“If middle-class women ever thought they’d lose access to legal abortions entirely, the game would be over, and the Fetus People would find themselves swiftly and eternally cast into political purgatory. What was done to Komen was just a preview.” From this blogger’s keyboard and to God’s blogroll.
Is the Tea Party dead? A very good post by a young journalist who, undoubtedly, has a brilliant journalistic future ahead of her. Oh, I love reading blogs by brilliant young people. It gives me so much hope.
A very insightful post on the uses of the words “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.”
I really love it when people rant about how the entire concept of student evaluations of teaching is wrong. It always makes me want to say, “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah. You’d change your tune pretty fast if only you were a good teacher who knew how to get the students to love you.” Clarissa’s Rule of Teaching: If most students say you suck, you probably really do. If anything, students are too kind on evaluations.
If we are to be bombarded by inane studies of “working mothers”, where are the equivalent studies of working fathers? Or is a woman who has a career and children some kind of a rare phenomenon akin to a pink elephant? I especially loved the following part of the post: “I imagine child care would be more interesting, and easier, if it were shared among a group of sisters, cousins, mothers, and aunts who lived and worked together.” As you can see, men don’t even make an appearance. All of these women must have come into existence and procreated by osmosis. Bleh, and this is the kind of rubbish that gets published in Inside Higher Ed.
And this is an assignment I would have totally failed if I had a prof silly enough to give it to me. Discuss your most salient identity label? Like I’m supposed to have one? Sheesh.
Shopping in Canada sucks. And don’t we, the Canadians, know it all too well. I love Canada but this blogger is right. When my sister came into an American mall and discovered what a huge selection of very reasonably priced baby clothes there was she started exclaiming, “What?!?” and continued to do so until her voice turned into a croak.
“Lynda Laughlin of the US Census Bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch is explaining why is it that the Census Bureau assumes mothers to be the “designated parent” in a two-parent household, and why further it considers a father providing childcare while mother is at work/school to be a “child care arrangement” but a mother providing childcare while father is at work/school to be designated parenting.” Yes, mothers are parents and fathers are easy-to-substitute dime-a-dozen care providers. Still wondering why the baby’s father isn’t taking equal care of the baby? Because the government is telling him he is not even a parent, that’s why.
“SB 1467, newly introduced in the Arizona State Senate, would force schools and universities to suspend, fine, and ultimately fire any teacher or professor who “engage[d] in speech or conduct that would violate the standards adopted by the federal communications commission concerning obscenity, indecency and profanity if that speech or conduct were broadcast on television or radio.”” Mind you, not publicspeech or conduct. Any speech or conduct. Got it? So mind your language when you slip in the bathtub because your neighbors might hear and there goes your job. As Angus Johnston points out, “If this law passes, it will be illegal for any “person who provides classroom instruction” in the state of Arizona to have sex. Or pee. Ever.”
“In the new Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Evita, Che Guevara will be played by no other than Ricky Martin!!! When I read the news yesterday, I couldn’t stop laughing. An openly gay singer playing the most commercialized Latin American icon of the past 50 years. Ricky Martin playing America’s favorite macho revolutionary.” Spanish prof finds this casting choice fascinating. I find it plain weird. What do you think?
How the field of mathematics in the US was impacted by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
An inventive response to academic rejection.
A stolen Taras Shevchenko statue returned after 10 years. My Ukrainian heart rejoices.
A beautiful post on marriage equality.
Should Plan B pills be available in vending machines?
A beautiful post on the American Constitution versus the Canadian Charter. I want to print out this post, give it to my students and tell them, ‘The young woman who wrote this is a physicists. And you, folks, are in the Humanities. So how come you can’t write nearly as well as she does, eh? Eh?” It makes me very happy to see young people write well.
If you have trouble concentrating on your work, here is a list of great suggestions.
Nominatissima’s response to my beauty products post. This post is a lot better than mine, so I highly recommend.
Clarissa's Blog 
“He’s not ADHD; he doesn’t have Asperger’s. He’s just used to a lot of attention.”
Wow, stay classy, Prof.
And thanks for the linking! Today’s post is talking about body health and beauty, and tomorrow will deal with hair care. 🙂
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Ahh thanks for the link Clarissa! I didn’t realize that you lived in Canada for a while. Shopping in the US will always be better! But I guess it prevents me from spending all of my money while I’m here!
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By any chance, were you at the Mayfair mall for that story? That’s where I went yesterday with my girlfriend and friends to go shopping, and it sounds very similar. 🙂
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Nominatissima: hahhaha yes I was!!
Clarissa: I haven’t been out there yet, but I heard Montreal is amazing!
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I’m Canadian and my family lives in Montreal and Halifax. 🙂
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A few words in honor of recently deceased Wislawa Szymborska, including poems’ excerpts to let you judge her style for yourself + 2 English songs, based on her poems
Are Women People?
– The Hairpin discovers “A BOOK OF RHYMES FOR SUFFRAGE TIMES.” (free download from Project Gutenberg)
An example:
Love, Joy, Feminism begins the discussion on Dealing with Death as an Atheist and links to others trying to answer the same question
In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated).
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My comment with many links got stuck. Can you release it, please? (And delete this one).
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Thanks for linking to me! 🙂
I am also spending time imagining the super adventures my dogs must have when I am away at work. This time, they’re getting a job. (Just one job between the two of them; they are dogs, after all.)
And reviewed a scene from Tamora Pierce’s latest novel Mastiff — Mastiff Dressing for Dinner. (For folks who dislike spoilers, there are no major ones in my post.)
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Thanks for the shout out. I’m still mad at Intense Debate for hiding away my previous comments on that post…
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“Want to Understand Republicans? First Understand Evolution”
Hahaha Clarissa you are hilarious! Now you are promoting evolutionary psychology!
And you are definitely not thick-skinned. I have never seen anyone get so upset and fly off the handle and verbally abusive people who disagree with her to such an extent before.
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What a weird reaction to a link I posted at a reader’s request.
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Thanks for linking my posts, Clarissa! You made my day with such wonderful compliments. 🙂
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Ricky Martin is a guilty pleasure of mine, too. He has the charisma, I don’t know if he has the macho swagger. But I’d happily go to see him in Evita.
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My partner refuses to call me his girlfriend. He says it sounds like we’re 15, and he’s right. It took me a long time to get used to calling him my partner (I tend to call his my husband, even though we’re not married), but I definitely dislike the girl/boy crap. And it does sound silly once you move into adulthood.
And holy crap I hate Canadian shopping. No selection – at all – and if you get anything shipped from the US it’s $20-60 in shipping, plus custom fees. So uncool.
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My salient identity label is “ape”.
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Thanks for the link! I just came back from watching Viggo Mortensen as Freud (who knew Freud was sexy?), and Keira Kneitley as a rich Russian Jew (awful). Now that is weird casting.
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When when when will the movie finally come to my area????
Was it good? Besides the Kiera Knightley whom I cannot stand.
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I am not sure… I’m still thinking about it. On one side, the dialogues seem contrived because we’ve heard over and over the psychoanalytic theories they discuss, on the other you realize how fucking revolutionary that was 100 years ago (and even today, in the US). Jung comes off as a wimpy asshole, and you (or at least I) was rooting for Freud the whole time, even though he is supposed to be the authoritarian, control freak Master figure.
Now I want to know more about Kneightley’s character, a fascinating woman from what I can gather.
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This is the closest from St Louis I could find where it’s playing: Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema, MO.
Don’t know how close or far away from your town it is.
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Oh, thank you so much!!!
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You must read pinching pennies just hurts your poor pennies by The Garden Grenade
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Ha, Clarissa, I know you love reading TheLastPsychiatrist and you know he’d shit on on that conservative-liberal study.
Here’s a similar study he wrote about: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2008/09/either_conservatives_are_cowar.html
Like he says, the purpose of these studies is not to advance human knowledge, but for some random columnist to be able to say ‘there are studies that show …’.
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I tend to concur that there are problems with the study, although I wouldn’t have said straight away that it was the arbitrariness of the interpretation the researchers provide.
I think liberalism and conservatism are culturally conditioned. Fear responses are also culturally conditioned.
I think the danger in essentialising identity is that one plays into the hands of those who would assert that identity is not socially conditioned. This is an extremely illiberal position.
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“Salient identity label” jesus christ.
“Okay, kids, time to pick one sociopolitically relevant term that you could apply to yourself and then tell me why that is your first and most important characteristic as a human being.”
“Here’s an essay about how I love my grandpa.”
“BZZT! Sorry. You did not tell me how you or your grandfather is black and gay. Without knowing that you or he is black and/or gay and why, how am I supposed to relate to your heartwarming story? F+, try again, prize-winning essayist.”
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When I was in college, I had a full year mandatory course, which should have been an honors writing symposium. Instead, the professor lectured every single period on the industrial revolution, how china planted aids in chocolate to kill off black people, and how he was a big star in his home country. The entire class got together and agreed to be very clear about these problems in our evaluations. The next year, he got tenure and was teaching that class again. It turned out most of the class gave him raving reviews because they thought he was a nice guy and felt bad because he’d been ill part of the year. it’s really hard to get students to review a professor poorly!
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