Oh my god, do I hear you. One of my births was a total clusterfuck, due to emergent complications with both of us. We are both totally fine now. And I had the same experience: if I tried to express sadness, anger, confusion, disappointment in myself or my caregivers or fate because it was a horrible birth, all I got…

Not to push one way or the other, and I have my horror stories of other aspects of it, but most people do fine for most things. In terms of that angle, for example, while I had vaginal births with 8, 9 and 10 lb babies, I was more or less in terms of vaginal pain. The worst pain I had the day or two after was muscle…

That's true, but I'm not sure it's causative. I think societies with a higher degree of civic capital are a) happier and b) more likely to provide safety nets.

I think he forgot the ellipses to indicate that it actually read:

"Give them enough rope to hang themselves" is an underused rhetorical tool. Well done.

Yes. It's like the girls a decade younger than her, at the same maturity level as she is, who put hours of thought and effort into looking like a non-comformist. Guess what, girls? People who really don't care behave in a totally different manner. There's cool. Then there's uncool. Then there's affecting uncool…

The Ombudsperson at my institution asked if I wouldn't prefer getting married instead of worrying about getting a degree,

Oh, I don't think CL is necessarily worse than others. I just seem to know more people who use it than any particular dating site.

Oh, I don't think CL is necessarily worse than others. I just seem to know more people who use it than any particular dating site.

Ha!

In Canada there are laws about workers have two consecutive days off per certain period. Another compromise would be to stipulate holiday pay for Sunday work; or give employees the right to ask for it as a day off. Between these two factors, you could protect it as a "set aside" day for those who want it off, and no…

It really depresses me how someone like Lena Dunham is constantly reduced to her body and what she puts on it.

Can you amend that to "annoying to everyone"?

As do we all. Happily, we're also able to deal with more than one issue at a time.

Good for you for posting that.

So my DC area research trip was awesome. And I'm feeling silly because one guy I met is sticking in my head like you wouldn't believe. I'm happily married, honestly, and this is the first time I've been interviewing someone and couldn't stop trying to imagine him with his clothes off. So I'm disgusted with myself for…

If someone suggested reorganizing the days kids went to school, it wouldn't particularly bother me, particularly if it met a previously unsatisfied need for providers and/or consumers of the school system. I see no problem with people organizing themselves as they see fit, informed by their own quirks, religious…

Then why isn't it Tuesday?

Yup, exactly. It's always surprised me that France, which has in many ways been at the vanguard of secularism for well over two centuries (Tenth of Thermidor, anyone?) lags this way.

That is a really good point, and a fascinating example. It's funny, I'm something of a poststructuralist in some fields, and have no problem with the idea that the reader of a text is in a sense a co-creator of its meaning, but it had never occurred to me that the composition and lyrics of a song are only one…