Sarah Seltzer and Kate Harding talk about Bill Cosby, Kim Fowley, and whether it’s getting easier or harder to expose famous predators:
In fact, Harding points out that although some showbiz people may finally be getting held accountable by social media and the press — as in the Jian Ghomeshi case, for instance — there are some realms where old-fashioned rules are too prevalent. “Women who report being raped by pro athletes, for instance, are still immediately painted as gold diggers, liars, and sluts. That’s our default response, just as much as it ever was,” Harding says. The backlash against the campus anti-rape movement provides another example of how progress on the issue hasn’t exactly been linear. In other words, the needle has shifted, but only in a very localized way.
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Make sure you read Nikki’s great interview with Alexander Chee:
We are going to have another interview, closer to your book release, about The Queen of the Night, but for now could you talk a bit about the process of writing it compared to your process for Edinburgh, and anything else you would like our readers to know about your new novel?
I began writing my first novel, Edinburgh, after a really ambitious earlier novel had been rejected for being potentially too long, and so I decided: “Well, I’ll just write a shitty autobiographical novel like every other asshole and call it a day.” But I dropped that bitterness soon enough and began in earnest to write a novel that described what I felt I never seen described — the way sexual abuse could feel, afterward, as if something had replaced you.
That novel took 5 years to write and 2 to sell, and was rejected 24 times.
This was a real education. My agent and I got questions back like “Is it a gay novel? Is it an Asian American novel?” — as if I had to choose. Marketing departments were rejecting it claiming they didn’t know how to sell it. I would say in response, “It’s a novel.” I think it’s interesting how much MFA culture gets blamed for what gets published, given that as far as I know, programs don’t decide what gets published. Publishers do.
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TOAST STANCE: It’s “come,” regardless of whether it is a verb or a noun. Also, oh, God, I was eating a muffin while reading this and it was a MISTAKE (I have nothing against the article):
A successful sexual encounter will require many negotiations — some conducted explicitly, others through gesture and subtext. And while many negotiations are more fraught than where to come, few occur with such speed and urgency. (Or practical ramifications: “I let him do it on me because I don’t like doing laundry,” my friend Anne said of blow jobs conducted in bed. “But I already shower.”) And though sex may require the management of any number of fluids — from people of any gender — this column will deal with the fluid that comes out of
a penis during unprotected sex. This is a column about cum, and where it lands. (Note that, when it comes to the spelling of cum, I defer to the Strunk and White of filth, the Vice style guide. Come is the verb, cum the resulting substance.)
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@Nicole_Cliffe @TheToast @thehairpin cosign pic.twitter.com/X2CPCIViEY
— Logan Sachon (@lsach) July 14, 2015
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Friend of The Toast Carvell Wallace, on the intersection between Bill Cosby’s respectability politics and rape culture:
Long before the “Pound Cake Speech” and the myriad of rape allegations, Cosby was something of a saint in my family. I watched The Cosby Show religiously growing up and it had a profound impact on me. From the first episode, in 1984, it presented an idea of black life that was so perfect, so alluring, it even made me, a black kid stranded in an overwhelmingly white Pennsylvania steel town, feel proud of who I was.
Rather than a show about race, The Cosby Show was about black excellence. It rarely if ever mentioned whiteness. It was about us, not them. And this is the way I remember it being in my house, too. Growing up, I only heard one message about white people: “You have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good.” That was it. Succinct and ominous.
I carried that notion with me as I came of age and went out into the world. But it backfired.
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GARBAGE SHOW GARBAGE WHY AWFUL:
“We at least have health insurance,” says an injured veteran whose family debt is larger than his annual family income; his wife is the sole breadwinner and works as a night-shift nurse, and the two are struggling to afford to move into a house outfitted for his disabilities. (It’ll be more urgent when their second child is born in a few weeks.) We at least have health insurance. Part of me is moved by his kindness. And part of me wants to start throwing furniture in the street so we can get a new Les Mizgoing or something because oh my God, fuck everything. How much struggle are we expecting everyone to endure? And how much are we exploiting that struggle by turning it into entertainment?
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is this networking or is this a date?
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I did the preschool drop-off yesterday, and my daughter waltzes in and the room LIGHTS UP and all the kids yell “AMELIA!!!!!” like she’s Norm on Cheers, and she’s all “oh, hey, guys” like CLASSIC COOL and I think we were given the wrong baby.
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the head of the NYPD union is a real piece of work (the full thing is at the NY Post, you can go find it if you want):
The settlement amount tendered to the Garner family is obscene: it is a stark departure from typical settlements in similar cases and is clearly an attempt by the Mayor’s Office to placate outside political agendas. While the death of Mr. Garner while resisting arrest was unforeseeable, this excessive and exorbitant settlement was not: although Mr. Garner did not provide his family with an abundance of wealth, it was clear from the outset that the Mayor’ s Office would: Mr. Garner’s family should not be rewarded simply because he repeatedly chose to break the law and resist arrest.
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ahhh:
Yet Hopkins was one of many top-ranked hospitals where ProPublica found surgeons with problematic track records.
The orthopedic department of St. Joseph Hospital in Orange County, Calif., has been rated one of the top 50 in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Yet one of the surgeons, Dr. Gregory Carlson, had one of the highest complication rates for spinal fusions in the country, ProPublica found.
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Today’s deleted comments are from two different gentlemen who worship a rather more unpleasant God than Jesus seems to have talked about (also, Oregon allows 15+ year old people to consent to HORMONE therapy, which is…different):
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
This review (in the hilariously titled Inspect A Gadget series) of a terrifying … egg cooker? is brilliant. I want to share it with everyone I’ve ever met. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/…
Also, real life ‘Hatchet’! http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/15/the-…
My twitter feed was full of pictures of that monstrosity and it legit spoiled my appetite.
I showed it to my partner, and we couldn’t bring ourselves to watch the video portion.
No, watch the video! It’s worth it, albeit a smidge horrifying. It’s like the icing on the review cake, a perfect demonstration of why you should never, ever buy that thing.
Yeah, I never watch videos and I watched that video. 100% worth the 30 seconds of my life I’ll never get back.
I’m a haunted shell.
THE EGG ROLLIE (as it is called in the states, I believe)! Rhett and Link did a fantastic demonstration video of it, which I strongly urge everyone to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo-BWETPdzo
OMG. I legit got nauseated at my desk. But the article is pure gold. Bless, English journalism.
“I try to remember if I read about this machine in the Book of Revelation. Why is it in the world? Who created it?”
“I can’t look at the hot sweating mess that emerges from the Egg Master’s opening, let alone eat it”
Did I click on the jizz article by accident?
I honestly think I’d be less disturbed if I had!
It’s like someone saw “Alien” and was like “Hey! That looks appetizing!”
Everything in that series is gold. I have no interest in gadgets, kitchen or otherwise, and so only clicked on one of those articles in a ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ mood at work. So glad I did. I also think the writer’s cute so that’s a plus.
I really liked his review of that fucking WiFi teakettle.
Oh THANKS. Now I can’t stop laughing on my morning train.
The author, Rhik Samadder, is my new crush. He’s dreeeeeeamy, you guys.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/in…
Oh dang, you weren’t kidding. He can review my gadget any time (…that is so gross why would anyone say that)
It’s like watching those acne-popping videos except in plastic machine form. Ooooof.
That review reads like another installment of Mallory’s series of erotica written by aliens who have only a rudimentary understanding of human bodies:
I crack two whole eggs into the hot tunnel, trying to ignore the gurgling sound from within
I squint into the dark opening. A bulging yellow sac peers back at me.
a flaccid, spongy log
I just read *all* of those reviews, and they’re hilarious. Thank you for bringing this into my life. <3
Is that supposed to be…an omelet? A casserole? WHAT IS IT. Also, humanity has invented an astonishing number of gadgets to deal with eggs. Are eggs really that complicated, people?
EDIT: does this company mean something different by “egg roll” than I do?
All I can say is if Toasties are going to hell (along with Comic-Con attendees and anyone else remotely awesome), it’s sure going to be a lot more entertaining down there than heaven. Regardless of whether we go out by a Lake of Fire or tsunami/earthquake/West Coast returning to the sea.
(also if you want to join me here in discussing/crying over Hawkeye #22, that’s okay too)
Could we table the Hawkeye discussion until tomorrow or Friday, for those of us who haven’t yet gotten our copies? (Casual casual super casual.)
Oh yes, of cours! I just got my digital one and tore through it, so I’m just overexcited. Let’s plan an open thread comment thread for it
As my Grandma used to say, “I’d rather go to Hell, all my friends will be there.”
Ahhh! Was just debating leaving my place for a vegan donut even though it is out of the way of everything and really I should be leaving my house to study, and my comic shop (yay for The Beguiling!) is on the way, and now THIS IS HAPPENING, because HAWKEYE!
That article about jizz…doesn’t actually go anywhere. It’s just “Here are some anecdotes about jizz, here are some anecdotes about porn possibly contributing to this, different women like different t things.” Thanks, I think I had a good handle on that already.
Nothing will ever top the roommate I had in university who actually cringed away from me after learning (in a drunken discussion of the topic–I wasn’t just spouting off at the the dinner table) that I swallowed, and had done so for pretty much every beej I had done. What, lady? It’s not like I’m full of poison! I’m lazy, it’s convenient, we both enjoyed it, done. She looked at me with a tad more disgust than was warranted (none. None was warranted).
I am not going to click through to the article, as I am at work, and I *think* that one might set off the alarm bells, but I stopped that when I realized jizz gave me heartburn. No, I can’t explain that one either. And hey, my partners have not had any issue with that! If they do, they’re jerks, and you can guarantee that I will not be doing that for them again.
Uhh tangentially related anecdote, I guess.
I never understood why guys would care either way. I mean, spit or swallow, whatever you do happens after they’ve already got theirs, right?
Because only Cool Girls swallow, duh.
I’m at work too, so no reading about jizz related fun for me. However, swallowing used to give me a really sick stomach (like really, grossly sick), so you’re not alone!
After I had figured this out, I was with a guy, and I always spat, cause I didn’t like him enough to make myself sick, and he asked why I never swallowed. I tried to politely describe that it gives me a bubbly belly, but he never really believed me, why are guys always so difficult?
Turns out I seem to have out grown this issue anyway, but I only discovered that with the next BF (I have a feeling its got something to do with certain guy too)
and that is the end of my TMI for today.
Because I can’t resist adding to a TMI conversation: for me, swallowing first thing in the morning is a bad idea, for similar reason. But if I’ve already got some food in me, I’m fine.
I was always told that good girls swallow 😉
However I will never tolerate it going in my hair. Its not nice. Also why do some guys have an obsession with coming on a girls face? That is definitely not polite behaviour (especially when they don’t ask before.)
Yeah, if you don’t ask, I’m not inviting you back.
I don’t know how I can tell this story in text, but its fucking hilarious in person:
A friend of mine was with a guy, and they were going to town, it was good, at which point this exchange happened:
Guy: *mumble*
Girl: what?
Guy: catch this.
AND THEN HE CAME IN HER FACE.
OMGGGGGGGGGGGG
NOPE.
If no trace of him was ever found again, I would completely understand.
the story of a man with a broad arsenal of Sex Pranks and a massive shortage of repeat partners
I feel like you did a great job telling that story in text and also I nominate this guy for the rocketship filled with mechanical bees being flown into the sun.
I… got it in my eye once after requesting it on my face. That was the end of that interest.
IT STINGS.
AND THEN YOU CAN’T OPEN YOUR EYE!
AND BLUNDER AROUND NAKED TRYING TO REACH YOUR BATHROOM BEFORE YOUR ROOMMATE SEES YOU.
Got it up the nose after being convinced to take it on my face. Not cool, I sniffled the rest of the night. Apart from the nose incident it actually wasn’t that bad, but not particularly my thing.
However, having gone from this guy wanted to throw it anywhere it could possibly go, to a guy who had no interest in jizz related theatrics was a bit weird, for awhile it was a nice relief from the constant ‘where can I put my jizz’ negotiations, but after about 6 months I did think ‘Like you could be a *bit* more imaginative chap’
DUDE! Same here! I literally had a pink eye for days afterwards. NOTHING, even shampoo, medicated eye drops, etc. has ever hurt that much. I think acid might have been less painful…
I swallowed for my first BF, and he was so amazed. Swallowing is easier than holding it in your mouth till you find somewhere to spit it out, and a heck of a lot neater (and less likely to sting your eyes) than having him come on your face. But I was a virgin and I think it fucked with his head that I was willing to do something so “dirty” (if he could see me now).
I’ve always swallowed. The thought of walking around with that taste in my mouth for god knows how long until I can get to a bucket…. nooo… it just seems faster to gulp it down and get to the part where you can start recovering from the taste (and no I don’t want it in my hair either or on my sheets or wall or face or really it would be easier if the stuff just never came out at all)
Yeah I wish it didn’t have any taste at all, because I hate swallowing, but I hate the idea of spitting even more. Maybe I should just put a ban on bjs all together….
Agreed, swallowing actually seems like the least disgusting thing to me. It’s already in your mouth. Swallowing gets the taste away as quickly as possible. (Midway through typing that first sentence I became really, really conscious that I am at work)
Yeah, I thought about chiming in with my own preferences, but a) I’m at work and b) this account isn’t anonymous.
IME, the taste varies from guy to guy. I actually like the way my partner tastes, but not enough to want to hold it in my mouth for long.
Condoms are excellent for reducing the number of fluids squirting all over, but they don’t taste very good, either (even the flavored ones).
I believe it also has something to do with what the gentleman has been eating and drinking. I’m just going to put this out there: one of the side benefits of vegetarianism…
Except asparagus. TMI, but also a PSA.
Agreed! Totally individual, but I find if my husband eats processed meats, I can hardly stand him in bed, let alone anywhere closer to my body…
jizz doesn’t actually go anywhere
had a good handle on that
spouting off
I see what you did there
I absolutely concur on the spelling front. Come all the way!
Absolutely. When I started writing smutty fic (um, because what is my life?) I literally could not type the three letter version without cringing and wanting to just…. bleargh. No. It is come. The end.
It’s like “member.” Makes me shudder.
Or “nubbin”. NUBBIN.
I so need a .gif of Meryl Streep at her pink laptop in “She-Devil” that says “NUBBIN”
It’s just so…something. I don’t know exactly why I hate it, but I’m pretty sure I hate it more than ‘moist’-haters hate the word moist.
come: cool I’m down / Yes let’s
cum : barf a tiny bit. NO.
That’s what she said.
(I’m sorry, I had to.)
I seriously feel so much better now, and I didn’t even realize this was a Thing to me.
Ejaculate. Then you get to confuse the reader if it’s pronounced “late” or “let”
100% agree. Three-letter way is immature and makes you look like someone who is uncomfortable with sex. Probably because you are immature and uncomfortable with sex.
“Reality, my dears.” about a Biblical fire… huh
#notyourdears
I can’t stop giggling at it.
Comments like those deleted ones only make me less inclined to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I have to say, if the Lord had such a problem with sex-change operations that he’d murder thousands of unrelated people, this seems like the sort of deity that I’d oppose out of spite.
“He gave his all to keep you from the lake of Fire, and if you don’t worship him he’ll visit unconscionable plagues on the world!”
“Well, honestly he sounds like a bit of a prick when you put it that way. It’s not exactly charitable to make a sacrifice if you mean to get something out of it, is it?”
Furthermore, crucifixion is pretty terrible, but it is 100% not the worst way to be executed, it’s not even the worst way that the Romans had to execute people. If Jesus had REALLY wanted to give his all to save people from the lake of fire, he should have done that thing where they cut open your thighs and pour boiling sulfur in.
Or when they tie you up in a sack of weasels and throw you in the river, but I don’t think that Christianity would have gotten very far if its icon was the weasel-sack.
Your comment made me go from super-cringing to chortling at the image of people wearing gold weasel-sack necklaces.
O God our help in ages past
And hope for years to come
Our shelter from the weasel sack
And our eternal home
“Shelter from the weasel sack” I MAY JUST EXPIRE HERE NOW FROM REPRESSED LAUGHTER
dead
Man, there’s really no way to sing that in a dreary voice.
A thousand weasels, in thy sight,
are like a ferret small,
wee as the stoat that turns to white
when summer turns to fall.
IDK man I’d probably have kept up with it after primary school if instead of a big gory crucifix up front the local catholic church had
You just … had that handy/ Right.
always
but think of all the sack-related puns that various denominations would come up with! amazing
Now I’m picturing a sign saying “OUR LADY OF THE WEASEL-SACK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL”
Yeah, in these deleted comments he sounds worse than any bad guy from fantasy novels or movies. I mean, maybe on par with Grand Moff Tarkin, but Voldemort only killed like a couple of dozen, I guess?
He sounds exactly like Grand Moff Tarkin!
Oh man, I wonder if you can read Star Wars as an allegory for Gnostic mysticism, with Tarkin standing in for the Demiurge.
brb, incorporating all of this into my Star Wars fanfiction
please write this up, i will read it forever
In the even recent past, people who believed that about God frequently sought to enact such violence upon their fellow believers. One need only look on the zest with which the Reformation Wars were fought or the Albigensian Crusade was carried out for proof. The relative lack of religious violence in this country and in Europe is sort of an anomaly for Christians.
And I say this as a very Christian person. I think if you believe in a violent God, it’s probably because you have some serious issues. I know people want cosmic justice, and certainly I do too, but I don’t need a God wiping out millions of innocent people as a consequence for the sins of others, because that isn’t justice.
I DO believe, however, that humans are more than capable of creating their own problems, the consequences of which are often visited upon the innocent, out of sheer stupidity, greed, hatred, and/or laziness, and neither God nor the devil has anything to do with it.
OK, worldview overview done. Sorry, that was long.
My opinion is that we often over-estimate how much the specific tenets of a religion informs our values. I think it’s probably the other way around — we absorb values from our experience and our community, and use the structures of religion in order to express them. So, I would say rather, if you have some serious issues, because you’ve inherited a set of values that prioritize a kind of brittle strength, a hysterical purity, a fear of strangers, and an aggrieved offense at the idea that bad people aren’t punished, you’re more likely to express your religion through the stories of a violent god than you are a peaceful one.
I think that your explanation is closely aligned with the historical-cultural hermeneutic that a lot of biblical scholars use, actually. There is certainly a lot of dialogue between culture and religion, something that advocates of ‘pure’ religion loudly reject while simultaneously embracing.
That line of thinking was incredibly comforting to me when I first lost my religion and began to fear death & what came after– it really worried me that I wouldn’t get to go to heaven, until I rationalized that a heaven that didn’t allow atheist me wouldn’t allow my loved ones from other religions, either, or my loved ones who weren’t straight, or cis, or had kids out of wedlock, or abortions, or– in short, “heaven” no longer sounded like heaven.
(And then later I realized I was bi, so I’d be going to hell no matter what I believed. Woohoo!)
I can absolutely see how “magical, capricious, homicidal psychopath you’d better obey OR ELSE” would make a whole lot of sense as a foundation of law to folks from a few hundred years ago but, y’know, most of us don’t really have to worry about kings anymore; if you’re still actively pursuing that kind of ethical framework in the modern day you’re just kinda an asshole
You’re going to be really sad when Xenu, our dread overlord, returns from his home planet to find that you haven’t been gathering human brains in jars for his cyborg army. If you’re lucky, he’ll still let you be a slave he new world order. But you’ll probably just resent it.
Reality, my dears.
Hey guys.
I had my procedure. There was some trouble with my pain killers, so it was a pretty horrifying experience, but it’s over. I’m still in the ward, and my doctor (who seems good) is telling me that we’re looking at a month, at least. I’m not in great shape. Thank you for all your kind wishes, and since hospitals are violently dull, any internet holes for me to fall down would be much appreciated.
oh man, but it’s good that you made it through, though
Here is a live cam with kittens: http://explore.org/live-cams/player/kitten-rescue…
The site has many other options, so if kittens aren’t your thing you can switch over to puffins or honeybees or something. (Or great dane puppies! http://explore.org/live-cams/player/great-dane-se…
I’m glad you came out alright, even with complications making things messy. Hope and positive thoughts toward your recovery! As far as internet holes, Cookie Clicker is the most addicting browser game I’ve ever played. And Narrative.ly has a ton of great essays on all sorts of topics.
Hey, thank you for updating us, and I will be sending good vibes as hard as I can. Here’s a couple internet holes to start you off:
This is a wonderful instagram account with two mini dachshunds and a weimaraner. There is much sleeping in stacks and biting of too-large ears: https://instagram.com/harlowandsage/
And here you can use Google Maps street view to swim around Loch Ness on a gorgeous sunny day: https://www.google.com/maps/@57.324843,-4.440332,…
Oh my goodness. I hope you are getting the pain management you need! Hugs to you. If you’re in DC I’ll come visit!
I suggest the Smithsonian blog and the National Geographic site – they are both internet holes I can spend a LOT of time in.
Once you have your appetite back, Serious Eats is good for food porn. Although if they aren’t feeding you well, you will need someone to sneak you in a snack.
And here is my favorite tumblr of all time: http://hounddogsrunning.tumblr.com/ It is, as the tagline attests, an important project that exists for obvious reasons.
I’m glad you made it through the procedure. Hoping you get all the rest and treatment you need. I don’t have any good suggestions for clickholes, other than browsing tumblr? <3 Good thoughts to you!
Have you ever played Geoguessr? It’s a nice way to calm my brain down when I’m trying to sleep and also some of the locations are gorgeous: https://geoguessr.com/
Are you familiar with TVTropes? It’s about the deepest internet hole I know. Some bits of it aren’t exactly cheerful, though, so I don’t know if it would fit what you’re looking for or not.
I was playing Candybox (http://candybox2.net/) and a dark room (http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/) which is nice because you can basically fall asleep at random moments and wake up again and some resources have built up and you can do something new.
feel whole and happy soon, i hope
Horrified on your behalf. Pain management should be a priority. I hope you are now pain-free. You deserve pain relief (physical and emotional) and vibrant health, upsofloating. Wishing you a month of healing and fascinating internet rabbit holes. ::virtual hugs::
Come on Bible, we can come up with something a little more metal than “Lake of Fire.” How about “Fjord of Flames” or “Delta of Doom”?
“The Geographies of Hell”
“The Infernal Archipelago” has a nice ring to it.
Maybe Mount Doom? Oh, wait…
What’s the difference between a Lake of Fire and the Yellowstone Supervolcano, when you get down to it?
Oh, that one’s simple, you die after you arrive at the Yellowstone Supervolcano.
The link and comments above made me read “come on Bible” as an entirely different sort of sentence.
I like you.
In my head even as I was typing it (and knowing the actual meaning and inflection) I heard it as Laganja Estranja would say it.
I literally can’t read “come on” anything without hearing Laganja in my head. Even “common” sets it off sometimes. I am not alooooone 😀
In my head, this is all part of a very metal version of the Disneyland river boat ride.
“Welcome aboard, passengers. We are now making our way down the tributary of torment, towards the lair of the infernal hell beast. If you look to your left, there is the possessed skeleton of an animatronic hippo.”
“Tundra of Terror”
Animal cotching advice? There is a tiny brown rabbit in my mother’s backyard garden, and she’s really like to catch it and put it in the neighbour’s really nice (and empty) rabbit run, where it would be safe from the owls and raccoons and rats. Is this a bad idea? She’s putting water out for it, and leaves it hay and food, and talks to it while she’s gardening.
I don’t think a wild thing would like being in the rabbit run, but you could try. Rabbits love sweet things. You could put some bits of carrot, banana, or apple in a little trail leading to the rabbit run. Just don’t give the bunny a lot of carrot because it is bad for their stomachs (so much sugar). Broken pieces of carrot would be a lot better than the whole thing. Bits of banana might be best — rabbits loooove bananas.
You’re right, of course. I think I’ll tell her to keep leaving it snacks and otherwise let it be. I think she has a two part concern of 1) seeing it eaten by an owl and 2) more rabbits, which would be a real problem for her garden, as it produces most of our food. Circle of life I guess.
Bunny poop is one of the world’s best fertilizers, so you can think of the bunny as contributing his/her share too!
(Little round odorless balls).
Feeding the rabbit as she does might bring more bunnies to the garden– but then it’s not really their fault is it?
They are super easily scared away, though, and besides fencing, peppery substances will keep them away. And owls — which yeah, circle of life. It seems like continued coexistence might be pleasant!
That sounds like a wild animal, not a stray pet, you should probably not abduct random woodland critters and stick them in lifelong protective custody they will not appreciate it and you will not enjoy it
You’re right. It is the first and only rabbit we’ve ever seen in our area, so I think that’s really thrown us. Our city has had, in the past, a really serious problem of people abandoning pet rabbits (there have been numerous culls and political back and forth), and I think we both just thought that was the case here. As long as it doesn’t bring more rabbits to eat all our garden up, it should be okay.
Are you in Victoria? I hear about abandoned-pet-rabbit political back and forth, and I think “that sounds like Victoria.” If the rabbit is mottled chocolate-milk brown, it is probably a wild bunny and happier with its present life.
I actually wrote two poems about Bill Cosby, one that is OK, and one I don’t quite like:
Old Bill Cosby
plugging the jello
he really is a most
unusual fellow
In my childhood
he had a part
telling about
“The Chicken Heart”
But now it seems
he had a side
that few have seen
he had to hide
In place of snack foods
he had a yen
to deal in Quaaludes
now and then
Did he think
shame would silence
all media ink
about his violence?
His brave victims
deserve our backing
for bucking the system
when support was lacking
Our childhood heroes
should fade away
not prove weirdos
at the end of day.
And…
Wasn’t stardom good enough?
You had the whole world in your hand
Perhaps you had to want it rough
Tired of playing the funny man.
And then you thought the past was dead
But like regret, it never dies
and now they’re calling for your head
and you won’t even provide lies.
Goodbye Bill, we hardly knew you
So sad to see our heroes fall
But you’re no loss to people who
don’t find you funny, not at all.
I should have known no one would like poetry about Cosby lol.
I like the second one. That first line has such a frustrating, incisive quality.
I like the second one too.
Yes, the second one is better. I was short of time this morning when I wrote the first one. Not everything one writes is worth reading, unfortunately.
I like them! I think the first one better (I love that you rhymed Jello with fellow because that’s the type of person I am)
From the first sentence I thought the last deleted comment was going to mansplain the Yellowstone Supervolcano and then it…went in a very different direction.
Things going on in my life right now:
– somehow got another virus on my work computer despite not even logging into Facebook here (seriously, the only places I go to are The Toast, the websites that the Link Roundup links to, and my own org’s website) so my computer has to be wiped again and in the meantime I am stuck in a crappy cubicle with a crappy keyboard and none of my bookmarks or anything; on the bright side there’s no phone in here either
– goddamn clothes-eating moths in my closet, how do I get rid of them short of setting all my clothes on fire???
Pouches of cedar shavings! They hate the smell of cedar & they’ll be out of your closet in no time. They sell these at any home or hardware store & they’re not expensive. You could probably find them online at well.ca also, though I’ve never checked.
I feel for you on the moth situation. These things were almost my undoing a while back. The good news is, you can win! The bad news is, it’s a pain.
My solution was to launder batches and batches of the clothes I wanted to keep and to chuck as many as I could stand (the lesser-worn ones were the most affected, anyway). Clean clothes then went into plastic bins with cedar chips and herbal packets. I also got very aggressive with with the vacuum cleaner: walls, cracks, furniture, cupboards, everything.
Then it was a combination of hiring an exterminator, and spraying insecticides myself in between treatments. I got to the point where I really didn’t care if I poisoned myself and died; it was preferable to the moths. Fortunately, I lived and the moths died.
Anyway, I wish you luck in what is an unpleasant experience. Just be persistent and ruthless, and you will prevail.
When I had to choose which apartment to rent, I went with the one that had a cedar-lined closet. It was not a professional looking application. Just someone attaching thin cedar planks to the walls, top to bottom. Out of frustration, I imagine.
Best wishes on your moth hunt. Be ruthless.
This is a case for ice, not fire! I had success through freezing all my clothes for 48 hours and cleaning the closet thoroughly before putting the clothes back. (If there’s a carpet, that will need its own special treatment… I never fully got them out of a woolen wall-to-wall carpet in my old apartment, but here I have wooden floors and the freezer did the trick.)
Did anyone else see the nytimes article about the travails of the hipsters who named their kid Atticus and are now upset with Harper Lee’s new book:
“When Mr. Campbell and his wife met eight years ago, they bonded over the fact that they both wanted to one day name a child Atticus; it was the first thing they realized they had in common.”
“I will read the book,” she said, “though, as a new mom, who knows when!”
The struggle is real y’all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/nyregion/the-na…
“it was the first thing they realized they had in common”
This literally makes no sense at all to me. Like, before they realized they both LIKED the book? Before they realized they were both bipedal hairless apes? They both like tacos? WHAT? WHAT DOES IT MEAN
Oh, stupid me, I should clarify. She’s saying she’s talking about not having time to read the new book because she’s a Busy Mom ™.
Wait, so she’s saying she just heard the name and liked it and they weren’t even bonding over liking the book?!?! Oh lordy.
No, I think your read is correct. They seemingly bonded over the name first, love of the book second. I just realized that the quote I used made it seem like she hadn’t even read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and wanted to clarify that. My new dating profile: Likes- Tacos; Atticus as a baby name; Dislikes-Racism; popular baby names; Looking for-casual hook-ups only.
Let’s just take to the sea….
Hey, online dating was totally a thing 8 years ago! “You should message me if: You want to name our child ‘Atticus,’ and you also don’t run screaming from someone who talks about future baby names in a dating profile.”
“Atticus Gannaway of Manhattan, a 37-year-old who started going by Atticus in college (his parents named him Ryan),”
I’m so happy right now
This article is an endless delight and I’m so happy that I can share it with you:
“We’ve always wanted to have names for our kids that aren’t super-popular,” said Mr. Campbell, whose 11-month-old daughter’s name is Edith (No. 627). “In a way, we’ll probably get our wish.”
I can just picture them looking at the list of popular baby names and deciding that 627 is sufficiently un-popular.
I’ll cut them a break; as a Christopher and a Jennifer, they probably grew up as 1 of about 5 in each of their respective elementary school classes. My name was top 3 in the 80s (and so very dated, but whatevs) and I definitely looked a tad further down the list for my kids’ names.
Yup, I’m a Jennifer and I literally had a class in elementary school where there were five of us! I recall an abundance of Christophers as well so I feel them on wanting to give their kids a less popular name; that would be one of my priorities as well.
I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for that, actually. My name has been a top 5 boys name for something like 60 years. Since age 5, there has not been a single year of my life where I was not either in every class with or working with at least one person with the same name and it gets kinda exhausting.
ha! I was once out with a group of friends, and of eight guys there, seven – seven!! – were named Michael. We got a picture of all of them.
I work with a production crew of, oh, about 12 people. Four of them are guys named Michael.
Plus, you never know what will become popular. In 2012, one of my coworkers didn’t name his daughter Merida because it’s the name of the girl in Brave, so they picked a less popular name…Elsa.
That happened to a coworker. His parents gave him a then-little-used first name. Ten years later, all the little boys were given the same name. Now, as an adult, he says people assume he’s 10 years younger than his actual age. He found a silver lining.
As a person in her 30s with a name that is very popular among teenagers, I totally get that.
I get this. My name is very eighties but I never had to “share” my name with a classmate. I wouldn’t be able to say the same for all the iterations of Brittany, Nicole, Ashley, etc. that I’ve known…
there was one in Slate, too, with one very reasonable sounding dad: “But while it’s sad to lose the starkness of the original’s Atticus righteousness, Edgerton said, “it also provides some depth that wasn’t necessarily there before. Real life is not at all black and white. It’s very grey.” He explained that once his son (now 8 years old) was born, he became the most important Atticus—whatever happens to Atticus Finch, Atticus Kenney will still be Atticus Kenney.”
just, oh my gosh white people*, many of our heroes are racist and most racists are not cartoonishly evil, can we just accept & deal with that?
*which is all those parents, right? at least, I have seen no articles re: Atticus hand-wringing that mention they talked to a non-white person…
Amanda Nelson of BookRiot, who is a WOC, named one of her twins Atticus and wrote a very thoughtful article http://bookriot.com/2015/07/14/the-weight-of-my-s…
ooh thanks, I loved the bookriot posts yesterday but somehow missed this one!
I have a 2yo nephew named Atticus, but at last check neither my brother nor SIL are having an existential crisis over a book that should never have been published in the first place.
“Should never have been published in the first place.” Yes, this. You supposedly love this book enough to name your child after one of the characters and yet, your main concern here isn’t about the maybe fucked up and predatory things that seem to be happening with Harper Lee, it’s for your oh so hip and precious baby name.
i cannot thank you enough for sharing this — my day at work has been VASTLY improved, though i am hoping no one has seen me giggling madly
WHITE PEOPLE
Nothing better than witnessing kids greeting other kids at the drop-off. My kids and my niece go to the same place, and every day my sister reports that her daughter waltzes in like she’s the Queen of Portugal. “HELLO, MY LOYAL SUBJECTS, I HAVE ARRIVED. NOW WHERE IS MY FAVORITE BALL?”
Oh man! You’ve actually given me something to look forward to when my daughter starts nursery!
On the second day ever of preschool, my then 3-yr-old walked in, opened her arms as wide as she could, and announced, “I’m HERE!”
* Warning – slightly squeamish might not want to read *
My dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer* and was very lucky that it was caught early enough that they could do surgery. The surgery for it is very complicated and somewhat dangerous (http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/whipple-procedure/basics/definition/prc-20021393) and he was lucky to get one of the best surgeons at Johns Hopkins he could possibly have for it. Even so, seven weeks after the surgery, the DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING, his stitches burst when he was at the mall, and he ended up having to hold his intestines in as he begged passerby for help.
* He’s okay now, recovering from surgery traumas and chemo. Cancer was removed, they didn’t find any more in his body, and he’s slowly getting to his new normal.
HOLY SHITSNACKS
(Glad he’s okay now!!!!!!!)
oh my holy hell!
Networking v. date: I didn’t actually watch the video, but I once had a drink that was DEFINITELY networking — he was a married professional contact — until he stuck his tongue down my throat and I had to push him off me and put him on the Metro-North train to Westchester.
No, not Don Draper.
I have a gchat open right now in which my coworker is telling me about how she agreed to meet up with this videographer who was interested in freelancing for us. He was actually not interested in freelancing for us – she gets to the “meeting” and find out it’s a surprise date. #BanMen
More like the Spunk and White Style Guide AMIRIGHT?
*high-five* though I’d say it’s more of an off-white.
Bwaaaaah
reality, my dears.
Yo the Toast Stance above made me really miss Toast Stances. I think we’re due….
And as a coda to today, which has not been much fun:
Someone go and tell the cops
that during foot and traffic stops
it’s not polite to kill a guy
because he looks you in the eye.
I was playing Candybox (http://candybox2.net/) and a dark room (http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/) which is nice because you can basically fall asleep at random moments and wake up again and some resources have built up and you can do something new.
feel whole and happy soon, i hope
It could be a really great strategy, because it would really attract both commie socialist bleeding heart Democrats and "praise our veterans, pray to our war machine" Republicans, probably! And NO ONE would get away with calling veteran soldiers lazy welfare parasites, right?
Oh wow…I mean…wow… I was not expecting quite that level of mansplaining. I mean, I'm barely computer literate and I know what UX stands for. It is hardly a complex term. I just…am aghast, on your behalf.
Honestly I think a lot of mansplaining is about super obvious things, because it all comes from the attitude of 'well, my knowledge is obviously special and rare because if it wasn't then I might have to admit my collection of facts about things is actually not all that extraordinary and just the result of me being an entirely average, privileged human.' I feel like part of mansplaining comes from the idea that acquiring knowledge in any area makes you exceptional and different and above, which in addition to purposefully not acknowledging other people's abilities to do that as well just sucks all the fun out of learning anything anyway.