There it is.
This is a lovely tribute, as is this one for Gilkey:
Zabi, who was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday along with NPR photojournalist David Gilkey, was far more than just a “translator-fixer” for NPR. He was one of a group of Afghan journalists who carry on their crucial work despite great and constant personal risk. They have extraordinary courage.
I first met Zabi early last year, on the recommendation of an Afghan colleague. I was looking to hire a journalist to help me report the continuing tragedy in Afghanistan during my occasional visits there. He’d earned a reputation as an excellent freelancer who’d worked for some years with China’s Xinhua News Agency.
He was a tall man with a warm smile, who somehow managed to couple a casual manner with a quiet sense of authority. It soon became clear that he had a great eye for a story, and that people from every level of society simply liked and trusted him, an essential quality in the journalism business.
Zabi seemed at ease with everyone; he persuaded senior politicians, young male migrants heading to Europe, female victims of war, and many, many more to speak into NPR’s microphone — and, by doing so, to shine a light on their nation’s unending conflict.
no:
I joined a new company last month and I’m pretty bemused at the company/team culture. The company is big on “culture” in general, which is great, but my individual team (~20 people) is VERY spiritual and believes strongly in the power of positive thinking and that Law of Attraction/The Secret thing that was so trendy a few of years ago.
For example, we have a weekly Law of Attraction tarot card ritual, where someone goes around and makes us draw two cards from a couple of Law of Attraction decks at random. Then we have to read the statements on them aloud to the person who is distributing the cards, and then display them at our desks so people know what we’re working on a personal level for the week.
There are also “unofficial” team-building activities every month where we all go to someone’s house, silently meditate for half an hour, and then discuss our personal “visions.” These events are not strictly mandatory, but it’s heavily implied that not participating = not being a team player.
well, it’s good to have a plan:
At one point during the 1985 Geneva Summit, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev took a break from negotiations to take a walk. Only their private interpreters were present and for years, the details of what they talked about were kept secret from both the Russian and American public. But during a 2009 interview with Charlie Rose and Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz, Gorbachev revealed that Reagan asked him point-blank if they could set aside their differences in case the world was invaded by aliens.
Sad news for Veep, AWESOME news for Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
Will you be writing for Veep next season, and does that mean you’ll break down and buy a car instead of relying on ridesharing, which you’ve been doing for the past year?
No and no [laughs]. I am going to Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I’m nervous but excited. The opportunity presented itself. I’m a big believer in growing and changing. And I think this will be such a good chance for me to do something different with more responsibilities. It’s 22 episodes not ten, and my name will be on an episode at some point. So the schedule’s different, and the people are, for the most part, also a little younger, so it will be socially different, and also a little more competitive, which I think will be interesting. I love that show: Andy Samberg is a national treasure.
The glorious Omar Holmon of Black Nerd Problems on his love for Lip Sync Battle:
LSB got celebs out here doing choreography, paying homage in themes, and most importantly, straight up cosplaying as singers, divas, rappers… basically as other celebs. This shit is all in fun… but it gets so real. Randy Coture “The Natural” went against Comedian Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias. Randy was an MMA fight, his job was clockin’ cats out of this dimension and he out here in short shorts doing a rendition of let’s get physical. Shit just got real. you can’t come into this arena with any Male Fragility or preconceived notions of male masculinity ’cause that shit will have you taking home an L.
There’s levels to this shit too; there’s fun like the Queen Latifah and Marlon Wayans match up. It’s just fun to see this side of your fave celebs living their best lives being themselves, unapologetically. Watching Salt and Peppa, two pioneers in hip-hop get to express their love of pop music for the world to see. Anthony Anderson and Tracy Ellis Ross, the co-leads of Black-ish and two of the funniest people on TV going head to head with their outlandishness? I am here for ALL of that shit man. Especially LL Cool J’s enthusiasm watching everyone perform because you can tell just how badly someone is getting bodied off of LL’s reactions.
sorry:
THE HAIRPIN IS BACK — JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME
It’s like an eleventh hour save. A birthday in which someone waits til after supper to give you the nice gift.
I can’t think that’s not a (happy) coincidence. I wasn’t active there…did it have a similar comment community to The Toast?
Basically the start of the toast was all Hairpin people, if I am remembering right. I was one of them! I hope the site can be revived. I have never commented on Medium though.
Can you comment on Medium?
Ah, nvm, seeing from other comments that it’s possible but a crappy system.
I am probably doing it wrong and maybe it’s because I’m reading on an iPad but it is the most annoying and counter-intuitive commenting platform I’ve ever tried to use. I tried to make an effort when The Billfold moved to Medium but ugh. On the otherhand, maybe the hoopla discourages trolls?
As one of the Hairpin->Toast commenters, I can happily say: yes! Ah the days when I mostly knew Mallory as the person with the strawberry avatar who loved KStew with the passion of a 1,000 suns. She still loves KStew obvs but I no longer think of her a strawberry avatar.
It wasn’t just a strawberry, it was a tiny turtle eating a strawberry!
That’s true, but I didn’t know for the longest time and went a very long time with the strawberry in my head.
ghooooooooost
They had a rather lovely commentariat, but now that it’s moved over to Medium, all evidence of that seems to have disappeared.
yeah, I can’t imagine Medium supporting a commenting community like The Toast. When the Billfold moved over to Medium the commenting community pretty much went kaput. :/
The commenting system on Medium is so bad! It’s like they intentionally designed it to be awful.
My conspiracy theory is that they designed it to be awful so that they wouldn’t have people freaking out that there was no comment section but they also would avoid having to pay someone to monitor it.
It’s absolutely horrible! I swear it takes me 30 clicks to read Billfold comments on my phone even if there are only like 5 comments total.
It’s better now!
Every few weeks I try the Billfold again but can’t make heads or tails of the commenting system. Does anyone know if there’s a tutorial or something we could all do, and fully revive the Hairpin?
I think Mallory pretty much got her start as the queen of Hairpin commenters, and then eventually Nicole became one of the editors.
I think we should all migrate en masse back to the the Hairpin come July 1st!
edit: er, except for the awful commenting system. damn!
also, if anyone wants to look at the Hairpin in normal blog view and not the stupid Medium way, you can look at: https://thehairpin.com/latest
Thank you! I actually bothered to sign up for a Medium account (perhaps my second one, I may have conveniently forgotten about the first one) today for the Hairpin.
Seconding the thank-you. I am words-oriented, not picture-oriented. I haven’t been able to read Slate (except Prudie) since their main page got so incredibly busy visually, and this new Medium Hairpin isn’t working for me.
“I haven’t been able to read Slate (except Prudie) since their main page got so incredibly busy visually”
THANK YOU for making me feel less alone; that design trend is ruining the internet for me.
Fist-bump; we are not alone!
Coming back late to say I’ve spent more hours trying to find a clean, simple, but not BORING theme for clevermanka.net (with threaded comment capabilities) than I have writing a post for it. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
It’s blocked at work. ALL MY TEARS.
One of the blessings of the toast is that it was one of the few social-ish sites not blocked by my work, and my job has a lot of downtime in which it’s uncouth to look at my phone–but perfectly fine to look at my work computer. SIGH.
Yes, I came over from the hairpin as well.
There used to be hundreds of commenters on The Hairpin. You could call it the precursor of the Toast.. It’s been moribund for some years. Many of us would return if these problems about writing comments could be resolved and if the content is actually kept current. We will see.
Yay The Hairpin! Boo Medium’s commenting system…
And they are hiring a part-time editor soon! I vote Nikki!
yay! i don’t have a lot of faith in how the comments are going to go (already there is spam and it’s weird), but i signed up for a medium account and i am ready for the great re-migration!
When God closes a door, She opens a window.
No kidding! Someone suggested migrating en masse when That Day comes and I fully support that notion.
I’m so excited for this. Literally, like a week before Toast’s announcement, I was like, “finally some time to write and pitch,” AND THEN
What a beautiful crop of deleted comments. Blessed are the time waisters.
First commenter is on to something wrt changing the water to wine, amirite
I’ve always loved that the wedding at Cana includes the butler calling a party foul on the groom after trying the transfigured drink: “Every man at the beginning sets forth good wine, and when guests have well drunk, then that which is worse.” Dude! Not cool!
“You’re wasting good wine on drunk people! This is not a sound financial decision!”
I’ve always loved that he’s a grown man and the Son of God and his mom still can tell him what to do.
“hey… son, they’re out of wine, that’s too bad huh”
“JEEZ MOM NOT NOW UGH”
(ten minutes later)
“Hey guys watch this”
PS can we have a Dirtbag Jesus article?
Managing comments on that would keep our benevolent moderators busy I’m sure!
wouldnt this be a cut-and-paste job from The Gospel According to Thomas? I am here for stories of preteen Jesus tantrumming and wrecking stuff with his super powers.
I was at a wedding and that passage was one of the readings (pretty common) and in his homily the priest said that Jesus had no obligation to help because it was the groom’s fault that they ran out of wine and I was sitting there very firmly disagreeing with the idea that you don’t have an obligation to help a member of your community out. Like, okay, maybe he didn’t have an obligation to perform a legit miracle, but when your mom says “hey, our friends have run out of wine for the party, can you help”, you don’t just shrug and say “not my circus, not my monkeys”, you find someone sober enough to make a liquor store run.
Yes! That’s how it goes! There are an awful lot of Gospel readings that end up getting the Holy Hand Grenade of Antiochreading treatment that are actually pretty great stories that deserve a better reading. Like the widow who pesters the judge into him ruling her way- that’s funny! So is the “let he who is without sin” story but that was probably one of those things that was funny after-the-fact and not while staring down a crowd out for blood.
Back when I had a boss who claimed (falsely) that minimum wage law didn’t apply to him, and I was spending a lot of time on the phone with the department of labor to determine what recourse my colleagues and I had, my notebook dedicated to work stuff had the passage about the widow and the unjust judge pasted on the inside cover.
I aspire to be effective a pain in the ass as she was!
I have a lawyer friend with that superpower. She had a summer job lo, these many years ago in which it was essentially her job to demand proof that landlords had filed the proper paperwork when trying to evict low-income tenants. She usually made enough of a nuisance of herself that landlords stopped trying to illegally evict their tenants.
Thread Jack!
Does anyone have any experience with the TSA Precheck? How often do the “random” pat-down/body scans actually happen? I am thinking of paying the application fee for a couple of trans men that I know as a wedding gift, but I don’t want to get their hopes up that they’ll be able to avoid that whole mess while flying if it still happens regularly.
I’ve had about 20 flights since signing up for PreCheck, and haven’t been patted down or scanned since. Not all airports have it, though, so their experience may depend on which airports they’re using. They scan your ticket, and then it works the way security used to. You put your stuff on the xray tray and walk through a metal detector, but get to keep your clothes on! Best $85 I’ve ever spent. They’ll want to do the pre-application online and then make an appointment at an interview location. I had a few options in my metro area, some with weeks-long waits and some with same-day appointments. The “interview” is just their scanning your fingerprints, checking your ID, and taking your money. I had my known traveler number the next day.
It is totally worth it time wise to avoid having to take anything off/out of your bag – however, you still have to go through the scanners as in the regular line, so if that is a concern Precheck won’t help with that. I’ve never gotten the random pat down in a few years of using it, but that may not be representative of others’ experience.
Wait – you still have to do the body scanner every time? I thought they only did it to random people like WanderingUterus said up above. I wonder if it’s different at different airports?
i think you have to go through a metal detector every time, but not the body scanner. So you always get scanned, just not always…fully.
I think it might be airport specific if they’ve gotten rid of metal detectors in some airports. FWIW, my experience has always been metal detectors. Domestically I go out of my way to only fly Southwest, so I’m dealing with whatever technology is in the Southwest terminals, and mostly on the west coast.
Yup, as others have said it’s airport and terminal-specific – if they only have scanners, such as at some NYC terminals, that’s what you have to go through.
At my airport in Seattle it’s scanners every time now.
The body scanner was ostensibly supposed to be for secondary screening only– ie, if the metal detector went off. The two airports I’ve spent the most time in since they were introduced– SFO and MSP– both now use scanners as primary screening, at least some of the time.
Which was predictable and predicted, despite the TSA saying it wouldn’t happen. I opt for the pat down every time, and I am irritated AF to have people yelling my presumed gender across the security line. I am cis and have little personal skin in this, but I am not okay with any screening process that potentially outs people in front of folks who could be dangerous to them.
Metal detectors didn’t do that. Any screening process that is based on the idea that human variation is dangerous? DO NOT WANT.
Definitely airport-dependent
When I’ve gotten precheck (at a few airports, mostly SFO and Newark), I think they’ve sent us through a metal detector, not the body scanner.
I have it (although I don’t pay, yay known flyer ID number!) and the most I’ve ever gotten it them saying they needed to pat down my hair (!?!?!) because it was in a bun. I just took it down, but that is beside the point. I’ve never had them pat me down, even when I was wearing my biggest bulkiest sweatshirt.
And they don’t make you go through the body scanner?
In my one “random selection” experience, they offered the body scanner but I opted for the pat down.
I’ve opted to go through a few times when it is faster, but normally they just have me go through the metal detector.
My husband and I have had Global Entry (which almost always gets you precheck) for about a year and flown maybe 20-30 times. My husband just got selected to go through a body scanner last week for the first time.
I have it, it’s largely helpful. I’ve been patted down once, at the Memphis airport. I was pretty grumbly about it and was told “terrorists could get Precheck too.” Like, really? Anyway, I fly about 10 times per year so I would say worth it no question. I got Global Entry though, not just Precheck and that saved time in customs as well as comes in handy as a second ID.
Good to know, I was thinking of popping for the Global Entry fee for them too.
isn’t the whole point of precheck that you are superscreened to ensure that you are not a terrorist?
not that i really accept the whole Terrorist Terror Thing, and of course you possibly could BECOME a terrorist AFTER being screened, but like…really undermining your entire purpose there, TSA
You would think? Also, like if you are saying that your own system would not exclude terrorists, aren’t you basically saying it’s a scam? Admittedly I was being rather bitchy about the whole thing but yeah, not a great experience, Memphis airport.
It’s always the smaller town airports that are the worst with the security theater. Like clockwork.
I got Precheck a few years ago and get pulled aside for a patdown/extra security maybe 10% of the time, so not much different than before I handed over my $$ to our fine security-conscious government. There are a few airport terminals from which I fly regularly where the only security option is body scanner or patdown, since they did away with the human-sized metal detectors. One of them is at JFK-NY (Delta?) the other is a LaGuardia terminal, and my memory is that Cincinnati/CVG has or used to have scanners only. So, depending on where your flight goes from and/or the randomness of what comes up on the metal scanner (certain underwire bras of mine always register), you might get a patdown anyway regardless of your PreCheck.
PreCheck is almost always good for cutting down the wait time in the security line, though, and it’s nice not to have to dig out your liquids, take off your shoes and belt and power up your laptop. Downside, it’s not cheap, the government gets a full set of your fingerprints on file, and some airports don’t have a PreCheck line or open it for limited hours.
TSA Precheck is great for getting through security more quickly, but you do still have to go through body scanner machines when they’re what the airport has. Sometimes you just get sent through a metal detector, but that’s not all the time. It would probably be an improvement over regular security procedures for them in the same way that it’s nicer for everyone (shorter lines, you get to keep your shoes on mostly, etc) but it’s not going to get you always sent through just a metal detector and I don’t know that it would be a real help in dealing with TSA and their understanding or lack thereof of gender.
Ok, thanks everyone for your responses. My friends specifically find the body scans and pat-downs hugely stressful, unfortunately (if I’m reading your experiences correctly) it looks like having the Precheck won’t consistently get them out of having to do one or the other of those. *sighs*, that’s disappointing.
My husband and I have pre-check/global entry, and we haven’t been patted down yet (maybe a dozen trips?) and I haven’t seen anyone in the pre-check lines get patted down. All the airports we’ve been to have had only the metal detector for pre-check – on my most recent trip there was a metal detector and a body scanner but it seemed as if people were choosing which to go through. I would echo everyone else – it’s not guaranteed to get your friends out of body scanner/patdown, but it will definitely lessen the possibility.
I flew 2x /week for 2.5 years and can count on one hand the number of times I got patted down / sent through a scanner. Mostly out of LGA, to ATL / ORD / MCO / ATL.
However, I am a white woman in a business suit, so that’s probably a big factor. If the goal is to eliminate the stress of it happening, unfortunately it’s not never 🙁
What is the deal now with liquids? I flew this past weekend and had my little less than 4 ounce bottles in a gallon bag ziploc, but I forgot to take it out of my carryon both times and nothing happened. Is that not a thing anymore?
I feel like this has been enforced sporadically ever since it was instituted, but you don’t have to pull them out if you’re in the precheck line. The last two times I flew I was randomly selected for precheck protocols, even though I didn’t pay for it. That was nice 🙂
Erratic enforcement, though the rules are still 3 oz or less, and everything must fit in a quart ziploc. My dad lives near a small regional airport and the TSA people there are crazy about liquids (they test baby formula, will confiscate your 3.5 ounces of foot cream). But I’ve sailed through other airports with larger liquids – not wine bottles or anything, but big tubes of lotions and creams that I forgot about – and those weren’t detected.
Yeah, I’ve definitely noticed that it’s the smaller airports who have the most overzealous TSA agents. No T no shade, but it’s probably because they have a lot of extra time on their hands and want to feel important. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve flown out of a major airport without incident and realized I’d accidentally left ALL OF THE LIQUIDS in my carryon – hair serum, toothpaste, foundation, multiple bottles of nail polish, etc. But god forbid I accidentally leave a tube of lip gloss in my purse while going through security at a regional airport. One rogue tube of Mac lipglass resulted in a pat-down, inspection of every item in my carryon and purse and a barrage of leading questions about my travel plans and background.
Because freedom.
I have Precheck and one time, I packed my backpack so densely the scanner couldn’t make out the contents. Next thing I knew I was getting patted down and swabbed for incendiary chemicals while an agent went through everything in my backpack and asked me a shitload of leading questions about its contents. Everyone seemed shocked that I was really a confused college student who packed very economically. I’ve had a dozen Precheck check-ins go smoothly, but if they need to, they will be as invasive as they please.
Why is everything terrible!?
I am a person that uses packing cubes and likes to have bags within bags to organize. Once I got pulled for extra screening (empty airport, TSA was training a new person). Teachable Moment: TSA has to open and inspect and swab every. single. little. cube. And then they have to repack your back for you. I was laughing on the inside!
‘Alexander Camelton’ y’all. I have never loved a pun more:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alexander-cam…
THEY HAD A CIVIC DUTY TO NAME THAT BABY ALEXANDER CAMELTON
This cheered me up so much this morning!
Baby camels are such a great example of wobbly-knobbly cuteness.
Today in (Feminist) History! [Archive]
Today, in a little bit more recent history, was the Ford Sewing Machinists Strike of 1968. At the Ford’s Dagenham plant in London, there were four levels of pay; a skilled male rate, a semi-skilled male rate, an unskilled male rate… and the woman’s rate, which was the lowest. Already the women were frustrated, having tried in vain to get their pay raised to Category C (the skilled rate), only to be told they would be graded in Category B (for less-skilled production jobs). They were furious, especially since it meant they would be paid 15% less than the rate earned by men in the same category as them. So on this day in 1968, lead by Rose Boland, Eileen Pullen, Vera Sime, Gwen Davis, and Sheila Douglass, the women walked out. Considering that the women were responsible for making car seat covers, their strike– which was followed by the machinists at Ford’s Halewood Body and Assembly Plant in Liverpool– caused production to grind to a halt.
Their strike was met with support, but also with anger, especially from men who sent angry letters and lectured them, asking them why they were bothering when they ‘only worked for pin money’. But the women’s goal was to get themselves re-graded from Category B, to Category C, and they held strong to their strike. Eventually the government interceded, in the form of Barbara Castle, the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity, who helped negotiate a deal in which the women’s pay instead was brought up to only 8% below that of the men, with the provision that it would rise to the full Category B pay the next year. It ended the strike after 3 weeks, though it did not earn them their true goal. (The women were only finally re-graded into Category C in 1984, after another six-week strike.)
Their strike is sent to be the spark that lead to the United Kingdom’s Equal Pay Act of 1970. Following the example of the Ford strikers, women in trade founded the National Joint Action Committee for Women’s Equal Rights, and eventually held a demonstration for equal pay in 1969. This eventually lead to the passing of the Equal Pay Act, during which MP Shirley Summerskill cited the Ford Sewing Machinists as having a significant role in the struggle for equal pay.
At the time, none of the women believed they would have that much of an impact. As Sheila Douglass later said, “It was a surprise to us as well as everybody else. We didn’t think we were going to fetch the whole Ford Empire to its knees, as you might say, but that’s what happened eventually. And it was all down to us, us ladies. And we were ladies, whatever anybody else may say.”
I missed the year in your first sentence and was happily reading along, thinking good for these women, the Victorians sure were bad-asses, and then tripped up HARD on “So on this day in 1968”. 1968!!!! Impotent screams.
RIGHT??? I was like… this was literally so recent, what the heck.
There is an excellent movie about this and I think it’s on Netflix
Haha snap!
There is a rather nice film about it too! Made in Dagenham, starring (among others) personal fave Sally Hawkins.
Let us all remember never to underestimate the power of saying “this is some bullshit right here and I’m not doing it.”
I kind of want that on a shirt tbh. EDIT: Or a mug!
And if it’s on a mug, you can just slow-blink at people who ask you to participate in bullshit, then sloooooowly take a sip of your delicious beverage!
I hope you don’t mind, but I did take the liberty of making a mug on Redbubble for you and burningupasun. I didn’t apply any markup amount because it’s your wit, not mine, so I won’t make anything off of it (unless that’s okay with you). It’s flagged as mature because of the “bullshit”, so you may need to toggle that on to be able to see it.
Unfortunately, Redbubble’s printing area is centered directly opposite the handle, so I couldn’t quite center it so that it’s aimed directly at the target of your misandry, but I did my best :).
OMG, you’re fantastic. I can’t claim any particular ownership of the sentiment, so profit away. And I’m sure that some careful hand placement could display the misandry adequately.
I’m excited by my vague internet fame.
PIN MONEY
Thematically related to the NPR piece is this enraging and heartbreaking story: https://warisboring.com/he-risked-his-life-for-am…
Does the first deleted commenter know that they are… writing in English?
see that’s their way of signalling that they aren’t writing anything worth reading. God only smites you for writing *on point* and *important* things in English.
OMG, that’s amazing. Vatican conspiracies, Islam as an extension of those conspiracies, the novel choice to refer to Obama by his stepfather’s name, rather than his father’s, destruction of the family unit, New World Order…this comment really has it all.
It is amazing how many people don’t realize the Bible wasn’t written in English. I had a co-worker who quit his job to go to Bible college and study the bible full-time, a three-year course. I asked if he already knew Hebrew and Greek or if he’d learn it there and he looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “It’s about the MEANING of the words,” he said.
HRC has the nomination. Let the games begin.
It’s finally starting to sink in, and I have all this weird saltwater leaking from my eyeballs.
Did you see this floating around, HRC from 1969, talking about the need to be pragmatic in the pursuit of human liberation? Got me in the feels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CAUOa5m5nY&f…
I have to agree with something Rebecca Traister tweeted last night: the AP’s stating this (is it breaking news if it’s been obvious since March?) the day before a bunch of big primaries seems not great for either campaign. If your a Sanders supporter, I think it has to feel like a slap in the face. And, as a Clinton supporter, I’m certainly hoping it doesn’t suppress the votes for her because I want her victory to be as clear and solid as possible. I realize that the AP shouldn’t bow to campaigns, but it feels really weird.
Yeah, it’s one of those things where I suspect both parties wish the media had kept its gob shut on this one. But when does the media ever keep its gob shut?
I keep seeing grumbling about AP’s timing, but Hillary reached the key threshold of 2,383 delegates after the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday. So even though it’s not exactly a surprise, it’s perfectly timely.
Perhaps it’s better/more accurate to say that the timing just…sucks, even if the AP didn’t really have a choice.
Yeah it wasn’t an intentional (or arbitrary) decision to pick yesterday. Yesterday was when it became news. They can’t just hold in news because maybe people might act upon it
Bingo.
I am not into wild conspiracy theories but the timing and squishiness of the AP story do make it feel somehow agenda-driven (whose or what agenda, I have no idea).
I heard a young person in an person-on-the-street-interview on NPR this morning claiming that the media story “disenfranchises” voters in today’s primaries, which is just an infuriating word choice. Does the AP story discount, dismiss, or minimize their votes? Yes. Does the story deny anyone the right or access to vote? NO.
Also, there are lots of non-presidential things on the primary as well that actually make more difference on a local/state scale!
I listen to NPR a lot. I think they’re really struggling this election cycle with effective pushback when people say incorrect/inaccurate/false things while being interviewed. They really need to get it together before they have to start covering Trump for the general.
I agree. They should get after people who dissemble and attempt to deceive, like James Coomarasamy on the BBC World Service. Or Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. They both can be tough on folks when needed.
This clicks into the broader issues of local political engagement. It feels like people just came out of the woodwork to oppose Hillary and are failing to take ownership of the fact that all politics is local. Few of us really understand how all of this works but it’s unconstructive to blame DNC/Hillary/whatever for the problems of this system as though they suddenly cropped up. They didn’t. If people were voting local and engaged in previous cycles, they would
1. Find that the same shit has been going on forever and the fact that it’s working out for someone with ovaries (or someone who is “establishment”, if that’s your perspective) is not the reason to indict and
2. Building up from the local level is how you work towards changing the system – not skipping the line or burning everything down.
What about the AP story do you find squishy?
I can’t say I see the problem with the timing of the announcement, which was triggered by Puerto Rico wrapping up its delegate account. People assume AP is trying to harm the Sanders campaign or drive down turnout today, but a news organization ought to be impartial to all of that, and it would have been just as wrong to wait until Wednesday even though the delegate count had changed on Monday by reaching a crucial threshold. News organizations aren’t supposed to sit on a report like that until it seems like better timing for X reason.
There may be more people in the primaries today, but Puerto Rico’s votes are equally important and don’t deserve to be muffled. It’s also about all the votes cast before this week that put Clinton so far ahead that Puerto Rico made the difference it did.
THANK YOU for this information! I did not know that the trigger of the story was due to PR delegates, the only context I had was “the AP polled the super delegates about their intentions.” Hence my sense of squishiness re: data, and that the timing was very deliberate (though I didn’t have a clear sense of the endgame). Off to reconsider my choices regarding news outlets based on their coverage of this story.
Haha, you’re welcome! 🙂
It’s always helpful to start with the one that kicked it all off: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4c9c850385c84b12ad…
Key paragraph: “The former secretary of state, New York senator and first lady reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee on Monday with a decisive weekend victory in Puerto Rico and a burst of last-minute support from superdelegates. Those are party officials and officeholders, many of them eager to wrap up the primary amid preference polls showing her in a tightening race with presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.”
> big primaries
I don’t know, I feel like “big primaries my ass”? Like if there were big primaries left they wouldn’t have been able to call it already. I’m in New Mexico and I’ve known the pres. primary was going to be decided before I got a vote anyway.
While we’re on the subject, why are all primaries not on the same day? It makes no sense that some states have outsize influence based solely on timing and seems pretty undemocratic to me. Your thoughts?
We don’t live in an outright democracy – we live in a representative democracy, which is or is not a problem, depending on perspective. Federal law dictates federal elections but it appears that primaries/caucus(i)? are not, which means states choose. Iowa became a thing, I believe, because Carter courted them an unexpectedly won and there began a shift to trying to use the earliest primaries as bellwethers/demonstrations of future success for funding and support.
I think that the media should be blamed for a lot of the distortion surrounding primaries. Questions that are also key:
1. Why isn’t Election Day a national holiday?
2. Why aren’t Civics classes digging deeper into this? Our education system has utterly failed its citizens in so many ways, but particularly allowing curriculums(ae? wtf latin) to leave future voters ignorant and feeling without agency.
The lack of understanding how the electoral college works is very dangerous. I mean, The West Wing even had an episode where Donna was trying to trade her vote in Wisconsin for someone else’s vote in D.C., and I could not even pay attention to the episode because of the flat irrationality of that. Those votes aren’t equivalent! (Same episode had them worrying that it was raining in Oregon and that reduces turnout. . . but we vote by mail in OR so the weather makes no difference.)
I got lost there. My point was: not a true democracy, and the public really should have better understanding of all of this, especially after the 2000 election disaster.
Interesting! I had to double-check the vote-by-mail thing, and it turns out Oregon got that in 1998, and West Wing started a year later. So yeah, they should have checked that.
The only reason these items both bother me is that The West Wing was supposed to be so accurate because of the Washington insiders who were involved. It amazes me that no one pointed out the problem with that vote-swapping plotline. Would have been a great excuse for a Toby rant!
But they do sort of; Donna spends some of the time she spends arguing for vote swapping with various Republicans that Wisconsin is swing and Washington is safe Bartlet, so her vote is worth more and they’re getting a good deal!
I know that’s not the same as “a different number of EC votes per state” but it is definitely a contribution to votes not being equivalent!
“Caucuses” and “curricula” for anyone who’s curious (I’m so sorry my only contribution to this thread will be a pedantic one, but I’m reading avidly).
My name is gcf and I support this pedantry. Some days it’s better to curse the latin than to google the answer. 😉
Yeah, I mean I’m in California, and it’s a HUGE state with a lot of voters, but since it’s so late, and they can even have a shred of a chance of calling it for someone without us, how “huge” is it really?
Hang in there until the general election, when I suspect we will REALLY NEED those huge numbers (of electoral college votes) from CA.
I live in Washington, DC so, be assured, I understand that feeling (also taxation without representation, but that’s another issue). But a lot of people are voting today, and it sucks that things worked that she reached the delegate count exactly the day before (rather than either today or well before) because I think it will discourage people from voting. In any event, yes, primaries should be held at the same time, or at least closer together.
I disagree. A report of numbers, produced by counting, should not be a slap in the face to a campaign. Sanders has been losing for a while, and this is only a shock if one is in denial.
I’d been feeling suspense about today’s primary and California in particular, but the announcement last night (after Puerto Rico finished counting its delegates, it wasn’t arbitrarily decided to happen now instead of March) proved how that was just media hype — this primary race is not close enough for California to matter. She’s already clinched the number of delegates she needed.
I hope it doesn’t drive down turnout, but I don’t think it’s a news organization’s job to take that into consideration. It chose to announce as the threshold was passed.
Also the Sanders campaign’s confidence that they can flip superdelegates is downright delusional. Bernie rails against the Democratic party and these are THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BRASS. Literally the “establishment.” He is still charging ahead acting as an independent despite the fact that he is nominally a democrat for this one purpose (recognizing that as a 3rd party run he would have zero chance).
Not to mention Hillary has more than three million more votes than he does. How is their pigheadedness NOT anti-democratic?
I know close friends of his, I am from Vermont, I appreciate his accustomed integrity, but this behavior does *not* reflect integrity, just bitterness and denial. Enough already.
100% to your last paragraph. I find it pretty despicable that he changed his party affiliation only to take advantage of their apparatus for a presidential run and doesn’t feel he owes them anything in return. How is this the super-principled truehearted progressive leader everyone’s clamored about for the past year?
I’m not saying that the AP shouldn’t have announced it, just that the timing was unfortunate. I think her campaign would have preferred to get over the line by a decisive margin (if only to counter a narrative about lack of enthusiasm), hence her tweet about having primaries to win.
I agree the timing is unfortunate if it does drive down turnout. I think by the end of today she’ll have the surer margin she was looking for, and a reason to hold a victory party.
ETA: Then again, isn’t this the way primaries work? It’s usually clear long before the end who the presumptive nominee will be, and the primaries scheduled toward the end of the season get a short shrift. I haven’t seen a report, but I bet that Republican turnout has dwindled since all of Trump’s opponents dropped out. So it’s reasonable to expect the same thing to happen on the Democrat side, and the only difference is that it happened right before the “big” primary that was supposed to be the deciding one.
I would love to have a conversation about the primary calendar and how it’s arranged, but that really is party business (which more people who care about said party should get involved in!) and not held to the same standards as Election Day.
Love fivethirtyeight’s headline for this “Hillary Clinton Will Be Nominated Because More Democrats are Voting for Her”
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hillary-clint…
resisted a STRONG urge to just leave this link, sans commentary, on yet another desperate BernieBro post in my feed about how it’s “not over” and it’s just “so irresponsible” of the “establishment” to make this “false” announcement…
I know, right? I’m really trying to see if I can figure out a way to link this to all my conspiracy-theory-spouting tumblr pals. (The latest big thing there had been that all the mainstream media outlets were planning on LYING about HRC getting the nom–with the DELIBERATE GOAL of SUPPRESSING VOTES! So I can only imagine what my dash looks like right now.)
I’ll see your FB Bernie Bro and raise you a White Male Philosophy Grad Student Bernie Bro on my feed. 🙁
I’ve got a bunch of those! Today I learned that I’m the real sexist for finding Hillary’s candidacy inspiring because she’s a corporatist who invented war and will let Wall Street eat our families.
I had one guy taking a ridiculously strict act consequentialist stance. “Well, my vote won’t by itself win or lose the election, so what I do doesn’t matter.” It was ludicrous.
Ugh, my sympathies. Facebook unfollow/hide has been a gift from the heavens for me this election season. So has coming to the Toast for reassurance that I’m not completely losing my mind…but I’m clearly going to have to find some new strategies come July 1 🙁
Try “Bernie Bros Who Work in Big Law.”
LITERALLY FORMER FRAT BROS WHO DEFEND BIG BANKS AND MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS FOR A LIVING HAVE BEEN LECTURING ME ON PROGRESSIVE PURITY.
SOME OF THEM LITERALLY WORK FOR THE FIRM DEFENDING TRUMP U RIGHT NOW. IT BOGGLES. THE. MIND.
One of the bernie bros in my life works at a HEDGE FUND. It does not cool his progressiver-than-thou jets one tiny bit.
Oh Nate Silver, you magnificent dirtbag.
“…Sanders, who has run a good campaign…”
Has he? Has he, though?
Only if “good” = “long” which, to be fair, in many men’s minds it does
His GOTV has been pretty bad, that’s for sure.
it is unclear to me if this was meant to be a dick joke or not, but i am 12-year-old CACKLING either way
Nice.
Why do deleted comments bring me such unmitigated joy? Is it because I cannot fathom getting SO WORKED UP about a post on the Internet about women in Western Literature?
“CITATION NEEDED” is my favorite angry comment to anything ever.
I totally got an undeserved A+ in a class in grad school because our prof assigned reading and I was SO UPSET by the lack of citations for broad, sweeping statements like “homosexuality was frowned upon in 12th c England” that I a) emailed the prof for more info on the citations (ibid is not good enough!!!), and in class, tore through the chapter yelling “CITATION NEEDED”. The author turned out to be my prof’s rival ^_^
Nice!
I love that your professor had a rival, it’s what I aspire to.
Protip: join an obscure field in a small(ish, academically anyway) country. Literally the only other person in your field will be your defacto rival ^_^
OOHOHOHO academia rivalries and citation needed, that is the bet of both worlds I think!
I started reading Adorno as an undergrad because I had an insufferable, mean prof who acted as if they were bitter rivals with each other, though I eventually came to realize that Adorno had probably never known Prof G existed.
I suspect that this is how many MANY academic rivalries go 🙂
Reagan asked him point-blank if they could set aside their differences in case the world was invaded by aliens.
This doesn’t even embarrass or surprise me anymore. I guess the current American political shitshow is good for something.
to be fair to Ronald Reagan — and believe me, I don’t have a particularly *lot* of interest in doing that, I mostly hate that guy — a president does have to be willing to consider a lot of different possible outcomes, even ones that seem pretty ridiculous.
My take away from this story is that the end of Watchmen (the comic book not the movie) is entirely plausible.
My thoughts precisely. To the point where I wonder if Reagan had just finished reading the book and was pondering a Veidt-like plan of his own.
“I wonder if Reagan had just finished reading the book . . . .”
Wonder no more, Toastfriend. It is highly unlikely that Mr Reagan began reading any book, much less finished one.
Maybe somebody read it TO him. As like a bedtime story.
How to Leave the Planet by Douglas Adams
“1. Phone NASA. Their phone number is (713) 483-3111. Explain that it’s very important that you get away as soon as possible.
2. If they do not cooperate, phone any friend you may have in the White House—(202) 456-1414—to have a word on your behalf with the guys at NASA.
3. If you don’t have any friends in the White House, phone the Kremlin (ask the overseas operator for 0107-095-295-9051). They don’t have any friends there either (at least, none to speak of), but they do seem to have a little influence, so you may as well try.
4. If that also fails, phone the Pope for guidance. His telephone number is 011-39-6-6982, and I gather his switchboard is infallible.
5. If all these attempts fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that it’s vitally important that you get away before your phone bill arrives.”
Because I will always love this and any excuse to remind people of Douglas Adams.
Yeah a famous thing that they don’t tell you about King James was how he was burned at the stake for ordering that the Bible be translated.
anyway if I do meet GOD and it turns out he doesn’t have a sense of humor about Himself, I’ll take it as evidence that I was right not to believe in Him.
Seriously, as a pantheist, if you sat down and made a list of Terrible Things About A God, I do not know that you could realistically come up with a worse god to worship than the Christian god.
Well that’s easy! Christian!God um, well… He uh…
…Doesn’t demand ritual sacrifice? I’m misanthropic enough to waiver over whether “Has to kill people on the regular” is a more annoying commandment than “Try to be nice to people, all the time. Like all the time.”
Except for that one time…
Yup, human sacrifice is one of the big boxes he doesn’t tick, unless you count queer/neurodivergent/rebellious children of devout parents.
(If you worship a sympathetic, kind, and understanding Christian god, I am obviously talking about a different god here! But you know the people I mean.)
A lot of pre-Christian gods were 1) pretty rapey 2) prone to mood swings to the nth degree. One of the few benefits of monotheism is that you only have to worry about pissing off one eternal, omnipotent being. It makes organizing your day a lot easier.
I sometimes feel that pantheism vs monotheism is a personality trait, something like the preference for poly vs monogamous relationships. I will concede that a number of pagan gods are pretty rapey, but I don’t spend a lot of time with them either.
Yeah, the old polytheistic religions seem kind of like pre-Copernican astronomy to me: the system is bizarrely complicated, yet also kind of describes the observable phenomena better than the simpler theory. You made a sacrifice to the gods and still got fucked over–well, no wonder! Must have been the wrong god! Or he was having a crap day because he’s a pissy man-child, so what can you do.
I really do appreciate the efficiency!
That said, I rather I *like* my deities to be fallible, if only because it feels like that explains the world a lot better than the notion of a single deity that’s all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving. I mean, y’know, lots of things just seem to make more sense if I assume that any deities that are around are, at best, very powerful, really quite knowledgeable, and occasionally loving, along with being extremely capricious and often really angry and odds with one another. For me, at least, it seems to fit the world around us a bit better.
The Lord of Light on Game of Thrones?
I have to think he’d chuckle at this http://awfullibrarybooks.net/wwjc/ (war on Christmas action figures! Jesus’ pet dinosaur nacho platter! Jesus loves my ass jean label!)
There were literally dozens of translators involved in the KJ edition, too, it must have taken all day.
still better than what happened to the guys who translated it into Greek in the first place, they got killed by the traditional “sew him up in a sack of weasels and throw him in the river” method.
I have never been so relieved that St Jerome was spared the near-inevitable fate of vernacular translators. Dear old man.
the benefits of living in the desert with a pet lion, I presume
As a Leo, I love him almost as much for the lion as for the limpid elegance of his Latin.
That just sets up the awesome scene where the translator convinces the weasels to work together to chew their way out of the sack, and then becomes Weasel Lord and conquers the ancient world.
the wobble-squampling of empire
Calling this for the name of my rock band and/or autobiography.
Weren’t there earlier English translations of the Bible? I’ll admit this understanding is based entirely on an episode of Wolf Hall that I saw over the weekend.
Yeah, there were a bunch actually — there was a John Wycliffe translation into Middle English, I think, and the Venerable Bede was trying to translate it into Old English at some point.
Wycliffe, incidentally, was not burned at the stake either, though if he had been, I bet it would be for all of those tracts he wrote complaining about the Pope.
Sorry, I realize you were being, you know, sarcastic. I just had this one random fact on a topic I don’t know much about.
It’s fine! I don’t know everything about English Bibles, and more information about a subject is always better, especially when it doesn’t impact me personally or cause me to have to re-evaluate any of my feelings!
best kind of information!
Alfred the Great also commissioned/translated some parts, and was not burned at the stake for doing so.
I have no idea why this comment made me laugh in particular, out of a great group of comments in general. I will greatly missing mocking the deleted comments on the Toast.
Ugh, same. 100% the same.
yeah but he did burn the cakes, so…
And he wasn’t burned in turn, was he?
it might have been a near miss on god’s part, though.
BUT WILLIAM TYNDALE WAS, COME ON, PEOPLE
Presumably they are referring to William Tyndale*, but that doesn’t make their comment any less ridiculous.
*You probably already know this and I am just failing to pick up on sarcasm; sorry, if so.
yeah Tyndale is fine but he was no John Wycliffe.
also, given that the commenter seems pro-burning vernacular translators at the stake (?!), if god was really behind it, xe doesn’t have a great track record of getting translators burned. I mean, some, yeah, but look at how many xe has missed over the millenia
and what good does it do to burn them *after* they’ve translated something?!
to God, history is like a Whack-a-Mole but with translators that have to get burned at the stake
yeah when is God going to get around to punishing someone for this thing
http://www.amazon.com/Message-Remix-Bible-Complet…
Augh the Message Remix. “Though I walk through Death Valley…”
Although I do appreciate that the chapter heading for one chapter of Ecclesiastes is “I hate my life.” Very direct, good job.
Ecclesiastes is still my favorite book of the Bible.
I find it very comforting, especially when I’m in the middle of a Depressed.
Lamentations is my jam.
“Sometimes everything sucks. But it sucks for that guy over there, too; isn’t that nice? Let’s all get drunk and enjoy the waning time we have in this cold, indifferent world!”
Yeah. Wycliffe and his collaborators translated from the Latin Vulgate. Tyndale actually went back to the original texts, including, for his unfinished OT translation, going to Europe just to learn Hebrew, which he couldn’t learn in England, due to the expulsion of the Jews.
William Tyndale was the best, fight me
That totally was the main reason Charles I was beheaded — paying for his dad’s translation crimes.
There was a shortage of stakes that year.
My favorite King James thing is that, of the varieties of Christians who would be pretty mad to find out that King James was almost definitely gay, the ones who are the most into the KJV as the One True Bible are probably at the top of that list.
I DID NOT KNOW THIS and now I must restrain myself from gleefully telling every fundamentalist this fact.
Oh god, I just re-read this, and I heard it in Donald Trump’s voice.
Wow. I have never been so happy to just… not have a job. AAM is a treasure.
I didn’t really know about the Hairpin until after its initial demise, so I am tentatively excited? (Maybe they will snatch up some of the amazing Toast columns that I don’t want to live without.)
Guys it has been a WHIRLWIND week so far, I got a lease for a DC apartment (I can’t believe I was there with the Nicoles and didn’t even realize?) AND forgot to wear a bra this morning! My top provides decent coverage but I got nervous and changed into a sports bra from my gym bag and now I completely regret it because it’s one of my not-made-for-muscle, bruises-my-shoulders sports bras.
Congrats on the lease!
Yesterday I forgot to put on deodorant, which I did not realize until after I decided to walk 25 blocks for an errand even though I could have taken the subway. I was very self-conscious the rest of the day.
But a painful bra is worse.
I use Purell (or Purell-like-substances) as emergency deodorant, it’s pretty successful.
I am sharing this because I too am not so great at remembering to put on deodorant. You know the instructions say to put it on 15 minutes before your clothes? I’m out the door in 15 minutes after getting up, no time for this faffing about.
That sounds uncomfortable, but I’ll try it next time.
And for self-consciousness Round Two, I just realized that the pants I’m wearing have a little hole in both inner thighs. They are/were my favorite pair (the brand has since changed the cut a bit and the new fit isn’t as great). Now I’m sitting here hoping nobody will notice I stapled my pants.
Although I will be the first to admit that I fixed many a hem in my school uniform before inspection by the nuns with a stapler, having staples on your inner thighs….doesn’t sound comfortable.
I have definitely tried Purell in such cases, though didn’t find it that effective. I therefore now always keep an extra deodorant at work in my desk. I’m lucky in that I have an office, so I can put it on right there and then, but I have been known to do that even without even getting up or closing the door (that my desk is in full view of) by just sneaking a glance in the hall to see if anyone is out there, and then quickly putting it on. Let’s just say I’m glad I have that spare one about twice a week.
I have been known to use my desk antiperspirant multiple times a day during the summer and/or during audits.
That’s the sort of cleverness that is underrated. I should do that.
A couple of days ago I realised Gina Rodriguez had been in my area and I’d had no idea! I was pottering about at home eating Mini Rolls when I could have been bumping into Jane the Virgin and eating Mini Rolls!
Congrats on the lease! Boo on the sports bra pain 🙁 I’ve got one that does the same thing.
Despite having lived in London for three years now, i have failed to spot any famous people. My sister is all “oh yeah, I sat next to Tom Hardy on the Tube once” and “I served John Simm and his family when I worked at that ice rink”, while I apparently just wander around without paying the slightest bit of attention to the people around me. So if you are anything like me, you might have bumped into her and not noticed!
oh yes welcome to my new york existence where, after standing in line behind someone at the coffeeshop, my entire thought is always “oh do I know this person? do they live on my street/date an acquaintance/do some thing that I also do? oh well, who knows, I’ll have a small black coffee.”
(spoiler alert: they don’t. they’re just famous and I never notice.)
Yeah no, re: AAM, I’d probably be that jerk and go to HR like “during the interview process this aspect of my team was not discussed and I wanted to make sure you were aware of it because it’s not something I’m comfortable with”. It’s a little bit of playing dumb about the extent to which this is Not Okay, but it’s a way to bring it up without totally coming off as Killer of Fun, and hopefully HR is smart enough to be like ohhhh wait noooope.
“Hey, are we a cult?”
SRSLY. I like a Tarot reading myself, to the point where Tarot decks are my cat-statue-style default gift (so I have a Jane Austen deck, and a Gummi Bear deck, and those are both great), but unless you specifically work for, IDK, Llewellyn Books or a similarly blatant New Age place, nooooo.
And even there, mandatory off-hours monthly meetings at someone’s house? NOPE.
I’m a tarot reader who hangs out with readers on a regular basis – some of us even have a monthly hangout and we’re starting a MeetUp group. Guess what – we still don’t do that shit. I would be so uncomfortable in that kind of work environment AS a tarot reader (the whole The Secret thing makes it even worse, IMO). But then again, I did describe myself as “aggressive mundane” to my friend this weekend, re: tarot stereotypes.
Anyway, work is not the place to do this shit, especially the workplace in the letter.
Exactly, and also yes re: “aggressive mundane.” (And The Secret. Bleah.)
As a general rule, I am super uncomfortable with a) any kind of pseudo-spiritual/psychobabble “workplace culture” element, and b) anything where work expects you to do An Activity after hours because some people like them. (I live in Boston, and also in fear that a new job will “let us” go to Red Sox games on the regular.)
Oh my god, I would not want it to be widely known in the office that I can read Tarot. That’s the fastest way to become the public-access Life Coach for everyone there.
True story: I am known in my office for it! BUT, and this is a big but, we’re a social service agency and provide counseling services. We’re pretty darn good at not foisting that stuff on coworkers. We don’t need or want to Life Coach for each other, and we’re pretty chill about encouraging things that people enjoy. Also, I don’t bring a deck and park it out for folks to see, then offer/tell everyone to get a reading. Ugh, that would be such a dick move.
(I’m going acknowledge that I do sex education as my job, so that last sentence just made me laugh)
Same. My highest-ranking Pathfinder Society RPG character is even based on a quasi-Tarot fortunetelling deck (the “Harrow” deck), and I’ve got a couple of regular Tarot decks as well, but this thing is just too woo-infused for me.
I’m always down to hear about cool characters! Go on, if you are so inclined.
Not much to say that doesn’t put out more identifying information than I’m comfortable with (as I’ve played this character at a bunch of local conventions and will be taking her to Gen Con), but she uses the cartomancer archetype of the witch class; started out almost as a female version of Gambit (the X-Men character) and has become a powerful hexer who specializes in changing the odds for friend and foe alike.
Dang, this makes me want to start playing Pathfinder again! Very cool.
I’m intrigued by cat-statue-style gift. Is this a common “I don’t know you well” gift?
I don’t know about cat statues in particular but I think it’s the phenomenon where people know you are into *thing* so it’s an obvious gift idea and you end up getting a lot of them?
Exactly. The way I heard it described is: your aunt/co-worker/boyfriend’s dad doesn’t know you, really, but knows you have a cat, so they get you a cat statue for whatever gift-obligatory holiday is going on. So then someone comes over to your book club, sees you have a cat statue, and figures that’s what you want for the next gift-obligatory holiday. And then you become That Person Who’s Into Cat Statues, Just Get Her One, That’s Easy for gift-giving occasions.
I actually like weird tarot decks, so it’s not an issue for me, and hopefully there are people out there who really enjoy having a dozen cat figurines. But yeah, it’s the I Know One Thing About You Gift.
People do this to me with books (I imagine many, many people have this issue) but…none of them have really figured out how to get me books I will like.
People do this to me with books, also, but they will get me the book with weirdest cover in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section or, saving that, the cover with the most/biggest dragon(s). I’ve gotten some really excellent books that way that I wouldn’t necessarily have thought to pick out for myself.
Ahhhhh. This is what happened with my mother and salt and pepper shakers.
This was me, but with hedgehogs for quite a while. The power of suggestion compels them?
“Because we feel kinda cult-y.”
I feel like this strategy would require suppressing my inner spiritual truth. To live most fully, I would need to express a profound LOL WTF??! each and every time I was approached with this nonsense.
This is a little more OT, but does anyone have any experience with a cat becoming suddenly terrified of an inanimate object? One of my cats has suddenly become deathly afraid of the fleece blanket we keep on our bed. A blanket which he has probably spent more time on than off since arriving in our home 2 months ago. Any words of wisdom? He’s driving me batty. I’ve folded the blanket in half, so there’s half the bed he’s willing to get on, but he’s still fairly nervous about even being near the Blanket of Doom.
How strange. Cats are beyond weird.
Option 1: Sprinkle catnip on the blanket.
Option 2: Put the blanket away for a while and reintroduce it by leaving it somewhere other than the bed, such as on a chair, in a month or two.
Option 3: Take the blanket outside and set it on fire, as it is clearly possessed.
Did he get a static shock? One of my kitties was traumatized by one and it took him a week to approach the blanket again
call a priest for a blanket exorcism.
I was about to say: that blanket is haunted.
Is the blanket getting charged with static and zapping him?
Cat nip?
Static is a good suggestion, but if it’s not that then I’d be inclined to take cat for a vet check, make sure all senses are in good working order. I know cats are weird, but this seems more than normally weird. If you go down the bribery and corruption route I’d work up to food actually on it, start with it in his comfort zone and gradually move it over.
Are his claws in need of a trim? Maybe he keeps getting stuck on the blanket (or just was painfully stuck once) and now associates the blanket with stuck claws.
Maybe wash it? Could have picked up a weird smell, there’s some stuff that cats hate that don’t bother humans so you might not notice if something got spilled on it?
On the other hand my cat is afraid of the Game of Thrones theme music so maybe there’s nothing you can do.
My cats are TERRIFIED of the sound of wolves howling, understandably I think. But any time there’s any wolves on a nature show or anything they (well, now it’s just the younger one since old lady is deaf now) get all crazy-eyed and start looking all around for the wolves and then run upstairs to hide. It’s so cute and funny and I feel so bad for laughing!
At least wolves are a natural bad sounding thing though, Cookie is specifically afraid of the GoT intro. Not the rest of the music in GoT, not other cello music, or any other music at all. Just that. She can be sound asleep and three bars in shes up looking around like what is that hideous noise and then runs away. Shes even bothered if you hum it at her.
Cats are so weird.
That is hilarious! Cats!
My cat hates the “sound of a cat purring” white noise generator website. She prowls around my computer trying to figure out where the purring cat is, then she growls and runs away. It’s amazing.
“Shes even bothered if you hum it at her.”
I am admittedly a terrible person, but I don’t think I’d be able to stop doing that and laughing.
SAME
Your cat is a genius!
Whereas my cats are *fascinated* by the “Battle Cat” sound on The Rock Clock. They’ll come running across the house to investigate 🙂
The Rock Clock is truly the gift that keeps giving.
I second washing it, maybe? Or take it away for a bit and then reintroduce it! Maybe he thinks it is an extra large and flat predator? My own dumbass hisses and puffs at every new plant I bring home. The worst was a kinda jaunty frondy guy I bought a few weeks ago, she hid under the bed from it for like two days and then just abruptly got over it.
honestly I would prefer this to the cats I live with, who seem to think all of my plants are good eatin’. I swear the littlest one eats the one poisonous plant deliberately because she *wants* to throw up all over the rug…
My late lamented Finn tried to jump on the bed as a kitten and landed, not on the mattress, but on a puffy overhang of duvet and fell on the floor. She did not trust duvets for the rest of her life (18 years of hardcore Duvet Mistrust). She never jumped onto the perimeters of beds, and if she was at all able, she preferred to hurl herself through the air onto me because she knew I was solid.
So what I’m saying is, something may have happened when you weren’t there that involved that blanket–he slipped on it, he got wrapped up in it and panicked, whatever–and he’s now got a permanent distrust. Have you tried putting some other blanket in that spot to see how he reacts? That would tell you whether it’s the spot or the blanket. But you might just have to get another blanket.
We had a cat who suddenly became terrified of the back hallway (this was a problem because that was the only way to get to the litter boxes.) Took him to the vet, vet determined there was nothing physically wrong with him (official diagnosis written on the chart was “eh, cats are weird.” I loved that vet.) So: if you’re really worried, take your cat to the vet to rule out any physical problems. Food on the blanket might work, but you might have to just take the blanket off the bed if cat can’t get over being afraid of it.
I’m another vote for stuck claw. It probably happened once and now the cat is afraid of it happening again. Static also sounds plausible.
“Thanks for wasting my time.”
You are welcome, deleted commenter! Did you know that reading feminist websites will change your orientation?! It’s true, I read it on the internet.
I feel as though if I was in charge of a nuclear power entrenched in a cold war with another power and I had the chance to meet their leader and talk one on one, I would absolutely talk about alien invasion/possibly working together. It’s a good way to gauge to what extent your enemy hates you and how deep the resentment runs and also if the other guy is practical at all, which is a good thing to know if you’re going to try to win a war against them.
Also, when you’re at the point where both of you could actually blow up the entire planet several times over, you kind of have to embrace the absurdity of that situation.
I’d invite them over to eat popcorn and watch alien movies.
The great thing about that Reagan anecdote is that you know he probably watched Alien the night before.
Sounds to me like he’d just finished reading Watchmen.
I admit, I don’t always immediately pick up on a joke, but I’ll never stop being astounded at some people’s lack of ability to identify satire and absurdity. Or their refusal to embrace absurdity and satire in their lives. Lighten up, Francises.
+10000000 just for the Stripes reference.
I just came here to say that! I love Stripes.
Stripes is my everything.
Highlight of my army career: running the obstacle course at Ft. Knox as an ROTC cadet, where they filmed Stripes. Lots of “That’s the fact, Jack” and other stuff that got us in lots of trouble, too. Worth it.
I lived there as a kid and still get this weird ‘it is funny, but also nostalgic’ feels whenever I watch it. You mean everyone didn’t have tanks rolling around their neighborhood as a child? And didn’t everyone think Doo Wah Diddy was a cadence before they knew it was an actual song? And have their dad answer almost every question with ‘army training, sir!’?
That darn movie.
OT, though I guess it could….kind of be related to one of the deleted comments. I just watched Sunday’s Penny Dreadful. Did anyone else laugh when Ethan was doing his bastardized version of the Lord’s Prayer? That was some real hardcore preteen rebellion, there, Ethan.
It almost made me laugh as hard as that Lily/Dorian/Justine threesome a few weeks ago where they were covered in blood and saying things like “Liberty” and “Freedom” at each other. That show.
I haven’t watched Sunday’s episode yet but, in general, while I do love the show deeply and madly, I cannot take the Lily/Dorian thing at all seriously.
Also, spoilers:
Is their plan to kill all men? Except for Dorian because he’s not like those other guys but also murdered Angelique for no real reason? How, exactly, are they going to take over the world? Is it through immortal sex? Is the pool for sexually abused, easily manipulated yet deeply murderous young women really that large (I mean, yes, probably, but surely some of the women they “free” would prefer to not have sex bathed in blood and continue to be controlled by a man)?
I have too many questions and also I don’t take them seriously or even care what their plot is. I mostly just want Lily to put Victor out of his misery by drowning him, or something. Then she can go off to, I dunno, Brazil and drink cachaca and chill for a while and read.
Yeah, I have no idea. Their plan seems to be missing SEVERAL steps, and it is generally ridiculous. Maybe that’s why they have Victor pop in every now and then, so you can go, ‘Ugh, you’re even WORSE. No one wonder Lily wants to kill all men. Some…how.’
Right?? I’m sympathetic to Lily by a large margin. Victor is truly and completely the worst character on the show. I have no sympathy for him and his appearance on screen makes me roll my eyes and groan and those scenes are only saved by the very handsome Shazad Latif (and I am intrigued by colonialism and racism fueling his rage, although his interesting plotline is derailed by the fact that I want to electrocute Victor, who is the worst type of man ever. He thinks he’s all sensitive and romantic, but really he’s a controlling, manipulative, abusive asshole and I hate him. I HATE HIM.)
But still. They have no strategy. It’s all brutal tactics, a la Ramsay Snow-Bolton. Guys, have you never studied warfare at all? You need to have a strategic plan.
The blood-drenched threesome was TV GOLD.
Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought “dorky” would be a word I would use to describe a blood-drenched threesome, but there you go.
I love how completely absurd this season has gotten without becoming unbelievable. Maybe this is because I just want the show to be about Eva Green and her awesome witch powers, but does the whole Ethan-somehow-being-adopted/reincarnated-Native-American because werewolf thing make anyone else uncomfortable? Granted I’m two episodes behind so maybe there is information I lack, but I cringe whenever that comes up.
What was the last one you watched, and do you want anything confirmed or denied about what may or may not be coming up?
I think it was the third episode.
Yes. But that whole arc has been pretty boring, tbh.
Penny Dreadful is a beautiful gift. Is anyone else hoping that D is actually nice and it was all a big misunderstanding because I am terrible and kind of hoping for that.
Ethan went full rebellious emo teen at his father’s dinner table.
I think that commenter will find that Mallory is too witches to be burned at stake like “that guy who translated the Bible to English.”
You know, that guy.
I’m also confused because the commenter seems to be implying that Tyndale deserved this/translating the Bible into English is a bad thing? I did not realize anyone still believed this. I thought the weirdos had moved on to insisting that the KJV was even more inspired than the Greek and Hebrew or the Vulgate.
hello I am about to call a man about a new job and i am terrified!!!!! i have been in this, my first grown-up job, for twelve years, and goodness change is a frightening thing. i need to get away from my current boss and his toxic temper. but he hasn’t been too bad lately, maybe it’s all better (it is not). change no yes why ACK!
Ok. Now that I’ve told you all, I have to do it! Here I go!
AAAAAAAA he wasn’t there
I didn’t leave a message, because it seems like a thing that’s better live rather than in a message?
but i’m not sure my delicate nerves can take much more of this.
tell me your tales of delightful job switching!
Godspeed! <3
You can do it! Change is scary but it happens anyway so make it your bitch!
Change is good! And you will be dumbfounded at the things that turn out not to have been normal about your first job,
good luck! I called someone yesterday and have to talk to my boss today and i want to throw up it’s awful. (and i like my boss! i just have an opportunity for a better situation and my boss needs to know so that they can decide if they want to make it worth my time to stick around or not) (only more professionally. because i was told about a potential promotion 3 months ago and it’s been no news since then, despite my asking)
great now i called again and he still wasn’t there and i DID leave a message and now i can just sit around all day wondering if he isn’t calling back because it was a stupid message or what.
also i don’t have a portfolio together, and i really only have half a resume. i guess i will try not to get caught working on those at work this afternoon!
haha, me too! i scrambled Friday night to get mine together for the call yesterday and submitted them this morning (because I was too post-anxiety to do it yesterday and had to nap)
(I just got out of my meeting with my boss and it went pretty well, I think! it’s the start of a longer conversation, but the first hurdle is hopped. I hope you get a good response from your guy sooner than later!)
thank you! i hope so too. a friend just told me to call back if i haven’t heard in three days, and i’m all THREE DAYS I WILL DIE BY THEN.
no three days is forever, i agree. are you talking to other people in the meanwhile? will that help?
(ngl i am not! i can’t handle the anxiety of multiple Talks & Processes at a time)
ah, he texted me and will call tonight right after work! now i just have two hours to try not to pee myself (though i guess it doesn’t matter, since it’s just a phone call! there’s some stress off.)
I was just thinking it was probably well after work time even on the west coast, and I hope the phone call went well! And that you can now settle down with a glass of wine and some chocolate cake as reward for a very stressful day.
You work in architecture, right? I’ve found that bringing a set or two that I’ve been heavily involved in/ in charge of (11×17 was fine) was super useful and wound up being way more of a focus than my portfolio in an interview- and much quicker to pull together. I think you are probably a little ahead of me career wise, so grain of salt and all that (although I’m on firm number four, so plenty of practice on the interview front :P). Good luck!
Oh, thanks! There are plenty of half-sized sets around that I could bring along! Assuming I ever get a call back…
I am hoping the html is allowed here for the amount of O.O I need to express over Office Tarot.
BROADWAY CARPOOL KARAOKE
FEAT. ACTUAL GODDESS AUDRA MCDONALD
I’m really impressed by Corden’s Guns and Ships, that’s respectable!
That entire One Day More is my favorite thing in the world.
Corden has a Tony! He’s a very gifted theatre dude.
Audra remains the most talented human on this earth. I cannot even FATHOM what would be like to open my mouth and make sounds like that.
THANK YOU! I came right here after watching that because I have no one in real life to do my muppet-flailing excitement dance over this. This is the best thing I have seen in WEEKS and my cheeks still hurt from smiling. Just upset I am here in my office without my Les Mis soundtrack (and we’re not allowed to stream music).
I downloaded that to my phone because I know there will be times when I need it.
Man, I want to start watching these, but I have never ever liked Corden. I agree with Stewart Lee*’s comment that “Britain’s loss is America’s loss.” Lee was joking, but I am not. Maybe I could try to mentally separate Corden the talk show host from Corden the British comedian, like pretend they are two different people?
*I love Stewart Lee with the heat of a thousand suns and am continually irritated that we can’t more of his stuff legally in the US, but whenever I need a pick me up, I watch his bit on Youtube about Top Gear or the England or Satire episodes of Comedy Vehicle on Netflix.
I love that the Bernie’s camp’s actual, spoken-aloud strategy is to just mansplain at Hillary superdelegates until they give in.
I mean hasn’t he just spent the last month railing about how the existence of superdelegates not beholden to the popular vote (which Clinton has handily won) is part of the horrible rigged corrupt system?
Bernie refuses to be robbed by Hillary’s shady practices of “winning more votes” and “being the preferred candidate”
God I love this gif.
I’m entirely ready for her to vanquish Angry Business Yam with amused contempt.
Agreed. I am officially #bernedout.
That is amazing and I am stealing that. The fella keeps yelling “FEEL THE BURN” and I keep telling him that there is an ointment for that.
I’m feeling the #heartbern.
I am excited about the Hairpin revival but not as excited as I would be if they hadn’t already tried to revive it and failed, and not as excited as I would be if it was going to be at a place that actually supported commenting. Hmph.
I know! I wanna be optimistic, but personally died a little last time they attempted resurrection.
An awesome thing about that AAM question is seeing the number of Pagans among her commenters, which maybe should not surprise me but it did!
So I just checked my bank and between my super busy weekend of eating out and drinking with my mother staying with me, and covering two portions of the rent (because I STILL have an empty room in my house), I am already into my overdraft and its only the start of the month.
Is it time to panic yet?
As someone who has been in that situation before, just try to remember that it truly always works out somehow, some way. Is there something you can do to pick up some extra cash – hold a yard/ stoop sale or sell some stuff on eBay?
I have to beleive it will work out eventually; but I had also convinced myself that I wouldn’t end up in this situation; london has such huge demand for houseing, how do I have an empty room in my house?!
I’m already working full time, just tragically underpaid. I’ve been looking for a new job for about 6 months though, and I’m not really getting anywhere (Again, no idea how, there are literally 10,000 jobs in my field in London.). Hopefully I’ll get a new job soon with a decent pay rise, in the mean time I am ok, I just need to stop all non-essential spending immediately, and I’ve a tax rebate that just came in that I was hoping to put into savings, but instead will be used to cover my rent.
Since I’m holding back tears at my desk, join me.
A story about the last knowing living 9-11 search and rescue dog.
“About two-dozen first responders lined the sidewalk leading to the veterinarian’s office and saluted Bretagne as she walked by for the final time Monday, The Houston Chronicle reported. An American flag was draped over her body as she was carried out of the facility.”
http://www.metronews.ca/news/world/2016/06/06/las…
Gah, right in the fuckin’ cockles.
Saw this this morning. Did not click. Still saw her face. Got misty.
Good dog.
Even though she was most likely in a lot of pain (kidney failure) and it was for the best, it was so terribly, terribly sad to watch her walking from the car, tail wagging, and know that she wouldn’t come out again.
We had to put my dog down this weekend for liver failure and she ALSO walked to the vet with her tail wagging despite being in horrible pain.
The worst. This article made me sad all over again!
Oh, I’m so sorry about your dog! That is just awful.
Any story about animals suffering is making me cry me eyes out at the moment, I’m in therapy that brings out so many old sorrows. It’s these innocent, trusting beings hurting, that just breaks me to pieces.
Thanks 🙂
Absolutely, I feel the same way
NYC gave Bretagne the heroine’s welcome she deserved when she came back to visit Ground Zero last year. RIP, good dog.
Yup crying.
What did we ever do to deserve dogs, you guys? They are truly too good for this world.
Good girl, Bretagne. Rest in peace.
I cannot click on this story because I don’t want to cry at work. But I will say there is something about working dogs’ service that hits a certain soft spot. I remember when my brother told me people didn’t always keep their guide dog after the dog retired. I bet at least once a week I’d think about that and the sadness of that poor dog getting SO attached to their owner who they were guiding, only to have to be given away once they got too old to continue doing the work.
I understand the practicality of it – number of reasons to give up the retired dog – but it’s still heartbreaking. Same thing for the 9/11 dogs. Something about their service, their eagerness to please us, gets me taking deep breaths and wiping my eyes every time.
Good dog, indeed.
Oh geez. I meant to make it clear that my brother did end up keeping his service dog after the dog retired. In fact, he’s so loyal to the dog, he’s refused to go back to the school to meet his replacement.
I appreciate that they gave her the same farewell as a retired police officer because that’s what she is (was). Years ago I saw on TV this full public police officer’s funeral for a police dog killed in the line of duty. A reporter asked the chief of police why they’d do that for a dog and he answered “why wouldn’t we?”
Another hilarious Omar Holmon piece for any GOT “fans” (none of us are really fans, are we? Ugh) out there, saying what we all think about the direwolves:
http://blacknerdproblems.com/open-letter-to-the-s…
Oh man, the stories about his brother’s dogs really got me. Our dog Beans is a pibble, and he was used as a bait dog too. Now he loafs 23/7 and is happy.
Sorry to go OT (and I think I’m kind of late to the party) but I found out last night that I passed my Web design class, which means I’m graduating with my master’s! Pretty ecstatic to be done with school. Now to start that job search….
Hooray!
I know I’m even later to the party, but I’m so excited for you! Congratulations!
I want someone with more emotional energy than myself to take on all the misogynist Old White Men commenting on The-Lighthouse-and-her-rapist’s-laughable-sentence NYT piece. What the fuck is the NYT doing giving this shit its commenter gold star?
And of course this garbage person feels no shame about posting this under his real name with his picture.
*screams into a sponge, again*
There aren’t enough words to argue with that guy. He will never understand and there is no point fighting him. He clearly doesn’t understand the difference between just drunk and unconscious and there’s no reason to waste energy on him.
How big is this sponge? like, a kitchen sponge, or a car-washing sponge? Because I think I’m going to have to go and buy one to scream into.
Try a minivan: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/study-…
she was passed out behind a dumpster jfc jfc jfc jfc
you literally cannot consent if you are fucking unconscious, burn everything
And she had enough pine needles in her hair to fill a paper bag (indicating she was probably dragged with her head on the ground for some distance).
and debris in so many other places! like no woman would be ever say “oh yeah please put dirt and leaves and allllll sorts of awesome stuff here on the ground behind the dumpster inside my body, it’s so hot when that happens.” o.O
burn it all down. my heart is so full of rage.
burn. it. down.
YES, 100% HOOPSKIRT VICTORIAN to believe that women never initiate sexual contact while unconscious.
If by “take care of” you mean “kill with a fire stick,” I am here to volunteer.
I don’t understand how comments get the “NYT pick” banner?! There are so many that are basically saying she was partially at fault for being black out drunk – WTF
How is it provable that he knowingly engaged in nonconsesual sex that was criminal?
Oh I don’t know, you pompous fuck…maybe because one of the witnesses who stopped the rape testified:
“She was unconscious. The entire time. I checked her and she didn’t move at all,” Carl-Fredrik Arndt said. Arndt and his friend later told authorities that they saw Turner on top of the victim ‘aggressively thrusting his hips into her.’ “The guy stood up then we saw she wasn’t moving still. So we called him out on it. And the guy ran away [Ed. – emphasis mine], my friend Peter chased after him,” Arndt said.
Does that count for anything at all? Or do you want to call back to the Victorians again and explain away a rapist fleeing the scene of his crime as mere Victorian missishness?
This guy….we need the Geico camel to go “Mikemikemikemike” and then hawk a glob of spit right in his smug face.
THERE WERE WITNESSES YOU SHITBAG.
I don’t think anyone posted this, so I will. James Corden doing car karaoke with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Audra McDonald, Jane Krakowski, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. It is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YshgmStEZh0
THANK YOU SO MUCH! That was amazing, I am so happy now.
My only complaint is that one does not put goddess Audra McDonald in the back seat!! Lin should have given her his seat.
That AAM is giving me flashbacks. I actually worked closely for a company like this, except instead of woo-woo positive thinking stuff it was a particularly ugly conservative Christianity. Mind you, this was not an independent, tax-exempt company but a division of an international media conglomerate and part of the largest publisher in the world. I didn’t work in their office or on 95% of their operations, but some of my colleagues there had really terrible experiences.
Everything was couched in this “optional” language. One thing that really stuck with me was having people write down everything that was wrong in their lives and share it with their colleagues so they could “pray for each other.” At best, this functioned as food for the gossip mill. At its worst, whatever vulnerable things were shared were leveraged as blackmail. And if you didn’t go, you were totally ostracized. My worst experience on a single visit was praying before meetings & meals & asking invasive, judgmental questions about my personal life. My friend tried to raise complaints with the corporate HR who were horrified that this was going on, but it just wasn’t quantifiable. And because my friend made a stink, she was pushed out. None of us work there any more, and they went through a number of management changes since then. But the dark horse behind that culture is still there & thriving. *shudders* This shit is reeeallllll.
Anyone else following Paul Ryan’s new “anti-poverty” plan? Because its top priority is literally “increased work requirements for welfare recipients,” and everything else is about “streamlining” and “consolidating” existing federal programs. Paul Ryan basically cares about poverty the same way he cares about the integrity of his party– he talks a lot about caring about things, and then endorses the same destructive bullshit that got everyone into this mess in the first place
Work requirements for welfare recipients suck and get so many needy people kicked off welfare. I worked somewhere where welfare recipients fulfilled their work requirement and it’s such a shitshow. Warning huge rant-1 Basically it has recipients doing a job in exchange for welfare benefits (WHICH WORKS OUT TO LESS THAN MINIMUM wage) . 2. They often had life circumstances that made working difficult/impossible, health problems, small children, inadequate access to regular child care, low literacy + staying on government benefits. So when they couldn’t work because of life circumstances or had to spend all day with the childcare voucher office or at food stamps or dealing with welfare then they couldn’t meet their work requirements and their benefits got cut unless you managed to sweet talk or argue with their social worker. 3. At least where I worked most of the people offering welfare to work slots were NGOs that were never going to hire these people making it an endless cycle of indentured servitude not a pathway to work. Sorry for the rant welfare to work enrages me
In my perfect world, law- and policy-makers would, upon being elected to office, be required to spend one day with a person on welfare. Just one day of trying to get to a job without a car (buses don’t go everywhere) or a drivers license (they cost money), or trying to arrange childcare so you can interview (most day cares don’t take drop-ins). Too many politicians–and a disturbing number of my Facebook friends–seem to think that curing poverty is so simple. Just one day should be enough to see the difficulties and realize that “just get a job!” isn’t the panacea they believe it to be, that poverty is complex and requires a compassionate and thoughtful response.
oh and there were those four seconds last month when he had almost started to convince me that maaaaybe he was a human being and not a laser-eyed vortex demon from the 11th dimension.
Seconded.
Ugh, how gross. Thank you for drawing attention to that.
Working for welfare is all about making welfare recipients the “deserving poor,” which is bs. To receive food stamps here in Texas a person has to work at least 15 hours a week. My sister works 40 hours a week at her job and still can’t afford to feed herself, so she applied for food stamps, which only amounted to an extra hundred dollars a month. I don’t know what’s more pathetic: the fact that she works 40 hrs a week at a job where she nets eight hundred a month, or the paltry amount the state of Texas gives her monthly to buy food.
As someone who is currently obsessed with Lemonade, I am feeling Shaq. I am feeling him a lot.
Right up there with William Tyndale, that’s pretty good!
soooo off topic bust i was just introduced to WeekDone and I’m kind of horrified.
like, we have to take more time out of our day to track the things we’re doing? and not just get on with it? that is exactly contrary to my personal best practices (the more time I take planning/tracking things, the less likely i am to move onto the Actual Doing)
That sounds exactly like the kind of thing I do to waste time and pretend I’m working.
I have a handwritten/weekly to-do list but to have to replicate it where all my coworkers can see is not cool? it feels like so much pressure! and I jot out my to-do list in five minutes every Tuesday in abbreviations. having to make it suitable for coworkers to read is kind of 1/3 of the reason i failed at online grad school. (ahhhh so much stress and anxiety today, i need to go on a long bike ride or something)
Quality misandry from my three-year-old niece this weekend:
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipN1IE4ZITxEO…
Aw, it’s a private link! Can you grab the version meant for sharing?
Yikes, sorry! Let me try again:
AHAHAHAHA! Well done, small Toastie-in-training.
I look around my office, and if I had to do one-tenth of those team building activities with the people I work with, I would absolutely leave. The funny thing is, of the people I work with, I’d be THE MOST game to do that stuff. I have zero tolerance for that “team player” BS, but the people I work with would burn shit down before agreeing to it. Picture Stanley from The Office, but with less flexibility.
Mallory won’t be laughing when she meets God, silly. She’s already explained in detail why she will, instead, brawl with him.
See also, I’ll rock you up but good
“I joined a new company last month and I’m pretty bemused at the company/team culture. The company is big on “culture” in general, which is great, but my individual team (~20 people) is VERY spiritual . . . .”
Hey, me too! I joined a company last month. Then last week I convinced the owner it was her own idea to fire me. I’m proud of that.
During the interview I was told *everyone* works 8 hours without a lunch break. They all chose that (all? chose? really?) in order to leave the office an hour earlier. I immediately responded that I have to leave the building every day for a lunch break and I expected my work day to be longer in exchange.
They hired me anyway. And I had to reassert daily that I have to leave the building for a lunch break. I kept to myself that it was my psychiatrist and other counselors who convinced me that my mental health depends on that daily hour away. My diagnosis of chronic depression is not my employer’s business.
First day on the job the office manager wanted to add my birthday to a list given to the entire office. I gave my standard answer of 29 February. The owner called me into her office a few hours later to ask about that. She knows it’s not my birthdate. She said she has to question my integrity because of my answer(!). I had to explain that, in my culture, birthdays are for friends and family and a false date felt kinder than saying no, I won’t share.
Second week on the job, still required to assert my daily need for a lunch break, the business owner asks if my mother is still living. I answered yes. Then she asked where my mother lived. I responded that I did not want to talk about her, but thanks for asking. The owner did not respond well. She spoke to me in private a few days later and mentioned how shocked she was at my response. I turned that on her, that *I* was shocked to be asked such a personal question at work.
Toastfriends, I am still shocked that there are people who don’t realize that not everyone gets a happy childhood, people who know nothing about emotional triggers that take days or weeks to recover from. No way in hell am I going to talk about my parents at work. But it seems I will get triggered anyway, having to defend that refusal, having to craft dodges in response.
I told the owner I want her to have what she wants. If she wants someone whose culture allows for sharing personal details at work, she can have that, but it will not be me. I offered to help her find my replacement. She said she’s never encountered this “cultural difference” before.
Toastfriends, I believe her. She’s past 60 and never lived anywhere but here in Conformity Station in central Texas. I told her I have lived in 10 states and have learned to be flexible with all kinds of coworkers. I left unsaid that she clearly has no ability to consider anyone the least bit unlike herself.
Sorry for the wall o’ text. I have some feels about this, apparently.
woah.
Indeed. Thank you.
That sounds insane! Do you mind sharing what industry or kind of job this is? Is it a small company? I have never encountered anything like that in the workplace!
Small office, owner plus 9 employees. CPA, mostly tax returns. Small town culture in an isolated part of a red state. Economy dependent on huge university founded as a military academy and still providing that function along with others, such as feeding the oil and gas industry. Said university’s success due to brilliant marketing strategy to attract students shopping for a prepackaged identity, willing to buy into conformity culture and support it to the end of their lives.
Every single detail above = conservative
Avoiding small offices usually avoids anything like my recent job experience. It’s just that here, there are no large employers other than the university and the hospitals, both of which prefer to hire grads of this cultish university. So no job for me. Until we move. Mr Rose may be able to get work away from here very soon.
Oh, wow. Good for you to enforcing your boundaries, but I’m so sorry that you have to. 🙁
I think I know where you are (I’m up the road in Waco). Condolences – that sounds awful.
Yes, you guessed correctly. Waco has it’s own challenges, I’m sure, given it’s famously conservative school. ::solidarity fist bump::
God, yes. (I recently got hired by my super-liberal church though so now it is LITERALLY MY JOB to sashay about town being WILDLY PROGRESSIVE. It is the best possible way to live here. SO HAPPY.)
Oh, RoseCamelia. At least this means that you got out of your old job surrounded by incompetents, if I’m reading/remembering correctly? I also have a mother who, yes, is alive and no, I do not want to talk about her, and people find this shocking. Usually they are polite enough not to probe! Also, being pressured not to take a lunch break is ludicrous. I know you will find something better.
Survivors of poor parenting, unite! We are rock stars, you and I. Come sit by me.
I just read your entire post while I was eating lunch and by the end of it I’m pretty sure I spilled my chili everywhere because of all the gaping I was doing. That is HORRIBLE and I am so sorry that happened to you! It is ridiculous to assume that everyone you work with is exactly like you.
I have one particular coworker (only one!) who makes weird rude comments when I say I don’t want to talk about my family, and that gets on my nerves. I can’t even imagine having having to put up with that day in and day out. You will be so much better off with a new job in an environment that doesn’t expect absolutely identical employees.
Absolutely identical. You nailed it. That’s the basis of the overall culture here in Conformity Station. Mr Rose is working hard to get us out of here.
Oh, dang, I didn’t realize this was you until I got down to your penultimate paragraph. Ugh, I’m sorry this happened. No progress on getting out of Texas, then? 🙁
Mr Rose has a very enthusiastic startup owner introducing him to board members next week. It is likely to result in a job offer. Can’t share too much at this point. Location is still in a red state, but in a port city, so muchmuchmuchmuch better.
CRIPES. I would also have feels in that situation!!
Your support is important. Thank you.
I am so sorry that they expect you to be totally open with a company that 1. admitted it’s trying to cheat you out of legally required break time and 2. you’ve only worked there/had a chance to get to know them for 4 weeks!
WTF. Good for you for shutting her down.
I am regularly grateful that my corner in the back office keeps me from having those discussions–or any discussions, really, with my coworkers.
With me it’s , “Oh, the kids are out of school, summer is so exciting, what do you have planned to do with them this year?”. I just stare them down. Seriously? Lady, I’m here. At work. What do you think I’m doing? I will be at work again tomorrow. And the day after that. It’s called work. Obviously being here means I can’t be somewhere else with my kids. Were you planning on giving me a paid vacation?
I skipped almost two weeks of part-time work this month when finishing my semester/exams happened. The payroll lady was like, “welcome back. Were you sick?” no. “were you traveling?” no. “did you take a vacation” (Lady, I’ve told you no twice already, we’re in the hallway, can I go now?). “I am working on my PhD and I needed time to take care of my exams and end of year projects”. Yes, you know how you treat me like that high school intern you had last month? And pay me the same? You so do not deserve me, people.
Thanks for your post. They’re not cheating on the lunch thing. Because they have no clue that there are any laws on the subject. Really. It’s just base ignorance. Completely in keeping with the culture here. Labor has no value. Owners are in a different class.
I am in awe of your ability to hold on to your boundaries; in that kind of situation I would probably cry at people until they learned to stop asking me questions. I hope your next position will be better suited to everyone’s needs.
IT ME. Seriously, I cry at work all of the time. Or used to. Then I moved jobs. *nods*
Good for you, changing jobs. No employer is worth tears. Though paying one’s bills is important.
I had to leave work early almost every day this spring so I didn’t cry in my office. And I cried pretty much every night because I had to go back the next day. Jobs: y u gotta suck so bad?
Came here to post almost this exact comment, particularly the “in awe” part.
Thank you. You are very kind.
Your comment makes me feel better because I was crying in my car every day on my lunch break and at the end of most days. Those tears felt like failure. Until I read your note here. Thank you.
The failure is on their part, not yours. What tremendous strength, as jenavira said, to maintain your boundaries and to go out on your own terms, especially when it should have never been necessary for you to exert it in the first place. May you find a better position posthaste in a company full of people with rock solid boundaries.
I can tell you, with 100% certainty, that crying at or adjacent to work is completely the fault of work, not the fault of you. And I think I’m a credible source on that.
What a terrible, unacceptable situation, and I am very impressed with the way you handled it.
Oh my goodness, I don’t feel impressive just now. Thank you for this.
Ugh, this is terrible. I have been to that town once in the past two decades (for a powerlifting meet) and it was once too often. It is fucking creepy how same-y it all is.
See, I *knew* you’d get it. Because it has to be experienced to be believed. Fucking creepy, indeed.
A+++ boundary maintenance!!
This is interesting to know, and now I’m kind of wondering where different people draw these boundaries and if there are sector/regional/etc differences? Everyone I work with is pretty chatty and discussion about personal life is the norm. I mean I think everyone would be respectful if someone declined to answer, but I have definitely asked/ been asked by my coworkers about birthdays and families. Would you see that as a cause for concern in itself or is it fine as long as I’m not being pushy?
The asking is okay, I think, once, if the topic comes up naturally in conversation. But multiple asks once you get the noli me tangere in any form–no. Especially if there’s a power differential between the asker and the askee.
Ok, that’s what I figured. I’ve worked at a lot of places where the “culture” is very… laid back? Eccentric? So I don’t always know if I’m up to date on how bona fide professionals behave themselves.
I would maybe suggest erring on the side of “everyone might not want to share their personal info” when considering bringing up something personal. For instance, a while back I had a coworker cheerily ask me what “big plans” I’d made to treat my dad for Father’s Day. I don’t speak to my father. When I tried to change the subject, she doubled down with a speech on how “you’ll always be daddy’s little girl!” (sidebar: ugh). Don’t assume that everyone has had the same experiences as you, basically!
Asking is OK after your coworker mentions her personal life. But be sure to leave room for her to decline gracefully.
Keep in mind that coworkers are, in regard to their personal lives, strangers. You cannot know whether the person speaking with you might have bad experiences on a given subject, might be triggered.
Kindness, gentleness, consideration. Keep those at the forefront and you’ll be fine.
God, it’s exhausting to have to constantly re-state and re-defend the same boundary.
ENOUGH with pictures that are not of Sansa. We all know what the White House looks like. Pictures of Sansa EVERY DAY please until the end of the month. Thank you.
You will take what you get, lady, I shall not be a vending machine.
small voice/I did say please
xoxoxoxox
Ear tufties sustain my soul. <3
I looked at an old Link Roundup yesterday, from when Sansa was genuinely a puppy. There’s, like, 5x more dog now, it’s crazy.
Super way late and not related to this LR, but the new Dear Prudence just made my morning. My favorite definitely goes to the compost-challenged husband: “The Mysterious Tree of Smells and Trash needs to go. … Maybe it’s nice for the flies. Your husband uses a tree as a trash can and thinks he’s John Muir all of a sudden.” http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/…
Oh, Mallory, you treasure!
I wonder if the Mysterious Tree of Smells and Trash is the horrific children’s story version of the Magic Faraway Tree.
Or a new version of the Giving Tree – trash really is the gift that keeps on giving! Humans, man, we’re good at creating waste!!
Mallory was perfect in that answer, but what is that guy’s deal?
He has sense enough to solicit and accept Mallory’s verdict! How does he not have sense enough to right this behavior without it?!?
I’d been meaning to quote a line from her response last week, to the asshole misogynistic father sulking because their next child is going to be a girl and not a boy: “Your daughters are better off with no father than a father who would treat them like this.”
Preach it, Mallory!
“Ask questions. Consider listening after you have asked them. ” – and the best thing is that that advice could have been delivered harshly but it wasn’t, and the correspondent took her advice positively and thoughtfully.
This week’s live chat was seriously off the hook. Garbage Tree Man, the fuckboy who hopes the woman who rejected him has mended her ways, the racial slur incident with the kids, the roommates who absolutely cannot bring themselves to set a single boundary with their squatter…
Speaking of raccoons …
My building did a termite tenting about 2 weeks ago. Due to long reasons you don’t want to hear, there were apparently wild animals trapped underneath, which died and, no surprise, started to rot. When the company that was supposed to have made sure the crawl spaces, etc., were clear refused to come deal with the problem, we hired a new company, which came yesterday and reported that, along with a number of dead rats and mice, there was the corpse of a SEVENTY POUND raccoon under the building.
Okay, first of all, I do not believe that there are 70-lb raccoons, just on principle. The really big ones get up to, like 25 lbs, maybe? 70 lbs???? That’s like, the size of a large child.
On the other hand, what on earth was it?
70 pounds is a common size for medium-to-large dogs. Now I have to sob a little at that thought.
Except I honestly think that we would have been aware of a 70-lb dog living under our building. We’re in an urban area on a busy street–it would have been noticeable that something was rummaging in the trash, we would have seen it wandering around … the only thing I could think, conceivably, is if it had been hit by a car and crawled under the building to die (sob, but at least not our fault for gassing it).
But I also think the contractors who were clearing the place out should have been able to tell the difference between a large dog and an inconceivably enormous raccoon.
It was the Raccoon King, maybe? what you missed was all the other raccoons sneaking into the crawlspace to pay tribu oh oh oh god i am not making this any better for myself oh fuck no let’s talk about something else now
I was walking to my old apartment on Staten island once, and a HUGE old angry raccoon was hanging out in a small tree a few feet outside the door to the building lobby. He hissed at me. I would believe that he weighed that much. Did I mention he was freaking huge? He was so heavy the branch was bending. I made a wide berth and darted into the building from the other side of the door. I think city raccoons can get big due to gorging on garbage.
From what I have found online (and admittedly, it’s a rather hasty Google search), there are references to “record size” urban raccoons weighing 62 lbs. I find it hard to believe that the world record all-time enormous raccoon was living in my own personal crawlspace. I just … I don’t know, I don’t think their skeletons can get big enough to carry that much weight. Not without turning into a new subspecies.
That’s….just….horrifying.
But what else gets that big? Beavers can get pretty big but the contractors should also be able to tell the difference between a beaver and a raccoon.
Do I dare ask how they came up with the 70-pound estimate?
I don’t know how they came up with the estimate or the identification–I’m on the HOA board and I plan to ask more about this at our meeting on Wednesday (I’ll report back!). I’m in LA, so I really doubt it’s a beaver. I don’t know what is that big around here besides dogs. I mean, I’ve seen raccoons and possums on rare occasions, but nothing like that size. I’m not in the hills, so I don’t see how it could be a coyote; I cannot imagine a mountain lion getting into our crawlspace without being spotted en route (we’re at good 5 miles south of the nearest mountain lion incident of recent years) and a major media storm ensuing. I am flummoxed.
Please use this meeting as an opportunity to quote from Mallory’s raccoon piece. Sample script: “You see, it says here ‘smashed-down smallbear’, not ‘smashed-down mediumbear’. This can’t be right.”
A really big badger?
A Rodent of Unusual Size is starting to seem like the best bet.
Well, I must regretfully report that, due to Difficulty in Distinguishing Sounds on the part of the board member who received the phone report, it turns out the raccoon was only 17 lbs–large, but not outrageously so. But also was definitely AN ALL-HANDS NO-FEET TRASH-CAT and not somebody’s pet and the main thing wrong of it was being dead in our crawlspace.
THANK GOD because my brain was definitely going to some really horror places with that 70lb raccoon thing.
Ok, my mom’s cat weights 17 lbs, I can conceive of a raccoon that size.
RELIEF. Of sorts. i mean, still a dense badger lie, but a dead one which is no longer rotting under the building. Yay?
Reminder to California registered voters to vote in the primary today! Polls open until 8 pm!
I think I’ll just share this here without comment: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lick-your-cat…
I’m not a particularly devout Catholic, (although I have the paperwork to suggest otherwise), and I do rather like tell fortunes, although I think of doing so as an amusing game. I can read tea leaves and tarot and palms. I love to do bibliomancy.
That being said, if someone told me that I had to do mandatory weekly business tarot readings, I’m pretty sure that the phrase “against my religion” would tumble from my lips unbidden.
Yeesh.
uh if I had to do any sort of mandatory weekly business spiritual team-building I would find some way for the phrase “against my religion” tumbling from my lips unbidden. yikes. imagining that makes my skin crawl.
I think ALL The-Toast stories should start with “I’m not particularly ***, but I have the paperwork to suggest otherwise.” <3
Ah, I get ya. In my field there’s a lot of pressure to be added on social networks (which I hate, feels like being monitored) and to socialize at after-hours functions. So there can be an assumption that you know everyone really well, which of course you may not. But I think human decency applies no matter what kind of office it is.
What’s wrong with praising Anne Boleyn?
Oh fucking wow. If someone told me that – I can't even repeat the words – they would get a very loud, very TMI and very uncomfortable spray.
And it would probably make me a subject of gossip at work, but that would not bother me in the slightest.
I can't get over the sheer effrontery and lack of awareness.