To be fair ballet critics are jerks. If you've ever read the NY Ballet academy book of exercises one (male, white, dancer) was told his knees were too low. The issue isn't the criticism but it's impact on you being hired. Edited to add: this is why all ballet performers should audition in full morph suits.

I'm black and I grew up in NYC and my neighbors passed a petition so my family didn't move in (this is in the 80s). A friend of mine grew up in a suburb of boston and the teacher's openly assumed (HS years so 90s) that one of her black classmates was a bussed in student. A lot of people's attitudes are connected to…

You're wrong.

I grew up with a girl whose dad had one leg shorter than the other because of polio. He grew up in China though when polio vaccines were less common.

Sharing a bed isn't from limited square footage. A lot of cultures think it's good for small children's development and sense of safety to bed share. I didn't start having nightmares as a kid until I slept alone.

Exactly!

I feel like part of it is that back in the day it was way more socially acceptable for kids to share rooms (beds even!) and the expectation was that you lived outside - even in winter.

My point isn't that you don't deserve paid vacation - you do; hell I get paid vacation. But that said travel is a luxury especially international travel. The degree to which travel has been normalized is insane and based on cheap (even now) fuel prices, and I'm saying that with the caveat that I don't know where you…

$9 dollars an hour for a family of three assuming a single parental earner, working 40 hours a week with no paid time off (like assuming they work all 52 weeks in a year) is below the federal poverty line of $19,790. The only way a family of four gets above the poverty line is if you assuming the household has two…

Sorry no. When you factor in childhood mortality, improved maternal health, and gender equality (most $9/hour household are women held) we fail. Also the US does have a stunting problem. This is old but the facts on the ground haven't changed and by some measures have gotten worse: http://futureofchildren.org/futureo…

I grew up in a 1200 sf HOUSE. My parents managed to raise three normal enough children (though only two overlapped in age). My neighbor raised 6 kids in a house that size, in NYC. And since I grew up in Queens in one of the best school districts in the city, the houses cost less than 1.2 million. We paid 100k for our…

The majority of New Yorkers don't live in Manhattan. Also fun fact, Staten Island is the borough with the highest median income and the highest rate of home ownership. Sometimes fucking pretense makes you better off. That said you couldn't pay me to live in Staten Island but that's cause I'm from Queens.

Do you think Kayak's fare alert is better than airfarewatchdog?

I don't make a lot of money, and I pay a buttload in student loans every month (more than I pay in rent). That said I make *enough* money that if I'm careful I can pay all of my bills, save, and travel. I have a retirement account. I also pick up side work to travel, and I carve out stories from it so I can deduct the…

If you went to an "elite" institution college clubs fit that bill. Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Harvard, and Penn all have their club like within two blocks of each other in manhattan.

We're not discussing expenses. We're discussing basic needs. While what counts as a basic need is arguable, it is completely possible for 400k households even in new york city to meet their needs. Or, to channel gandhi we have enough to meet our needs not enough to meet our greeds.

So much is in preparation too. Americans will try almost any animal if you grind it and make it into a burger.

You realize you're shitting on a staple food of the majority of the world's population. Combining China, Japan, India, much of East Asia, Central and huge swathes of Latin America and the Caribbean you're on the wrong side of this conversation. Even the Italians eat rice. Putting aside that your statements clearly…

don't go to a greek restaurant then. some of the nicer ones if they sense you are america will ask if you want it cut up for you, otherwise the default with most greek (and traditional chinese) restaurants is to serve the fish hole and intact. I grew up with whole fish, and while I sometimes buy fillets for…

throw on some freshly ground black pepper and grated parmesan and it goes well with red wine.