Jian Ghomeshi is absolute garbage AND he choked and beat Lucy from Trailer Park Boys, who a) I adore and b) is going on the record about it:
Over the course of the Star’s investigation, women who say they were victimized said they did not feel comfortable putting their name to the allegations. Some say they feared retaliation from Ghomeshi, online harassment and a negative impact on their careers.
DeCoutere said it was time for someone to speak publicly about the matter.
She first met Ghomeshi at a barbecue at a Banff television festival in 2003. They chatted and, in time, she visited Toronto and they had dinner at a restaurant on the Danforth. She recalls him telling her how famous he was and “how lucky you are to be with me.” They went back to his house in Riverdale. DeCoutere said they began making out and then she alleges he pushed her against the wall, choked her with his hands around her neck and then slapped her three times.
Obviously, DeCoutere is in a better position to come forward than many of his victims, and we shouldn’t NEED her to come forward, but I’m so glad she did, and she’s a rockstar, and this guy is a serial predator and his hair is STUPID.
My intense fear of portraits of big-eyed kids duels with my hatred of dudes jacking the credit for women’s creativity:
This conversation apparently took place at an outdoor art exhibition in San Francisco in 1955. Walter was still an unknown artist. He wouldn’t become a phenomenon for another few years. Later that night, his memoir continues, Margaret told him: “You are the greatest lover in the world.” They married.
Margaret’s memory of their first meeting is quite different.
HATRED WINS.
This is what happens when you criticize Teach for America:
An internal media strategy memo, obtained by The Nation, confirms Chovnick’s concerns, detailing TFA’s intricate methodology for combating negative media attention, or what it calls “misinformation.” Given that TFA takes tens of millions of government dollars every year, such strategies are troubling. According to its last three years of available tax filings, Teach For America has spent nearly $3.5 million in advertising and promotion. As the strategy memo indicates, much of this promotion goes toward attacking journalists, including ones previously published in this magazine.
RIP, Galway Kinnell
This Politico investigation of the state of the ACA in Mississippi is fucking brutal:
It is difficult to untangle the state’s dismal health from its past. For African-Americans, even going to a doctor can be a fraught historical act in Mississippi. There are the practical reasons that come from being poor and uninsured, but there is also a toxic legacy: the Jim Crow laws of living memory that barred blacks from most doctors’ offices, the widespread practice of sterilizing black women as a form of birth control, a practice so common it became known as “Mississippi appendectomies.” Perhaps it’s no surprise then that Mississippians today are less likely than the rest of the country to seek primary care for chronic conditions and more likely to turn to hospitals when those ailments become more serious and expensive.
Archie was due on a Saturday. The show that night would be Jon Hamm’s first time hosting. The musical guest was Coldplay. The Friday before the show, I was in the middle of rehearsing a Mad Men parody, and I called to confirm my three P.M. appointment with Dr. G. The receptionist answered the phone crying. She told me Dr. G had passed away from a heart attack in his sleep. I burst into tears so loudly and violently that I think water was squirting out of my eyes like in a Cathy cartoon. Nothing is more horrifying than a giant pregnant lady sobbing. Everyone got very quiet. I hung up the phone and told Jon and the hair and makeup people that my doctor had just DIED. And I was DUE TOMORROW. And that I knew it seemed like a weird punch line, but my beloved and dear Italian grandpa was not going to be able to help me. I felt so terrible about the fact that all I was thinking was “What about meeeeeee!” I cried and cried in my Mad Men dress. Jon Hamm held me by the shoulders and looked at me and said, “I know this is very sad, but this is a really important show for me, so I’m going to need you to get your shit together.” This made me laugh so hard I think I peed. Going from crying to laughing that fast and hard happens maybe five times in your life and that extreme right turn is the reason why we are alive. I believe it extends our life by many years.
Short women got one reason to live: goin’ to Mars.
Couponing is for layabouts, sweeping is the new game in town:
Plus, real-life, non-sweeper friends and family members can get a bit concerned. “My parents think I’m a little crazy, because I do have a degree and I’m not really using it,” says Ambrea Kuhn, a 25-year-old in Utah. She cater-waiters part-time and is able to cobble together a living through that and sweeping. A fast typer, she manages to enter 1,500 “dailies” and 200 new contests a day, all in about two hours.
Though the internet has helped the sweeping community diversify, there remains a large contingent of sweepers who are stay-at-home mothers. For them, sweeping starts off as a way to pass time, occasionally growing into a noteworthy source of income. “When I started hardcore sweeping again in May, part of my goal was winning Christmas presents,” says Thompson. “But the other part was to show my husband that this is a viable work alternative, because my four-year-old’s going to go into kindergarten next year.”
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171392
Thank you for that link; I’d forgotten my love of poetry, and Galway Kinnel was one of my favourites, always driving me to tears. “St. Francis and the Sow” is, for me, one of the most beautiful poems ever written and now my heart is wrenching over his passing.
There’s an autostart video in the Ghomeshi article, heads up.
Kate Beaton tweeted this article last night, too, about how people “knew about” Ghomeshi, navigating around his boundary violations without being able to really accuse him of anything: http://www.nothinginwinnipeg.com/2014/10/do-you-k…
That is a spectacular article. Thanks for the link.
Great piece.
You know, I remember being struck by the tone in his voice when he was interviewing Kate Beaton. Like it was way more flirtatious than is proper in a radio interview.
YES!! I’d never seen the show before, and I was all excited about that episode because of Kate Beaton, and he was so sleazy at her that it put me off watching Q ever again. I was also thinking, like, DUDE, you could be her DAD, and not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you shouldn’t ASSUME. Blecch.
There was one of these guys in my college. Ugh. And he’s just super rich and successful now, not famous, so he’ll probably never be caught.
Thank you for the article; excellent read.
Yeah, and it seems like from some of the accounts too that he started going outside of Toronto to pick up women because he definitely has that reputation here, but not in other cities.
DDDD:
Toronto Toasties! I saw this amazing show last night and I swear to God, I was thinking of you the whole time. It modern dance and all happens in a creepy basement AND its about witches. WITCHES!
https://lifewithmorecowbell.wordpress.com/2014/10…
I kind of do not understand modern dance and every time I try to watch it I get confused about how to react (DO I LAUGH, DO I LOOK SOMBRE, WHAT) but I love witches!
I’m the same way, but this is actually really accessible! They use the flashlights and their facial expressions well so I wasn’t too confused. (FLASHLIGHT PENTAGRAMS! Brilliant) Plus, I heard the director laughing a couple of times when I was too nervous so he gave me some cues.
I love love love the suburbanisation era of America. That Margaret Keane article was FASCINATING. Especially the part about painting Big Eyes in court, “and there it is”, on her wall. Don’t even feel the need to see the movie now. Alice in Wonderland ruined Tim Burton for me anyway, but no surprise there as that movie was fucking terrible.
Have you seen the trailer, though? It looks SO GOOD. Tim Burton actually doing something not just awesome, but IMPORTANT.
#BigEyesNoHeart
Ugggggh how the fuck is “people will only buy this painting if A Man made it” ever a valid excuse?
see: “people will only read this book if a man wrote it”
“people will only watch this show if a man produced it”
“people will only listen to this music if a man sings it”
(because bullshit, that’s why)
By the 1970s, the big eyes had fallen from favour. Woody Allen mocked them in Sleeper, imagining a ridiculous future where they were revered.
I think Woody Allen was taking notes, actually.
Woody Allen can die in a fire, his name stricken from the rolls of history, all his works forgotten. He’s evil.
Related to Big Eyes: Bach’s 2nd wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, is possibly the author of many of his later works. Just even saying that is a possibility has put a great many baroque musicologists’ knickers in a twist: http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/o…
She probably DID write them. Men are always taking credit for everything we do.
Wait, wait, wait, back up. Steven Isserlis is arguing, “The cello suites are perfect, therefore Mr. Bach”? That is so BS I can’t even. I’m pretty sure Anna Magdalena wouldn’t have had any time for him because she was so busy being a kickass musician while having a zillion babies.
I mean sheesh, I am a ginormous fan of Mr. Bach myself, but this is ridiculous.
“As a musician, I can see/hear the commonalities between these and Bach’s other works!” … right, but that means, at most, that the same person composed them*, so “maybe A.M. Bach also wrote those” is just as reasonable a conclusion to jump to as “therefore A.M. Bach cannot have written these.”
* I’m not that convinced that it even means that. Really? Two people who are married and live together and play music together, if they are both composers, might end up writing similar music? No shit.
Seriously!
This makes me so happy! Obviously not that she doesn’t get credit for it, but that some of the most famous classical music is possibly written by a woman is all sorts of awesome. Let the greybeards’ knickers twist.
As a classical musician I’ve found myself tending to believe composers’ wives had a whole lot more to do with the final product than simply keeping the house and children. My favorite though is Clara Schumann around whom the whole German arts scene circled. She was a BAMF if there ever was one and probably wrote most of the songs and song cycles accredited to Robert around 1840 as he famously despised that genre.
Yes! Clara Schumann was awesome! And Brahms was a great stay-at-home sort-of stepdad to her and Robert’s children.
Also, Fanny Mendelssohn was a much better composer than her brother, and I will defend that opinion to the death.
Yes!
There was also Maria Mozart (Wolfgang’s sister), another a child prodigy, she also wrote music but none survives as her father forced her to give up music all together when she was in her teens, as it wasn’t proper for a woman to do music (there’s even some speculation that none of Maria’s works survived because they were passed off as Wolfgang’s). Her father was such a dirtbag he also took Maria’s oldest child to raise after she married, because he was a man and knew better than her how to raise her child.
Speaking of dirtbags, how about Beethoven going to court to try to get custody of his nephew taken away from his own sister after she became a widow! And Beethoven was supposed to be a fun guy (before going deaf that is).
I want to sit at a bar with all of you, get drunk and talk about dead music people.
Do you think Toasties would be up for a Dirtbag Composers article?
THIS ONE IS.
I am a Baroque musicologist, though not a Bach scholar (I generally think that Bach scholars are right up there with Wagner scholars when it comes to insufferable people), and I can say that stylistic arguments (that both sides seem to be using) almost never prove anything. We already know that Anna Magdalena was the copyist for a lot of Bach’s works, (a composer having a wife or child or student copy the work was more common than not in the era before easy music printing, since the original draft was not usually clear enough to play from). I’m interested to see what the actual argument is in this film, because none of it seems conclusive at all to me from the promos (which is not to say we should stop looking into the possibility). I think it’s absolutely possible that Anna Magdalena wrote some works attributed to Bach; we already know that some of the pieces attributed to him were actually by other people including his students, but I’m not sure we can say which ones yet.
Jesus fucking Christ, this dude wrote a memoir in which he quotes his wife as saying “You are the greatest artist I have ever seen. You are also the most handsome.”, IN THOSE ACTUAL WORDS, and people ACTUALLY BELIEVED HIM. What did she say next? “Here is the pony you always wanted, and also your favorite celebrity wants to meet you; is it okay if I bring him over?”
I also have lots of opinions about TFA and about female astronauts but those are not as funny as this asshole.
“I enjoy giving blow jobs more than anything else!”
The quotes sounded way made-up, and like it was supposed to be absurd:
““I love your paintings,” she told me. “You are the greatest artist I have ever seen. You are also the most handsome. The children in your paintings are so sad. It hurts my eyes to see them. Your perspective and the sadness you portray in the faces of the children make me want to touch them.”
“No,” I said. “Never touch any of my paintings.””
I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve read that on the Toast somewhere.
This dude is basically Ayn Rand’s Harry Potter.
“You are the greatest lover in the world.”
Worst fanfiction ever.
“Also, I’m in awe of your kung-fu skill and have forgotten my canon boyfriend, who has conveniently turned evil.”
Send me to Mars! I’m 5’6″! I wanna go to space!
“an all-female Mars crew would strike many as exceptionally biased” ahaha you mean “would strike many men as exceptionally biased” and that’s just tough cookies
I’m 5’2 and listening to the Mars Trilogy on my laptop RIGHT NOW. I am clearly destined to go.
Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson? Because I’m reading that RIGHT NOW, too! You’re right: destiny.
The very same! Halfway through Blue as I type. I find them strangely soothing comfort reading/listening.
Last one to Mars is a rotten egg!
those are my favorite books! I’m tiny. SEND US ALL!
I MET HIM IN A BOOKSTORE.
I MET HIM IN A BOOKSTORE AND TOLD HIM HIS BOOKS WERE CRAP.
I thought he was a random dude, mansplaining me, and in fact he was the very nice author of the book I was purchasing right then, asking for constructive feedback.
Aaaaaaiiiggggh.
(Because I took the book off the shelf and he said “That is the second book in the trilogy.” and I said “I know” and he said “What did you think of the first one?” and I said “It was terrible, the people were like the worst sort of UC Davis academic, and the botany is pathetic.” and he said “Oh.” and stopped talking to me. When I was purchasing my books, the bookstore owner said “You know the author of this book is in the science fiction section RIGHT NOW if you want to get it signed.” and I groaned and sat on the floor with shame. Of course the people were like the very worst Davis has to offer, he lives in Davis, my face, MY FACE.)
He seems nice. The second book has better botany than the first. Nadia forever.
Oh no, what a nightmare! I know nothing about botany or science in general so patheticness of it all passed me by, it all seems plausible enough.
I heart Nadia – until I thought of my horse-head calligraphic poem which went where it was going to, I was going to have Arkady’s description of her tattooed on me – ‘beauty is power and elegance, right action, form fitting function, intelligence and reasonability’. I still might have it if I can think of somewhere else to put it.
That is a really good idea for a tattoo: the romance between Arkady and Nadia is charming, super charming. That you might not agree, that you might have vastly different goals and motivations, and still you trust the other’s judgement implicitly.
I’m 5’0 and relatively bendy, which strikes me a usable skill in space?
Oh and one of my guilty-pleasure foods is mashed potatoes, but I like both the normal way (with, like, real potatoes) and also from the box of dehydrated potato flakes, so I think I will mention that in my NASA cover letter also.
Welcome aboard!
An all-any attribute crew would look biased, but the article has good reasons for choosing short women.
Just like all-male space crews struck people as exceptionally biased. Oh wait, people don’t care, because Men Are the Default; it’s just all-female crews that are weird.
JON HAMM, Y’ALL. He is a treasure.
(I can’t wait to read Amy’s book ahhhhhh!)
Spoiler alert: it’s terrific.
I am 1/3 the way through and it is FANTASTIC. Funny, obviously, but also wise and real and generous and full of heart yet unflinching and never saccharine. It’s amazing.
Also, the book itself is an excellent object. I highly recommend the real deal over an e-book, weight be damned
It’s on my phone but I haven’t listened to it yet – Amy Poehler narrates the audiobook.
That … is a good argument to buy both versions.
The paper is so GLOSSY and it just feels so NICE.
Aw, Jon Hamm. You seem like an okay guy.
AMY POEHLER IS A GODDAMN NATIONAL TREASURE
Guys, I am not going to be okay when Parks and Rec ends.
We’ll always have season 3. To re-watch at least once every two months on Netflix.
(Or so I keep telling myself)
Only once every two months??
I drifted away when the ‘family is the most important thing’ storyline started, is it worth getting back in? Not that it was actively bad, I just primarily want Leslie winning everything and being awesome at her job forever.
They time-jumped over most of the “family is so important!!!!” stuff, so now Leslie has a promotion and is apparently kicking ass at her new job, and also she has some kids. There’s plenty of her being awesome at work.
YAY! I am catching up this weekend!
I am in denial about it ending, come join me, there’s room.
I feel like The Toast should have a Parks and Rec themed day with only pieces about Parks and Rec on the day of the finale.
Mleh, I stopped watching because the Jerry/Gary stuff made me feel really gross and sad.
Amy Poehler yes yes primarily yes but also, and as a total footnote, Jon Hamm <3
Right? That was absolutely the most perfect response.
1. Jian Ghomeshi is a garbage monster in human form. It’s so difficult reading those accounts because my ego says “If that happened to me, I’d kick his ass!” but I know that if I were ever in that situation, I’d be so surprised and confused and hurt that I wouldn’t be able to react at all. I’m so proud of all the women who are telling their stories; what a hard and unpleasant thing.
2. I am most-of-the-way through “Yes, Please” and my new life dream is to be present when Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hang out. I don’t even need to participate; I just want to observe and absorb through osmosis their awesomeness.
The problem with fighting back physically against a much more powerful dude is that then they are free to have you charged with assault, particularly if you leave any marks, and when you are very scared, it is difficult not to leave marks.
This is very likely why this shit only ever happened in private.
Yuuuuuup. >:(
If the requirements for going to Mars are a.) be short, and b.) “withstand vibrations”, then I have been in training for a very, very long time. CALL ME NASA.
Who’s comin’ with me?!?!
Who’s comin’ with me?
I see what you did there!
Why, I do believe I fit that demographic to a T. SIGN ME UP!
I am short and can withstand vibrations, but I also like going back for seconds at mealtimes and thus would throw off the ‘women consume fewer calories’ calculations. Is there a place for me?
You’ll just have to distract yourself by withstanding extra vibrations.
This is starting to sound like a better and better deal every time I think about it…
I’ll get our proposal started.
Toastronauts!
GARBAGE HUMAN
I know one woman who is into sweepstakes and actually won a few things, which was cool. But holy crap, I cannot imagine the amount of spam that would result in. And so much TIME. Oh my god, I would get frustrated after entering like three contests.
The first thing that came to my mind was, I hope these people use throwaway email accounts / computers because of all the spam / viruses / malware that would be accruing.
I was just coming to post the Mississippi ACA article if you hadn’t already. So infuriating but so good, everyone should read it.
More on Joe Murphy’s librarian libel lawsuit!
This explains how ALA responded, and some stuff about why the suit was filed in Canada.
Also Joe Murphy commented on this story for some reason.
http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/10/litigation/l…
I like the commenter who named themselves “Not a Murphy minion,” and are going through the comments to argue with anyone who defends Rabey and de jesus. Uhhhh.
See also the commenters arguing that Rabey is “unreliable” because on her personal blog she talks about her mental health diagnoses. Nice people.
Full disclosure, I guess: I am friends online with Lisa Rabey.
Thanks, I was reading this article and didn’t scroll down to the comments. I feel like this is going to be a case that I will want to keep an eye on. Ultimately, it seems to me to be an attack on the informal support systems that women (and other discriminated-against groups) have developed to protect themselves from people in power who behave inappropriately, people that they feel they can’t openly accuse.
Oh man, I want to read that Margaret Keane article, but after Ghomeshi I feel like my man-directed-rage is already at an all-time high.
I mean, I saw just the trailer for that Big Eyes movie and I could FEEL my blood pressure skyrocketing. Figures that for the first time in 15 years I am actually interested in seeing a Tim Burton film but it might be harmful to my/the next man I come in contact with’s health.
This whole situation is so infuriating – first, it hits right in the intersection of “Am I crazy?” Am *I* crazy?” with “Oh, maybe he’s just socially awkward! You should have said something!” – this behavior is so obviously finely calibrated to be a little weird and aggressive in public, with any undeniably brutal stuff done away from other people; how is that not intelligent awareness?
Then on top of that, what about women who don’t know? That’s a hell of a potential penalty for not being as socially dialed in.
FIRE SET IT ON FIRE
I’m sad that there are a number of articles linked on this page that you could be referencing and that I agree with you regardless of which one you are referring.
Hah, it was supposed to be a reply to WallofIllusion’s post about the Jian Ghomeshi situation, but you’re right, and that’s very very sad.
I read this yesterday: http://www.elleuk.com/now-trending/benedict-cumbe…
I consider myself a woman of the world, but this just…floored me. For a very brief amount of time. Maybe it was the candidness of it.
I have a sneaking suspicion that B.C. is dirty as fuck.
*fans self*
*faints*
*dies*
That was a real rumor going around a while back! http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2014/08/blind-i…
“I would be devastating”
::fans self on fainting couch::
i heard that in his voice in my head and now it looks like i’m grinning wickedly at my problem set…
THERE IS A VIDEO OF HIM SAYING IT ON JGLO’S LINK
sorry for caps, got too excited
Don’t apologize, dear. It is ALL CAPS EXCITING.
I think I’m actually blushing. So has Tumblr self-destructed now that Sherlock Holmes is essentially writing dirty fan fiction about himself?
It’s times like this that I wish I had more time to spend on tumblr.
Also, usually I assume people are exaggerating when they say they’re blushing or crying or whatever, but nope, I am actually blushing too after reading that.
Good heavens.
I was mainly communicating in caps lock after I read this last night.
Um, link bookmarked forever.
I love how he’s all nonchalant about it like he’s never considered the question and then it soon becomes clear that he’s thought about it indeed. A great deal.
Pronouns, Ben. *wicked grin*
So if NASA gets an all-woman Mars astronaut team, can they also get India’s all-woman Mars mission control?
That article on Mississippi infuriates me so much. That SCOTUS decision allowing states to opt out of Medicaid might be their worst decision in the last few years, though that’s a high bar. Also, this:
“There is a stark racial disconnect between the Tea Party’s ascendant politics—and its almost exclusively white leadership—and the state’s black voters, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Whites dominate Mississippi’s elected elite, despite the fact that Mississippi is home to a higher percentage of African-Americans—37 percent—than any other state.”
is a good reminder why people (often white Northern liberals) shouldn’t talk about letting the South secede, because of who it would screw over.
Seeeriously. Or the line you often hear about how “Well what do people expect when they vote against their own interests?” Uhh, there are different voting groups here, and the law affects them in VERY different ways.
(speaking as someone who spent a good part of last year working on Medicaid advocacy in a non-expansion state. This is the issue that destroyed my faith in democracy, humanity in general, etc and I often avoid it because it makes me SO GODDAMN ANGRY)
“Small women haven’t been demonstrated to be appreciably dumber than big women or big men, so there’s no reason to choose larger people for a flight crew when it’s brain power you want,” says Drysdale.
Aww, thanks! That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my height.
The teddy bear thing is going to give me nightmares.
The more I read about TFA, the happier I am that I got rejected pretty much outright when I applied at the end of college.
Same. I went in for the interview where I had to teach a session, but didn’t make it past there, and I think it was probably for the best.
Same! I hadn’t considered it at all but got recruited so decided to apply. I made it through to the final, full-day stage before getting cut, but one of my best friends got in and it was AWFUL for her.
I’m glad more women are coming forward, but WOW that article is some scary, stomach-turning shit. I hope someone sets him on fire.
Did anyone read the Dan Savage article, the interview with the woman who said she did have consensual BDSM sex with Ghomeshi? It’s an interesting take (and still very on the side of the abuse victims). http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/10…
I just read this and it’s super on-point. I have my issues with Dan Savage sometimes but he’s so right here.
Only an idiot or sociopath would interpret actions that could be read one way or another—she came back because she likes this kind of roughness, she came back because she’s starstruck and is willing to overlook or hopes to deflect this kind of roughness—as consent to the kind of extreme shit Ghomeshi apparently enjoys. Only an an idiot or a sociopath would interpret someone’s vague and non-verbal consent to some mild roughness (“I pulled her hair and two weeks later she came back to my apartment…”) as consent to being punched repeatedly in the head with a closed fist.
I definitely appreciated Dan Savage’s article on this; especially because I imagine that his audience has a lot of Ghomeshi’s defenders.
I tentatively took a look at the comments and it looks like no one is defending him there and everyone agrees with Dan, thank god.
He mentioned on his podcast this week that he was inundated with messages from Ghomeshi supporters when his first Facebook post came out, but then he took them to task for jumping to his defense and went on a 10-minute tirade about how this is NOT what BDSM looks like. Bravo, Dan Savage.
It was rare for a woman on crew to burn 2,000 calories in a day
I’m confused! Isn’t ~2000 calories/day the amount that’s usually quoted as being the average requirement for a sedentary adult woman? But these women who were exercising “at least 45 minutes a day for five consecutive days a week” didn’t burn that much. How does that work?
no wonder I’m not losing any damn weight
I gained INCHES in circumference during marathon training. Months of burning an extra (one assumes, or at least I assumed) several thousand calories every week and somehow went from a size 6 in January to a solid nearly-12. Calorie-burning calculators are a crock.
Can calorie-tracking heart rate monitors (the ones with the chest straps) be trusted?
No idea, actually.
I think 2,000 calories a day is the INTAKE requirement for the average woman…not what we’re supposed to burn every day. Thank God.
But the intake requirement is supposed to be close to the amount of calories you’d burn in the course of a normal day. You would need a certain intake even if you were in a coma and not moving at all, just to keep your organs functioning. Then there’s what your body burns through normal daily activities.
Short women, probably.
Yeah, I’m a short lady and on days I am active I burn somewhere around 1700 cals.
It’s possible that if they were in a small indoor space, they were moving less than the average sedentary woman, even with the exercise (the way astronauts have to exercise to make up for zero gravity/limited space to move). Also, it’s hard to tell from the article, but it is possible that these women were smaller-than-average size. I’ve heard that 1500 or 1750 calories/day is typical for some women, so 2000 might actually be higher than sedentary.
GUYS I AM NOT HANDLING THIS JIAN GHOMESHI SITUATION WELL AT ALL CAN I PLEASE RANT FOR A SEC
It’s hitting me super hard, maybe because I live in Toronto and it’s all anyone is talking about here. I think it’s mostly because last June I read that article published on xoJane about a woman who went on a date with a “C-list Canadian radio personality” who was so obviously him and everyone in the comments called it out, and followed up with other stories they’d heard of women who were sexually harassed/assaulted by him. I pretty much told everyone “holy shit you guys Jian Ghomeshi is a creep listen to this” and no one believed me. “But I love his radio show!”, like that actually matters. Now it’s all come to light and it’s the saddest “I told you so”, and I keep thinking how many people shot me down last June because “well we need to hear his side of the story” and “these are all (ALL OF THEM ALL DOZENS) rumours” and “but he seems so nice!” Someone should’ve listened to these women and believed them back in June 2013. Someone should’ve believed them ten years ago. IT SHOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN THIS LONG, but the patriarchy and all.
Also that video of the woman being catcalled in NYC for 10 hours is also upsetting me because for every reasonable comment about it there are two where men are getting defensive and saying they just want to say hello or be nice or compliment a woman and totally missing the point that we don’t venture out into the street for your entertainment/solicitation. Basically someone needs to tear me kicking and screaming from the comments on Facebook posts. FUCK ALL MEN, GOING TO LIVE ON THE WONDER WOMAN ISLAND.
All the catcalling-video drama is not only happening in the YouTube comments, but also on at least 3 of my friends’ FB walls – if you post it, the MRAs will come. #ugh
I’m really not handling it well either. I live in Toronto and work in TV, so my heart was pounding when I got to work on Monday because I KNEW it was all we’d be talking about and I KNEW I was going to completely lose my shit on someone if they tried to defend him. It really was an open secret that he was a creep to women–the first thing I said when I heard he’d been fired was that it was for sexual harassment or assault. I can’t even laud the CBC for firing his disgusting ass, because I’m sure they’ve ignored complaints before.
If you’re arguing with women who are explaining that they don’t like it and why they don’t like it, then you’re not doing it to be friendly or to be complimentary. You’re doing it to be deliberately intrusive. You’re doing it to harass women. Because you cannot now claim that you are unaware of how women feel about it.
Is my general response to men who pull that shit when women talk about street harassment.
When the issue comes up my guy friends say they don’t get it, they’d LOVE it if women catcalled them.
My guy friends are mostly assholes.
Ask them if they’d still be into it if women were on average 5% taller and 10% stronger than they are, if they knew that women were the vast msjority of the police force and justice system, and that they’d probably switch straight from compliments to vicious insults or violence if they responded wrong.
As if the video wasn’t bad enough, Hollaback sent out a tweet that the woman in the video is getting online rape threats and that they needed help reporting them. http://www.amny.com/news/shoshana-b-roberts-threa…
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE TOAST TO POST ABOUT GHOMESHI. I’ve been following the story a bit because I stumbled upon his long, rambling FB post when a friend liked it and I didn’t realize who he was I was just like, “Huh, what’s this?” and then I read it and was immediately confused why said friend liked it.
This was RIGHT when that story was breaking, the day he posted it, so I knew nothing, no one had come forward, but good god. How could anyone read that and not hear alarm bells???? Something was so off about how he talked about the incident. The 50 Shades reference was weird and I didn’t like how it could all literally be summed up with, “Bitches be crazy!!!!!!”
Call me biased, but I’m kind of suspicious of anyone trotting out the my-ex-is-crazy-and-made-up-all-those-abuse-accusations-bc-she-wants-to-destroy-me line…
Then all these other women anonymously accused him and I was like “How have we not learned that MULTIPLE women don’t simultaneously decide to make up stories that could destroy their own lives to ‘get back at an ex’???”
Anyway, I think he’s gross and horrible and am bored with anyone that wants to talk about this like it’s an ethics case about a journalist being fired for anonymous accusations and not a case of a serial predator getting fired for being a serial predator. Aaaaand on top of all of that I got trapped into explaining consent to a bro on Facebook and it was maddening.
PHEW. Glad to get that outta my system!
I keep seeing things like “I read his statement and it seemed very credible.” WHAT. FUCK.
I read it on my phone when I was half-asleep on a train, before I knew that he sued CBC and I was like “I want to believe this anonymous lady but I don’t want Jian Ghomeshi to be an abusive asshole and saying nasty things about celebrities’ sex lives is a real thing people do anonymously so this could totally be credible!!” and my friend was like “No, Jian Ghomeshi is an abusive asshole” and I was like, “Well, I guess that’s that. God damn it.” And then I remembered people anonymously saying things about celebrities’ sex lives pretty much only happens to female celebrities.
Me too! It makes me want to scream at people.
Anything anyone says after using the term “jilted ex” in seriousness should be automatically regarded with all the side-eye in the world.
Jian Ghomeshi, Russell Williams. Same breed, different stripes.
Agreed on everything – it is so so pretty and it has so much going on. It is well worth buying. I am so happy I pre-ordered it way back in May and got a discount. Also about 1/3 through and just want to read it non-stop.
No! No, I’m not going to MARS! Which is in SPACE! Didn’t you guys see Event Horizon? Don’t go to space! Never go to space!
Although I am wearing my very best space witch apparel today:
That is an amazing outfit.
So that’s where you’re hiding…
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9210374-hunt-t…
(I don’t know how formatting works here.)
Nah, space is fine as long as we don’t go to Europa.
A Virgin Galactic craft just exploded! I plan never to go to space if I can possibly help it.
I feel like I really dodged a bullet with my rejection from TFA in 2002. Instead, I went to teach in a Haitian settlement in the Dominican Republic for a year and got to live with a bunch of crazy progressive nuns. It shaped the course of my life, including my decision to be a nurse, several return trips over the years, Spanish fluency and a general love for all things Dominican (including, now, my husband). SO thanks for rejecting me TFA! My life wouldn’t be the same without you!
I hope JG’s dick rots off and I’m sick of seeing his stupid face everywhere, by far my least favourite side effect of this whole fucking thing.
Has anyone else seen this short story from Saladin Ahmed? It is called “Without Faith, Without Law, Without Joy” and it’s about a Muslim man trapped in Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene”: https://medium.com/@saladinahmed/without-faith-wi…
I enjoyed it greatly and am still thinking about it.
Lovely piece, thanks for the link.
(sidenote: everyone should follow him on twitter because he is charming and hilarious and such)
A friend of mine retweeted a link to it yesterday, and I keep going back to reread. Augh, the best.
Holy shit! I LOVE THIS.
If you like his writing you should read his book “Throne of the Crescent Moon” which is excellent sword and sorcery fantasy in a vaguely Muslim secondary world.
Also, his stories about a raunchy rabbitwoman, Hai Hai and the human Zok Ironeyes are excellent, like this one: http://www.saladinahmed.com/wordpress/amethyst-sh…
Slate though, friends. I really loved how they embedded the “top comment” on the astronaut article right smack dab in the middle of the article, at least on the mobile site. Intrusive, offensive, and deeply deeply undesirable in every possible way.
Have we talked about the feminist protests in Spain this weekend? http://mic.com/articles/102420/the-massive-femini…
The amount of time I spend reading Slate has dropped 5000000% since they changed the commenting format/interface.
Here are live stats of people unliking Jian Ghomeshi’s facebook page.
Also here’s a graph of likes on the terrible post:
Oh, that’s so satisfying.
How’s your fancy PR firm doing for you now, Mr. Ghomeshi?
They may’ve fired him! In any case they’re forwarding questions to a different PR firm now, and man, if you’re too sketchy for NAVIGATOR, geeeeez.
I wonder if they realized exactly how damning The Star’s article was going to be when they took him on last week.
I have had this open for all of two minutes, and watching the blue line creep slowly but steadily downwards is curiously addictive viewing.
I’m keeping it open in a tab and checking on it (and cackling) throughout the day, I’ve already decided.
If trends hold true he’ll be breaking below the 100k mark in the next hour.
Aaand down it goes! 99,980 at last check.
I saw a LIKE happen. a single like, but whyyyyyyyyyyyyy. obviously evidence of a particularly rancid bit of human-shaped garbage.
When the graph goes up, even slightly, I scowl a most displeased scowl at my computer. It’s actually quite satisfying.
You guys, did you see today’s dear Prudence? A dude has the gall to interfere with his wife’s decision to breastfeed or not. They’re her boobs, dude. Hence: her rules! How is that difficult to understand? Luckily, for once, Prudie’s in the right, and tells her to do whatever the hell she wants. I probably would have also advised kicking the dude in the nuts “for the good of the baby”, but hey, that’s just me.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/…
I don’t want to pump her full of chemicals
what does she think her breast milk is made of?
Dreams
My ex-husband would have been like that. I’m so thankful that I never had kids with him. I remember realizing that if I had ever had his child, my body would cease to be mine and his wants and requirements for the baby would overshadow everything, including my mental health. That terrifies me.
From a comment in today’s AAM roundup: We were in an advanced biology class in HS and we dissected cats … We were allowed to take the cat home to study for exams.
“I have a surprise for you guys! Each of you is getting… your very own dead cat! That you can take home with you after school and keep forever! Aren’t you excited?”
Yea, my sister’s high school did this back in the late 80’s. It resulted, naturally, in lots of dead cats being thrown at people and hung from lockers. Y’all…I just…I hate people today. So much.
Oh, except for Amy Poehler, Benesex Cumberfuck and Jon Hamm. And you guys.
I actually did dissect a cat in my Anatomy and Physiology class. I took it home to study for the finals and my mother (wisely so) refused to let it into the house.So I had to study outside.
I JUST DISSECTED A CAT THIS WEEK (ok i actually made my lab partners dissect it because gross). But I did dissect a shark and a salamander. I will never look at a cat the same way again though. (One of them had their tongue sticking out)
an all-female Mars crew would strike many as exceptionally biased.
REALLY? But an all male crew wouldn’t be biased?
Yeah, an all-female crew would be exceptionally biased. Biased towards people who are likely to do a better job.
An all-(any attribute) crew would surely seem biased, wouldn’t it?
I don’t think anyone’s mentioned it so far, but did you guys see the @bigearsteddy twitter account? Posts from April of this year alleging almost *exactly* what’s come to light now, which, holy crap.
Wow. Just… wow.
The very first one, when she mentions “all female Carleton media grads” — hi, hello, I am a pretty recent Carleton journalism grad. I almost threw up on the spot.
And in other Canadian rage: Jon Kay is now running The Walrus. WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?! (It is decidedly not.)
Oh, goody. Just what Canadian media needs. *quietly seethes*
Although, judging by their current ad space, they’re largely sponsored by oil companies anyway.
Who? (googles) Oh ?#@%, and I suscribe to The Walrus.
The NY Times has published an interview with the father of Madison Bumgartner, the pitcher upon whose shoulders the Giants were carried through the World Series. It’s pretty Dad.
““Here’s the secret to living in a log house: You got to love the color brown,’ Kevin said. ‘But you can hang a picture anywhere.'”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/sports/baseball…
Thank you all for the well wishes yesterday! The IUD went off without a hitch, insertion was bad for mere seconds, the nurse and doctor were lovely, feminists, and aside from some medium cramps today I’m just great.
Woo! Robot uterus! Congrats!
The main thing I’m taking away from this whole Ghomeshi debacle is that an alarmingly high number of people seem to not understand how consent is supposed to work. “I have proof of consent” should have been everyone’s biggest red flag right from the get-go.
So this Giomeshi dude is a damned wallflower after all ?
Heh, at least my initial impression didn’t lie. Practice makes perfect.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/30/thoma…
Another big story, if you’re from Boston.
Oh man, I was at a breakfast this very morning with Boston natives who had worked with Menino and were talking about how sick he was and how he wasn’t expected to live through the New Year. It’s ghoulish how fast that came true.
venting:
My favorite local brewpub is advertising their Halloween party on Facebook with a big photo of their chef, who is a gigantic white man, dressed as Mr. T. In blackface.
I am beyond furious, slightly uterus-y, very very tired, completely wigged about the development meeting in a few minutes (what’s better than talking about lawsuits and asking for money? Doing these things with a bunch of people you despise!) and really would just like someone to tuck me in and stroke my head.
As John Oliver put it, HOW IS THIS STILL A THING???
Ahhh I read the Amy Poehler piece and now it’s raining on my face.
There are, of course, MANY horrifying facets to the Jian Ghomeshi thing, but this little item is particularly special:
Two of the women who allege they were physically assaulted also say that before the alleged assaults in his home he introduced them to Big Ears Teddy, a stuffed bear, and he turned the bear around just before he slapped or choked them, saying that “Big Ears Teddy shouldn’t see this.”
SHUDDER. That detail, and having it repeated by so many women…the worst.
Jian is such a shitweasel, and I haven’t even listened to Moxy Fruvous in at least a decade, but somebody please tell me that Murray is a decent dude and not a waste of skin like his former bandmate.
A kind of “post-misogyny” piece worth reading: http://www.salon.com/2014/10/30/that_creepy_guy_f…
Aw, that’s a really good article. God, I love Felicia Day.
That is so much sweeter and more touching than I thought any article on “gamergate” could possibly be. Arthur Chu is great.
Arthur Chu is SO great. I’m so glad he’s getting pieces like this out there.
I went to middle/high school not far from there and as soon as they started the post game interview with Bumgartner I looked at my boyfriend and said "he's gotta be from western NC." I mean, seriously, between the accent and the last name I could tell.
This whole thing just fills me with joy.
OHMYGOD OHMYGOD IMSOEXCITED
Finally, my years of undergraduate biology pay off. I have been waiting for this moment. SO! YES! let us begin..
Think of your body as an imperfect machine. We wake up, eat oatmeal, go to work fueled by that oatmeal. The 400 calories we eat, turns into 400 calories our body uses right? Not exactly. Here is the rub, that 400 calories of oatmeal does not turn into 400 calories of useable human energy. Metabolism, the break down and build up of energy in the body is completely inefficient. We may net only a fraction of the original 400 calories. Food scientists know this, but use a system developed by the USDA in 1890 that lists the pure combustible energy of food. That means, in a perfect situation where all energy is consumed and measured. The chemists that do this sort of measuring are obsessed with finding the closest true number and are constantly critiquing their methods and tools. But again, the pure combustible energy of a food is not what our bodies absorb. We are not perfect systems, far from it.
So where does the rest of the energy go after we eat that oatmeal? Its pretty much wasted. For example, a significant portion is just shat and pissed out. The body is an opportunist system, it’ll break down some, but not all of the oatmeal; sort of like whack a mole. It may miss a few, but its not sweating the small stuff.
In addition, the breakdown of oatmeal into its most basic form (think two carbon atoms holding hands) takes a lot of energy, the net may be positive, but there is still significant energy investment. A larger carbohydrate molecule is repeatedly smashed into smaller and smaller bits which also releases heat energy! That is energy that is also just lost.
In conclusion, experts with a lot of education and experience are constantly reevaluating the way food energy is measured. The relationship between energy input and output is still a complicated and highly debated topic. There are so many factors that effect metabolic efficiency it is difficult to estimate what percentage of pure combustible food energy (the 400 oatmeal calories) is utilized by the body. So, even if you are eating 2000 calories, your body is not retaining that full 2000 calories.
TL;DR calories from food are not perfectly absorbed. the human body is wasteful.