, too.
Maybe, maybe not. It just annoys me when people not from Ireland sing praises about Irish writers and I’m like ‘yeah we learned British and American writers’.
#letdownbystateeducation
That’s totally fair! I read Joyce in high school and found it very difficult but I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to read him. (I’m American, if it wasn’t obvious.)
Here’s an insider tip; no one likes Joyce. They just read him to say they have. Its a running joke that everyone is reading Ulysses but no one ever actually finishes it.
And Bloomsday is good fun tbh.
That’s been my experience, but I like hearing that everybody hates Joyce, too.
It’s much like how Americans read the Scarlet Letter to say they have read it even though it’s awful.
Actually I tell a lie David Norris is a ‘Joycean’ Scholar and he fucking loves Joyce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Norris_(polit…
But he’s probably the only Joycean Scholar in the world.
I read Ulysses to the end and found it so frustrating that I wrote an experimental and frankly, pretty dirty, short story about it.
I taught Ulysses to undergraduates and I told them to find the bits they liked and spend lots of time there, and to go quickly and skipread the bits they didn’t like and to use Wikipedia a lot. I ended up with 24 undergrads who thought it was an amazing book with lots of hilarious bits that they would definitely like to read again, which was A+++ and exactly what I was aiming for.
My brother claims to love Joyce! (I believe him.)
I’m now super-tempted to play the “hmm, so who do we know in common” game. (I’m not irish, but my partner is and is also South County Dublin and I have seen this game played often enough to have started playing it by proxy myself. AARGH.)
Haha, I play it with everyone. Where’s he from? I’m from the costal bit (Dalkey/Killiney and North Wicklow) but pretty much everyone of similar age will have people in common, either through school, or more often, drinking.
I love this one so much and it’s so perfect. #katebeatonforever
I have so many feelings about Maud and her daughter Iseult and poor Georgie Hyde-Lees (who finally became Yeats’s wife).
“Adam’s Curse”:
YEATS: Poetry is really hard, let me tell you about it.
You probably both think it’s really easy–
because I’m so good at it–
but beautiful things take a shitload of time.
Are you listening, Maud?
I’m talking about poetry. Did you know I write poetry?
GEORGIE: Yeah
We know;
Being a woman is like that, too
But moreso because it’s always.
YEATS: …
YEATS: I don’t want to talk about this anymore.
Ugh that poem is infuriating! The Original Mansplainer who Just Won’t Shut Up and Ruins a Perfectly Nice Evening in The Garden of Lissadell.
I think a lot depends on the school and the teacher- I had a completely different experience in an Irish Primary and Secondary school. Also, Irish history pops up in other subjects taught at school, such as Irish, English and CSPE.
I understand that that is your experience of the Irish education system but I would hate Toasties to think that all Irish educators gloss over key parts of international and Irish history! Especially when we have awesome murals like this appearing around Dublin: http://www.thejournal.ie/mural-women-1916-dublin-…
Its like anywhere, it varies by teacher, area and school. Although the national curriculum is lacking in Irish Modern history and Modern Literature in Primary school and Junior Cert
I’m actually a bit annoyed that I’m missing the whole rising commemoration, but that’s the emigrants life
Well hopefully you’ll be pleasantly suprised when (if!) you come back- your school experience doesn’t sound great but you’ll be happy to know that things are different now*!
Also keep an eye on rte.1916.ie for livestreams of events this Thursday and various documentaries including Seven Women (“Docudrama about women at the heart of the Easter Rising, including politician Constance Markievicz, sniper Margaret Skinnider, actress Helena Molony and nurse Aoife de Búrca.” )
*Disclaimer: I work in Irish education and am related to various educators!
I should have said, things may have changed, this was nearly 10 years ago. And I don’t blame (all) teachers for my terrible school experience, I was just completely let down by the system and a whole bunch of other stuff (and a few truly terrible teachers.)
Teachers do an amazing job, especially in Ireland. Its not you’re fault that secular education and well funded schools aren’t a priority for the government.
And Constance Markievicz was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons! Definite claim to fame.
Yesssss someone else who agrees with me that de Valera was like one evolutionary level above pond scum
Oh I hate him! So much. And that description is perfect.
I am here for your De Valera dislike! Him and his article 41 can take a long walk off a short pier.
I don’t personally have strong opinions of De Valera but he came to visit the school I work at once and we have maybe six newspaper articles about the whole affair in our collection and they are the most popular pieces with outside researchers. I have no idea why, they don’t say anything insightful.
I grew up in Ireland, and not only is Irish history pretty glossed over in education, there was absolutely no mention of any women taking part. Not even Countess Markavich.
But she’s mentioned in the Yeats poem about the Rising! What an oversight.
… Yes because we learned Yeats.
We did not, in any way, spend three years on Romeo & Juliet and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Where Yeats just moans that she’s wrecking his historical boner with all her Political Opinions and Activism and stuff, and he liked her better when she just rode horses and didn’t talk much. Grrr fuck Yeats.
Definitely fuck Yeats.
A couple of years ago my mom bought me a copy of No Ordinary Women, a book about the women of the Irish Rising and the Civil War, and it was fascinating, mostly because while it talks about the famous leaders like Maud Gonne and Countess Markievicz, it’s mostly about the majority of ordinary women who ran messages, served as nurses and snipers, hid fugitives in their homes, and founded, ran, and disbanded Cumann na mBan. It was awesome and Toasties would love it.
(I was lucky enough to take a pretty good Irish women’s history class when I was at NUIG, which I’m still glad I did but goddamn was that a depressing semester.)
I used that book exhaustively for my research paper. It was so good! I had forgotten its name, because I wrote the paper some 6-7 years ago, so thank you for reminding me!
“today Judeo-Christianity has few defenders apart from members of the Christian right, who use it to undermine the legitimacy of Muslims and the rapidly growing body of religiously unaffiliated Americans.”
This. Blech. And also, “Judeo-Christianity,” as if the Christian right gives a shit about Jews other than as conversion fodder. You know what’s not a Jewish value? Proselytization.
Also their concept of Jews is often, in my experience, a couple millennia out of date.
It’s almost like they solely depend in a single book for like, all of their history learnings, while refusing to admit that maybe it’s not how things actually went down or real applicable several millenia later.
Right, that ties into the supercessionist thing. As Christians, they’re the “real” Chosen People, not the icky New York liberals and Bernie Sanders who call themselves Jewish.
Or entirely made up
Yeah, I had a weird realization in high school that the reason my evangelical Christian friends were so fascinated by the fact that my family Jewish* because they thought of Jews as basically dinosaurs from the distant Biblical past.
(*half/technically not and belligerently non-practicing, but that was still more Jewish than most people in my school had ever encountered. And my dad is sufficiently Semitic looking to get regularly pulled aside at airport security.)
I once heard a woman at my parents’ church say that she loved her visit to NYC because she saw so many Jews there, and she felt right at home because it was straight out of the Bible.
Wrong on SO MANY levels, and also Not How NYC Jews Feel About You.
LOL not so much.
GASP / LAUGH
It’s so, so uncomfortable to hear “progressive” Christians talk about how much wiser and more authentic and more loving the New Testament is in contrast with the Old Testament. I think that was when it first occurred to me how many people were claiming Judeo-Christian values only in the sense that “we” needed a Jewish warm-up act to prove how much more chill we could be about bacon and stuff after we found Jesus.
Yes, thank you. I was going to say, “Judeo-Christian” really means just Christian (Christian, plus Christians who are into the “Old Testament”). Judaism and Christianity approach religion very differently.
The Christian right also likes Jews insofar as they’re needed for fulfilling prophecies that will bring about the end times.
Exactly. Which is why it makes me insane that people think Ted Cruz and other Christian Republicans are “pro-Israel.” Supporting (the most rightwing elements of) Israel in service of your sinister apocalyptic convert-or-die agenda is not actual support.
Yep. Cause the Kingdom of Heaven will be built on the corpses of Palestinians and Israelis, not America Christians, so what do they care.
My family spent a couple years in a church that explicitly taught that we should celebrate the strife in the Middle East because it was a sign of Jesus’ second coming. I’ve caught fragments of that in so many pro-Israel politicians’ rhetoric, here in the US. It’s horrifying and nauseating, because the people in the Middle East are *people* who are suffering and dying and living with unnecessary strife – their corpses are not quest vouchers!
Any time anyone references “Judeo-Christian values” I know they just mean “Christian” because they really think our religion froze and has been in stasis for 2000 years.
Side note: it’s a thing for some churches to hold seders on Passover to emulate Jesus and I have been gently explaining to the people telling me about this that the Haggadah was codified post-Jesus and how Jesus would have celebrated Passover was by slaughtering a live lamb.
Did you see this from last week? http://religiondispatches.org/why-christians-shou…
I had not, but that’s the same mindset I’ve run into, and basically my response.
That’s a good piece; here’s another one I like, which kindly notes that Christians have a FUCKTON of ritual for Holy Week, should they be seeking some.
http://sicutlocutusest.com/2014/04/11/no-christia…
“I wonder if we would do better to spend our time reflecting on what often befell Jews in Holy Week in many places in medieval Western and Eastern Europe—the pogrom—than to spend time appropriating one of their characteristic rituals and making it our own.”
Dang.
I had this exact conversation with someone. My Anglo-Catholic flavored Episcopalian parish has a fully scheduled week of events. If her evangelical church doesn’t, that’s on them and the decision they made to abandon a thousand and more years of Christian observance. Go rediscover your own heritage; don’t snurch someone else’s.
Yes, my first reaction was “we have TWELVE services over Holy Week in my church, why on earth are you adding more?” My second reaction, of course, was “and why, for the love of all that is holy, would you do it like THAT?”
Thanks for sharing that piece. I got a little pang of homesickness in the first paragraph as she describes where she lives–she’s in one of the towns surrounding Wheaton, and I grew up in Lombard, which is two towns away. (She could be in the town between us, or the town where I was born, or another town I know well.) Lombard is not part of the evangelical pocket — it’s less wealthy, more Catholic, and a wave of Muslim (mostly Pakistani) immigrants settled there while I was in middle school — but I know our neighbors’ culture well.
Incidentally, the Methodist church in Lombard that I attended growing up did host a seder every year, and as she said, there was a lot of emphasis on Jesus as the lamb.
(I was a bit further away than that–BNSF Aurora line! but I had the same feeling.)
I had no idea that that was why most Christian churches don’t celebrate Passover. I’ve always been so confused by it!
My church is having a Passover meal tonight and I am so uncomfortable with it. Not going because it is gross and appropriative but I’ve not been sure if I could explain why to a bunch of old, wellmeaning, probably thoughtless white people. Thanks for the links, I might have a starting point there.
This thread? Thank you to all of you for this thread. As someone who is exploring liberal Judaism as an adult and trying to make it part of her family’s life, I am floored, over and over again, by how hard it is to do, the lack of cultural support/awareness, and how much it troubles the people around me. I’ll admit that part of my shock is coming out of prior ignorance. Lip service to phrases like “Judeo-Christian values” as part of mainstream culture supported my ignorance. Surely I know what Judaism is about! It’s part of America, right? Right.
Yup! My most passionately “Christian”-values (and/or “Christian values” should = American values) friends have been the most confused and uncomfortable with my Judaism, including to the point of believing i was going to Hell. Not a whole lot of shared perspective there.
I feel like it’s also worth noting that the entire population of Jewish people in America is much, much smaller than the number of conservative Christian people, and the number of Jewish people holding relatively fundamentalist beliefs is an even tinier portion.
The term Judeo-Christian is not that old. It was coined during the immediate post-WWII period as a response to Nazi anti-Semitism: basically fuck you Hitler, Jews and Christians have a lot in common (culture, values, etc.), so there. In that context it’s a nice expression of solidarity, but it’s been taken in totally different and creepy directions since.
Toasties!! I am Jefferson City bound (Missouri state capitol) to register my candidacy! Thank you so much for all of your kind words and support.
I AM NOT THROWING AWAY MY SHOT
GOOD LUCK. If you want a tasty lunch, Curry House (on MO Blvd) has a decent Indian lunch buffet, or Cafe Via Roma (across from the capitol) has good sandwiches and salads. 😀
Thank you so much! I was wondering where we would get lunch.
Sawaddee Thai on High St. is good too.
Ooh yeah, a coworker had some tom kha gai from them last week and it smelled super good. Once my busted toe heals up so I can walk, I should get takeout from them for lunch.
Can I just say that I am a little jealous of the number of Toasties in Jeff City? Should I be elected my first act will be to form a meetup!
Partly so I can get all the details on places to eat and where the heck to get an apartment.
This encapsulates everything I love about The Toast, where we support your ambitions AND suggest a good place to get lunch.
brava! I wish I could vote for you — best of luck!
WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU
Best of luck!
Thank you! It was SO EXCITING.
I’ll never not be amused that Catholicism doesn’t get included in the definition of Christian by default. I didn’t even realize this was an issue until a few years ago (although tbf where I’m from most people are Catholic).
I’m still really confused about this
The Reformation, basically.
I know right?
In a class I teach, a student wrote an essay about wanting to go to Brazil as a missionary, because most of the people there are Catholic and Protestant, and only 1% of them are Christian.
I requested a revision, with definitions. Still has not happened.
If you get the definitions pls share that part with us.
I’m thinking, anyone who’s not a member of her specific denomination, whatever that is. But your guess is as good as mine, at this point! This is my first year teaching this class. I am learning to ban certain topics, because they do not bring out the best writing in my students.
I minored in Spanish in college, and an outrageous percentage of the other students in the program were evangelicals who wanted to be missionaries. I think if that hadn’t been the case I would have been more eager to get involved in class discussion and possibly would have learned more? Also during a class on medical terminology one of the worst offenders told me that she couldn’t think of any way to use the psychiatric terms in context, because she doesn’t hang out with people who have THOSE kinds of problems.
As a kid, I knew a pastor’s daughter who was very seriously studying Putonghua “to be a missionary” because China was the furthest place she could run from her father.
I know people….who went on a mission trip…to ITALY… ‘to bring Jesus to the Pagans’ I thought I knew the world, clearly I DID NOT.
Unfortunately I could never take them seriously after that.
Snort laugh. 😉
I think I found that out when my younger brother came home from school in first grade one day, really confused and kind of upset because he said he was Christian in a conversation and some other kid told him, “No, you’re not. You’re Catholic. They aren’t Christians.” So . . . That was fun for my mom to try to explain to two children, I bet.
I also have a very vivid memory of being driven home by someone’s mother from an extracurricular in high school and driving past a Catholic church, and her just going on a tear about how much she hates them because they aren’t real Christians, and how they were all basically just a lot of pagan idolaters in so many words. All the other kids in the backseat with me were wide-eyed and silent, because they all knew I was Catholic but were all understandably kind of afraid to defend me in the face of unexpected vitriol from an adult we were supposed to respect.
(Her son also once in a conversation told me that I didn’t have the right to claim to be any kind of authority on Jesus, because I was Catholic and we only study the Catechism and have never read the Bible so how would I know what Jesus did since that’s not something I was ever taught. I just stared at him and went, “. . . Dude, my family owns like ten Bibles in different translations.”)
And another friend when I was in middle/high school once told me really apologetically that her church doesn’t consider me a Christian, but I could come to their youth picnic (or whatever it was) with her anyway. (I think I decided to already have plans I couldn’t get out of, though.)
ANYWAY. I don’t get it either. But it’s a thing, I guess? (And I realize nothing I said was an explanation of why it’s a thing, but . . .)
Ohhhhh you know, I think I remember hearing about the saints and the veneration of Mary as part of the reason. Pagans, the lot of us. I’m only KINDA joking about that because I have very distinct memories of my Catholic School standing around the stone grotto on the premises while a little boy and little girl (white dress and suit, obvi) climbed a ladder to place a crown of flowers on the head of the statue of Mary. We probably all then said the Hail Mary.
Oh, I remember that too–Only main Mary statue was off to the side in the church somewhere, although we also had a grotto that never really gets used for anything ever. It was the first Sunday in May, which was always the day after First Communion, so the little boy and girl would be in their outfits from the day before and any other second graders in the congregation would be too. (Our parish was huge, so every year there were about a hundred kids to be First-Communion-ed, so they all went together in one go in a special mass that Saturday, and then the next day, it was, “Hey, if you notice all the First Communicants in the congregation, that happened yesterday so let’s congratulate them and also throw some flowers up on Mary while we’re at it.”)
ETA: I just checked and May 1 is “Our Lady, Queen of the May,” apparently.
When I got to (catholic) high school I secretly reveled in the fact that all those anti-communist, anti-pagan nuns considered May 1 a holy day.
Hahaha. I remember getting a little of this growing up – most of my social circle was Catholic/Jewish/atheist (still not entirely sure how my parents swung that in Iowa, even in the ’90s). I think the Catholic schools were still in a bit of a defensive crouch; I took apologetics in high school (which was actually super interesting, even though I was coming to the conclusion right about then that I didn’t actually believe in any of that stuff). The general split that I remember was that the Baptists could quote chapter and verse, but the Catholics could put it in context, but that was in and of itself a devilish act, because the Word exists outside of context.
Uhh did we grow up in the same neighborhood
I had an apologetics sunday school class my senior year of high school and had the exact experience. It was intellectually interesting and I was glad to have it, but it did nothing to sway me from the process I was going through at that point of moving away from my faith.
But yea, we were Church of Christ and I remember family members joking that Catholics weren’t really Christian, although I don’t think any of the would imagine ever saying such a thing to a Catholic.
I wonder if our apologetics were, like, diametrically opposite. “Those damn idolaters down the street will tell you that Petros is simply a male version of the Aramaic ‘cephas’, WHEN IN FACT it indicates that Peter was an unreliable cad, a shifting stone, and certainly not the rock etc. etc.”
Her son also once in a conversation told me that I didn’t have the right to claim to be any kind of authority on Jesus, because I was Catholic and we only study the Catechism and have never read the Bible so how would I know what Jesus did since that’s not something I was ever taught. I just stared at him and went, “. . . Dude, my family owns like ten Bibles in different translations.”
The thing that always made me go O.o at people when they said that, here in Baptist country, is that we read whole chunks of the dang Bible out loud in church every week!. And if you went to Catholic grade school like me, that means you got multiple out-loud readings of different passages every week. Because it changes every day. So that if you attend church every day for three years, you will hear the entire Bible (or is it 5 years?)
We never got full passages out loud when I attended church of god or baptist church with relatives! Just specific out of context verses.
In the Reformed churcch/community I grew up in, people’s idea of Catholicism was stuck in the Reformation. So he first time I saw a friend at university crossing himself I didn’t know what to do and thought it was medieval superstition, and then I realised his Bible knowledge was better than mine. I was taught that Catholic priests don’t let parishioners read the Bible.
I mean if it makes you feel better, growing up I thought that all protestants spoke in tongues and handled snakes (except for Episcopalians, but only because a relative had married one of them and they are basically just Catholics, right?)
Yeah, I remember being asked “are you Christian” back in the 80’s when I moved into my dorm. I said, “well, I was raised Catholic”. They looked at me like I had 3 heads.
Right? Whenever I hear that I’m like, “…You do know the Catholics came first, right? They’re like the OG Christians.”
You know, I like to tell the story of my high school World Religions class where we spent a whole day arguing over whether or not the Council of Nicea happened (heavily, heavily Dutch Reformed, that town; my teacher opened our lecture on Judaism by saying “I had a Jewish student once, and he told me…”); I have only just now remembered that there was at least one Catholic student in that class who learned there that her peers did not count her as a Christian. :
OMG please tell me you’re talking about Mr. Vredevelt.
Nope! Although I am delighted (end-sarcasm) to know this is not a unique situation.
Darn! But I’m guessing you and I are from the same part of the world. The CRC/DRC/RCA community is not that large (although it sure feels that way in certain areas, amirite).
Based on a quick google – I’m from your partner/rival in Iowa! And oh man, I am still occasionally running across things I thought were perfectly universal rural-America experiences that are, in fact, not.
Ooh, yeah, I grew up in the Bible Belt and that’s a really popular belief down there. Which was kind of baffling to me as I have extended family that are Catholic and I was like “I’m pretty sure we all believe the same thing and just do different stuff?”
(Of course, I had Southern Baptist friends who told me that I was going to hell because I hadn’t been baptized as an adult. I walked away even though I wanted to yell at them, “there is nothing holy about the water in your swimming pool and the important part of that whole ritual is your public proclamation of your faith and I’ve done that, thank you very much.”)
I grew up fairly fundamentalist Reformed Calvinist and half my family believes Catholics aren’t Christians and I hate that so much.
When I was little, there was a nondenominational Christian church in my neighborhood, and its pastor haaaaaated Catholics. He even went so far as to burn a cross on the front lawn of our Catholic church! And then stood out there screaming that all Catholics would burn in hell. It was wild.
He also bought a building across the street from his church and put up a big sign that said “CONVERSION CENTER: For the Conversion of Roman Catholic Priests and Nuns.” I was utterly fascinated by all of this, but anytime I asked my mom or dad about it they just said, “eh, he’s a loon.”
This thread has turned out so fascinating for me. I mean I’m obviously aware that the US is large and there’s a wide variety of experiences/thoughts but I’ve never come across any of this. It’s just all so different from my life-experience.
Me too! It really is fascinating, because aside from that guy, my experience was very tame. We lived right on the edge of West Philadelphia, so it was a pretty diverse place, faith-wise. I’d actually forgotten about that whole drama until this thread reminded me, so now I think I’m going to bust it out at the Easter dinner table. “Hey, remember that dude that burned a cross in front of Sacred Heart? What was up with THAT?”
My fiance’s grandmother, as we were driving her home past a Catholic church said “oh if they’re catholic it’s ok to hit them.”
Fun fact: That was NOT the worst thing she said on that drive!
Additional fun fact: Said fiance’s brother is currently very seriously dating a devout Catholic who had just cooked this woman Thanksgiving dinner (in part, anyway).
D:
Only if you count the evangelical definition as the “default” definition. I was brought up in a very pious Anglican family, and it would never have occurred to us not to consider Catholics (or evangelicals) as Christians. The predominant evangelical attitude towards Catholics seems to have been drawn from a centuries-long game of Reformation telephone where only morons and fanatics were on the line.
I grew up in a town with a very big Catholic population and when I was a kid I definitely had the idea that there were Catholics, Christians, and Jews (which is funny, bc my best friend from age 6 on was a Muslim). I don’t think I knew really anything about the faith of Catholics v Christians, only that I wasn’t a member of either group (I remember once saying I wasn’t Catholic or Christian, I was Episcopalian, which wasn’t really true since my family didn’t go to church and my dad [from whence the Episcopalianism would have been inherited] is an atheist, but I felt left out by all the kids who were bringing 1st Communion gifts to show and tell)
I went to a non-denominational Protestant school for 13 years and the whole “Catholics aren’t real Christians” think is entirely foreign to me too! I was always taught that “Christian” was just a general term for both Catholics and Protestants. It was the Mormons that were considered to not really be Christians.
When I told my mom I was converting from Protestant* to Catholic – and after she swerved off the road in heavy traffic, nearly scaring me to death – the first thing out of her mouth was “don’t tell your grandmother.” The second thing was “have you considered Judaism?”
It baffled me for years that my mother would rather have me give up Jesus than become Catholic, which to me seems like the MOST Christian of all the Christian sects… until I learned that she didn’t believe Jesus was God in the same way that God is God, and also that she is a super-supporter of Jews for Jesus. So.
*born Dutch Calvinist, went Southern Baptist at 9, and Independent Baptist** at 14. Catholic at 18.
**Looking for something even more restrictive and fire-and-brimstone than Southern Baptist? Boy howdy let me tell you about being Indy Baptist!
I went to primary school in a Wisconsin Synod (deeply conservative) school, but went to church in the ELCA (rather liberal). Not only did the kids in my class get the idea in their heads that I went to a Catholic church (rather than a different Lutheran church), they also had it in their heads that this was very bad. Over the years, I came to realize that their knowledge of Judaism basically ended with the Old Testament and their knowledge of Catholicism ended with the Lutheran Reformation. As though nothing has changed or happened in either in the intervening years.
When my (Catholic) high school bestie married her husband Joel, several of his (Protestant) relatives were upset that he was not marrying a Christian. The bride might have been upset, except that her grandmother got it in her had that Joel was a Jewish name and could not be convinced that her granddaughter as not becoming one of the Chosen People.
This is a concept i have only EVER encountered here on the toast, so I take this to be a heresy of the ecclesial Communities of the Reformation of the 16th century from which many of you seem to spring forth.
I’m afraid clicking will ruin the mystery, but how did parrots break his knee? Can parrots wield baseball bats now? Are parrots all about hitting joggers with their cars? How can we stop parrots from terrorizing our neighborhoods?
Reporting back in, the article does not explain how parrots broke his knee. My imagination remains free to run wild.
Cunning boobytrap on stairs in the middle of the night?
Some parrots are really huge and vicious if not used to humans. I mean, think about a macaw. They are legit eagle sized and can crack walnuts with their beaks. They’re pretty, but they can seriously hurt you.
What I’m saying is: Do Not Fuck With Birds Hawk Sized Or Greater.
I choose to believe he was trying to get them to teach him how to fly, a la Graham Chapman.
Just a PSA: Tinder has gifs now and I am far too excited by it.
Also I went to a yoga class last night and we did chocolate meditation WHICH I AM DOWN FOR,
Details please? On the chocolate meditation, I mean; I get the gifs.
Its basically meditating while eating chocolate and enjoying how it tastes.
So now I’m going to eat lots of chocolate and tell people I’m meditating.
Scheduling yoga classes now.
Me meditating from now on.
Oh. Em. Gee.
Use the chocolate with lavender buds in it. That pretty much washes away the rest of the world. (Note to self, go buy some now, you need to chill out).
Ahhh, I’m not a stoner, I’m mindfully meditating when I smoke and then eat an entire bar of chocolate going “mmmmmmmm” like Homer Simpson.
You’ve literally just described how I spend most weekend.
But now I’m not a waster, I’m Mindful.
So, this chocolate meditation – you’re actually eating it, right? Just, presumably, mindfully? Because I’ve never heard this before but I think I’m all about it.
The teacher gave out chocolate eggs and we smelled them and ate them and it was glorious.
So basically yeah, eating chocolate mindfully.
I learned to do this with a raisin and feel CHEATED /I’mhappyforyouitwasjustaraisin
My local yoga classes are seriously falling down on the job.
I know right? I am way more into yoga than I thought I would be and Big Yoga need a better PR team.
My company had a program sort of like that where for 12 weeks, you mindfully eat dark chocolate and it’s supposed to result in weight loss or something. I thought about doing it because chocolate but it was a self-guided thing and I am lazy.
That Baltimore transportation article has me all awash with the feels; it’s been almost a year now and I’m still not over our city-hating governor giving the Red Line the axe. I could fill this space with a lot of yelling about the state of Baltimore transit and how we got here but it would probably be wiser to just make myself some tea instead.
LET’S TALK ABOUT BALTIMORE/MD DEVELOPMENT POLICY! Who the fuck actually thinks we need more highways? Why the fuck is Anthony Brown still running for things when he lost to Hogan?
I was in a briefing the other day with some tech dudebros who I think didn’t realize I was from Maryland and starting talking about how baltimore was a GREAT example of privatizing public services. Lol no.
Have they ever been to Baltimore.
Almost certainly not. They also tried to say that the real problem with infrastructure being awful was bad city management “like detroit, their mayor was just terrible, but now he’s gone so there’s a lot of new investment.”
Oh god. No. No no no no.
Sincerely,
Somebody else from Maryland.
P.S. seriously tech bros NOPE.
Mark my words, when they finally do get a decent transportation system it will only be rapid transit from Baltimore to DC for rich white people to commute.
Kanye is THAT black friend, apparently.
UGH I KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOW
“Kanye said it was fiiiiine!” <— every ww he’s spent more than 15 mins with
IF KANYE SAID IT WAS FINE TO JUMP OFF A CLIFF WOULD YOU DO IT?
I stupidly followed the link to the actual interview and it was so so bad. Why are people legitamizing this bullshit? She dressed models in fabric and oversized syringes to make them look like “savages”…like what? How is that OK to think, let alone say in 2016?? Didn’t surprise me that her and Kanye were close, only two gross people could put up with so much grossness from each other. Sorry for the rant, I just really dislike Kanye and all the garbage people he surrounds himself with.
I have known two parrots and they were both evil. Parrots belong in the jungle or wherever they can live out their velociraptor fantasies of world domination, and no where near people. Once they live with humans, they know too much.
All my friends who have parrots love their parrots but the parrot only loves them back. Even in families the bird seems to just pick one person and bite the shit out of everyone else. So I guess they’re great if you’re the favorite?
Honestly despite my flippancy in above comments I am 100% for wild birds, but having worked with domesticated birds (pets, not “can’t live in the wild cuz injury”) I just… really don’t support indoor birds. For like a thousand reasons but a big one being yeah, they belong in the jungle with their velociraptor fantasies. Not pooping in a cage.
Having a bird as a pet is baffling to me. Among other things, they are SO LOUD.
My mom has always had a bunch of birds, and while I liked (some of) them growing up, I will never ever have a pet bird myself. (Except that dang African Grey is totally going to outlive her, and then I don’t know what I’ll do.)
I somehow conned my parents into getting me a cockatiel as a kid, and that little jerk hated everyone in the family except my dad, who never did anything for it except for barely tolerate it. I guess it sensed and identified with his disdain.
My aunt volunteers with a bird rescue network. Every bird is an adorable, super smart, super stubborn, super LOUD toddler, except with beaks capable of breaking nuts and talons that are just as strong. idk how she does it, but i really want birds. But only rescued birds, because birds are literal dinosaurs that should not be kept in cages unless some cruel human has clipped their wings.
OMG, the concept of birds as having the personality of toddlers that could also shred you and break your bones with their mouths is the most amazing explanation of birds ever.
I thought you should know that the House Judiciary Committee has released a (terrible, reactionary, deeply partisan/Republican) press release, but this time in the style of Buzzfeed. Complete with reaction gifs. What is this I don’t even. https://judiciary.house.gov/press-release/at-the-…
WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT. Is. This.
I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT I AM SEEING WITH MINE OWN EYES
NOOOOOO I’M CRINGING SO HARD but also I used to do social media for a non-profit and I have made something like this and it was probably just as bad
I mean the use of gifs like the press release isn’t talking about a far-reaching change in local law enforcement duties is enough of a punch to the gut but then I couldn’t help but notice that the gifs are mostly white women nodding and it just takes on a whole new level of insulting. “Oh I am a lady and all these ladies are agreeing so I guess I agree with these pesky words in between the pretty pictures!”
House Judiciary Committee: “Let’s see, how can we show that we relate to these, these ‘millennials’ I’ve heard so much about lately, what with their ‘social media’ and their ‘tech savvy’ and their self-obsession and their ignorance of conservative politics and their trigger-warning-needing, queer-accepting, tiny brainless brains?”
Random Overpaid Consultant: “Here, try this, it’s called ‘Buzzfeed’ and it seems to ‘feed’ their ‘Buzz’ or whatever, just do what they are doing. I tried it, check this out, they will think we relate so hard to what they ‘believe in’ and we can mind-trick them into believing what we believe, this is gonna be so great.”
Public: WTFFFFFF . . . . . O.o . . . . . . ?!
…how lucky we are to be alive right now?
They seem to have taken it down, which is probably for the best.
What the what? The gifs aren’t even relevant to the words, and they are basically all Hot Women (TM) shaking their heads yes or no. What frat boy Trumpian intern put this together? How do we ensure that whoever did this does not go into politics full time? I’m deeply confused.
Although to be fair, like 95 % of the gif usage I have ever seen is just hot women making faces
How dare they use a Bring it On gif for nefarious purposes? How DARE.
I’m getting a 404 error; what was the Bring It On gif? I MUST KNOW.
It’s of the scene where Torrance finally listens to the tape Cliff made for her and starts headbanging to it in her bedroom. So like…not AS bad as if it had been a gif of an actual cheerleading routine, but not good either.
What in the hell.
oh holy christ there’s more: http://www.speaker.gov/general/12-taylor-swift-re… http://www.speaker.gov/titanic http://www.speaker.gov/general/budget-process-exp…
(Paul Ryan’s staffers seem to have started this in like 2014, how is this the first time I have heard of it)
Also, here’s the Google Cache version since it does appear to have been taken down: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=c… Thanks to UPenn’s Language Log, which tipped me off about the whole thing: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/
I can’t look at these others because the first one nearly gave me seizures. Thank you for linking, though, my word.
This isn’t even the proper grammar of reaction gifs! Punctuating your words with gifs of enthusiastic nodding is the equivalent of interspersing your speech with the word “Yeeeees” drawn out in an infantilizing way, like if you were talking to a very small child or a puppy.
But most egregiously, you don’t write the sentence “Not cool.” And then follow up with a gif also containing the text “Not cool!” the whole point of these gifs is that they replace words. Augh.
My favorite part about the bird riding the dog is everybody seems so happy with the arrangement.
There are two types of people in the world: people who are ok with birds, and people who think birds are sleeper reptilians who would eat us all if they had the chance. I’m the former, and I’m dating the latter. I get the sense that the author of the NYT piece is also the latter– I’m getting a bit of sensationalizing on the parrots’ eating habits, and the scientist is totally baiting them. (I am no longer a vegetarian, guys– I’m a “plant carnivore.”)
Also I had never heard of Beecraft before this morning and now I have to live with this knowledge of her existence.
I think birds are sleeper reptilians who would eat us all if they had the chance and I’m also okay with that?
I’ve been turning over tattoo ideas for a long time and if I were to get one, it would be an archaeopteryx or some other kind of reptilian proto-bird. WE LIVE AMONG DINOSAURS THAT IS SO COOL
I JUST WENT TO AN EXHIBIT ON THIS AT THE NY NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM AND IT WAS THE GREATEST YOU SHOULD GOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dinosaurs-among-u…
LOOOOOK AT ITS WONDERS!
THAT LOOKS AMAZING, IMMA GO!
Yes. I know geese would murder me on a whim, and I love them for it. We are living among dinosaurs!! Some of them can talk to us!! This is the coolest thing ever!!
This exactly. Birds are, at all times, perfectly assured of their place at the center of the universe and I aspire to that level of confidence.
I’m getting a bit of sensationalizing on the parrots’ eating habits
Yeah, that was all very odd. Is eating seeds not a thing birds do? I was certainly under the impression that it was.
— or “Eire-brushing,” as some have said —
Have they? Have they REALLY? Or did the author come up with that pun themselves and was so shame-proud they decided to blame nameless others?
I don’t know, I might start using it. It’s so awful that it’s great.
Some might say that some should say it.
It was the name of play put on in Dublin two years ago about O’Farrell and other leaders of the rising coming to modern Ireland and their reactions to today’s society.
http://www.thejournal.ie/eirebrushed-play-1428985…
Brian Merriman! I’ve worked with him, he’s big in the Gay Theatre Festival and he’s absolutely awesome! I wish I had seen this show, I’ll have to see if I can find a script anywhere!
OK, that is pretty cool!
“As some have said” meaning the office-mates you tricked into saying it out loud.
I mean, no shame in the pun game, I would totally do that, but I would own it.
EXACTLY.
Poor Nieto. :< San Fran seems like a dystopian hell for anyone who isn’t a white tech bro. I really, really, REALLY wish “MRAs” were people who sought justice for these kinds of demonizations of men of color. Boston has issues like this, not as visibly/hyped in the news, but we’re VERY segregated here along class/race and it’s only getting worse. Is there any city in America that is not terrible like this?
YES. The idea that 911 would be called because you look “foreign” in a neighborhood you grew up in and lived your whole life broke my heart.
I think it’s just how America is, and not just American cities but (maybe even especially?) rural areas too. People *believe* in the concept of race very powerfully here, even though it is an absurd unscientific thing that falls apart the moment you look at it closely or think about any sort of even mildly complex set of kinship networks. Maybe it’s at least partly because we need to badly to forget about the fact that African Americans and any white Americans who are not super-recent immigrants are just about all extended family — are all descended from some common ancestors. 🙁
My parents were in town (NYC) for the NCAA wrestling championships last week and reported that a big chunk of the wrestling fans (who are 99 percent white and predominantly Midwestern) were terrified of being in NYC (in Midtown Manhattan) which essentially boiled down to not “there might be a terrorist attack” but “there are a lot of people walking around who don’t look like me.” It was super depressing.
All my lady-friends have been sharing this article, a response to Rob Ford’s death that discusses why it’s a problem that so many articles about his death yesterday ignored his hatred of women, POC, and poor people.
I know (as painful as it is to agree with a Megan Murphy article). It’s not like the media didn’t have time to prepare what they were going to say!
Also, to every American saying that they’re going to move to Canada if Trump wins, we have the same group of voters here. In Toronto, they’re Rob Ford supporters. It didn’t matter what scandal came up: the domestic abuse, the heavy drugs, the corruption, the incompetence at governing — 20-25% of the population would still vote for him. Terrifying.
I did not know about the issues with her – I think this is the first thing of hers I’ve read – so thank you for pointing that out.
The article is a good discussion of the response to Rob Ford, thank you for sharing! (Murphy’s frequently the ‘feminist’ voice for Canadian pubs … which is incredibly frustrating considering her support of T/SWERFs)
I refuse to read Rabble at all because of Megan Murphy. Any feminism that excludes trans people and sex workers is no feminism of mine.
The Goldsbie article didn’t specifically get into all of his bigotry (I mean, listing all the incidents would take pages and pages) but does talk about some and also does a Find-And-Replace with “Ford” and “Trump.”
It’s driving me crazy that I can’t remember where I saw it, but I was just reading something a few weeks ago (I believe in response to Scalia’s death) talking about the fact that, when someone dies who committed themselves to doing bad things, refusing to talk about those things in their obit/discussions about their impact is making a decision about how you want them to be remembered. It isn’t “politicizing someone’s death” to say that Rob Ford was a bad person who did bad things. That is an accurate description of his life and what he did. It’s unfortunate that he chose to do those things, but that’s on him, not on someone writing or speaking about him.
Glen Greenwald’s column on Margaret Thatcher’s death set out a good argument on the importance of not ignoring the problematic parts of public figures when they die http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr….
Salon did a exhaustive takedown of Scalia’s legacy talking about the damage he did -http://www.salon.com/2016/02/16/shed_no_tears_for_antonin_scalia_let_us_not_praise_the_man_who_gave_us_citizens_united_and_bush_v_gore/
It was the Greenwald piece; someone must have linked it in response to Scalia. Thank you.
That is the lammergeier! They pant themselves red to scare other birds! They push goats off of mountains and then eat their bones! A lammergeier killed the Greek poet Aeschylus by dropping a turtle on his head!The lammergeier: nature's feathered horror!
The teacher gave out chocolate eggs and we smelled them and ate them and it was glorious.
So basically yeah, eating chocolate mindfully.
Its basically meditating while eating chocolate and enjoying how it tastes.
So now I'm going to eat lots of chocolate and tell people I'm meditating.
All my friends who have parrots love their parrots but the parrot only loves them back. Even in families the bird seems to just pick one person and bite the shit out of everyone else. So I guess they're great if you're the favorite?
Honestly despite my flippancy in above comments I am 100% for wild birds, but having worked with domesticated birds (pets, not "can't live in the wild cuz injury") I just… really don't support indoor birds. For like a thousand reasons but a big one being yeah, they belong in the jungle with their velociraptor fantasies. Not pooping in a cage.
Badass women alert http://www.huckmagazine.com/ride/skate/amiga-skat…
OT but I just got my time off approved, I’ll see you in April at Cornell, Toasties!
See you there!
Sounds good! I have an email chain going to try to set up something for before and/or after, which I have been neglectful of! You can reach me at shakerethyl at gmail dot com.
I think the best commentary I read on Rob Ford was “My condolences to his family, who deserved a better person in their lives.”
I find his brother, Doug, even more distasteful and that’s saying quite a bit. I feel like Doug was used Rob’s notoriety for his own ends and even while Rob was dying was using him for publicity. Like, dude, your brother is clearly struggling with some big stuff and his family is suffering (what with the domestic assault accusations, the drugs, the bizarre and invasive statements to the press) and you’re using it as a path to the mayor’s office? Ugh.
Ooh, I am putting together a display on the Easter Rising centenary for work; I should definitely see if I can include stuff about women. (Relatedly: reading debates from the House of Commons from 1916, i.e. before there were any female MPs, is astonishingly distressing. I knew perfectly well that it would only be male MPs, but it is still jarring to actually read the debates and see no female prescence. Also, an MP asked the Home Secretary in 1916 “whether the Metropolitan Police have licenced any women as drivers for tram-cars or motor omnibuses in the Metropolitan Police area”. Response: “The Commissioner of Police, who is reponsible for the ranting of licences, informs me that, having regard to the standard of physique and stamina necessary for the proper performance of the duties involved and to the special traffic conditions of the Metropolis, he is not satisfied that women can be safely licensed to drive tramcars and motor omnibuses”. SCREW YOU, Commissioner.)
That piece about Alejandro Nieto’s death was indeed sad and infuriating. Evan Snow sounds awful.
Totally, totally OT, but the firm where I work just won a MASSIVE case that going to affect a lot of local communities and everyone is in a Very Good Mood. Pro tip to the administrations of local government: contracts mean things and you don’t just get to say they don’t! Also do not be a dick about retiree health benefits, eliminating them is not a good way of balancing your budget.
YAYYYYY!!
How can justice EVER be off-topic?!?
Congratulations and thank you all and YAY!
Hurray!!!!!! And congratulations!
I would just like to encourage everyone to read the parrot article all the way through, because while the whole thing is fascinating, the ending is truly a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Come for astounding feats of animal cognition, stay for… well, you’ll see.
tbh I was gonna skip this one but read it on your recommendation and thank you!
Because I can’t wait for OT–
Jumping in to say that dad’s surgery is off (his arteries are too torturous), teen is seeing a doctor today about his passing out, and I’m in crisis mode for lacrosse, my classes, and my research. Yikes. So what am I doing? Yelling at my kids to ‘wake up already, I only have 4 more hours of the spring break with you, I took today off, STOP SLEEPING!!!’
I have never understood how one is supposed to schedule one’s time off and actually interact with the children who do not expect you to be there.
Anyway. I’m pmsing so all the above crises seem much worse in my head. And my jerkbrain has decided to tell me I”m fat.
Do you want me to Jedi hug your jerkbrain into silence? You have so so much happening right now. I’m also willing to drown jerkbrains in tea, sympathy, and delicious food things or nice garden walks to enjoy the blooming Korean spice viburnums.
Oh! I love spice viburnums! Tea is lovely too.
Ughhh I’m so sorry.
I wanted to add some positive things, just for balance:
I can pay almost all of my medical bills
The thing that was wrong with my car was just a loose nut.
The kids and I got out of the house before noon, and managed to fit in all our errands and a lovely walk and a teen-driving-practice today.
Win! A+ spring breaking!
okay but everyone, have we reached Peak Gwenyth Paltrow with her $200 “smoothie”??? am torn between this and her $1700 Biggie/Tupac clutches
(this is not related to anything i just always want to talk about Gwenyth and her pleasantly baffling endeavors)
For Pete’s sake, she gets more privileged every day. Anyone could go to Michael’s and make that bag with craft supplies, and the smoothie sounds terrible. The flavor is basically almond. *shudder*
i knooooooooooowwww but she is the guiltiest of my guilty pleasures and i can’t bring myself to get too indignant with her privileged bubble
I am with you. It helps that I thought she was really good in Sylvia and that her guest character on Glee was so satirically pitch-perfect. I hate to love her but I can’t help reading her clueless happiness as harmlessly good-natured.
What’s your problem with that smoothie? It even contains “Cordyceps, a fungus known for parasitizing insects and turning them into “zombies” “. Doesn’t that sound amazing?!
Whenever I see people talking about their fancy superfood smoothies containing cordyceps I am so confused, because the zombie thing is all I know about it.
That’s the first time I’ve heard people putting that willingly in their food. I’ll assume those people have been taken over by the fungus, which OF COURSE wants to spread the myth that it’s… healthy…
Sort of related but on a recent @midnight the live challenge was to write a Gwenyth Paltrow smoothie recipe and I was SO DISAPPOINTED in the panelists’ lack of knowledge of Gwen. They all included some kind of endangered animal product, and I was like guys, Gwenyth is like a level-5 vegan, she would never eat this shit.
The Irish Time’s -The Women’s Podcast did a great roundtable discussion episode on the Rotunda Hospital during the Rising which covers not only the 300 women who took part in the rising but also how the Rotunda Hospital stayed open for women giving birth during the Rising. Plus you get to listen to the charming voice of host Kathy Sheridan.
http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/d…
Childbirth and reproductive care in Ireland, especially in the 20th century is its own can of worms (Symphysiotomies anyone? Back lane abortions? Forced adoption? we have it all!)
But Dr Rhona Mahony is a fucking bad ass. The first female Master of the National Maternity hospital! It’s disgraceful that it took so long. But here’s a awesome anecdote about her:
My mother saw her for an gynecological examination (And was thoroughly impressed and loves her and still raves about her; and the first time she went in was before Mahony took over as Master I think. Anyway, at the first visit, the examination chair/table was facing the door, as in if you are sitting in it your vagina is on full display to anyone who opens the door. Later my mum went back after Mahony had taken over, and the chair was facing the other way so that the patient’s back was to the door.
Its the small things that make a difference and a good doctor makes these small changes to make her patients more comfortable.
Well I mean it was an episode on the Rising that was held in the Rotunda which has a special exhibition right now on women in the Rising so it can’t cover all of that. The Women’s Podcast has in other episodes addressed I think all of these issues and other issues of gender inequality in Ireland.
I didn’t expect you or them to unpack it all, sorry if that was implied; more just that any discussion of women in Ireland is going to touch on so many atrocities that its hard to cover anything in a coherent way sometimes.
My Tournament of Hotties continues! There are more matches up if you want to cast a vote: https://vgum.wordpress.com/tag/homeless-monsters-…
You put Alfonso Herrera in there! Very good choice, especially since I wouldn’t have felt like voting for Fassbender in the first place.
I’m really hoping my darling Hernando takes Fassy down.
Those scenes between him and Lito in Sense8 … Let’s just say they didn’t leave me unaffected.
I enjoyed myself IMMENSELY voting in this tournament. There’s no bracket-busting happening here. Everyone’s a winner!
I am SO into this. Thank you for this precious gift.
Today, Dr. Masello’s hands are covered with bite scars. He has had four operations to repair a broken knee, a broken nose — “the little accidents you get from working with parrots,” he said. Still, he has no regrets.
Why am I laughing so hard at this?
#gpoy
I wrote a paper in college about the creation of the idea that the US is a “Judeo-Christian” nation and how it played a role in changing perceptions of Jews from “hey look, another ethnic minority” to “oh yeah they’re white like us.” my grandfather is almost 98, so can remember the transition, was interesting to read about it from an academic perspective after hearing about it as a kid
Dang so much anti-bird sentiment on the LR today!! I am firmly pro-bird and I just wanted to rep one of my favorite parrot documentaries, Parrot Confidential, because it does an excellent job of laying out the case for the end of parrots as pets:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/parrot-confidentia…
I hope to adopt a parrot someday so it can live out the rest of its life in relative happiness, but I definitely don’t support the taking of birds from the wild or the continued breeding of birds for the purpose of selling them. The more we learn about parrot intelligence, the more unbelievable it is that we humans treat them this way.
If we want to find a middle ground, I will yell about the horribleness of wild caught fish and we can both yell about how horrible it is to take something from nature to be a pet, even if we are yelling about different species!
Yes let’s! I love some good ol’ fashion righteous-anger-fueled yelling!
Of course no other media mentioned Ford’s domestic violence–and I was pretty offended that they didn’t also mention his homophobia.
What a crazy whirlwind the last few years were for Rob Ford’s wife and kids. I hope they get some privacy now. His brother seemed pretty committed to keeping everything before the public while the man was dying. I don’t know — I’m rambling. The whole situation was sad for his family. I didn’t agree with his politics, but I can’t imagine what it’s like to see your husband or father go on international TV to be the entertaining buffoon of the week.
Rob Ford’s career serves as a good reminder for all the Canadians feeling smug about Trump that we can go for that brash populist thing too.
given the history of cops visiting their house on domestic calls, I feel like his wife and kids are much safer now.
Hella OT but it’s really sticking with me and you Toasties are wonderfully kind with the advice and encouragement and correction, so if you don’t mind, could you help me with a thing so I can put it to bed already? (I’m a lady in my early 20s, FWIW.)
I’m pretty assertive and extroverted (with combined-type ADHD and the bravado/class clownery/bad social skillz that sometimes attends it), and I sometimes make friends with people who aren’t like that. Which is fine! I try hard to make sure I don’t steamroll, I apologize if I follow my impulse to interrupt, and most of them are totally comfortable being like “let’s change the subject!” or “chill out, dude” or some other polite reminder that this is not the Full-Volume Jonesy Show. But within the last year I’ve had a close friend…resent…that assertiveness? She decided that a lot of my behaviors were “performative” and that she “cannot feel close to me unless [I am] not performing.” I was really, REALLY excited about my writing taking off, and she had been supportive in the past, so I was giving her pretty frequent updates. She was having a mega hard time with work at the same time, but instead of being like “Jonesy, I’m excited for you, but I am running low on supportive resources at the moment” she said something along the lines of “I don’t feel like I have room to feel my feelings when you are having your feelings.” I immediately backed off and apologized for making her feel that way, but it left me feeling like I was walking on eggshells. Am I just…not supposed to have intense emotion around her? Is that even fair to ask?
Now our situations have sort of reversed. She’s making Big Life Plans (that frankly require a lot of privilege to even dream of) and asking me for favors and rewriting help and moderately-intensive tasks that I just. cannot. do. right now. I told her just how beaten down I’ve been in just the last week, let alone the last 3 months, and she acknowledged it briefly and then asked for yet another favor. Then she offered to read over a letter I’d written to my old doctor’s practice, and…this comment is long enough as it is, but let’s just say her suggestion for improvement was incredibly condescending.
I am feeling pretty bad about our friendship right now. I need to disengage, I know, before I rip her face off for something relatively mild. Toasties, can you speak to what she’s feeling? Am I taking this too personally? For whatever reason, I can’t let go of this, so if you could offer any words I would greatly appreciate it.
It sounds like she’s making your friendship all about her, which means it’s not really a friendship by the usual standards.
Declaring that your actions are a performance and saying she can’t feel her feelings when you’re having feelings are manipulations on her part (and the latter is just ridiculous). It’s not fair to ask you not to have any strong emotion around her. Nope. Definitely not. You are not taking it too personally at all. There’s no way to not take a mandate about your behavior personally.
My observation would be that she has a narcissistic streak; it’s just a casual observer’s opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. But in my experience dealing with people who have narcissistic tendencies, you can try to reason with them until you’re blue in the face and even though they might pretend to understand, they probably won’t truly get what you’re saying and feeling.
I am an introvert and definitely working on being more assertive, and… I feel like that’s probably not the issue here. Sounds like there’s not much give and take. From what you’ve said it seems like you’re good at communicating how you feel and what you need- I don’t really have anything to give here except it seems like a crap situation and you deserve friendships full of reciprocity.
Also an introvert, seconding this. I think the problem is her dealing with her own introvertedness and likely high sensitivity to loud voices, etc, but the problem’s not you.
I don’t think you’re taking this too personally! As someone who can get steamrolled in friendships I can see her side (kind of, it doesn’t sound like she has handled this the best way) but honestly she might just be at the point that she’s not going to be a good friend to you anymore. And I don’t know that it’s anyone’s fault.
When you were super excited about things going on, did you still ask your friend how she was doing and what was going on in her life? And like, listen and have a conversation about it before going back to your stuff? That’s the only tip I would have, as someone who does a lot of the listening in her friendships. As long as you did that, I think she really had no reason to get sour on your excitement. I would never expect my friends not to feel their feelings, but I do really appreciate it when they pause and check in with me and give me space and hear me while I’m telling them about my stuff, because it shows me I’m not just someone for them to have their feelings *at*.
I think if you’re feeling bad, don’t force it. Tell her you can’t do favors right now, and maybe don’t ask her for favors either. It sounds like you guys are both tired of the other person needing things. I don’t know if that’s something that can be resolved, but maybe take a break from this friendship? Good luck, I’m sorry you’re in this situation!
I agree with pretty much all of this here.
One thing that I would reiterate is avidbiologist’s point about making sure things are reciprocal–asking questions and listening even when you are excited about your own stuff. Obviously I don’t know if this is something that is actually an issue in the dynamic between you and your friend, but I have definitely had hangout sessions with steamrolling acquaintances where I walked away thinking “Okay, we just spent two hours together and [Friend] spent the entire time talking about herself, I don’t think she asked me a single thing about how things are going for me.”
I know it’s theoretically possible to divert the subject of a conversation toward oneself–and you mentioned that many of your other friends do–but it can be uncomfortable if you feel like the other person isn’t interested in hearing about you (and if someone doesn’t ask, I do tend to assume they are not interested). When you were aware that your friend was going through a hard time, did you ask her if she needed to get any of those feelings off her chest?
(Again, this might not be you, so disregard if this seems way off base! This is just the closest situation I can think of that I’ve actually been in.)
I don’t think you’re necessarily doing anything wrong, and perhaps neither is she. It simply sounds like the two of you no longer have the most compatible of personalities. That doesn’t mean that you have to end your friendship, just that it might be wise to refocus your energy on building relationships with people with whom you have easier chemistry, and maybe consider mentally downgrading your relationship with her. If this is the only friendship you have to reevaluate during your early 20s, consider yourself lucky. You’ll be okay.
I have no advice, sounds like she’s not making a connection between how you make her feel and how she’s now making you feel.
But hi fellow ADHD-er with an asshole streak. I am too a performative steamroller when in company and I have no idea how to stop it. (The steamrolling takes over from a severe social anxiety streak I have; I made up a character to play that works and covers my insecurities but now I’m stuck in a sci-fi nightmare where she’s taken over and I have no idea how to get rid of her.)
HI THERE. YOU GET IT. It gets read as attention-whoring when it’s more like “oh my god I’m really scared I’ll mess up this interaction, let’s be FUN! And SILLY! And NOT AT ALL INSECURE! Look at me doing the social thing like a normal, confident person! WHEE!” and…yeah. It’s complicated.
BE CONFIDENT, PRETEND YOU’RE NOT WORRIED, JUST KEEP TALKING AND NO ONE WILL NOTICE THAT YOU’RE A FREAK.
Yeah. It me. People don’t believe me when I say I’m extremely shy.
And now I have the trouble of being extremely introverted, and playing the fun social person uses so much energy, but I have no idea how to not play that person when I’m around people so now I just don’t go out. Ever.
I’m an introverted person who has trouble thinking of conversational topics, so whenever I meet someone like this I’m SO HAPPY. Yes, please be silly and tell me funny stories! Thank you for saying things and keeping this conversation going instead of just letting it lapse into awkward silence while I desperately try to think of something normal to say!
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. People and relationships change and it’s not the end of the world. I have trouble remembering that sometimes. And yes, making sure I check in on my listener friends/making sure I exert equal effort in Being There for them is really important and one of my long-term goals. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I think I can let this go now.
Melissa’s dog looks exactly like my old sweet dog who passed away a few years ago (he was 15, he lived a good life).
I just almost had a “crying at the desk” moment because he was a beautiful mutt and I’ve never seen another dog who looked just like him. Down to the adorable tiny caramel paws!!!
My sister also has that exact dog, and I also have never seen another.
Ugh. The Patriarchy. That is all.
Sheesh I would have told those kids that PDA in the office is not acceptable the SECOND it happened. It’s work, not the high school lunch room.
Yeah, I actually have a certain amount of sympathy for the FB poster. Obviously the thing to do would have been to talk to HR about the PDA stuff before going passive-aggressive social media about it, but if these people have been carrying on this way for TWO YEARS? At something that is generally a workplace nono? I can see how the general assumption might be that HR and management doesn’t have your back when it comes to blatantly inappropriate behavior.
I’m not sure this fits in…anywhere, but wanted to share nonetheless:
Atlanta artist Garrick Andrus was commissioned to build this crib with tentacles for friends who were having a baby. The Eldritch crib is truly a thing of cosmic horror. The hand-carved walnut panels depict a dizzying scene of entangled tentacles, eyes, mouths, and a winding path into an ominous, crypt-like structure. Perfect for many future generations of Cthulhu-worshipping human larva.
I saw this from a facebook friend this morning. Beautifully made, but man, I don’t think I’d want to turn the corner into the room and see that!
That is a true thing of beauty. And horror.
I need this.
The stuffed octopus in the crib is the perfect final touch!
I have never wanted a piece of furniture more than I want this crib.
This clearly belongs in a period romance, where a strong-willed woman, having heard of her husband’s tragic and mysterious demise at sea, straps her child to her back and braves the wild ocean. She books passage under a false name on the very ship her husband used to sail, and quietly gathers intelligence… and attention from the rough-and-tumble sailors, some of whom are harboring a secret she is desperate to uncover. She earns the respect of those sailors – begrudging at first, then deep-seated and immovable – and slowly falls in love with the first mate of the ship, her husband’s closest ally. She denies her feelings until one day, when he escorts her to her room, and resplendent there before her is a magnificently-carved crib for her child. She solves the mystery of her husband’s death (the dastardly captain who then falls victim to his crew’s mutiny, or whatever) and marries the first mate/lives happily ever/probably takes to the sea forever, because a bed like that really doesn’t belong on land now does it?
I need this in a book, movie, whatever, please!
I wonder if it can be converted into a headboard when baby grows up. It would be a shame to have to put such a beautiful piece of furniture away after only a few years of use.
I want this and we don’t even have kids.
I want this but as like a canopy bed
What I can’t take about Ford’s death right now is everybody and their uncle is saying it’s because he was fat. His Mt Sinai doctors have come right out and publicly said that it’s a very rare form of cancer, they have no idea what causes it, but there’s no evidence that it’s tied to lifestyle/weight. This idea, that he wouldn’t have died so young if he had taken better care of himself, is ubiquitous, I’m hearing it everywhere and it a) continues the stigmatizing of fat people and b) belittles the experience of people who have cancer/have lost people to cancer that is not lifestyle-related.
As a former cancer-haver, I add that I think there’s a piece of this that’s people thinking that they can control whether they get cancer so they don’t have to face the horror of it. There are constantly news stories along the lines of “women who ate more fiber as teens don’t get breast cancer” or “fat people have higher rates of XYZ cancer” that I am CONVINCED are so popular just so that people can feel in control and/or smugly superior.
Nobody wants to hear that you can do all the right things and still get cancer (even lung cancer!), so… Rob Ford definitely got cancer because he was fat.
It is kind of amazing how many people’s first question when I say my mum died of lung cancer is, “Did she smoke?” No, as a matter of fact she didn’t! Moreover, she was middle-class, which is about the biggest protective factor you can think of! But statistics don’t work like that!
Judaism is really, really different than Christianity, and Judeo-Christian values means “Christian values, plus you can rename Christmas and Easter Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur”.
The differences are interesting! The way they treat forgiveneness, and action vs intention, and letter of the law vs spirit of the law. I have a lot to say about this in general — in particular the last, because people like to mock the Orthodox Jews for trying to find ways around rules without understanding that that is the point of it, that the Jewish God wants to be outsmarted, that their interpretation of the holy books is NOT superior to human’s interpretations . . . The point is there are a lot of nuanced differences that add up to a lot, in the end, and it’s all erased under Judeo-Christian (as if Christians’ beliefs about what Judaism was 2000 years ago is at all relevant to what it is today), and that doesn’t even discuss the erasure of the significant differences between sects of Judaism.
I'm an introverted person who has trouble thinking of conversational topics, so whenever I meet someone like this I'm SO HAPPY. Yes, please be silly and tell me funny stories! Thank you for saying things and keeping this conversation going instead of just letting it lapse into awkward silence while I desperately try to think of something normal to say!
Apologies to all Toasts in the Rockies re: the blizzard!
I caused it by becoming telling myself for three solid weeks that all the weird symptoms I was experiencing were just in my head, and to suck it up and get on with my life, and waiting way too long to finally schedule a doctor visit re: how incredibly sick I was becoming.
Feminist lesson: every time you tell yourself your foul-smelling brown urine is in your head, you trigger a huge blizzard on the morning you finally confirm that it is in fact a bladder infection, and you will dig your car out three times that morning before you get to go home and spend the rest of the day/week eating mashed potatoes in bed, and also you will have to cancel all your dates for the next week on account of antibiotics and no alcohol/caffeine/sex/fun of any kind. The doctor didn't say anything about eating healthy, so by god I will eat all the mashed potatoes I can fit inside my poor ravaged body.
Upside: I didn't wait for it to become pyelonephritis before seeking treatment this time???
I have a friend who picks her nose a lot. And you know what? She makes sure she is in private when she does it and washes her hands afterwards. Because she’s not gross. Well she is, but she’s gross in private. I caught her once but no judgement from me mainly because she thought she was being private about it. It’s sort of like catching someone masturbating or your parents having sex.
Gross in private is a-okay, especially if she’s hygienic about it and washes her hands! Everyone is gross to some degree, but if you need to be gross, like the LW’s partner does, I don’t understand why you would feel comfortable doing it while cuddling your SO or sitting at the table?? Nope.
Oh, I agree. She needs to tell him to be private and hygienic about it, for sure. I’m sorry he has a condition, but unhygienic nose picking is something most people can’t abide and won’t tolerate in a public or semi-private setting.
Oh, I agree. She needs to tell him to be private and hygienic about it, for sure. I'm sorry he has a condition, but unhygienic nose picking is something most people can't abide and won't tolerate in a public or semi-private setting.
One of my other ADHD fidgets is twisting my hair. I once tried a non-stimulant medication that made it nearly physically impossible to stop doing it, to the point of elbowing people on the bus and blocking people's view in class.
There were other reasons I got off that med in a hurry, but it was on the list.