The new head of civil rights at the Education Department signaled a significant policy shift that explicitly defines Jews as not only a religion but also an ethnic origin. This is really really great.

I stopped reading after the first paragraph because spats between bored rich students at Rutgers are of no interest to me but I’m very happy for this move. The idea that one is somehow less Jewish because one doesn’t practice Judaism is hurtful and wrong.

The article is very poorly written so I don’t even know why I linked to it.

Mike writes:

I love it when I’m struggling with some complex script and my partner comes over and punches it up and makes it work right in about 30 seconds. Shit, that saved me a load of time.

This is very rare. My husband is like this but it’s so rare. I had an unhappy personal life until I met him because it’s very rare. Men get insecure, pouty, and begin to sabotage. And nothing is easier than sabotaging somebody you live with. Of course, it’s all mostly unconscious. More intelligent folks don’t want to recognize that they are threatened by their partner’s success. So they hide it from themselves.

With me it’s especially complicated. You have to take many things on faith. I don’t make much money. But I need tons of time to myself that I spend in what looks like loitering around: reading, thinking, staring at the wall. I also need money for books, for conferences when the university denies funding, for travel. But I need it to be accepted as an article of faith that what I do is valuable. If you are an academic, you know that it’s impossible to live with somebody who doesn’t believe your research is very valuable.

It takes accepting that I’m valuable in my own right and not because of the uses I can be put to as a prop for the perennially wounded male ego.