Yesterday, people discovered something that shook them to their core: Justin Bieber is a self-involved idiot.

The reactions range from “I loved him so much and how could he turn out to be a jerk!” to “He is just a little child who, at 19, cannot be expected to have an ounce of grey matter.”

Want to know why there are so many immature people around? Because immaturity is expected and celebrated:

A 19-year-old kid who’s had little opportunity to do anything with his time but be a pop sensation for the last five years doesn’t have a chance.

Oh, poor little baby! He didn’t have enough chances and opportunities! And now he tripped and has a bobo! Let’s all feel massively sorry for the child.

I remember how shocked I was when a 6-feet-something burly student said to me something like, “I talked to the other kids and they told me. . .” I had to ask who the “kids” were because I honestly didn’t understand he was referring to his classmates.

At 19, I was a married woman, making a living in a very harsh economy of the post-Soviet bandit wars. I would have never thought of myself as “a kid.”

Did you see yourself as a kid at 19?

A bizarre sex scandal at the University of Georgia.

I’m making mushroom risotto today, so this paean to risotto was very timely.

How teaching gender studies has changed in 20 years.

Why is it that some people are so happy to ridicule rape victims if the rapists and the rape don’t conform to some sick fantasy they have in their mind of what “a real rape should be like”?

Let’s head over to Leah Jane’s blog and support this brave and talented person in her struggle with personal tragedy.

If you don’t take care of your psychological health, the major hormonal transformation that will start at about 40-45 in men and 45-52 in women will feel like a tsunami. When we are teenagers, we have no idea how to prepare for the hormonal upheaval. But if we don’t prepare by the age of 45, it’s just pure laziness.

I’m not going to read this report on the future of online feminism but I leave the link here for those who are interested.

Americans are lousy conversationalists: “They believe that we use words to get others to do things, to exchange important information, and so on.  Also, there is the unfortunate habit of some American men to believe that their sitting there saying nothing is a treat for others. Or they set up a joke that you have to hear to the end and then must laugh at, whether or not you think it’s funny.  All too often, women pitch their voices in funny registers and fail to make eye contact, or can’t quite decide on what mode they are in: flirtatious, serious, down to earth, etc. etc.” This problem definitely exists, although not on my blog, obviously.

Please, Paul Ryan, just keep doing exactly what you are doing. It’s working phenomenally well for us: “He challenged the view that Republicans should soften their approach in order to attract centrist or female voters, who favored President Obama by more than 10 points in November. “Our critics say we should abandon our pro-life beliefs. But that would only demoralize our voters,” Ryan said. “It’s an odd strategy, I think: the cynical ploy followed by the thumping defeat.” Ryan opposes abortion rights, except when the woman’s life is in danger.”

Read about the hysteria that unleashes against victims of rape and ask yourself what kind of culture produces it.

And here is a horrifying post from a mother of a 2-year-old who is already having fantasies of him raping somebody at a party 20 years from now. This happens a lot more often that you might want to imagine. I have read and heard so many of these outbursts from mothers who believe that there is a vicious animal hiding inside their sons. If this is the reflection of yourself that you see in your own mother’s eyes, how easy do you think it is to disappoint Mommy and not rape anybody? It is just horrifying that such parents then inflict their deeply traumatized off-spring onto the rest of us.

Really interesting facts about marriage equality.

Oh God, oh God, oh God! The little turtles are back! An ocean of cuteness is again with us.

A window into the academic world.

Courtesy of reader Adrian comes a great article on eating disorders titled “Does Too Much Exposure to Thin Models Cause Eating Disorders?”

This perpetuates the idea that looking at skinny models for too long leads to an eating disorder. It doesn’t. Okay, no one has said it explicitly, but nearly every article mentions ED-related deaths, and the impact on young impressionable girls. Images of  thin models may perpetuate the  drive for thinness in those already struggling with an eating disorder, but it certainly doesn’t cause an eating disorder.

Hallelujah. Finally, we are moving to a more intelligent understanding of eating disorders than the traditional “the evil media caused this.”

Eating disorders are a lot more complicated than such simplistic interpretations allow for. In my own case, for example, the conjunction of a historic trauma of mass starvation that impacted the attitude towards food of everybody around me + feelings of hunger I experienced as an infant + the early childhood experience of being force-fed resulted in an eating disorder. At the same time, I have the healthiest body image of anybody I know and wouldn’t register the weight of models even if you spent all day every day showing them to me.

So do you, folks, buy organic food or do you believe it is nothing but a marketing ploy on par with “fat-free” and “100% natural?” As for me, I’m undecided on the subject. The organic section of our grocery store (which used to be very tiny) has grown to about 1/4 of the entire produce section. This must mean that people are seeing something in this whole organic deal. So what’s your approach?

On the photo, you can see the only peas in the world that are worth eating. For some reason, they are called English peas here, although they are a staple in Ukraine. These peas are almost never sold in the Midwest, so I’m ecstatic to have found them. The difference between them and all other peas is that you are not supposed to eat the pod (and whose weird invention is that, anyway?). In these good peas, when you open the pod, there are actual peas, sweet, juicy, plump peas, inside. Whenever I chance to buy them, I always plan to use them for my vegetable soup. That never happens, though, because I eat them all long before the water for the soup boils.

Did you know that the average age of a person in the Fox News audience is 65? And in the CNN audience it is 59?

This is why my students didn’t even understand my question when I asked whether they watched news on TV. I shouldn’t have been surprised given that I don’t watch news (or anything else, for that matter) on TV either.

TV news reporting is dead. And that’s very good news.

There is this really famous journal in my field which is known for sending back very mean and nasty rejections within a couple of days of an article’s submission.

I never wanted to submit anything to them because I didn’t want to deal with the trauma (again). However, my emotional range is very depleted by the pregnancy, and I barely feel anything on any subject. So now might be the best time to submit a paper to this place. Besides, a swift nasty rejection is a lot better than a nasty rejection that you have to wait for during an entire year.

See how I’m trying to talk myself into submitting my article there?

The Last Psychiatrist is losing his analytical skills:

I didn’t see Zero Dark Thirty, but from the hype I’ve gathered that the only two things I need to know are that it may or may not justify torture; and that it’s made by a woman and has a strong female lead. . .

Only a movie made by a woman could get away with asking (neutrally, of course) if torture is necessary; only a strong female character can get away with supervising it, because the assumption is she doesn’t enjoy it, she’s doing what she has to do, her lack of privileged status in the world is precisely what gives her the privilege to use torture when needed. . . That’s the point: the only way to get people to accept torture in real life is through the backdoor of showing a woman did it first.

The Last Psychiatrist must have slept through all of the seasons of 24 where a very unfeminine Jack Bauer justified torture in every episode. Viewers accepted torture years ago, and it was definitely a man who did it first.

Dear Spanish speakers, when you write, do you still use sólo / solo, or are you now following the new dispensation of the RAE that it should be solo in all cases?

I’m writing an article and I don’t want to look like an ignoramus if I use solo instead of sólo. But neither do I want to look like I’m not in touch with RAE’s innovations.

A child of the 70s, the idea of women covering their heads, now heavily associated with Islam, doesn’t seem that alien to me.

OK, this is both unfair and misinformed. This practice is only “heavily associated” with Islam in the minds of Islamophobes. The fundamentalist varieties of several religions require women to cover their heads. Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Christians do that, for instance. Crowds of Muslims don’t cover their heads while crowds of Jews and Christians do. Hasidic Jews actually have women shave their heads completely when they get married. But somehow I don’t hear anybody denounce this barbaric practice as a woman-hating abomination that it is.

I might be wrong but I do think that Sikhs also require that women cover their heads (as well as men).

This is SO not a specifically Muslim practice.

 

. . . dying to meet his new favorite patient.