Sansa enjoys having many toys, and also sleeping during Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Small things non-Muslims can do to support Muslims right now (I would never actually start a convo with someone on public transportation under literally any circumstances short of “I am bleeding to death, please call 911,” or assume a person is Muslim based on their dress, FWIW, but the rest of the list seems pretty basic human responsibilities):
If you see a Muslim or someone who might be identified as Muslim being harassed, stop, say something, intervene, call for help.
If you ride public transportation, sit next to the hijabi woman and say asalam ‘alaykum (That means ‘peace to you.’). Don’t worry about mispronouncing it; she won’t care. Just say “peace” if you like. She’ll smile; smile back. If you feel like it, start a conversation. If you don’t, sit there and make sure no one harasses her.
If you have a Muslim work colleague, check in. Tell them that the news is horrifying and you want them to know you’re there for them.
If you have neighbors who are Muslim, keep an eye out for them. If you’re walking your kids home from the bus stop, invite their kids to walk with you.
BIG OL’ HAMILTON INTERVIEW KLAXONNNNN:
Daveed Diggs: One day I was running to the gym, and I got lost. I’m in the Bronx somewhere. And this, like, seventeen-year-old kid is crossing the street. I’m running past him, and he dropped his stuff on the ground. “Oh my god, you’re Thomas Jefferson!” [laughs] I was like, “That’s the first time anyone’s ever said that to me, but yeah. I am.” And then, you know, he took a bunch of selfies, and we talked for a little while.
ahhhh
Groff: My aunt and uncle, who are Mennonites, came to see it. They’re literal dairy farmers from the fields of Pennsylvania. And they were blown away. And I was like, “Did you follow, like, the rap and stuff?” And they were like, “Totally! We got all of it!” And [my uncle] was like, “It’s this, and Fiddler on the Roof. Best shows I’ve ever seen.” I was like, there you go.
Also, my perfect niece just linked me to the Chicago tour announcement on Facebook and said “HEY, AUNT NICOLE, GUESS WHAT WE COULD DO FOR MY 21ST BIRTHDAY?” (love and respect the hustle) and now I’m plotting what a great excuse it would be to take her and her equally perfect younger sister to a show and a MASSIVE Chicago dinner, “for their education.” Also, I will obvi host a Chicago meet-up.
Why Stan Grant wants to cover Indigenous issues instead of his foreign policy beat going forward:
Few Australians could have known how we – Indigenous people – felt when we heard the booing of Goodes. They could not have known what wounds that reopened; what painful memories it revived.
I had been back in Australia for a while by then but this felt like my true homecoming. This was a reminder of the country I had grown up in, a country that made us feel apart; a country in which the black kids I went to school with all sat apart in our own section of the playground. It was a country I had thought – had hoped – we had moved beyond.
In July I wrote an article for Guardian Australia that sought to tell our story; not to look into the minds and hearts of those who were booing Goodes, but to tell readers how we felt; what we heard in those boos. I wrote how we felt estranged in our land and how that humiliation of Goodes roared like a howl across our history of dispossession, injustice and suffering.
This piece on the story behind Spotlight destroyed me:
The first stories in the series included a telephone number at the Globe that people could call to report additional clergy sexual abuse, and survivors came forward in droves. More documents came to light, and the story grew and grew. “It kept tentacling,” Pfeiffer said. “Ben Bradlee, Jr.”—then the assistant managing editor, played by John Slattery in the movie—“once we got all these personnel files, he started saying, ‘We can’t just do these priest-du-jour stories anymore.’ There were horrific stories in the files. But at some point you just stop writing about individual stories. We began looking at larger issues. Why did it happen? What was the role of the laity or the lack of the role of the laity? What’s the psychology of the priests? Why did there seem to be more boys and men coming forward than girls and women?” (Some reasons: priests had access to boys that they didn’t have to girls, in church, in their homes, on camping trips; and, chillingly, because more boys were targeted, in part because they were less likely to talk. Poor families were targeted, too: mothers who needed help, children who needed care.)
bitches gotta eat: Do black girls even get depressed?
no one in my house was talking about depression. that’s something that happened to white people on television, not a thing that could take down a Strong Black Woman. which also fucked with me on the “why are you listening to smashing pumpkins instead of [insert name of popular early 90s r+b artist]? are you even black!?” level. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. so i was 1 super fucking depressed 2 super fucking depressed with no one to talk to about it who wasn’t going to immediately suggest child services remove me from my home and 3 super fucking depressed while clocking in on the low end of my skinfolk’s negrometers because i identified hard with courtney love and read sassy magazine because essence wasn’t really speaking to me yet so wasn’t this whole thing yet another way i was trying to be white?
Academic Job Listings for My Exes is a scream in every sense of the word:
Macalester College’s Department of Art and Art History will receive applications for the position of Assistant Professor of Studio Art with expertise in Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. Preference will be shown to candidates whose mothers still pay their car insurance. A willingness to serve the program, department, college, and university communities via housework, cooking, or cunnilingus is not required. For full consideration, submit cover letter, CV, and three letters of eviction.
Denzel Washington is going to produce all ten of August Wilson’s plays for HBO:
“I’m really excited that [the estate] would put that in my hands and trust me,” Washington said during the event. “That’s good enough for me. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
The premium network would role out one film a year, Washington said. In addition to Fences, Wilson’s ten-play collection consists ofRadio Golf, King Hedley II, Jitney, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars, The Piano Lesson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Gem of the Ocean.
Mallory handles this question well, but I am just…
Q. Christmas Hell: My problem is that the holidays is the only time that everyone gets together. It is crowded, hectic, and fun. Except my sister insists that her autistic son be involved in all activities with his cousins. He is sensitive to noise, flashing lights, and can melt down into tantrums that leave holes in walls. Last year, he threw a lamp into a TV while several of the boys played video games. My sons will do puzzles and spend time with him but have asked me why they are being punished by having to “babysit” him all the time. I keep biting my tongue but how do I tell her I think she is the problem here?
I would usually find a Wesley Crusher-esque dude like this annoying, but I knew him in college and he was really sweet and cool and goodthinkful, and so I can only wish him the best as he invariably becomes President in twenty years.
Which US TV shows are the most popular in various countries! FASCINATING. Sweden’s top US show is Mr. Robot!
Sansa likes her car harness, and was very good at the vet, who was unable to contain his enthusiasm for her beauty:
also, this #Ham4Ham:
About one-ninth of the deleted comment of the day:
The second deleted comment of the day is from a guy who REALLY thinks he should be allowed to text at the movies:
Awww, I really wanted to know what American shows Dutch people watch. I know what I watch, but I’m not a good judge of anything.
From the sample size of my parents I’m gonna say it’s Grey’s Anatomy and Homeland, exclusively
this sounds plausible, all my friends watch Game of Thrones but I’m taking “young academics” as a bad sample of the general Dutch population.
From the sample size of my office it’s The Walking Dead and Modern Family – neither of which I watch.
My boss watches The Walking Dead, but I don’t know about Modern Family. There’s just so much American TV to choose from!
When I visited my brother when he lived in The Hague, there certainly seemed to be a constant stream of Law and Order type procedurals and ID channel “documentaries.” Also, at least a couple times some quite bizarre spy-ish/Leverage-type procedural with a very young Mark Sheppard.
there is so much American TV subtitled over and aired on Dutch TV! Now there’s even a whole ID channel, which is great because I love ID “documentaries.” I was just curious as to which was the most popular, because there is so much.
And I want to know what Dutch programs (and also Swedish programs) that Americans watch! Based on a sample size of 1 (me), it’s . . . crime shows. So basically exactly the genre that the US seems to export the most of is the genre I watch in foreign television.
I’m not sure what entire TV shows the Dutch actually export, but they do export formats pretty regularly. I think The Voice was the last big one.
There are a bunch of hijabi moms at my daughter’s school, and I’ve been wondering how to tactfully support them. “Asalam ‘alaykum” is much better than “HEY IF ANYONE BUGS YOU, I’LL KICK THEIR TEETH IN,” which was my first instinct.
I kind of like your first instinct, tho.
Either one works for me.
first instinct definitely the way to go
no reason you can’t say both! But maybe lead with the peaceful part.
I’ve been smiling extra nicely to the Muslim cleaning lady in my building, so I hope that’s not been getting creepy. It feels like too little, in view of the overwhelming hate I see spewed on comment threads, but I guess it’s something.
I’m just really scared by all the dehumanizing messages I see getting spread. I keep wanting to yell at people “THIS IS HOW BLACK PAGES IN HISTORY BEGIN!!!”, but that’s not exactly productive either.
Maybe it’s because I’m watching Man in the High Castle right now, but the parallels with Nazi antisemitic propaganda are so unbelievably terrifying I cannot believe they are not being pointed out by every single news organization in the world. Or at least NPR.
YES! Though some media are starting to point it out. This great tweet was in Today in Tabs, for example.
If you want a long yet terrifying yet fascinating read, here was a tremendous essay by David Neiwart last week, placing Trump within the context of historical fascism in Europe and America, and defining what that actually means: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2015/11/donald-trump…
Long story short: Trump’s not Hitler, but aaaaaaaaaaaah-
More and more I think if I could impose one piece of required reading, it would be Robert Paxton’s Five Phases of Fascism. Because yes, this is scary shit.
Thank you for this link!
I saw a very drunk man do a one man performance of “IF ANYONE BUGS YOU”* for the guy behind the counter of a gas station the day after 9/11. As myself & my companion had been preparing for a racist rant instead, it was kind of beautiful.
” I KNOW YOU DIDN’T HAVE SHIT TO DO WITH THAT AND YOU KNOW I LIVE RIGHT DOWN THERE IF ANYONE GIVES YOU ANY SHIT I’LL KICK THEIR ASS.” Bless you, drunky.
That is maybe the most positive drunk rage I’ve ever heard of?
It really was. Given that he started with a lot of HEY HEY LISTEN I WANNA TELL YOU SOMETHING we were poised for An Incident and instead it was this lovely if drunky I GOT YOUR BACK YOU’RE MY NEIGHBOR proclamation of unity.
That is really the best twist I’ve ever read in a story. A+ job of subverting expectations drunk dude.
I kind of wanted to hug him,drunk sweat and all, since the day before I had gotten into an altercation with a dude loudly proclaiming, less than four hours after the planes hit, that This Is All Because Clinton Let The Gays In the Military.
Wut
That I did not break that guy’s smug hateful face remains one of my greater acts of self restraint.
I’m impressed that you aren’t commenting here using your contraband smartphone in prison.
I still hope he falls down an abandoned well.
Ha! I’m using this as my wish for all hateful people in the future.
I get good use out of it and invite you to share it freely.
Yeah, I have a hijabi coworker I only see for brief moments in passing but I always smile and say hello. I don’t really have the chance to do more, but my first instinct was the same as yours–“I will physically injure anyone who is awful to you.”
The was one Muslim woman in my law school section who wore a hijab. She was seriously one of the most scary smart but also unbelievably nicest people I’ve ever met in my life. I feel so blessed to have met her and have had her briefly in my life. We don’t live in the same city so I haven’t really kept up with her. But lately I’ve been wanting to send her a linkedin message to tell her that I still think of her and I hope she’s doing well. But I also don’t want to seem patronizing, like, OBVIOUSLY YOU NEED MY SUPPORT RIGHT NOW EVEN THOUGH WE HAVEN’T COMMUNICATED IN AT LEAST 10 YEARS. But I think I might do it anyway because the world is terrible and she is wonderful.
I’m sorry, this is off-topic, but this EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TWEET THREAD just came to my attention. “Post the earliest picture you have of your pet.” https://twitter.com/sacha_is_good/status/67456092…
Also early this morning I dreamed that somehow I wound up in Lupita Nyong’o’s arms (not a euphemism, I think I tripped or something) and very nearly shared a kiss with her. I don’t know why I dreamed this but The Toast seemed like a reasonable place to mention it.
We have an ultrasound picture the vet took when my dog’s mother was pregnant. NOT CUTE.
Certainly novel, though!
I heard a terrible rumor that Lupita’s part in The Force Awakens was drastically cut, like to barely one scene. I really hope this isn’t true.
I don’t know why I dreamed this but The Toast seemed like a reasonable place to mention it.
Excellent call!
A former coworker of mine posted about 25 memes yesterday on the theme of “we’re forgetting that men and women are different for a reason! Women were created to do everything a man can’t do! Embrace what makes you feminine!” I could not dive for the block button fast enough.
Mallory is a perfect Prudence. Divine perfection.
Oh, man, yes-me too! Where is this coming from? I mean the individual in my FB feed was also posting about how great the Liberty University prez is for telling their students to carry weapons so blocking was my only option at that point but the “females are meant to be feminine” stuff wasn’t helping her case.
Is carrying a weapon feminine?
I’m from Texas so I know the answer is supposed to be something like, “Hell, yeah, it’s sexy,” but I’m pretty sure women carry weapons to protect themselves from men.
Like, maybe the problem is with the men…
I’m currently sitting at a very sketch bus station with two bags full of dirty laundry.
I am a college student through and through. Thank you, most glorious of Nicoles, for this wonderful list of things more beautiful than this concrete…shelter is too strong a word….outcropping?
Oh yes, deleted commenter, please tell me more about how to be a real feminist.
It sounds so much like the parody @NoToFeminism account that I follow that my first thought was that it was somebody doing a take on that persona.
That is my favorite parody account of all time. I love it so much.
Also, deleted commenter, please put some clothes on your 5 beautiful children.
Haha, I was thinking the same thing! :)))
Sadly, that comment is pretty par for the course for Mormon anti-feminists (which is not all Mormon women by a long shot, but boy do they exist). It sounds very much like every talk I grew up with about how women wanting equality were misguided, like one of the churchwide leaders of the Young Women program (girls 12-18) who told girls that real women “don’t feel the need to advocate for rights” because they know their worth.
I would actually love to hear from Muslim Toasties about what they would appreciate hearing/not hearing from awkward randos who want to support them in the wake of Actual Fascist Public Discourse, if any are so inclined!
I find it highly suspect that people think they can identify, visually, all people who are muslim. I find it othering, and maybe other people disagree, but I get damn tired of people trying to guess my ethnicity as it is, and now people are trying to guess my religion, based on how I dress, the color of my skin? Not everyone wears a headscarf or a beard, there is no uniform way of dressing (in the US, at least), and the thought that people on the subway might be trying to classify me into a group that encompasses literally millions of people is weird, patronizing, and possibly offensive. I don’t go around assuming all white people are christian or saying ‘Greetings, may jesus be upon you’ to random people.
Also, like i can barely talk about these issues with my parents, who says i want to discuss how i’m feeling or how scared i am or any number of things with people i’m not close with. i appreciate the idea that if you ~know~ someone muslim to say something kind i guess, and i think it’s fine to interfere in public harassment scenarios, but i also feel weird *being talked about* by other people in this way.
YES! This is exactly what threw me with that suggestion: that it was implying you should do your own Muslim Detection and Outreach instead of being about supporting Muslims you actually know, within the context of that relationship.
I guess i read it as, of course you’re already supportive toward your Muslim friends/acquaintances, here’s what you can do to be a force for good in the wider world, sort of thing.
I see where you’re coming from and agree to a certain extent. However, if a well-meaning stranger can’t tell by looking at you that you’re a muslim, then neither can a bigot. And speaking from personal experience in the past, you can get a lot of glares or distrustful stares by virtue of simply walking down the street in your hijab. If amidst those hateful looks was a friendly smile now and again or someone who simply acknowledged my presence and religion in a non-hateful way then I don’t think I’d be bothered by that at all.
I’d definitely feel very uncomfortable if a stranger approached me and struck up a conversation all about what’s currently going on and my feelings/thoughts on it. But a smile or hi/salam as I walked by would probably be really nice.
Very true about the bigotry. Just be kind, people!
I don’t wear hijab and am more culturally Muslim then anything else– honestly, what has been most moving to me is friends on Facebook or wherever else just simply acknowledging how fucked up it is and how they are here for their Muslim friends. No linking to news articles or think pieces, just sharing genuine feelings of empathy and sadness. Someone saying ‘salam’ to me on the subway would be kinda weird (unless they were also Muslim and it was a solidarity sorta thing…maybe) — but a friend or co-worker bringing it up as something that was genuinely upsetting to them feels like it’s sharing the burden.
I am going to shamelessly piggyback on Nicole’s post. I am the most awkward of randos, an American librarian. I am currently sitting in a veritable fort of books and DVDs about Islam as a religion and culture that, in a rage, I pulled from our collection yesterday with the intent of making a display for my library. I have disregarded everything that is majority critical (except some stuff by Muslim feminists bc hell yeah) or that makes the boneheaded Islam = terrorism, period misstep. I have also mixed in some books about religious pluralism in the United States and a lot about American Muslims (who, contrary to what we’ve been hearing, did not start existing sometime last week).
Were I a Muslim college student, I would feel pretty good walking into my library and seeing a display like this. But I acknowledge that I am a particular sort of person with my own preferences and etc.
So. Um. What do we think?
I think it’s a positive thing to do, to subtly encourage people to educate themselves on a subject that everyone has an opinion on but most people probably don’t know much about. Kudos to you.
Yes! This sounds like a great way to address the issue.
While I’m sure the poster would be open to all of those things happening to her, I don’t think anyone should target a specific group of people in public in order to engage them with unprompted rhetoric. Just smile. Be kind. If you hear someone saying something ignorant, correct them. If you see someone being harassed, help them. If a Muslim person engages you: listen. Learn. Reassure them. Going up to a rando and saying salam will likely only make you feel better about yourself, which is not the fucking point.
Martin Shkreli is the one who bought the Wu-Tang album 🙁 http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-martin-shk…
My hope is that Martin Shkreli is some kind of weird performance artist, here to teach us how awful capitalism is.
NOOOOOOOO. NO. HOW DARE. [cries]
ugh-fucking-course
“a man born with a penis to bare children”
Thanks for this ungrammatical nightmare image–I will be shuddering at my desk all day.
The “bare”/”bear” was really getting to me too.
Yeah, “bare” and “vagina” are also a little close for comfort. I don’t need to know that much about you, dear fellow lady.
“a vagina to bare 5 beautiful children to”
no
don’t do that
She really needs to stop baring her children good grief.
Well, they weren’t born with clothes on I should hope.
Better than a bear vagina, I guess.
Deleted commenter one: are you a “woman rights activist,” or are you three children standing on each others’ shoulders and wearing a trenchcoat?
Go home and ask your parents to explain why biological essentialism is bad, ok? And then come back to the Toast when you’re 18.
Speaking of sex/gender essentialism, does anyone have a good 101 link on why it’s TERRIBLE? I’ve been looking for years, and at this point I’d write it myself just to have something to link to, but I’m not at all qualified. (I’ve also tried to convince more qualified friends to write that for me, and just never quite gotten there). (That, and trying to get people to hire the Amazon goats. SOME DAY, SOME DAY).
I don’t have any links, but one of my friends posted something on FB yesterday that made fun of gender-specific toys and ads that say “made for the way a girl plays!” like you can just paint something pink and boom! girls toy! He said, and I love this so much, “Toys specific to gender only come into play after the age of 18, and even those are kind of fluid.” He is wonderful.
This came across my dash on tumblr and it’s a really good point.
http://std.about.com/od/G-L/fl/What-is-gender-ess…
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/03/trans-people-…
https://factcheckme.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/biol…
Maybe those will help?
I have much more faith in children to not be terrible about gender. You’ve got to be carefully taught this crap.
It could be that I am still (STILL! SINCE BEFORE THANKSGIVING!) terribly sick, but neither of the deleted comments make any sense to me. I get that there are words there, but it seems that all together they cease to have any meaning. I am going to urgent care after work, hopefully they can recalibrate my sensometer.
Also SANSAAAAAAAAAAAA PRETTY GIIIRL
You are not alone. I had to read the second one like 4 times and I’m still not entirely sure I get it. Literacy, amirite?
Did you notice the absolutely dreadful burner email address?!
I’m not a doctor, but I do not recommend you recalibrate your sensometer with those comments. Maybe recalibrate it with some tautologies, or a RBG opinion.
Hahahaha, Sad Etsy Boyfriends:
http://sadetsyboyfriends.tumblr.com/
RED BEARD, FIFTH DOWN. What the hell am I looking at?
You are looking at someone who seems to be selling his armpits.
Poor hot red beard dude.
this is perfection
If you search for dog sweater patterns on Ravelry, you get a lot of pictures of angry chihuahuas. Soooo many angry chihuahuas.
The fifth one down (8th June): the nagging feeling clouding your expression? Listen to it and run while you still can! Just look at her there!
can we talk about supergirl
I mean
CAN WE TALK ABOUT SUPERGIRL
That reveal was just amazing, wasn’t it? I mean, it was totally clear that he was an alien, but I for one had not guessed which alien. Love the look of him too. And then the episode had Alex being a badass and Kara solving something without her powers – what more could a person want? Well, maybe Jimmy Olsen’s bare arms, but guess what? 😉
MrChouffe was literally, literally, jumping up and down and screaming at the reveal. I have never seen him react like that to anything EVER.
My husband made a noise that was suspiciously squeal-like and kicked his feet up into the air. It was delightful.
I will talk about Supergirl with you.
Is this a happy “can we talk about Supergirl” or a Wynn-fluenced “can we talk about Supergirl”?
Happy! Happy! BECAUSE THAT REVEAL and also it is a walking Bechdel Test and also Calista Flockhart and also THAT REVEAL
Calista Flockhart! You’ve got my attention.
Her character is frankly awesome. Bad-ass media magnate, Supergirl’s boss.
However you can find to watch it, WATCH IT.
I’m so glad he’s not a stereotypical evil government bossman. I’m also glad they didn’t make us wait 10 seasons to figure out what happened to Daddy Danvers.
Ugh. Wynn. That actor’s pocket-sized and adorable, but as a character, Wynn is the WOOOOOOOORST [/Jean-Ralphio]. Why am I supposed to have any interest in him when Jimmy Olsen and his arms and voice are around?
Wynn is indeed the worst. He’s always guilting Kara! And if you like her, dude, just ASK HER OUT, it’s not that hard, jeez.
He asked her out in the pilot, and SHE SAID NO. So he needs to get hit by an astroid, basically.
I really appreciate that they aren’t playing it as Nice Guy/Oblivious Girl. Kara is busy, and Jimmy is distracting, and Wynn feels less helpful/relevant by the day. Those are all absolutely regular-person things that happen in regular-life and their reactions are all extremely realistic.
Supergirl has also had some of the most Real Talk re: privilege I have heard on prime time. Last week’s episode was ASTONISHING.
Yeah, he’s just kind of around being useless and Nice Guy, and … no thanks.
That whole scene at the end there, with them, was just AWFUL, but it was also 100% realistic and I think that’s why I winced.
Something I didn’t think about until later: I did love how he said “everyone knows the superhero never gets the guy!” with only the tiniest of beats between “the” and “guy”, because it reminded me just how exceptional it is that we now have two female superheroes (who, interestingly enough, both have black love interests, but that’s a different discussion).
Stop Wynn stop! I wanted to slap him the whole time he was being a jealous jerk to Kara over Jimmy. Ugh.
I haven’t even been watching it but I watched this week’s episode kind of by accident (channel-surfing for background noise, decided Supergirl was nice and non-objectionable, ended up watching it raptly) and IT WAS DELIGHTFUL, I AM DELIGHTED, I AM FULLY A CONVERT.
YES Supergirl is wonderful and amazing and my favorite new show this year. I don’t even care that the feminism discussions are all ridiculously on the nose, given the level of discourse around feminist issues right now, subtlety is the last thing we need. And the Hank reveal!!!!! Oh my god!!!! Literally the only thing I don’t love about this show is that it makes me watch anything on CBS, which I am normally very much against.
Remember, us woman have abilities. Mine are invincibility and super-strength.
Mine is finding inventive ways to continue text conversations.
Teach me, please! I am so bad at this.
mine are selective hearing and radar like abilities to see cats.
Here’s mine: No matter where I am or what the situation is, if there is a dog somewhere in the vicinity I will see it and make sure any one I am with knows that there is a dog, and it’s a precious little puppy, even if said dog is a St. Bernard.
Oh hey furry animal power compatriot! We should go on walks together. You pet all the puppies and I’ll pet all the cats. It would be the best walk ever.
YES! Best super hero duo ever!
You two should lead tours. I’d pay for a tour where I got to walk around and pet a variety of cats and dogs. My walks currently mostly result in me pitifully begging a cat to come see me while it retreats under the nearest shrub.
Oh, yes. This is a useful power. (I do it with every animal, though. Driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike with me is SO annoying because it goes through loads of farm country and no matter whether I’m driving, passengering, or fucking asleep I will wake up and SHOUT “COWS!” “SHEEPS” “HORSIES” and when we’re driving in town, it’s “DOGGIE” “KITTY” “BUNNY!” and “GROUNDHOG OH MY GOD”.)
Mine is that I can pinpoint minor noises from surrounding apartments like the flushing of toilets or ill-timed sneezes. Also a horrifying ability to hear electrical frequencies which frequently results in me waking up in the middle of the night, pulling my phone charger out of the socket, and going back to sleep.
Ooo, I can hear stuff like that too. Like, fluorescent lights long before they start to whine at a really audible volume, or those old CRT monitors when they’re left on after the computer’s been turned off. Having my teeth cleaned is essentially a game of seeing how close the hygenist can get the brush-thing before I twitch.
Mine is finding my partner’s lost items.
I can tell exactly how big (or small) a container for leftovers should be.
Also, I am really good with edged weapons.
I want to be you. I’m not willing to go without either of your skills for a second more.
Slowly but surely we will assemble our very own Toast Avengers Team. Fighting grammar abuse, toilet seat protectors, dirtbags in general and also men.
I thought “dirtbags in general” covered men.
“our very own Toast Avengers Team”
Here for this.
Toastvengers assemble
my gif-fu in text convos is legendary
Mine is that I can tell when a photo was taken somewhere scenic that I’ve been–Iceland, Portland, and the Canadian Rockies being prime examples.
I have a better memory for, and ability to name, landscapes than I do for people. Which in inconvenient when you’re a receptionist at a large retirement home.
But I bet at least some of the residents can empathize.
GUYS there’s no way in hell I can afford Hamilton tix, but we were planning to spend MLK weekend in NY and I was holding out hope for the lottery. Now our plans are changing and we might not be going away and I may never see the original cast of Hamilton. Hold me, for I am weeping.
I will weep with you.
Someone please introduce that woman’s rights activist to MPreg
SOMEONE DO IT.
What fandom would break her brain most, do you think? HP has the benefit of trampling on some people’s childhood memories (or memories of their children’s childhoods, for others). But perhaps there’s something better?
Most of my MPreg knowledge is HP, so that would be my go to. But I bet there’s some really terrifying Supernatural fic that could be passed along as well…
So very here for SPN mpreg. I’ll add that 1D mpreg is also hilarious.
AND mpreg also has the bonus of being frequently tied to the alpha/beta/omega trope, which is even more brain-splodey (to me) than mpreg.
Yeah, I was going to say you can probably find mpreg in any fandom that also has alpha/omega fic.
One day I will write a piece called”Fanfics I Have Known and Lost” and everyone will be genuinely horrified at some of the things that were written in the HP fandom back in the day
y’all can’t even imagine some of the shit i’ve seen
I FEEL you. When I got a new computer a few years ago, I tried to import my bookmarks over and apparently missed a crucial step so I lost EVERYTHING, including an extremely impressive amount of fic that of course I didn’t download separately. I was able to find a few, but most of them are gone and I’m still upset about it. All the kinkbingos, lost forever.
I can totally imagine some of the shit you’ve seen. I probably read some of them.
I’ve read a lot of bonkers stuff in the Sherlock fandom–and not just a/b/o fics, which are a fave genre of mine. Every now and then I’ll be reading a story and think, welp, this is my life, and these are the choices I’ve made.
I’d say more but I’m on a work computer.
My first fandom was Lord of the Rings RPS. I am immune.
I was a member of the HP Squick community on LJ way back it the day. It was simultaneously hilarious and disturbing.
One of my fondest college memories is sitting at a lunch table with two different conversations on each side–one about the Quiverfull movement, and one about LOTR fanfic (this being just when the movies were coming out) and the determination we reached that Quiverful sounds like an excellent name for a Legolas MPREG archive.
Honestly, I’m a little surprised it doesn’t already exist.
August Wilson is one of my favorite playwrights (reading Joe Turner’s Come and Gone in grad school is the reason I finally decided to try to learn to play the guitar), and I have been hoping someone would do the Wilson Cycle for a long time, so I am pretty happy about this.
I am so happy, mostly because Denzel Washington as Don Pedro in Much Ado about Nothing was my first real crush a wee youngster, so I am happy to see him act in anything and everything, including my own AU inside my head where him and Emma Thompson fell in love on that set and then Kenneth Branagh was just sort of cast aside and maybe he still wanders around dejected, who knows. And theeeen Washington would play Edward alongside Thompson’s Elinor in Sense & Sensibility, and there would be no need for Hugh Grant to have been in that moving at all. And then fast forward to now and he could indeed do the Wilson Cycle as well.
I love everything about the Sense and Sensibility movie…except Hugh Grant.
I really want to see “Spotlight”, because it looks fantastic. But I think it’s going to hit really close to home – the revelation of the molestation cover-up hit when I was just starting high school, and looking back, it was a big piece of what drove this cradle Catholic away from the Church. Ruffalo’s big rant in the trailer has been a dagger every time I’ve seen it, because I’m right there with him; I was an alter boy for years. I was lucky, nothing ever happened, but there’s still that dodged-bullet feeling hovering over me a decade and change after the story exploded.
Someone I know went to a Catholic Elementary School in southern New England. He’s a guy, and he was an alter boy for a very long time.
The pedophile priest for the school/church while he was there molested little girls.
Dodged bullet feeling indeed.
God, that’s horrifying. We had priests in the diocese that were “reassigned”. I found out later that it was…not exactly an open secret, but that there had been whispers for years, as there were in every single parish where this happened.
yeah, I was an altar server in a Boston suburb around the time the Globe was breaking these stories, and afaik none of our priests did anything, but the knowledge that it could have is still A Lot.
actually the Diocese almost closed our church down & sold the land bc they needed to pay legal fees. Gross.
Having gone to the same church, (hi sis!) and I went to a Catholic high school, whose rival school is prominently mentioned in the movie, it is incredibly intense. But it is an amazing movie. It is the movie that most accurately gets the Boston I know and love and at times can’t stand.
My mother was too involved for us to be at as much risk as others. So awful.
Yes. I was an altar girl from ages 9-17. Definite dodged bullet feeling. My priest was pretty much a very quiet, introverted type who kept to himself and didn’t try to get overly friendly with the servers (pretty much the opposite). But still, what do I know? I was a protected kid with involved parents. Being a teenager when the scandal finally hit the news was a blow to everything I knew about Catholicism. It hasn’t recovered.
I saw Spotlight and it was TREMENDOUS, just an excellent movie and coverage of the whole story, very respectful and non-gratuitous. I don’t know if it’s right for you or not, but I just wanted to say I found it worthwhile. Also an excellent portrayal of the importance of journalism.
I second this – it was one of the better movies I’ve seen this year for sure.
It is phenomenally well done. There’s the perfect balance of anger and frankness without being prurient. They have nothing but respect for the victims. Seriously, you should see it.
I accidentally triggered scroll lock this morning. I had no idea what was going on.
To find that comic, I googled basic instructions sabotage key. First hit was cia.gov, “Timeless Tips for ‘Simple Sabotage.'” I’m both intrigued and afraid to click on it. Will it just be a list of all the different ways one can use a keyboard to make a person think their computer is infested with gremlins? One can only hope.
The “Timeless Tips” are totally useful for everyday life:
“Issue two tickets for the same seat on a train in order to set up an ‘interesting’ argument.” (It is a historical document, alas.)
Much timeless. Very spy.
like an extremely timid Anarchist’s Cookbook
I admit, though, I don’t get why we still have numlock, scroll lock, and insert, given that full size keyboards also have arrow keys, page up/down, etc, and on laptops you usually have to use the function key to use some keys as arrows, page up/down, and all that?
I use Home and End a lot though when editing work emails and stuff. So maybe I just haven’t unlocked (heh) the full potential of my keyboard?
Plus, I use a ton of keyboard shortcuts. Why do these specific things have to have their very own keys, when shortcuts work so well for so many other things?
I’m not sure my insert key actually does anything anymore. I still hit it occasionally by accident, but it no longer magically destroys everything. Either I somehow turned it off, or it has become a completely vestigial key, pressable but serving no purpose.
Things about keyboards I don’t understand, a list by me
– why Insert, Num Lock, § and all kinds of weird F keys are allowed to take up valuable real estate
– …while you have to press Shift to access simple things like question marks and exclamation marks
– NOT TO MENTION the arcane rites you have to perform to type @
– why Alt and Alt Gr are different (and only one of them can be used to type @), while the two Control keys, Fn keys and Shift keys are not
– why the Caps Lock key exists
– why it’s so big
– why you can’t un-Caps your text by marking it and pressing Caps Lock again or Shift + Caps or something asfhjsfgasdshgsh we live in the computer age this would not be difficult
– why the extremely useful Print Screen key is always tiny and shoved aside while a billion useless keys get to be much bigger and clutter up the keyboard
– whether the strange menu key is actually useful and I just haven’t gotten into the habit of using it (or ever seen anyone use it, honestly), or if it’s one of the pointless keys
ETA: and when I say “why” I do not mean the historical “well in typewriter times…” reasons, I mean WHAT IS EVEN THE PURPOSE AND WHY IS THIS CONSIDERED THE BEST SOLUTION (see, now I wish I hadn’t used that many caps, and I want to de-capitalise most of those words, but I can’t! I’d have to delete them and start over! Whyyyyyy)
I had no idea other keyboard layouts moved the @ from the US layout’s Shift+2 position. I also had no idea the left and right Alt keys on non-US keyboards were different. Wow. There’s some weird stuff going on in the US keyboard layout, but that is some next-level nonsense.
I’ll add an item to your list of caps lock annoyances: mine doesn’t have an indicator light. I’m just supposed to guess. Luckily the keyboard’s configuration app lets me disable the key entirely, so now I just have a huge key that does nothing. Hooray?
I’m happy to hear that some of these annoyances aren’t universal, because they’re the WORST. On my keyboard (we use a slightly modified QUERTY), the quotation mark lives on Shift + 2. The @ is the THIRD symbol on that same key, reachable only through the horrible Alt Gr. According to Wikipedia, Alt Gr exists on most non-US PC keyboards. Its job is to allow you to type special characters (Gr apparently means “graphic”), much like the Shift key already does!
I mean, yes, sometimes you need to put three symbols on the same key, since half the keyboard is filled up already with garbage keys like Insert and whatnot (why again is that allowed to go on?!). BUT since the Alt key is basically never used ever, why not give the Alt and the Alt Gr the same functionality? Has anyone ever used Alt for anything except ASCII codes and a few shortcuts? Why can’t I use it for typing third level symbols too???
Oh I use alt all the time, to get through installer menus faster for example (alt + hotkey instead of mouse clicks is much faster if you have to do the same installer all the time). Or for if your mouse breaks. Also it’s a hotkey in games a lot of the time. But I use US keyboard layouts where there is no third level character business.
Same with the Function keys, though I have a bunch set up for actions in Photoshop which is not really typical use admittedly.
I have screwed something up on my laptop that has swapped the @ and ” keys around.
I mean the physical keys are in the right spots, but somehow the assignments got screwed up and I can’t figure out how to fix it and it DRIVES ME BONKERS.
You *can* un-capitalize a bunch of text all at once. Select it, then choose the Change Case icon. In Word it’s in the Home ribbon, grouped with Font, and looks like Aa. It’s a toggle. It changes your selection to caps or to lowercase.
And does no one create their own hotkeys anymore? I learned to do that back when it was a necessity.
I want it to be a universal keyboard shortcut, though, not just a button in one specific program. Word has buttons for copying and pasting text, but I can use ctrl+C ctrl+V in any environment I want – Word, Notepad, Paint, Firefox, Chrome, etc. I’d also appreciate it if ctrl+I italicised letters everywhere (where cursive letters are possible), not just in word processors. These things have existed for a long time and ought to be fully integrated in everything by now, especially since so many dumb options are.
I believe all those keys were useful and in fact necessary in the days before user interfaces were very advanced.
For example, Insert: it seems to obvious now that if you want to overwrite some text, you should just select it all and start typing, and the program will automagically know that means you don’t want the selected text anymore! But that’s (a) not always been the case, and (b) a convention specific to certain OS environments.
(Example: in Windows, almost any program will use that convention, but in a Unix environment I used once, the convention was that selecting any text and typing would insert the typed text in front of the selected block, leaving the selected block in place, but preserving your selection even while typing. Very handy if you want to make changes without losing a selection! But a major trip-up if you are used to a different workflow.)
Anyway, back when computers were new and those conventions weren’t set yet and a program wouldn’t know to delete selected text when you started typing, and in fact way back in the day when you couldn’t select multiple characters simultaneously at all and you had to press the delete key multiple times to delete a block of text, the fastest way to change a large chunk of text was to position the cursor in front of the text you wanted gone and start typing. The characters you typed would overwrite the characters you didn’t want.
The Insert key was developed to give you the option of not doing that. Press Insert, and you go into “Insert” mode, where you can position the cursor in the middle of a block of text and push the text in front of the cursor forward as you typed! Which was a revolutionary feature, at one time. Now, Insert mode is the default, and you have to press the Insert key to turn it off. The key has become increasingly outdated since then, but computers are made by and to a certain extent for long-time users, and long-time users often have keys like Insert in their workflows that would make them unhappy if they suddenly vanished from the keyboard.
Capslock, for instance, is legitimately useful to me; if I’m going to be typing any acronym longer than 3 letters, or if it has any punctuation in it at all, I hit Capslock without even having to think about it and it saves keystrokes. When, a few years back, a couple computer manufacturers were considering removing the Capslock key from all their keyboards in an effort to make it the new standard, I was unhappy, because imagine having to type The Man from U.N.C.L.E. without it!
Well, I can imagine a keyboard without capslock, but what I’m imagining is something like a keyboard shortcut for the Shift key that turns on upper case letters. Like, hitting ctrl+shift once means upper case only (you’d need an indicator light, but we already have one for the capslock key, so let’s keep that), and hitting ctrl+shift again turns it off. Or, even better, what if ctrl+shift could ALSO shift any selected text between cases? Upper case, lower case, sentence case (=start every sentence with an upper case letter but don’t touch the others) and That Strange Case That Looks Like This? Wouldn’t that be AMAZING? YES IT WOULD
Jaden Smith Case Is A Necessity For Everyone
I found out, once I got a cat, that I have an F key that just turns off my internet? Who would want that??
I found out, once I got a roommate with a cat, that a wireless keyboard with an “off” switch is a great tool for when the cat decides you’re done with the internet for today.
My cat figured out how to turn on the screen-reader voice. I didn’t even know my computer had that until I was cooking dinner and my laptop started talking to me from the living room.
Aw man, I love Basic Instructions. I’m bummed it’s over.
Yes! I’ve been rereading as he reposts them, though, so it’s almost as good as still having new Basic Instructions every MWF. I can’t wait till the superheroes show up.
That depression article really nailed a lot of things for me. I’ve been feeling blue lately, but even worse, I’ve been kind of angry and disappointed with myself for feeling blue, which is …. unproductive. That said, I’m also coming at it with all my useful coping skills, but dang if there isn’t a tiny whisper of recrimination from the back of my mind about being sad in the first place. Ugh. But bitches gotta eat definitely made me laugh several times, and that feels like an achievement for today. And on Ms_M’s advice, I read Jamaica Kincaid’s “On Seeing England for the First Time”, and that also helped nudge me in the right direction, mood-wise. Although still sign me up for talking to a therapist in soft pants and trips to the nearest elote cart: whoops, trying to ignore that tiny jab of homesickness there. I guess I can sub in the honestly tasty as hell dumplings from the takeaway place down the block.
Toasts, I’m pretty bummed because I’m nearly eight months pregnant and everything huuuuurts. My hips hurt, my back hurts, my sleep is shot, my bed is somehow full of grit (?), none of the six pillows I currently have rafted around me are doing anything supportive, my burps are full of acid, and I am CRANKY.
And everyone says the first few months with the baby are really hard! Harder than this? I miss my active, funny, hopeful self.
I feel like crying.
I don’t want to like that because it feels weird liking a comment about being in pain, but I am empathetic to this.
I can’t speak from personal experience, but i am assured that it does get better after the baby is born, in many cases.
It really does?
or is this a myth they tell pregnant women, like labour is “intense” and we will glow, so that we don’t throw ourselves on the streetcar tracks?
My wife is definitely feeling much better. Her pregnancy carpal tunnel syndrome is gone (for the last month she couldn’t feel her right (?) hand at all), she sleeps through the night very soundly, she’s been able to go on hikes and go out places and everything. We have, I’m told, a comparatively easy baby, so that’s a big part of it, but yeah, apparently your body pretty much stitches itself back up once you squeeze the little monster out.
i’ve not had children but i’m assuming your feel better when no longer carrying another human around inside of your own body. i can’t even imagine.
hang in there! someone has to propagate the species and it ain’t gonna be me. thank you for all your hard work. i offer my heartiest and most heartfelt wishes that you feel better soon.
Like everyone’s said, it’s a different kind of hard, but I’m on the record as not loving the newborn stage, and I’d much rather have a newborn permanently than be in my last month of pregnancy permanently! There’s no reward to being pregnant and achy and sleepless all the time. A newborn is a complete trainwreck, but the hardness is interspersed with the love to such an extent that it’s impossible to even tease them out.
I had two children and I did feel better and it did get better after they were born. I had postpartum depression the first time, but was helped immediately by my super observant OBGYN. The second time I was ready for it but was pleasantly surprised to not have it at all.
YMMV of course, but my advice is be super nice to yourself, and ask for help if you feel even a twinge of the throw yourself on the railroad tracks feeling.
The first few months are hard in a different way, but I found that I preferred sleep-deprivation to late pregnancy pain. Don’t despair! One day you’ll wake up and your body will have forgotten how bad it felt to be pregnant and it will be both sad and wonderful.
Re bed grit: Am currently seven months pregnant. We have cats and sometimes little bits of litter get in between the sheets (gross I know) and IT ITCHES. I feel like the princess and the pea. Also, swollen ankles, carpal tunnel, achy hips, achy back, achy legs, peeing every ten minutes, and eating All The Things. This is not as fun as advertised. Solidarity.
SO ITCHY.
I am sorry. I remember quite a lot of hurting through most of my pregnancy – a good deal of that will go away as soon as you deliver! (Though my hands still hurt nearly two years later and no one knows why and I hate it, so.) Tiny babies are hard, it’s true – more from the constant-ness of their needs than anything else. But at least when you get to sleep, your sleep will likely be much sounder! Also someone else can hold the baby sometimes, as opposed to now, when you are literally the only one who can do anything for it. BUT! A couple months after baby is born, it really does get better. By spring things will be looking up for sure.
Oh, that’s awful. I have a 3.5 month old, so I still remember the aches of third trimester, albeit a bit blurrily (tbh, all of my memory is a bit blurry lately). The last bit is rough, I won’t lie. And everyone wants to keep talking about “you’re still pregnant??” and you’ll probably want to punch them.
So I won’t say the first few months with the baby are easier , but I will say that it’s a different kind of hard, and there are different kind of great parts. For example, yes, sleep will still be hard– BUT — you’ll get to lay on your back/stomach again! I was really excited about that. You’ll get to bend over and touch your toes (and see your toes) eventually. For me , the first 2 weeks postpartum were the roughest physically. I almost felt like my self again after about 3 weeks.
And you’ll get to laugh at the silly weird faces a newborn makes, and be hopeful at how he/she will grow and change in the first few months and be slightly more active as you recover . I hope this helps–and I hope you have a healthy trimester/delivery/baby.
I’m going to give you what might be unpopular advice, but speaking from experience, it will get harder before it gets easier. Imagine feeling the way you do now, but with a tiny person totally dependent on you who is screaming a lot of the time. There are wonderful moments, of course, but there’s a reason they call the first three months the “fourth trimester.” So my advice would be to live it up now. Take long baths. Watch stupid TV. Get a prenatal massage. Read books in the child-free solitude of your own home. Go way, way easy on yourself. Enjoy the ability to prioritize your own care. This may sound absurd or unhelpful, and your kids’ newborn-ness may indeed be totally great. I’m just trying to share what I wish someone had shared with me.
Seconding the “enjoy the ability to prioritize your own care.” It gets harder to prioritize that later.
The first few months are hard, yes, not gonna lie. But they’re also pretty amazing, in that you’ll have a smooshy baby to sniff and smooch on. That helps smooth over the hard parts. It gets better! Sometimes, with pregnancy hormones and new mom hormones, it gets better and then worse and then better again, all in the course of about an hour, but then one day the baby will smile at you for the first time, a real smile, with a tiny giggle, and you’ll pretty much black out with pure joy. It’s hard to imagine that right now, but hang on–it’s coming. You can do this!
It’s really amazing to wake up after your first post-labor nap and realize you are NO LONGER PREGNANT! You were sleeping comfortably on your back! Then reality kicks in that you have a newborn you have to take care of…. And yes, those first few weeks are pretty hard, but it’s really the longest shortest time. Hang in there… Hope you can find lots of little ways to treat yourself in the next month.
It’s OK to cry. That may help, actually. But I’m sorry you feel this way. I know a woman who described her late pregnancy misery much as you do. Then she felt sooo much better after the birth.
And fwiw, my bed is also full of grit lately, but I’m not pregnant. I can sleep after tossing and turning, then getting up to go sleep on the leather sofa. No-sheets seems to soothe my sensitive skin and nerves. And the back of the sofa feels supportive against my back or knees. Been sleeping soundly there.
I’m so sorry things are so hard. I’ve never been pregnant but I’ve had other encounters with the “I miss my active, funny, hopeful self” feeling and it sucks. Since I don’t see it mentioned yet, may I suggest checking in with a mental health care provider for a depression screening? Not that it sounds like you don’t have good reasons to feel down (!!), but it’s no less true that prenatal depression is a real thing (as is, you know, just regular depression). Mental health, pregnancy, and parenthood are all kind of the ultimate in YMMV, so it’s hard for anyone to say for certain how you’ll be affected going forward, but it strikes me that finding a provider now could really be a worthwhile effort–both because it’s not good for anyone for you to suffer untreated depression, if that’s what it is, and in case things don’t turn around on their own, way better to get someone in place before you’re also caring for a newborn. Plus honestly, sometimes even just knowing there’s a professional supervising the situation can go a really long way!
Take care–I really hope you’ll start feeling more like yourself again soon!
Seconding that prenatal depression is a real thing. And it can be really hard to get people to buy in and actually help you, but there are resources and hopefully your doctor can point you in a helpful direction if needed?
I am six months and have been putting off the self care stuff until I am off work in a few more weeks. Your anguish is reminding me that I should probably appreciate the stage I’m in now and go to yoga while I actually can get off the couch without assistance. (hang in there)
Cry if you want, sometimes it helps. Everyone’s right, it’s a different kind of hard after the baby is born, but SO MUCH depends on how your labor goes and what kind of baby you turn out to have. (which, for the record, seems to have NOTHING to do with what kind of kid they turn out to be) I’ve got friends that had ok labors and more or less friendly newborns and felt so much better, and I’ve got friends that had crappy labors and difficult newborns. Most of them were like mine, a mix; it’s a lottery really. But I totally get the ‘fed up with this crap’ feeling you’ve got and you have every right to feel it.
In the meantime I’m going to wish you what I wish everyone that’s pregnant: A very boring labor story, and a sleepy, content, newborn.
Loved the Hamilton interview, but one line made me sad: “This interview has been edited and condensed.” Noooooo!!! I want more!! I want all of it! I can never be satisfied . . .
LMM on his MacArthur Genius grant:
GQ: Please tell me that your family and close friends tease you about it now, though. Like, “Oh, the genius forgot to pick up the milk at the grocery store!”
Miranda: Well, what immediately happened was everyone started texting my wife, just being like, “Why is he the one who got the Genius grant? Everyone knows you’re the smarter one in the relationship!” [laughs]
Congratulations, LMM, you are doing things right and have A+ friends.
I’m a little scared to see Spotlight because it really hits home, but on the other hand it could be a tremendously healing experience. My dad is a rape survivor and journalist who did a lot of work to expose clergy sexual abuse in the Baltimore Jewish community (his story is told in the documentary, “Standing Silent”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeOomOnUQ94), and we want to see it together but are apprehensive it will be more triggering for him than cathartic. Have any Toastie abuse survivors/family-of seen it? Advice?
That’s a really tough one. The only thing I can think of to start is, if you see it in a theater, sit on the end of a row and mutually agree that at any point, either of you can leave, temporarily or permanently. Also, if you can find a movie spoiler, maybe knowing what happens might lessen some of the impact?
I don’t have experience that speaks directly to this one, but I do have experience in watching things I know will potentially trigger difficult responses for myself/others, so here are my general suggestions:
Maybe don’t see it in the theater. It’s BIG, it’s LOUD, it’s in public. Can’t pause. That makes it harder, more immersive. But sometimes you *want* to see something in the theater even though it’s hard, so think it through. Maybe go at an off time when it won’t be crowded, or you sit near an aisle instead of the center. Pick a theater with really comfy seats or that sells alcohol or pick a crappy theater that has smaller screens or whatever option sounds best.
Walk out if you need a minute. Just…. Just do it.
If possible, find a VERY detailed synopsis, scene by scene if possible. There are some pieces of film or TV that are at least slightly spoiled by this, but this one isn’t one of them. We all know the beginning, middle, and end of this story. Knowing what’s coming helps you prepare emotionally for the hardest bits. And it will also make you more comfortable to walk out if necessary, because you have a rough idea of exactly what you’re missing.
Self care before, self care after. Your dad might want something lovely to do AFTER that he gets to look forward to, or he might want to go home and have a glass of something really good, or he might want people to make sure he doesn’t have too many glasses of something he’d regret. But talk about it ahead of time, with the understanding that you’re going to want to be flexible about it, because his needs might change.
<3
This is really excellent advice.
What I can say is that there are no flashback scenes or portrayals of abuse shown on screen, which I appreciated. The film shows adult survivors talking about their experiences and how it affected their lives, and the filmmakers rightly concluded that that was all that was needed to drive home the awfulness of the abuse. No cowering children with a shot of a looming cassock approaching them or anything.
The focus of the film is really on this team of journalists, adult survivors who kept trying to draw attention to the abuse, and the power players in Boston (some clergy, but mostly non-clergy) who colluded to cover up the abuse and enabled it to continue.
As a journalist, I found it extremely accurate as to how these investigative pieces are actually done, and how journalists actually act, behave and dress. The central tension rests on getting enough proof, and nailing enough details so that the Church can’t weasel out or bury the story, knowing all the while that the longer the publication of the story is delayed, the more children are at risk.
I slightly trolled a nest of anti-Muslim sentiment on Facebook yesterday, and the elephant in the room is that these people who are falling for Trump-y rhetoric are dumb. I don’t typically go there in political disagreements, but these are your sentient-bucket-of-hair types.
It is very depressing that they’re being catered to.
Presidential elections have been aimed at dumb people for ages, political strategists know they’re not gonna rock any deep thinkers’ worlds with an ad or a puff piece on who ‘won’ a debate; but I feel like by the same token once you’ve decided you wanna make this guy your President there ain’t much anyone can say that’ll change your mind either:
I can’t decide if things have gotten worse with political discourse or if I’m just biased with a small sample size, having only been around for 30ish years. On the one hand, I’m reading “Alexander Hamilton” and the first elections in this country were basically shitshows. And it’s not like people were living in some sort of xenophobia-free paradise in the, say, 1920s. On the other hand, you read stuff like that New Yorker piece in the Link Roundup yesterday on the Freedom Caucus and the paranoid stuff they’re hearing from their base, and I do feel like the stupid (actual stupid, not just “people who disagree with me politically”) is getting more seats at the table lately.
eh maybe. The pageantry’s pretty silly now but I go back and read political literature from the 50s or 60s and the guys you’re talking about are all just wearing ties and calling themselves Birchers.
We’ve got a bipartisan imperative to shred the Constitution and put anyone funny-looking into camps in order to survive the greatest existential conflict in American history, some Pakistani hillbillies not liking us and being able to fundraise a couple plane tickets per decade; they had grand strategists who’d run the numbers and felt very good about our ability to win the upcoming nuclear sterilization of the Earth’s crust. We’ve always been a pack of lunatics winging it and it’s up to the history books to edit our blundering around yelling Hitler quotes into a bunch of intelligent and farsighted decisions made on the inevitable march towards a brighter tomorrow.
Yeah, I’m with you, with the caveat that I do think the current state of mass and social media rewards those who ramp things up in the most dramatic way possible (e.g. Trump). From the political science I’ve read and reported on, the political leadership is more polarized now compared to decades ago, and the public is starting to follow that pattern, which is disheartening.
We’re definitely a lot uglier than two decades ago, but as we go on I’m starting to see the current state of things as more the norm and two-decades-ago being a brief freak island of stability, rarely precedented and probably not to be repeated in our lifetimes.
This same thing has been confusing me and bumming me out a lot lately. Last night (also after reading the Freedom Caucus piece) I spent the longest time attempting to figure out how things have gotten so insane. For example, statements like “science can be trusted” and “racism is still a thing” shouldn’t be POLITICAL fucking statements, but saying both have become a way to label yourself a liberal. That’s insane to me. That is so insane to me. (A facebook friend also posted a #bluelivesmatter post today, so I’ve been particularly incensed the past 48 hours).
every time i hear news pundits trying to pin down the demographic that supports Trump, i can’t help but yell, “STUPID PEOPLE! only stupid people could support this dude. just saaaaaaaaay it: stupid. people.”.
Agreed. Really dumb. Their womans probably bare their children, too.
When I was in Romania 2 years ago, I discovered that The Mentalist had been translated as “Criminal Minds” while Criminal Minds was “In The Minds of Criminals.”
#justmotherlandthings
I dreamed last night that Nicole and Mallory were both at the Shopper’s World Barnes & Noble in Framingham and I was waiting in line trying to decide whether to introduce myself or not.
Also, isn’t being an aunt the greatest?
I honestly can’t understand how anybody could remain a part of the Catholic church after everything that happened with molesty priests. Like, even if you 100% believe all of the Catholic church’s teachings, the actual structure and hierarchy of the church was actually, actively evil and not all of the wrongdoers were removed or even punished. I don’t care how down with the kids Pope Francis is, that religious institution is fucked up and has done unforgivable things.
Is there some kind of Catholicism 2.0 that doesn’t recognize the church hierarchy? I’ve been out of the church for a long-ass time but I’ve got a whole extended family full of Catholics who are (with a few exceptions) lovely people who practice the legit “love thy neighbor” type of Catholicism rather than the “I hate everyone who’s different than me and I’m going to yell about it a lot” type and I just want better for them!
Speaking as a devout Catholic, who converted to Catholicism in 2005 with full knowledge that molesty priests were a thing, I’d like to say that there is far more good in the Church than bad. I also don’t believe that the worldwide structure is evil.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but I think that leaving the Church because of molesty priests and other “unforgivable things” (which is a problematic phrase because if there are things I deem unforgivable, who’s to say that I haven’t done things that God deems unforgivable?) would be like leaving your native country because your government has done terrible, fucked-up things. Germans/Nazis, for example. People certainly DO leave, but many more stay because they hope that things will get better, and the people involved in the molestations and cover-ups will be punished and removed from their roles in the Church. I think the operative word is hope.
I feel extremely comfortable saying that covering up child molestation and allowing it to continue so that the institution you belong to won’t be embarrassed/get in trouble is evil and unforgivable, but I guess that’s one of the reasons I can’t get down with Christianity.
I do get your analogy to an extent and I thought about the same comparison when writing my comment but at the end of the day unless the structure of the church itself (bishops, cardinals, popes, etc.) is extremely important to you I don’t really understand why you can’t practice the same faith without supporting an institution which has done so much harm and contains so many members who practice their faith in a way that flies completely in the face of Jesus’s actual teachings. It’s a lot simpler than moving to a different country, in my eyes.
I imagine that the majority of priests who molested children are going to end up in Hell, and rightfully so. The sticking point for me is that I believe forgiveness is possible for ANY evil, except for the ones I refuse to apologize for.
If a priest has molested 1, or 5, or 20, or 100 children, but one day comes to the full understanding of how much evil he’s done and is brokenhearted, truly repentant, and tries as hard as he can to make reparations/amends, and then he spends 50 billion years in Purgatory (I mean, there’s no such thing as time in the celestial realm, but), and then has to live in a hermit cave on the outskirts of Heaven for the rest of eternity… then I think I’d be okay with that. Because my God is infinitely loving and forgiving, and I definitely prefer Him that way.
But….what about those kids whose lives he ruined? What about them? Forgiveness doesn’t give them back their childhoods or take away their PTSD.
Of course it doesn’t! But I don’t have an answer beyond financial restitution and concrete steps taken to make sure abusive priests are removed forever from the ministry and put on sex offender lists until the end of time. The Church can’t correct the past, we can only try to make sure it never happens again.
And like I’ve said… somewhere in this giant thread… I know several men who entered the seminary and become priests, and things have changed a lot for the better. More invasive interviews and background checks (I remember being shocked by the questions my friends were asked, although not exactly what was asked), less sweeping under the rug, etc. I think the concept – at least in the U.S. – of boys starting seminary in middle school has been completely wiped out and you need at least a HS diploma/GED to enter the seminary, which hopefully means men are much more psychosexually evolved by the time they’re stuffed into the “no sex ever from here on out” rule.
I can’t change your mind and I won’t try. But I need to say how extremely distasteful it is that you are using what is essentially grade-school catechism reasoning (“Sister, if you murdered someone but repented in your heart, but a bus hit you crossing the street on the way to confession and you died, would you go to heaven? How long would you have to spend in purgatory?”) to justify your participation and support of an institution that knowingly facilitated raping children. Raping children. And you’re doing it as a convert to an audience that contains adults who grew up in that institution and left it. Not just because they know about the raped children, which you also know about, and choose to rationalize, as opposed to finding out after the fact your trust had been horrifically violated. But also because many of them had actual proximity to rapists in their parishes and schools for years, which you almost certainly have not–and decided no amount of rationalizing could possibly be enough to continue submitting to the hierarchy that wilfully allowed their parents, or children, or siblings, or classmates to be raped.
Please don’t reply if you’re going to tell me more about your faith. I already know the words. I know their cadence and their feel in my mouth and they’re sour, moreso because I can never un-know them.
I’m very, very glad you said this.
I won’t try to tell you more about my faith (you weren’t who I was replying to in this comment thread anyway), but I’m not rationalizing any of this. Obviously it’s horrific. Obviously it’s something I had to come to terms with, the idea that I was actively choosing a religion that had some truly terrible people in it. But if you’re asking me to stop believing in God and the Church He created and called me to, for the reason that there are some truly terrible people in it, please know that I find that incredibly distasteful. The whole world is full of terrible people who do terrible things, I’m not going to kill myself in protest. “You shouldn’t have joined the church because good people were leaving it when you joined so clearly it can’t be a good place if good people are leaving” is reasoning that’s just as simplistic as the catechism reasoning you disdain above.
Please don’t insult a group of 1.2 billion people because a small percentage of us are awful. There’s a much larger percentage of us that are trying to make things better.
Justifying something that’s not obviously 100% self-justifiable is literally what rationalizing is. Everyone does it.
I don’t really care whether you call it rationalization or coming to terms, though. I commented because I think it’s poor form to offer your thoughts on divine forgiveness for child rapists in defense of the secular structure that aids and abets them. Particularly when the article in the roundup and the original comment were about the structure and the ways it has contributed to human suffering. Particularly when all your experience with that structure is as an adult and by choice. And most particularly when almost every victim was enmeshed in that structure from birth. They had no choice, and they had no adult brain to comprehend or question what happened to them.
Your comment was a rediect that asked readers to take on faith that *your* faith was thought through and sincere. But that’s not the issue here. The issue is that the Church itself has neatly tied faith and structure so that to criticize one brings accusations of attacking the other. This is exactly the pattern your comments have followed–literally, catweazle was talking about supporting institutions that cause harm and your comment (that I replied to) is a complete digression into your belief in forgiveness for repentant rapist priests. It very neatly derails into the details of faith and implicitly why faith makes it okay to trust the institution, and away from documented institutional corruption and any discussion of why anyone else (nonbelievers) have reason to trust the institution. Two people said it better than I can below:
I understand that your faith is absolutely essential to your self, but it is not one ounce less than my faith in the right of all people to receive justice in the temporal sphere. There is not a single iota of difference between your belief that the Catholic Church is the avenue through which you will achieve eternal life, and my belief that it is not, that it is an institution dedicated to the worship of power and that it has used that power to cover up unspeakable crimes.
I find it’s often very hard to get a person who aligns with an organized religion to recognize that my beliefs are as valid and deserving of consideration and respect as theirs just because they’re not associated with any doctrine and I really take issue with that.
Do you understand why it might feel inappropriate to hear, “My beliefs say rapists get their comeuppance in the hereafter,” when the discussion is about harm being done in the here and now, and other participants don’t share your faith and have no reason whatsoever to accept faith-based justifications?
We have decided to shut this thread down, because it is getting quite unpleasant on all sides, so I will start manually deleting things that come in after this.
I had the tab with the reply box open for some time before I posted, and didn’t see your other notices till I refreshed the whole page. Sorry.
Quite all right! I assumed you hadn’t seen it.
“I don’t really understand why you can’t practice the same faith without supporting an institution which has done so much harm…”
I mean… part of it is that’s how being Catholic works – if you stop being in the Catholic Church, you’ve stopped being Catholic*, and that’s a big deal to a lot of people. Think of Catholicism as membership in a family more than as affirmation of a particular set of beliefs – sure, you could cut off contact and keep the theology, but that separation from “the family” is too painful for many.
(*ymmv, I know there are Catholic churches not in communion with Rome, etc.)
No. It is not problematic to call repeatedly raping children for years an unforgiveable thing. It is not problematic to call a gigantic, wealthy, international organization deliberately covering up thousands of rapes for decades, possibly centuries, an unforgiveable thing. It is not problematic to say that an organization that deliberately dumped child molesters into remote Alaskan villages and then turned a blind eye while they systematically raped every child in those villages, and that is even now doing the exact same thing in Latin America, is one that deserves to be torn down to its very foundations.
And as for the idea that people involved in the molestation and cover-up being removed…they made a man who had a personal hand in many of the cover-ups the pope. You can keep the hope. I want justice, for the people almost certainly being molested now, for the people still trying to live with the damage that the Catholic Church did to them, and for the thousands of victims who died without anyone ever hearing their story.
I completely get that, and I don’t disagree that what they did and are doing (and let’s face it, probably will continue to do in the future) is awful and reprehensible. Justice is mandatory.
But I don’t think justice can rightfully ask that a centuries-old religion that Jesus founded be completely dismantled. I think what we Catholics can do and should do is work as hard as we can to root out the people doing evil things (which includes covering up for people doing evil things – that is an act of evil in itself, obviously) and get rid of them – them, the fallible people who did unspeakable things. We can and should work as hard as we can to change the structures that allowed the molestations and cover-ups to happen.
I have observed these structures changing. Several of my dearest friends entered the seminary/priesthood – again, AFTER 2002 – and they have shared with me the very rigorous, sometimes painful interviews and background checks that dioceses are doing now to catch potential evil before these men ever get to work with anyone they could exploit. That is where my hope comes from. It’s not a blind hope, it’s not irrational, it’s seeing how the Church is growing and changing already and how I think it will continue to grow and change to make sure these acts of evil stop.
I think the question is whether the structure of the hierarchy is itself the religion that Jesus founded, or whether it’s simply a temporal reflection of that religion — though obviously this gets to the heart of many of the historical schisms in Christianity, it seems an implausible argument to me that the structural hierarchy itself is sanctified by the nature of its origin; that “founded by Jesus” is self-evidently not the same thing as “continually guided and sustained by Jesus” (or, if it isn’t self-evident, I suppose some serious questions need to be answered about Jesus’ priorities vis-a-vis sexual molestation of minors); is the Church the same thing as the Faith? Does it have to be?
These are all immaterial questions to me, since I don’t believe in God or the sanctity of Jesus; from my perspective, the church is necessarily a wholly secular organization that was also complicit in a global conspiracy to cover up the systemic rape of children; from that perspective, I’m sure you can see how it’s hard to credit any amount of good offsetting that.
But even set aside, even presuming that there is a supernatural truth that the teachings of the church provides access to, isn’t there a line between the church as doctrine, and the church as practice, and the church as physical institution?
This is exactly what I wanted to say but couldn’t put the words together in an intelligible way, thank you!
You don’t have to be so smug about your aggressive lack of belief. Liberal Catholics are not going to change the church if all they get from atheists is hatred.
You right, that’s true; I apologize for that, I’m not trying to be smug. I am actually trying to be more respectful than I came off there, if that is believable — my instinct is that we should just tear the whole thing down, and that it contributes nothing, but I don’t want to do that; I’d prefer to be respectful of it as a tradition if I can. But I don’t think that’s reasonable or fair for an institution that means as much to people as it does; I am just trying to make it clear that it is extraordinarily difficult in some circumstances.
But, again; you’re right about that, and I apologize.
FWIW I didn’t see anything hateful or smug about your comment and I hope that none of my comments have come across that way either. I have nothing but respect for other people’s beliefs so long as they don’t try to impose those beliefs on others or use them as an excuse to hate or oppress others (and I would hope others would respect my beliefs in the same way) but I don’t think it’s inherently hateful or unsympathetic to ask these questions about the foundations of the church.
Oh yes, sorry I was typing my response before I noticed that more responses had come in. I’d like to add that I have no investment in whether or how people continue to practice their faiths (so long as it doesn’t affect my reproductive rights and bubble of personal space); I’m just very interested in history and heresies, so I was just chiming in to mention that it’s a historically hotly contested issue, which there aren’t many issues in the history of human religion that haven’t been hotly contested. Everyone should do with that what they will. I’d also be happy to chat about how Epona got picked up and reimagined by the Romans, because I find that fascinating too. And I just went to an exhibit of artifacts from Roman Britain, so it’s fresh on my mind.
Wait, is Epona a historical/mythical/religious thing? Because I’ve only ever known Epona as a Zelda thing.
Yes!! I cannot speak to Zelda, because I poured those years of my life into Harvest Moon, Sonic, and Final Fantasy, but she’s a historical/mythical/religious thing! The Gallo-Roman goddess of horses! Any poking around you do on the topic will not disappoint. I’ll find some pictures! And try to chill out enough to stop using exclamation points.
Well, that would explain Epona the horse in Zelda.
I love how this stuff trickles through. Like everyone named Alfred, I just want to shake them and say, “Your name used to be ælf and ræd or elf counsel.” How flipping cool is that!1! But I don’t, because I want to make friends, not flummox people.
I would instantly be friends with anyone who told me cool etymological facts about my name, especially if it involved elves (but my name doesn’t, sadly)
Japanese RPGs of the 90s really liked taking an alamgam of other deities / mythology and making inserting them into the games (usually as something pretty significantly changed from the source, like Bahamut becoming a dragon in FF games).
My first reaction to this was, “Wait, Bahamut is a dragon. I mean, sure, there’s the “man with seven canaries” form he sometimes takes, but he’s primarily a dragon deity.” So then I went and looked it up and learned something new today. But if he was a dragon in FF, that’s probably more the fruit of Gygax and Arneson than the designers stealing from mythology.
And now I have learned something new (I never got into D&D really despite having all the right preconditions to like it). You are right that is probably where they got it from. But they also include things like Ifrit, Shiva, and others from various myths and religions.
That’s cool! FF for me is like D&D for you: I hit literally every checkbox on the way to “huge FF fan”, I just never made that leap.
Not to be pushy, but if you hit the FF checkboxes, but do not like the gameplay style, but do like turn-based tactical systems, then maybe FF: Tactics. Best game art of any game I’ve ever played. But also people are free to not like FF and not like D&D. This is not green eggs and ham here.
I don’t even remember at this point why I wasn’t crazy about the series; I played a bit of one game, in…2000? 2001? And it just wasn’t grabbing me the way I hoped, and then it had gotten so big and unwieldy that I just gave up on my hopes of grasping it. Same thing happened with MGS. I suspect a big part of it was that the PS2 was my first Sony system.
ETA: After going and doing some research, I think it was probably FFX in 2002.
FFTactics is my very favorite FF game, even though it isn’t a ‘traditional’ FF game. I have to replay it every couple of years.
I think I’d like D&D just never had the opportunity to play it really.
Yes, it is basically true that up until I got really interested and started studying on my own, everything I learned about religion and mythology was from video games. Case in point, Saiyuki: Journey West.
Well, I was going to post pictures, but I’ll let you have the joy of searching. I will share this gem from her wikipedia page: “On Mackinac Island, Michigan, Epona is celebrated each June with stable tours, a blessing of the animals and the Epona and Barkus Parade. Mackinac Island does not permit personal automobiles; the primary source of transportation remains the horse, so celebrating Epona has special significance on this island in the upper midwest.”
ETA: I just glossed right over it, because I kinda assumed that Barkus was meant to be Baccus, but it’s in fact the dog parade portion of the event! !
You may not be trying to be smug but your responses have, to me, shown a real lack of understanding of my faith. “it seems an implausible argument to me that the structural hierarchy itself is sanctified by the nature of its origin; that ‘founded by Jesus’ is self-evidently not the same thing as ‘continually guided and sustained by Jesus'” While that may seem implausible to you, that is literally the “argument” the Catholic Church makes, as the Pope sits on the throne of St. Peter. I scare quotes argument because this is not an abstract debate to me and to Catholic like me, this is my faith, my soul, my eternal life. If you can’t access that depth of meaning I am probably not going to be able to explain it to you over the internet but please respect it.
“even presuming that there is a supernatural truth that the teachings of the church provides access to…” Yes. That is the whole point?
Raping children is of course truly heinous and I condemn both those that did such awful things and those that hid those awful things. I believe they will be punished not only in this life but in the next. I will not make excuses for them or try and equivocate with other horrible things that have been perpetrated by other institutions.
However, though it may sound retrograde and foreign to you, asking me to put my immortal soul in danger by leaving/destroying the institution that has given me my faith is not a fair thing to ask. And I say this as a lesbian Catholic who has gone through long periods of frustration and non participation but always ends up at home in the church.
The questions you raise about the Church as a secular organization in this life are important and I am working as hard as I know how for reform but the calculus on what the church is worth is, for believers at least, so much more than we know in this life.
I understand, and please believe that I am trying to be respectful of your faith, and of the value of your immortal soul. I am actually fairly familiar with the history and theology of the Catholic Church — including the doctrine of Apostolic Succession — even though I don’t personally believe in it, and I similarly understand that beliefs are not, and do not need to be made, subject to review by outsiders.
But do you also see that from my perspective, it is extremely difficult to countenance the continued existence of an institution that has done outright evil things, and then taken steps to exempt itself from responsibility for those crimes, for the sake of souls I don’t believe in?
I understand that your faith is absolutely essential to your self, but it is not one ounce less than my faith in the right of all people to receive justice in the temporal sphere. There is not a single iota of difference between your belief that the Catholic Church is the avenue through which you will achieve eternal life, and my belief that it is not, that it is an institution dedicated to the worship of power and that it has used that power to cover up unspeakable crimes.
So, how is this to be resolved? The Catholic Church is not nothing; it’snot private, and it’s not irrelevant. Whatever else it is, it is also an enormously powerful secular institution that has mustered its not inconsiderable resources to affect my life and to compromise my belief in the human right to temporal justice.
But if your path to justice in this life puts my immortal soul in danger by threatening the Church itself how am I to reconcile that?
My suggestion was to find a way to delineate between the Church as a secular institution and the Church as a faith tradition, so that you can dismantle one while leaving the other intact, but if that’s unacceptable to you, then I don’t have an answer. I’m going to have a hard time compromising on the subject of child rape, though, so it may be that this is simply an irreconcilable difference.
I have written and re-written a response here maybe a dozen times, in order to more clearly state my thoughts without potentially crossing lines. I’m not entirely sure I can do so as well as I’d like to, but please know I have tried.
Your right to worship as you see fit is important and robust. But it doesn’t automatically trump my right to live in a world in which child rape is harshly punished.
If the Catholic Church has done evil things (even if only a small portion of people are ultimately responsible for them) for long enough that many see it as an impossibly flawed organization, that the only possible way to fix it is to tear it down, and then maybe rebuild from scratch—- Perhaps your argument ought not be with the people who have been deeply hurt by the organization and want to dismantle it. Perhaps we’re not the ones endangering your immortal soul.
Perhaps your argument should be with the Church hierarchy that did the evil things. Perhaps they’re the ones that, through their long history of bad behavior and poor choices are endangering your immortal soul by making it much easier than it should be to argue that the Catholic Church is not a force for good in the world.
I am calling a time out on this thread and its various splinter threads for the day, because I think people are starting to both feel and act defensive, and we’re starting to go in circles.
(for what it’s worth, when you reply to my comments, for some intensedebate reason i don’t understand, it does not email them to me, despite it doing so for everyone else with a commenting account. If others have the same experience, this will likely make this sort of moderation technique…. less effective for you.)
ETA- I think this is also true for Nikki, at least on one account, but not Mallory?
By the same token can you understand that as a humanist agnostic, the lives that have been destroyed and continue to be destroyed by the institution of the church are more of a concern to me than a church member’s anxieties about their immortal soul? (I really don’t mean that to seem as harsh as it does; I sincerely empathize with the struggle to reconcile faith with the misdeeds of the church (it’s just that I ultimately put aside my faith at the end of that struggle) and I don’t discount what it means to you on a personal level). It’s a hard and sensitive subject and as a side note I really appreciate that we’ve all been having this conversation very respectfully and I love all of you.
Well, for what it is worth, that does sound pretty harsh to minimize my concern for my own soul. Your calls to dismantle the institution that preserves my immortal soul (which is one of my highest concerns) and the souls of a billion others puts that soul in danger and so you can see why I bristle at these suggestions.
Justice must be done in this life and the Church reformed. I am active in that fight, others apparently don’t seem to think that fight is possible to win. Do you really think the only way to resolve the abuses is to end the Church? Where are we to go exactly? How will you ensure that these and other large institutions are not plagued by the same issues? Is it your impression that those abused by the clergy want the Catholic church dismantled? Because I have gotten a different impression (but, diverse urban area, US-based). I absolutely don’t want to minimize the lives destroyed or the enormity of the task of reform but I truly do not think that shutting the church down is a workable solution and I urge you to respect those of us who chose to stay.
Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I don’t respect you. I find it’s often very hard to get a person who aligns with an organized religion to recognize that my beliefs are as valid and deserving of consideration and respect as theirs just because they’re not associated with any doctrine and I really take issue with that.
I can’t identify with or understand being somebody who believes that if I don’t practice belief in God in a very specific, very structured way that my soul is doomed because even when I did believe in the Christian/Catholic God I always believed that entrance into heaven would be based on a person’s behavior on Earth (whether or not that’s what the church was actually trying to teach me is questionable). So you are correct that I cannot understand your concerns about your soul. But ultimately your soul and what happens with it are your business and not mine. If that means staying in the Catholic church and working to reform it from the inside then more power to you (and I really do value that there are people like you attempting to make these changes), but I don’t think it’s disrespectful to say that I don’t believe that’s the most effective way to deal with the issues of the church because I am coming from a place where human life on Earth is more important than concept of eternal life/heaven/hell/etc. We can disagree and still respect each other’s viewpoints (I hope).
Serious doctrinal question from a Jew – how is your immortal soul and those of Catholics tied up in the actual institutional entity of the Catholic Church itself? Like, if it’s affected or even dismantled, how would this harm your connection to Jesus and God on a soul-level?
Well the hierarchy of the institution of the Catholic church is technically infallible, Apostolic Succession and all that so a rejection of the institution is a rejection of doctrine and a rejection of Christ. I’m not a theologian and perhaps not explaining this clearly but the body of the church and the sacraments you undergo there are your connection to God. And sacraments given elsewhere aren’t the same (what’s up transubstantiation!). There is practice outside of the four walls of the sanctuary and good works necessary to get into heaven but without this particular Church there is no salvation. I’m also gay and who knows where my soul really stands anyway? I feel like I’m coming off pretty strident and even a little superior in these comments but there are a lot of gray areas and a lot of personal struggles. I can say though that I have tried to practice my religion outside the Church itself and without mass, communion, and reconciliation given by Catholic clergy it just doesn’t feel right to me. Thank God, literally, for the Dignity network and liberal parishes who don’t even blink when hearing my sins or giving me communion.
It’s about authority. Priests have the authority to administer sacraments, laymen do not. Just like a justice of the peace has the authority to marry and I do not. (I’m not Catholic, but we have a system of authority that I think is similar?)
From a historical perspective, this is one of the questions at the heart of the Protestant Reformation. The key concepts there would the question of salvation sola fide and that of original sin, which was also at the heart of a heresy in the 5th century, because Pelagius was said to have called into question the legitimacy of original sin, and thus the necessity of infant baptism, which sacrament is considered by the Church of the time to be crucial to salvation. Anyway, there’s a lot of complicated doctrinal issues there, that I wouldn’t want to do injustice by summarizing. The Edict of Worms (1521) though, I think answers the question of whether it would be possible to have salvation without the Catholic Church. In a nutshell, the answer they gave was no, but if you want the full argument, I am wayyy under-qualified to represent either side, as a(n interested) bystander.
It’s not so much that the pope is “technically infallible”, it’s that Catholics believe he’s infallible….. in a particular technical way.
He’s not considered infallible in his sort of normal day to day life– he can give you bad directions to the bathroom and mess up affect/effect and things like that without anyone having a crisis of faith. Usually, on issues he’s expected to be infallible on, at least these days, it’s REALLY clear. It’s practically rubber stamped with “BTW GUYS THIS IS INFALLIBLE POPE MODE”.
The infallibility of the Church as a whole is more complicated and stranger, but basically seems to mostly rely on pope-infallibility (but not entirely!). Even here, it’s still pretty narrow- that they’re infallible about the faith, not about everything.
Catholics do put more importance on the sacraments (ie the eucharist, confession, last rights) than other Christian groups. In theory, The pope might be able to issue something that significantly changes the structure of the organization, but maintains the sacraments themselves. I guess my theological question is whether there are any prior statements by the Pope or The Church, done in a way agreed upon to be infallible, that significantly limit the way in which the current Pope and The Church could reorganize things.
There are many people that would not be satisfied until every dollar in the Vatican coffers was given to charity, every physical building dismantled brick by brick, etc. And I don’t think it would feasible to provide for the continuation of Catholic sacraments without a Catholic church. But, for example, the Eucharist can be given outside of the physical church, so that could theoretically continue even if the pope declared that the physical churches had to all be remodeled to provide housing for the homeless, and were not to be used for services. (there would then be a problem about Holy Days of Obligation…..).
Some changes clearly can be made. Services used to have to be in Latin, and Vatican II changed that. I’m not sure it’s clear how far The Church itself could go to divest power from The Pope and/or the rest of the hierarchy, or make other significant changes.
I mean, the Pope is currently the absolute monarch of The Vatican. If that was abolished, and they were subject to the laws of some other country (perhaps, for convenience’s sake, Italy), that could significantly change how crimes were investigated and prosecuted. I’m not sure if it’s doctrinally important that the Catholic Church be headquartered in its own nation state. I honestly can’t imagine that it is– nation states as they currently exist didn’t exist two thousand years ago, so there’s got to be some religious flexibility there, at least. Right?
Liberal Catholics should change the Church, if they can, because it has done bad things and need changing. If their willingness to change the Church is reliant on deference from people outside the Church, they don’t actually have the will necessary to change it.
I would think liberal Catholics’ desire to change the Church would rest on their liberalism, not the opinions of atheists.
I didn’t see anything smug or aggressive either.
Liberal Catholics are already trying to change the Church. I’m an atheist, my mom is Catholic, and she’s more critical of the Vatican than I am.
Thank you. I kept drafting responses, but they weren’t right, or they were too personal, or too clobber-verse-y.
Also:
But even set aside, even presuming that there is a supernatural truth that the teachings of the church provides access to, isn’t there a line between the church as doctrine, and the church as practice, and the church as physical institution?
People have already said as much elsewhere, but no, not really. They’re an interlocking mechanism. I mean, cafeteria Catholics are a thing, certainly, but that’s more a result of living in places where the Church cannot exert direct control, rather than the Church voluntarily ceding that control. And even the cafeteria Catholics tend to stay culturally Catholic. Splitting away from the institution of Catholicism makes you not-Catholic. The markers of Catholicism for most people are the cultural markers; I doubt most Catholics could, off the top of their heads, name and explain three major theological differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, but they know what they are, and what they are not.
This is something I’m familiar with; I guess I was trying to phrase it in a way that was not too aggressive, but a more accurate interpretation might be shouldn’t there be a difference between the institution and the faith?
And I also know that it’s definitely true that a lot of people don’t make distinctions between the different kinds of markers that define Catholic, but — and this is me, an outsider who is not personally invested, though is still affected by the Church and its practitioners — maybe more introspection about those distinctions is called for. (The Catholic Church does, after all, have a long and storied history of splitting hairs when it needs to.)
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I agree, but I have a hard time seeing how the Church would ever get to that point.
I’m an athiest who is also way fascinated by historical heresics, mostly Pelagius, because I studied the writings of Augustine as a philosophy major and I haaaate that dude. But yeah, it’s a fine line between pointing out that the church and its official stances could’ve been very very different except for a few socio-political maneuvers and a lot of coincidence, especially in that politically powerful medieval period, and not being sufficiently respectful as an outsider to the religion now. So mostly I discuss it with other ex-philosophy folks, because we’re all used to being insufferable with one another. But it’s a fair point to say that it’s the word of the Catholic church that they’re the true bearers of the apostolic succession (or even that such a concept exists, cause that only goes back firmly to Augustine of Hippo by most accounts) and that they alone have claim to the true doctrine. Anyway, I’ll just be slinking back to my corner, because I know from having an ex-Catholic mother that this is a touchy subject. Just for the record though, I would love to discuss the questions you raised, but secretly, over beers hidden away in a cave somewhere, like real heretical conspirators.
Yeah and you know, I am not trying to be a gross dude about it, I don’t want to be a rabid anti-church guy or something like that, I want to be respectful of other people’s beliefs and traditions. I am on the side of anyone trying to apprehend the universe and trying to find the divine in everyday life, I am on the same team as everyone who is doing that. Except the Catholic Church — and to a lesser degree Christianity in general — is an immensely powerful institution, both today and throughout history, and it has had and continues to have a significant impact on my life and on the lives of my friends, despite my otherwise having nothing at all to do with it; it’s hard for me to accept the idea that the nature of the church, and what goes on in it, and what it does, is not, in a very real way, actually also my business.
I just thank my lucky stars I was born in this century, and not in say the 14th century because I would certainly have been swept up in the Inquisition because too many of my thoughts begin with, “Ya know, what if….” (not to mention the pogroms associated with the Inquisition, which also made it a pretty bleak time to live). Mostly I like the freedom to ponder a bunch of traditions, and express how I maybe could’ve been Okay with having domestic gods like Lares and Penates. Kitchen gods I can kinda dig, but not so much as to set up an actual shrine. I just like to ponder these things. So I guess that boils down to, it could be worse. But also, especially when it comes to the places where the Catholic Church exerts a lot of influence on public policy, abortion access in particular, it could be much much better. Still, I trust on the toast any mention of those things is preaching to the choir.
oh man I would not have survived any Inquisition.
Totally! I studied this stuff at university, and I’m sure I’d fumble the finer points of grace and predestination, if someone got out the thumbscrews and didn’t let me look at my notes. Which, now that I think of it, would’ve been a really fun twist on my final exams and I’m a bit disappointed in my professors for not having pulled that off. Someone would’ve complained on course evals, I guess.
As someone non-invested in this debate, there was nothing smug or aggressive in your words. I don’t meant to tell anyone “your feelings are wrong,” but of course we are all going to interpret and react to what may appear to be neutral statements differently, depending on our background and how we’ve had similar discussions before.
I appreciate your saying that, but I don’t think it hurts me to concede it; even if I don’t think I’m being smug or aggressive, it’s always worth it to take a close look at it and to give a little space if it turns out I’m stepping on someone’s feet.
One of the problems I have with the approach of “changing things from the inside” when it comes to the Catholic Church is that the Catholic Church is especially hierarchical. While some faith traditions give individual congregations a great deal of power, Catholicism does not.
Now, there are pros and cons with this– a non-Catholic church I went to as a small child chose to keep a convicted child molester as the head of children’s services, as the local governing body didn’t have the authority to interfere, although they wanted to. So lack of extreme hierarchy is not always a good thing. But it does mean that even if every single Catholic in the US believes that the Catholic Church is wrong about something, even if it’s process related rather than faith related (ie- parishes should get more say in which priests are assigned to them rather than issues of when life starts), they can ask and argue and try to convince…. but the next level up will always be able to say “nope”.
The very structure of the church is designed in a way that does not give power to the laity, that does not give power to women. So when lay women tell me they want to change things from the inside, I simply don’t like your chances (as much as I do value the motives).
Exactly. The only real “voice” a lay person has in the Church is choosing not to attend church (or donate money), which is already occurring for such a wide variety of reasons that even if say your parish priest knew exactly what happened to make you stop going, it’s not likely to create any change. Parish priests also have so little power over what goes on, even though they’re usually the ones most aware of what their parishioners feel and think. I do think the church hierarchy is slowly becoming aware of the fact that, for example, many Catholics don’t think condoms are morally wrong, but change is sloooooow. It will take a long time before anything like that influences the catechism, if it ever happens.
Yeah, I always have this issue. It was a sore point in discussions between my mother and I when we still talked about theology – she is a Catholic, a believer, she disagrees with many of the stances the Church has taken (I think, if the priesthood wasn’t gender-restricted, that she would have been a priest), but she still goes to weekly mass. It’s her community, where she has friends, and a place where she has stature, but it’s also a place that could at any time deny her that community because she is a divorced woman who did not receive an annulment and who continues to take Communion. She’s walking a knife edge for her faith because she thinks she can make changes and she’s not at all unique in that regard; I know hundreds of Catholic women who are devoted feminists trying to make a difference within the Church. Some are members of orders, some are just laity, some have been doing this for 60 years, some just started. But at the end of the day, the Church is still an absolute monarchy and if the man at the top says no, there’s nowhere to go.
I have a great deal of compassion for those women who were raised Catholic, who have wonderful experiences of getting a great deal from their religious community, and who feel like they have just as much (or, in some circumstances, MORE!) rights to assert their Catholicness as others. I can imagine that that must be very painful at times.
But it still seems pretty hopeless to me. Despite seeing many women I respect make the repeated decision to stay and fight for change in the organization, my experiences lead me to perceive what I hear from those women as very similar to the things I hear from women who return to abusive relationships with male partners.
If you’re comfortable with it, could you speak about how you reconcile being a feminist (I’m assuming) with the Catholic Church’s treatment of women? I was raised Catholic, then leaned towards atheism for a while. Now I would like to go back to Church (and I agree with your view of the Church’s molestation problems), but I can’t stomach the idea of rejoining an institution is so inherently (in my view) contemptuous of women.
I can try… although I should admit that I’m much newer to feminism than Catholicism, and I haven’t wrangled with a lot of it. I also deal with a TON of cognitive dissonance when trying to reconcile my political and religious beliefs, so please don’t think I think I’m an expert or even competent to speak for either side.
I have never felt that the Church is outright contemptuous of women – some of the practices are problematic, sure, but not actively contemptuous. I also think there’s a point to be made about what is uniquely Catholic and what can fall under the umbrella of Christianity or religion in general. Sexuality, for example, is something that’s tightly governed by a lot of different religions, so I don’t want to get into that here.
The criticism I view as most uniquely Catholic (although it certainly applies to a certain extent in other religions/sects) is that the priesthood excludes women. Without getting into deep theological arguments, the way I think about it is that I believe that Jesus set up His Church and its leadership structure in a specific way. There is a school of thought (which I subscribe to) that after His resurrection, He was even more divine than He had been before his crucifixion — where He was both God and man, but His access to His divinity was somewhat hampered by the part of Him that was human — so from that I infer that He was more fully Divine when He set up the priesthood. Women were very clearly important to Him, and a LOT of the problematic-to-women stuff that the Church is built on is attributed to Paul (and probably incorrectly, at that). But in His divinity, it seems that He chose not to install any women as members of the formal priesthood, and the Church can’t contradict or change what Jesus instituted.
Hopefully this makes some sense, and I’m definitely interested in thoughts, rebuttals, etc… like I said, I haven’t been a feminist for all that long, and my faith is more important to me than my feminism, but I want to hear all sides!
And as a Reformed tradition Christian, out of the sola scriptura tradition; I would say that scripture trumps church hierarchy; and scripture clearly shows Jesus AND Paul calling women into leadership.
I came from a Reformed tradition (the Dutch CRC that’s pretty common in western Michigan and the surrounding area), and part of my conversion process dealt with sola scriptura. Obviously as a Catholic I think scripture and tradition (not church hierarchy) are two equal pillars, so when we see Jesus creating the Church in scripture, it IS more of a male-priest thing. He certainly does engage the women in His life in ministry, but does not formally call them to priesthood like he does with Peter and the rest of the apostles.
And women basically RUN all the parishes I’ve ever been a part of – the priest is important and does technically have the final say if a situation were to come down to a final-say sort of scenario, but more often than not the parish manager is a woman and coordinates all the day-to-day. The priest comes in for the sacraments, like the British monarchy at their official functions, but it takes a whole host of people to run a parish and it’s frequent that most of those people are women 🙂
I’m sorry but that sounds very much like the “It may SEEM like men are in charge because they are in all the positions of power, but women have so much behind the scenes influence that they actually control everything” stuff people say when defending the patriarchy.
I mean, look, yes, the Catholic Church is a patriarchy. I can’t deny it. We don’t allow women to be priests. But – and I know I sound mean and dismissive when I say this – if someone’s personal convictions lead them to believe that they’re being called to be a priest, and they belong to a church where that is simply not possible (not “not allowed,” “not POSSIBLE”), it’s possible that they are being called to a different church. Or maybe God IS calling them to effect change within their own church, and God is changing the rules that He set down 2000 years ago, what do I know. He’s allowed to change His mind… but in my experience, He doesn’t do that very often. My point was just that women aren’t unimportant to the Church, they just can’t be called to be priests in my particular religion.
But how many things that were in the Bible have more to do with historical context than strict religious mandate? This part is a legitimate question because I don’t know the Bible in huge detail: is it that Jesus didn’t appoint any women as priests or did he actually say “BTW women can never be priests”? If the latter I guess that’s just another box to check in the “Why I will never go back to the Catholic church” list, but if the former why can’t priesthood be revisited as so many other things from the Bible have been as cultural changes have rendered things acceptable that were not in Jesus’s time?
We’re calling a time-out on these threads, so everyone can swap info if they want to continue it offline, but I think it is getting a little frayed in terms of civility.
And historically! From wikipedia, because I’m now well, well outside my wheelhouse: “Supporters of the admission of women to Christian priesthood have argued the existence of documented instances of ordained women in the Early Church, as deacons, priests or bishops.[68] In AD 494 Pope Gelasius I wrote a letter condemning female participation in the celebration of the Eucharist, a role he felt was reserved for men.” And you don’t have to write a letter condemning it, if it isn’t happening. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women#Christianity)
In my experience with Catholic feminists, by creating women’s networks within the Church. It’s almost always women who organize the St Francis Day Pet Blessing ceremony or the after-church donuts or the Feminist Bible Study circle. And it’s the women in the Church hierarchy itself who are doing the most for social justice: look at the NUNS ON THE MOTHERFUCKING BUS.
I didn’t see this comment before I responded to a different comment of yours below. The Nuns on the Bus are awesome, but I’m not over the 2012 Vatican smackdown of American nuns. My takeaway from that is that when nuns advocate positions that deviate from the teachings of the Church (pro-choice, pro birth control, women in the priesthood), or when they work on social justice issues to the extent that they don’t focus on the things the Church wants them to do (protesting abortion and same-sex marriage), they are reprimanded and put in their place by the Vatican power structure. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/15/177…
Pope Francis has stepped back some of this, but he has not done enough. http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/09/pope-franciss-rev…
I don’t want to take away from people for whom the amazing nuns in the Catholic Church counterbalance the Church’s patriarchal structure and refusal to recognize women as equal members. I think I understand this position–that they are chipping away at the institution from within.
But it isn’t enough for me–I can’t accept that women are sometimes permitted to be social justice foot soldiers, at the pleasure of the male hierarchy who can change their minds at any minute, but they are denied any significant leadership roles. Particularly when the men have fucked up so spectacularly.
Tl; dr. Short version: I’m still working this out in my head. Nuns are awesome, but the same patriarchal hierarchy that facilitated systemic pedophilia for decades still says that men know better than women.
They aren’t being permitted to do anything. They are pursuing social justice regardless of the Vatican and they’ve repeatedly chewed out the patriarchal structure of the Church. They’re not doing it in spite of their faith, but because of it, and theirs is the Catholicism I support.
Fuck the Catholic Church as an institution, sure, but Catholics have done a lot of good, and their parishes aren’t a monolith of genocidal patriarchy.
Most of the Catholics I know are not the type to suddenly switch religions, because they see it as an intrinsic part of their family/cultural history. I agree with you that it’s hard to conceptualize, but if you are a religious person who grew up as the Catholic church being an important part of your family and community life, and your priest was never accused, and you don’t know any victims, I can kind of understand why you would stay. I My parents are not 100% content with how the church is run, and both of them have gone through periods where they didn’t attend church, but at the end of the day they’re just not going to stop being Catholic, because it’s so tied in with their identity.
That’s how it is with my mom. She disagrees with like 90% of what the church does but I think at this point it would be too traumatic for her to leave (especially since religion was a huge part of why she never divorced my dad and instead let him basically ruin her life).
Not Catholic, but a member of one of the churches that ran residential schools in Canada.
I have never in my life felt such an overwhelming physical sense of shame as walking into the final Truth and Reconcilation gathering as part of my church group.
Would it be easier to walk away? Study the bible at home, in a sheltered ‘not my problem’ self directed way? Absolutely.
But it wouldn’t be faithful – not to God, not to the generations of indigenous people, families and communities whose lives we RUINED.
The Canadian TRC recommendations do not call for a dismantling of the churches. They call for listening, bearing witness, apologizing, changing our ways and learning to walk together. If I walk away from the church, I walk away from my responsibility.
I regret I have but one like to give for this comment.
I’m appreciating your comments up thread too.
Queer and Christian and feminist can be an uncomfortable place, and I’m unspeakably lucky to be in such a queer/feminist friendly church.
Although, TRC groups are not the be all and end all of justice processes. There’s a great book on the subject (Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation, and Revenge) that points out that they’re often better than nothing from the perspective of victims, but they are not always particularly justice bringing processes. Because TRCs don’t get to call for action, like dismantling the church or, in the case of South Africa, jail sentences for the self-admitted perpetrators of certain atrocities which many people wanted. TRCs don’t cary the weight of an actual court when it comes to sentencing. And because they hold an implicit promise of forgiveness, they can silence victims who are not satisfied with the storytelling as justice process. So they’re an imperfect instrument when the alternative is not acknowledging an atrocity at all. Walking together and making amends work for some people, but they don’t have the right to speak over people for whom that’s insufficient amends.
ETA: Not to argue that the church should or shouldn’t be dismantled. I don’t have a personal stake, except tax exemptions in the US, which drives me bonkers for all religious institutions no matter how sympathetic I am to them. Can’t resist a philosophical point on justice versus forgiveness, etc. etc. To be fair, the book also points that all mediation forms have a better psychological outcome than revenge, and that TCRs are often explicit attempts to break violence cycles and avoid certain revenge scenarios. So they’re certainly not bad! Just in complete, according to some ways of interpreting the socio-political outcomes.
You might enjoy the following article: https://www.uvic.ca/socialsciences/politicalscien…
which looks at TRCs as victim centred and carnivalesque – by their very nature not focused on perpetrators, but on giving space to the voices of victims.
And yet they can also silence victims, as you said, by the implied pressure to forgive, or the public, performative spectacle of witnessing and telling.
And no means of enforcing recommendations. So while we are getting a change in federal government and an inquiry in missing and murdered indigneous women; the issues raised in the TRC about the number of indigenous kids in foster care has not surfaced in public discourse or policy.
Fascinating! Thank you very much for sharing.
I want to turn this question around a bit and ask something a little different: given the following two options, which one results in a less abusive institution? Which one results in fewer kids getting raped?
(a) a small, but growing, group of people committed to changing the institution
(b) everyone who’s pissed off about the abuse leaving and removing their financial support
Without addressing the question of faith or belief, I think it’s probably (a). But that’s just my intuitive sense of the thing.
In the context of an organization where an internal group that is not part of the governing cabal has the ability to make substantive changes? Possibly (a). In the context of an absolute monarchy that is wholly sustained by a large population of people voluntarily giving them money? Almost certainly (b). Especially since the rapists only have access to the children they victimize because their parents are members of the Church. It is impossible to say that none of the children raped by priests would have been raped had they not been Catholic, but it is highly likely that the vast majority of them would not have been raped by a Catholic priest if they were not Catholic. Option (b) should more accurately read “everyone who’s pissed off about the abuse leaving, removing their financial support and shrinking the supply of potential victims”.
But I think that the % of people who will choose option a or b — let’s call them the “pissed off enough to make a change contingent” (POETMACC, rolls off the tongue nicely) is always going to be small. 15%? 20%? There is always going to be a pool of potential victims, because many people won’t leave due to sincere belief, family pressure, cultural affinity/identity, and/or sheer laziness.
To be clear, I am not Catholic, but my parents were, and they chose option (b). That’s their right, and there are other issues at play in any case, but I can’t help but think that my take-no-prisoners mother would make a hell of an advocate for kids (or adults) who suffered this kind of abuse.
But group b) is not necessarily exclusive of group a). People leave the church and make a commitment to changing the institution all the time. In fact, the most outspoken advocates for change I’ve met – so anecdotal handful of folks alert – have been ex-Catholics. If I went to church, I’m sure I’d meet more of the current Catholic/outspoken advocate folks, too. But just from a logical perspective, you can be both A and B in this scenario.
Ugh, I cannot resist a hypothetical, so I’d say that the reason a) failed (because I am assuming there were lots of individuals invested in preventing and stopping child abuse all through the history of the church) because priests were bounced from parish to parish, so that when concerned individuals did push back, they had no real chance of ending the abuse all together. Or they were places in rural or poor places where people who might have power to stop them had no access or awareness.
Not saying that b) would necessarily work, but there are kind of troubling reasons why a) didn’t.
I would be willing to bet (not my life, but like, I don’t know, my non-dominant hand?) that the phenomenon of a significant number of people who are actually really concerned with preventing and/or punishing child sexual abuse in any institution, not just the Catholic Church, is a fairly recent phenomenon.
The thing about Catholicism is that since it’s been around for 2,000 years and on just about every continent, there are many long and storied traditions of people identifying with the roots of the religion and throwing out the bits they don’t agree with.
Latin America loves La Virgen de Guadalupe because she’s one of the greatest symbols of Catholicism and she’s a Native, with brown skin and Aztec clothes. Feminists focus on the kickass nuns who’ve been doing their own pro-women thing for centuries. We queers have entire organizations devoted to making a space for ourselves. The Vatican is not the be-all, end-all of the Catholic Church, and it never has been.
That is not how I experience the Catholic Church. Those kickass feminist nuns are reprimanded and scolded by the Vatican hierarchy, and told to stop focusing so much on the good work they’re doing with the poor and spend more time evangelizing against abortion. Their feminism exists despite the Church, it isn’t sanctioned by it. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/us/vatican-repr…
Yes. That’s exactly my point. They believe in transubstantiation and the call to social justice. They live as they believe Jesus calls them to live. They are as committed to Catholicism as a person could be. And they are Catholic whether the Vatican wants them to be or not.
Catholicism isn’t just a bunch of problematic white guys in Rome telling you what you’re supposed to believe. It’s the call to social justice. It’s building a community with your own ethnic group. It’s finding amazing saints like Martin de Porres or Sergius and Bacchus. It’s believing in the sacraments and still wanting to extend them to gay people. The Vatican is misogynistic and homophobic as fuck, sure. There are anti-abortion Catholic groups and priests who rape kids, definitely. But if the good liberal Catholics leave the Church, not only are they leaving it to those oppressive bastards, they’re abandoning their religion because of them.
I think I understand your position better now, but I’m not sure I can accept it. In my mind, the Catholic Church is mainly a bunch of problematic white guys in Rome telling me what I’m supposed to believe. It’s also a call to social justice, too, but only within the confines laid out by the misogynistic and homophobic Vatican. As long as it’s the problematic white guys who call the shots, I don’t know if I can change how I think about it. Maybe if my faith were stronger, I would feel differently.
My very progressive Catholic high school is what got me interested in social justice. Every single student was required to volunteer at a soup kitchen, with Habitat for Humanity, at an underprivileged children’s daycare, and with the elderly. (Global warming was also taught as a fact and gay couples went to prom together. If that helps break down stereotypes as well.)
I guess the most popular show lists don’t include syndicated shows? because when I was in France it seemed like there were multiple channels that showed nothing but Friends dubbed in French, continuously. All day long. I can still do an impression of the Monica voice actress going “ooh Chand-lair”
I loved seeing The Simpsons in French so much, because I knew the dialogue so well (especially Summer of 4’2, which is one of my all-time favorites) to catch weird swaps. (In that one, Lisa’s new friend’s mom is English rather than French, so he knows where they can get some pudding for their beach party.)
And any musical numbers are still in English. So you get to spend most of the episode trying to do a combination of “remembering the dialogue” and “translating using your limited French skills”, and then suddenly it’s all magically comprehensible for a minute or two.
When I was there I watched Zorro dubbed in French and a very, very English show (Midsomer Murders) dubbed as Inspecteur Barnaby. The cognitive dissonance has never been paralleled.
I have a couple mugs that I got from Quick (the fast food chain) in Paris that have the Central Perk logo on them and were part of a Friends themed give away. There was one for each cast member, and they all had coffee-themed puns on each character’s name. The only one I can remember now was Monica Mochachino, and the internet has no idea what I’m am talking about or else I would link to them. So yeah, the French love Friends.
Mallory is too good for Dear Prudence.
Off-topic, but…..job hunting is so weird (I should know, I’ve been doing it since I graduated a year ago). Moved to a whole new state just to find a job that wasn’t “temp” or “service industry” (have not been successful in that), and then I get a call from my university, saying I’m being considered for that admissions job I applied to on a whim.
On the one hand, I reaaalllllyyy need a permanent job that will pay my rent and car insurance. On the other, this would mean leaving the awesome liberal city I’m in and returning to the same midwestern town my parents live in. Ugh.
Do you have any leads at all where you live? In my field, it’s pretty acceptable when you have a job offer to call other places that you have applications in and say, “Hey, I really love your work, but I have another job offer. Can you let me know soon in the positive or negative?”
I know that is not as acceptable other places, but sometimes if a company is dragging its feet it can get you to the top of the list, at least for consideration. Or they can realize that you are awesome and they don’t want to lose you.
That’s a good suggestion! I’ve been doing this for so long that I sometimes forget to think outside the box….thank you, I will give that a shot.
I’d feel the same. Leave an awesome liberal city? Noooo! To live in the Midwest? Noooo! Live near my parents? Double Noooo! (Your parents are not my parents; maybe yours don’t trigger self-harm.)
However, Liberal City is not going anywhere. It will still be there and will again welcome you in its warm, inclusive embrace a couple years from now.
For now, go where there’s a reliable income available to you, not to mention the safety net your parents might be. *If* you get that job. Enjoy being able to pay rent and car insurance. Focus your Midwestern job on adding impressive items to your resume and targeting excellent references. Use your downtime for remote job hunting in Liberal City.
I suspect IntenseDebate won’t let me embed an Instagram post – so please head over to Ariana DeBose’s Instagram page for a very imagination-stimulating photo of her sandwiched between Daveed Diggs and Leslie Odom Jr.
If anyone needs me I’ll be in my bunk.
Whew I cannot remember the last time I clicked a link so fast.
That photo. Well.
*fans self*
OH.MY.GOODNESS.
If I throw water on my computer, it probably won’t put out the fire of that pic, will it?
You are a hero for linking to this. Oh my.
Just in case you were worried, The Rock continues to be delightful: http://www.buzzfeed.com/juliegerstein/the-rock-ju…
I wasn’t even a The Rock superfan until I saw this (maybe it was already shared here on the toast, but it bears repeating): http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/34808185/th… Also, I want him to read me books on tape now.
He’s just a huge, ridiculously charming teddy bear, isn’t he?
He’s my last hope for an Unproblematic Fave.
Yeah, I’m probably not gonna start a convo with a Muslim woman on Metro, BUT a friendly smile and choosing to sit there to serve as a buffer in case some asshat tries to harass her is well within the realm of my abilities.
SO MAD (aka JEALOUS) that the Hamilton tour is starting in Chicago instead of here in Washington, DC, as would be right and proper (but tomorrow I’m gonna take selfies with statues of Lafayette and Hamilton)
Neither rain, sleet, snow or delayed train shall keep the Toasties from their appointed duties of being asshole buffers on the Metro
There’s nothing that turns American cities against each other so quickly as tour announcements.
My first instinct was to taunt DC and loudly proclaim Chicago’s superiority, but then I thought…but for the grace of LMM, that could be me, and so I stayed my hands.
Until now, I guess.
Hey, deleted commenter! SCIENCE: http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/11…
Yeah, I wish SCIENCE were an effective counter. Most of my extended family is like that commenter. They reject science. After all, any discipline based on just a theory, not to mention how godless and evil evolution is, deserves to be ignored. ::sigh::
It is supremely aggravating, especially when we are living in a society that has been made much easier in so many ways by scientific discovery. Also aggravating to me as a Christian and someone who subscribes to scientific research.
I love that Hamilton interview and I want to make some kind of intelligent and/or witty comment, but I am on so much cold medicine right now you guys. Why am I even at work.
The FB suggestions make me feel proud of 17 year old me who, after witnessing far too much judge-y side-eye, approached a couple of fellow Presidential Classroom Future World Leaders Summit attendees who happened to be wearing hijabs in Washington, DC six months after 9/11 to tell them I thought they were brave & commendable. I may still be bitter that bringing international young people together is supposed to be inclusive, dammit!
I like the idea of letting any minority currently under attack know that you see them and you don’t hate them, but couldn’t being explicit about it make some people nervous? Like, sure, as a white person I try to smile at and be extra friendly with black children when I encounter them – more so than white kids, anyway – but if I were a Muslim woman and a total stranger said something kind to me that explicitly acknowledged my faith (and ethnicity, as it applies) … maybe I would feel nervous that I’m being seen not only by people who wish me well, but also by people who wish me evil. Like I was sticking out and being noticeably Other at a time when being Other means a target could be on my back.
Maybe I’m overthinking it or looking at it wrong, but I feel like there’s a big difference between being explicitly kind to Muslim people I already know and see frequently, and being explicitly kind to a total stranger who I’ll probably never see again.
I wonder this same thing, but then I also think about how much my day changes for the better at an unexpected moment of kindness/camraderie, and I am torn.
So true! And I am a cynical grouch. When I moved to the American South at age 10, I thought it was extremely bizarre that, when my mom would drive me to my piano teacher’s home in a different neighborhood across town, all the people in that other neighborhood would wave at us through the windshield. Like, I’m a total stranger, why are you waving? Stop waving at me.
It’s weird, right? And what do I do? Wave back? That is EXHAUSTING.
Yes, this.
My SO is trans, and we live in the South, and we overwhelmingly never really have bad experiences, but it’s still the sort of thing that I never quite forget either. A lot of people are very, very kind, and I always appreciate that. Whether it’s motivated by an awareness that we’re NOT NORMATIVE or just general Southern politeness (it’s probably both to varying degrees) we always appreciate it and try to return in.
But once in a while, someone who is obviously trying to be very kind comes up to her and says, “Hi, I see you’re trans, I just want you to know that you’re beautiful/brave/wonderful etc. and I support you.” This is also a very nice thing to say, and she does appreciate it, but it can also set off a death spiral of “Everyone knows I’m trans, everyone sees I’m trans, I’m obvious and sticking out and everyone is just being too polite and Southern to say anything” and then I get to go talk her down from a panic in the car.
So, basically, I’m just seconding what I think your comment is saying, and I personally think that general kindness and pleasantness goes a really long way, and walking up to a stranger and saying “I see you’re a Muslim and I SUPPORT YOU” could easily come off very awkwardly.
That Wu-Tang article is both making my MORNING & leaving me weirdly sad at the end for Certified Human Garbage ™ Skreli?
He wants to own more of these one-off albums, for other artists to make them for him, but he hasn’t listened to it yet, (unless Taylor Swift wants to listen with him??) because he’s saving it for a day when he needs to lift his spirits. 🙁 🙁
….it likes a sad child with no friends who grew up & never learned how to interact with others, so the only thing he knows to do is to collect objects and somehow make people talk to him through money. (go volunteer at a soup kitchen! Do something selfless! It works better than selfishness!)
On a happier note: RZA saying their album is “like owning a scepter of an Egyptian king.”
LOOOOLLL
I’m not sure where I got this link originally, but if you are enjoying feeling weirdly conflicted about Skreli, this article may(?) make you feel better…
http://mic.com/articles/126321/heres-what-happene…
Can 100% confirm the French being obsessed with television crime procedurals. Memories of being with my in-laws for Christmas, and them happily watching Inspecteur Morse.
And yet nothing compares to their own wonderful series “Engrenages”, played in the UK with subtitles under the name “Spiral”. Laure Berthaud should be a Toast icon!
But Inspecteur Morse is not even in the same world as, like, CSI or Criminal Minds! Our crime procedurals are mostly crap compared to the British ones. And yes they have crappy ones too, but ours are so much worse UGH.
CHICAGO! V v exciting. Sam Irby’s piece made me want to start fundraising for her school idea immediately.
SO MUCH SpongeBob SquarePants (Bob Esponja) in Mexico. SO MUCH. It’s like the secular Virgin of Guadalupe.
For some weird reason I had this flash-thought of “well of course it’s popular in Mexico!” I’m not even sure why I think that- other than possibly there’s something about the SpongeBob & Patrick duo that fits into the Mexican clown duo tradition? Am I imagining something here? (Technically I am somewhat Mexican as in family in Mexico city but no-one in the US branch has talked to them since the ’70s so I’m comfortable saying that doesn’t count and I’m not Mexican.)
I had the same thought and couldn’t figure out why, but I actually think it’s because I’ve seen a lot of SpongeBob pinatas(sorry, I can’t find a tilde in here). Of course I also thought the PowerPuff Girls were big for this reason and all of those turned out to be Dora the Explorer, so you really can’t go by me.
That might be it! I know I’ve seen the piñatas (autocorrect gave me the tilda!) but really who knows where ideas come from.
I have never actually seen an episode of SpongeBob, but I’d be shocked if you weren’t at least partially on to something. In my experience the whole payaso thing has a much broader cultural appeal here than in the US, especially among adult audiences. I remember seeing El Chavo or El Chapulín for the first time and being surprised it was a grown up thing.
That being said, my fella, who actually grew up here, said a lot of the reason Bob Esponja and all but one or two of the shows on the list are kid oriented is because they’re on the open channel (public television) all day everyday.
His reason is less fun but way more likely.
But what about Bob’s cuadrado pantalones?? Bob’s esponjosidad is only 33% of Bob’s distinctive features!
I suspect his hallowed place in the local pantheon has rendered any further signifiers unnecessary, at least according to the Spanish-language theme song. Bob Esponja does not rest on formality nor does he require it of his adherents.
Sweden is SO SERIOUS. I want to visit twice as much now.
Men and Women ARE different. That’s my excuse for why my socks never make it into a hamper.
Ugh, sorry to keep whining (before I’ve even read anything!) but I just want to cry with frustration about trying to get the info from the college to submit my grades. I’m leaving the country tomorrow night, and I asked way back before I booked the flight if I’d be able to submit my grades before then, and now my e-mails and calls are just ignored and I’m so sick of this and just want to get it over with and stop thinking about it. (I gave out 3 incompletes I probably wouldn’t if I felt like I’d gotten more departmental support along the way and now I just can’t even anymore. I liked teaching, and I think I’d be a lot better, but it’s just made me feel so stressed and incompetent and off-balance to spend so much time trying to get help doing just this basic shit.)
My students seem happy, at least. A lot of them wanted to know if I was teaching next semester (apparently not).
thanks for letting me vent. Somehow this is going to work out, right?
/whine
editing as a actually read: That dog harness is so freaking adorable. I’m pretty solidly a Cat person, but sometimes I see something like that, and then think about trying to wrestle at least one cat into the stress-relief collar she LIKES once its on and I have a twinge. What a good dog she is.
eta2: A Chicago meetup with Nicole would be loverly! I’d also be thrilled to coordinate if anyone else needs a theater buddy (although for Hamilton I probably would ovary up and go solo if necessary. Better than dealing with my likely underwhelmed parents.)
Mallory at Dear Prudence is much nicer than me. That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing what the Bad Advisor might say to the aunt in letter 1 (although I agree with the commenter it’s definitely worth checking if the nephew actually WANTS to spend that much time with his cousins.)
When you get to the other country, will you have internet? Could you submit the grades online? Otherwise I’m inclined to say you did your best already and should just give imcompletes, peace out and enjoy your winter break and deal with the fallout if it exists later. Maybe email the students and give them a heads up that they will be getting a real grade, but that you are waiting for info from others that you need before you can give the grades so they won’t freak out.
I think after another six phone calls, I have FINALLY got what I needed to submit grades, but thank you for the reply!
(I am a Chicago Toastie! I would love to buy two seats next to each other and silently mouth ALL OF THE LYRICS with you!)
all this might be easier if i could punch shit, but i’m not a punch shit person. i’m a sit in the dark in the bathroom with a package of sharp cheddar cheese slices person.
Same, although it’s usually something like pepperoni slices, and even if I feel better soon, I’m usually tasting them up to 24 hours later.
That academic job ad piece is just proof that everything is converging into the singularity that is The Toast.
Oh man, I feel like in the New Yorker article basically ALL those jobs are at Reed tho.
Good(ish) news from my FB feed this a.m.: The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified the Trump campaign as a hate group. I hope this is true, because it’s definitely accurate.
Belated question for librarian toasties: Is Pippi Longstocking considered middle grade fiction or a chapter book or something else entirely? My brief time in the library and long stretch in bookstores never clarified that one blobby section into something I understood (though I’m reviewing more MG than YA these days and it’s my new favorite thing).
Probably middle grade or even earlier, depending on the reader–I think I was reading the stories in third or fourth, although I was a bit of a precocious reader.
Sounds about right, thanks!
I don’t think the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified it as a hate group though they have released several press releases condemning Trump’s statements.
Ugh, further research reveals that you are correct. It’s on a site that I think does not understand humor, or journalism, or anything. There’s a change.org petition asking them to do this, though, so maybe soon.
There’s talk of Trump being barred from entry to the United Kingdom for being a hate preacher, similar to imams who call for jihad against the West.
Speaking of cheese, Japan has invented chocolate that comes in cheese-like slices. Uh-oh.
WHAT
Oh man, that is amazing. I have an acquaintance in Japan and I’m going to have to bother her until she finds these and tries them for me.
I’m into it
I saw that little kid outside Hamilton one afternoon when I was waiting to see if I won the lottery. He was tap dancing down 46th Street singing the da-da-da-da-dahhh part from “You’ll Be Back.”
“Sittin there useless as toothpicks!” 😀
Dear Toasties,
I was recently screened for cervical cancer during a Gyno exam (Pap smear) and my insurance is charging me a deductible for it – this seems suspect, yes? Isn’t the ACA supposed to make cancer screenings no charge? To make make matters worse, it was positive so needless to say I don’t want to deal with them right now.
Oh my God, I’m so sorry you got that news. I can’t speak for the ACA details, though yes, it certainly seems suspect. I really hope you can get someone to help you figure it out and fight that nonsense, and good luck with everything going forward. 🙁
Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh Hamilton in Chicago and possibly HAMILTON IN CHICAGO WITH NICOLE oh gosh oh gosh. I’m kind of hyperventilating.
Obviously I would love to attend the Hamilton-adjacent meet-up of The Toast, and am so excited for September! The first thing my boss said to me this morning was, “did you see that Hamilton is coming to Chicago!?” I haven’t listened to it yet because I want to experience it live first, and because I have a vain hope I’ll get to see the original cast as my first Hamilton experience (this will obvi not happen, because I think winning the Hamilton lottery in NYC, assuming I even get myself to NYC, has odds about as good as winning the actual lottery at this point).
So Hamilton in Chicago is GREAT news and I will TAKE IT! Also, Nicole, we’ve never met, but you are terrific and you have introduced me to so many amazing things (Brooklyn Nine Nine, the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Lawyers for Reproductive Justice, seeing the rich tapestry of life and owning myself and the things that I like as part of that tapestry) that I really hope I get to say hello and thank you in real life.
Thank you all so much for the youtube yoga suggestions, I did some yesterday and today and it is wonderful. I’m going to make it a priority to do it every day. Also, I got a job offer????????????? And I had to tell them I’d get back to them bc I have an interview in an hour and a half for a more interesting, in a different state, and better paying job that I want more (didn’t say that last part out loud).
Also thank you for all of the needle/ob gyn visit advice, I actually feel super ready to own that appointment tomorrow.
CONGRATS on the job offer! That’s so empowering and an awesome thing to happen to you right now. Good luck with the next one too!
I’m so glad the yoga helped and we are grossing our fingers so hard for you right now.
You rock! Doing yoga, letting employers know they have competition for your amazing self. Do you give lessons? I want to be more like you.
Well, since you brought up that particular question from Dear Prudence, I’m going to take this as an opportunity to say thank you to Mallory for taking the question and thank you for responding to it thoughtfully. I can’t bring myself to jump into the Slate comment riptide, though I was heartened to see that the large majority of commenters/responders were going, “Seriously, lady? WTF?” to the original letter writer.
This last weekend, I took my almost-three-year old to his two cousins’ joint birthday party. The party itself was okay? He mostly ran around and had a blast and ignored kids, they ignored him back (benignly), adults were polite and kind to him, only one small meltdown. And then we went back to their house, and all was well and good until it came to my attention that they were starting to deliberately exclude him and being pretty mean to him. Already. (They’re about his age.) So, after the major cry-out I had on the way home, I talked with their mom and we’re working on coming up with some strategies to try to explain things to my nephews and help everyone enjoy themselves at family get togethers and such. (My SIL adores my son, she is nothing in the world like that letter writer.)
So, anyhow, point is I’m in a pretty raw place with regards to that whole issue, and just really appreciated the logical response of separating the two issues and then gently smacking that woman down with regards to her overall attitude. Not going to lie, part of me was bracing myself for (even though I should’ve known better) a response like, “Well, I’m all for inclusion but since his behaviors are so obviously out of control you have every right to let your kids out of accommodating him in any way.” It was my Christmas advice column miracle.
I’ve been thinking about how that situation could be handled. I don’t think you can just tell the kids “well, Cousin A is here, so you just have to have quiet fun for a few hours.” That seems like it could lead to a lot of resentment of Cousin A for “spoiling the fun” and, unfortunately, ultimately to mistreatment of him. I think you would have to sit down with the children and explain (in an age-appropriate way) *why* Cousin A can’t handle loud noise, etc., how to recognize when Cousin A’s getting upset, and offer some alternative fun things for them to do together with him. That, hopefully, turns the experience into a positive lesson about inclusion generally and also about loyalty to family.
I do think Cousin A’s mom needs to take a hard look at her own understanding of Cousin A’s capabilities, though. A lamp into an TV is a pretty destructive meltdown. It may be that (a) Cousin A doesn’t actually want to BE at the party or (b) Cousin A genuinely can’t handle even a moderately festive party with other kids, and that the mom is making Cousin A go to fit into some idea of what the holiday “should be.” Sometimes you have to let the “should be”s go. Maybe Cousin A would be grateful not to go at all. Maybe he can really only stand an hour, not the full party. Maybe he needs to sit with the grown-ups for PART of the time so the other kids can do some of the stuff they prefer for PART of the time. (Remember, this may be the only time the other kids see each other, too.) Maybe the mom (or the dad! where is he?) needs to be more present with the kids while they’re playing together to make sure Cousin A isn’t reaching his limits. A parent insisting “that her autistic son be involved in *all* activities with his cousins” when lamps are being thrown into TVs as a result sounds like someone who is refusing to handle reality. That doesn’t help anybody.
Maybe the mom (or the dad! where is he?)
Dead. Divorced. Divorced and remarried. Serving abroad in the Armed Forces. Attending the bedside of his terminally ill parent/sibling/childhood best friend. Long gone from the sperm bank, never to look back. Does it matter? The mother is the one who is dealing directly with the situation; where the kid’s father is shouldn’t really be relevant.
Ok but in defense of the Assistant Professor of Caucasian Slam Poetry, nobody actually knows how to use its vs. it’s.
I keep a post-it on my computer to remind me. And I write for a living. A friend made the original post-it for me after reviewing one of my school assignments (for my English degree) years ago.
Don’t keep this precious knowledge to yourself!
Seriously, as someone else who kind of writes for a living (academic) I have consulted multiple grammar resources for advice on this topic and none of them is satisfying. Another issue with this is that lots of people think that they know it (again, academics) but they all interpret the rules differently so even if you are doing it right someone will think that you’re doing it wrong.
The Oatmeal’s grammar posts are quite good, even if the “10 Words You Need To Stop Misspelling” should really be titled “10 Homophones You Need To Stop Screwing Up.” But he does incude it’s/its.
I’m pretty sure I would never, ever start a conversation on public transportation. (And yet, still, somehow I usually end up talking to someone? Always on the bus, and never on the train. Are people on the bus chattier than people on the el?) But I *do* occasionally chat politely with people in grocery stores.
The other day, I put down the dividing bar behind my items on the check-out conveyor belt so that the guy behind me could set down his stuff. And I think the important thing is that I looked him in the eye briefly and smiled when I did it, in a gesture of “hi, I see that you are also a fellow human, and I can do this small thing to help you.” He smiled back and said “thanks”, and I didn’t think anything more of it. Well, twenty minutes later, when I’m about to start crossing the big street to walk home, he comes running up behind me and says “Hey, I wanted to ask you a question back in the store.” I’ll be honest, my first thought was calculating how to put distance between us if his question turned out to be gross. But no! He was new to the city and wanted to know which direction to take the bus to get to a particular intersection. And I was able to tell him!
And so I’m really glad that I did the first nice thing so that he was comfortable enough to ask me for help on a second thing. It made my day.
But seriously, why do people on the bus talk more than people on the train??
Late again but does anyone remember seeing linked (maybe in a roundup and maybe in comments, I can’t remember) an article about the Essure procedure being a terrible failure and that doctors were changing women’s survey answers? I can’t find anything using the search function, but I’m on my phone, and my patience with the tiny internet is limited. Help?
I love that in the Hamilton photoshoot Daveed and Lin are in cute cozy winterwear and JGroff is just in a tank top. Like, “I have to wear this big damn fur cape all show, the least you can do is appreciate my buff upper arms.”
Toasties I’m kind of uncomfortable with making fun of the deleted commenter for not having perfect English. I don’t want people who are uncomfortable with their language skills to not comment here at the Toast- whether it’s because of learning disabilities, ESL or whatever.
Okay. Off my chest.
You have a good heart. My spouse is severely learning disabled. So much, that his mother was told he’d never even learn to read. She was counseled to put him in an institution for the mentally incompetent. (This was in the early 1960s.) But she knew he was super smart. Today my spouse has a PhD and is a respected scientist.
But. My spouse says there is seldom an excuse for mistakes like those of the deleted commenter *when on a computer or smart phone*. The available tools are easily and quickly used if you make a habit of it. He feels everyone with language processing trouble should have those habits after they’ve used technology for more than a year.
But. You’re right. We can’t know what’s in the way of this commenter. And it’s better not to judge.
I agree, speaking as a person who can’t spell. But this is The Toast and I guess I feel we’re trying to be our best selves here.
And aw shucks thanks for saying that – I blushed!
I’m not Muslim, but I spent a lot of time saying “Asalamu aleikum” to people in the Middle East to their general bafflement, so I would be uncomfortable saying it on a bus to a stranger.
I took Arabic for all of college, and this was the first greeting we learned. When I studied abroad in the Levant, in the beginning I would cheerfully greet everyone with “asalamu aleikum”, which a weird proportion of the time was responded to with a puzzled expression and “are you muslim?” as a follow up. And I would say “no” and they’d give me the “weird foreigner” look. No one ever seemed offended, I just got the distinct impression this is a culturally Muslim greeting and my using it as a non-Muslim was weird. The Arabic-speaking Christians I knew all just used “marhaba” – the equivalent of “hi”, or “sabah al-noor” – “good morning” (or whatever time of day it is).
Of course, maybe it was something else entirely – the danger of learning a language from context is you sometimes deduce the rules incorrectly, they could have just generally thought I was a weirdo. And it may be responded to totally differently here in the context of the U.S., but when I try to google the topic I find a bunch of Muslim forums debating whether you have to respond to non-Muslims you use it as a greeting, which makes me feel like it probably is an inappropriate thing to say if you are not Muslim. I’d love anyone else’s insight though!
i almost regret posting a huge quote from that interview but i have to because Daveed! and also MY TRUEST BAE, CHRISTOPHER JACKSON! and also ownership of history!!!!!
Diggs: The first time I did a workshop of it, Chris Jackson was playing George Washington, and it changed everything the first time I heard him sing as George Washington. Because he was so clearly George Washington. So all of a sudden, this guy that I know really well, we’ve been freestyling together for years, and, I know his family, I know his kids, I know his wife—this is George Washington! A regular person who looks like people who I know, who has many successes and many failures and is not a perfect human being but is a great, great man. All of a sudden I have a real connection to this Founding Father who’s been the dude on the money for so long. Or, like, you know, some shit about a cherry tree. Having this living, breathing, real, passionate, and supremely virtuosic human being be the stand-in for what that person is in my brain—and that’s forever now. Any time I think about George Washington, it’s Chris Jackson. And if something similar to that is happening for people who come see the show, the effect really is profound, because that gives me a type of ownership over the history of this country that I didn’t have before.
AHHH
(also chris jackson is perfect and will never disappoint me not even once. CINCINNATUS)
I was reminded of this Junot Diaz quote about representation:
“You guys know about vampires?” Diaz asked. “You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist? And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might seem themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.”
It’s so important, and it’s still rare, although it’s better now than before, and it does seem to be improving. But yeah, I loved that Diggs quote, and I love the idea that Hamilton creates a place for people to see themselves in history where they maybe never saw themselves before.
YES oh my gosh. I love that Diaz quote
(and relatedly, I often think about Diaz’ famous “motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they think we’re taking over” quote in relation to In the Heights.)
Hahahaha I had never thought about that but it’s perfect.
I recently watched the episode of Great Performances that was about In The Heights, and I was a little shocked how young and new to the business Chris Jackson was. I’d internalized his Washingtonian authority more than I realized.
I also knew Chris via In the Heights, so when his casting was announced half of me said “Oh yay, Lin’s friend is in the play!” while the other half said, “…are we sure Benny can pull off Washington?” How wrong that latter voice was.
SAME! I originally thought “oh, Chris would be better for Jefferson, he can have that sort of swaggy, pompous vibe.” How wrong indeed.
OT rant (just need to get it off my chest):
When I was riding my bike to work today, a van passed me literally six inches from my shoulder. All I could do was flip off the driver as they drove away. I sort of enjoyed the purifying flame of my white-hot, uncomplicated rage at the time, but now that the adrenaline has worn off I just feel kind of cold and maudlin. And I haven’t found a chance to complain about it to anyone at work. So. Fuck dangerous drivers.
PSA: Everyone please pay attention while driving and give cyclists at least 3 feet of room when passing, just as you would another car!
This may be just a problem with my browser at work (IE), but every time I try to open the Aunt Acid article, my internet freezes. Posting here in case it’s a widespread problem.
My dog likes to steal my spot and all my pillows AND the blanket when we’re watching The Mindy Project: https://twitter.com/mk_patter/status/674425513218…
This is way late. I just have to post this somewhere on here because I can’t wait for Friday open thread anymore.
Last Saturday, I witnessed egregious racist actions. It was so shocking I had to take a night to process it. I also cried a little, because I was that upset.
The next day I went to the person it happened to and asked them if they had planned on doing something about it because I sure was. And I did. I’m glad I did. I would like to see this racist person gone.
I want to write everything that happened, but I can’t. At least right now. I might just write a real article/essay. Or I might not
I can say that no one was physically hurt although it was absolutely inappropriate touch. It would have been inappropriate if he’d done it to anyone he wasn’t close friends with.
I’m always late to the Open Threads, too, so I wanted you to know that others of us are out hear reading this. You’re awesome for so many reasons! I think it’s totally reasonable to take time to process something awful before deciding how to react to it. I think we all have this fantasy in our heads of always knowing exactly what we’d do, and then being able to do it, in those situations. But I think the reality is that most of us would be unsure and need some processing time.
I think it was awesome that you sought out the person it happened to, talked to them about it, let them know you were also horrified, and that you were going to turn that horror into action. And extra awesome that you did something about it!
Thank you. I was scared and I still am a little, but I am glad I did it.
I am going to suggest a shortcut I typically use to make other people safe and let them know I am here to back them up!
It sounds stupid, but, all I typically do is catch their attention (politely!) and compliment their clothes. It doesn’t have to be anything particular – if I don’t know the name of the clothing object, I will say “I love that color!” or “That is a great pattern!” and I always try to use really neutral body language when I do it. Standing a respectable distance away, not pointing (gesturing with your hand is okay, but never point and never use any rapid movements, it’s just anxiety-inducing), and smiling specifically in the way you would if you saw a fluffy puppy, and meet their eyes.
I know this sounds rudimentary or whatever, but it has been *incredibly* helpful to me – I’ve made friends, and even rescued some people out of really uncomfortable situations with it. It works with everyone – men, women, nonbinary folk, children, and so on. It’s a good way to establish a superficial relationship that they can latch onto if they feel afraid.
Guys, the theater where Hamilton will be in Chicago is AROUND THE CORNER from where I work. It is on the same block. I AM SO EXCITED I CAN’T STAND IT!!!
A hearty hear-hear from another Catholic North Carolinian!
Thank you. I was scared and I still am a little, but I am glad I did it.
I found one of the points in the video to be a little reductive – about 1 min in, there's an inference that objection to the hijab is based around it's rejection of capitalist exploitation of women; which seems to be a mirrored view of the patronising 'Muslim women don't know enough to know they're being oppressed!' – people who dislike what the hijab represents don't know enough to know they're being similiarly oppressed by a sexist market-driven culture!
But it was definitely food for thought.