I was down for the count this week with a nasty little respiratory virus, so just a handful of non-current-events links for you today. No list next week. It will return in 2014. Happy holidays to all of you!
"The final measure of any mental disorder is usually the degree to which a person’s ability to handle everyday life—to hold down a job, keep a house and put their pants on the right way round—is affected. There are a great many reasons, right now, why it’s harder to do all those things and more, and not all of them can be explained away by chemical imbalance." Laurie Penny at The New Inquiry.
"Maybe right now you can respond, 'Who cares?' But raise your sons with the same entitled attitude, and in twenty years, in an awful lot of industries, they’ll be the ones shut out. That world is dying." Great essay by Jen Dziura at Medium called "When 'Life Hacking' Is Really White Privilege."
"As I’ve pointed out, people of my ethnicity have existed forever. So. What are we waiting for? When does it get better? Why do I have to wait? Why can’t you go faster?" Jessie-Lane Metz on "Things I Won't Do To Make Your Space Less Racist." At The Toast.
"I began with the pantry, which housed (among many, many other things) four ancient, half-eaten fruitcakes and about a thousand dead ants. The cabinets beneath the stove yielded a rusty colander, a dented Little House on the Prairie lunchbox, and, inside that, a Peanuts thermos without a lid." Also at Medium, Maud Newton on her worst Christmas, which makes me suddenly overcome with anti-nostalgia for the Christmases I spent cleaning out my mother's refrigerator.
"But if those behaviors are coping mechanisms, autistic people might engage in them not because of maltreatment, but because ordinary experience is overwhelming or even traumatic." Maia Szalavitz on Henry and Kamila Markrams' research into autism. At Matter, on Medium.
"Yes, I am tired of rape stories. I think rape stories are boring. I am sick of rape stories on CNN and sicker of rape stories on Jezebel. I would like instead to see national, televised debates and full episodes of morning radio shows and several long-form podcasts and a portion of the next State of the Union address dedicated to determining whether men should be allowed to keep their dicks." A thoughtful, angry, and honest piece from Sarah Nicole Prickett at Medium.
"How sorry I would be, if I were sure that you had been offended by the behavior and actions and also words that have transpired of late. But is it better to give an apology where none is needed, or to refrain from taking positive action in the lack of justifiable belief? Surely we must refrain from taking unnecessary action, lest we descend into anarchy and chaos." Finally, my candidate for Best Reason Not To Give Up on The Internets in 2013, Mallory Ortberg. At The Toast.
