Ultra-orthodox Jewish newspaper Hamoda covered the Paris march for solidarity on January 11. You know, the one about freedom of speech, standing together against intolerance, all that warm and fuzzy stuff? Yeah.

So, I'm at my local gym here in eastern France, the TV screens up on the walls have a few different shows going. Innocuous stuff that I can ignore, mostly: Something old with Beverly D'Angelo, a Friends episode with French subtitles, the news. And then a commercial pops up on the Friends screen and within moments, I…

RIP Maya Angelou. Thank you for your inspiration!

So, L'il UrbanAchiever got home on Saturday and we were soooo excited here at the Achieving Household. And then she showed up sickish, complaining of a bad sore throat, wooziness, and she was running a fever.

There's an article over on HuffPo today, Here's How The World's Most Brilliant People Scheduled Their Days. I had a fair idea of what was in store for me before I read it, but I was disappointed at the thoroughness of my, well, disappointment.

I just have to say, my kid is coming home for a week from college. She doesn't go to school in this country, so we don't see her very often. And this mom is pretty excited. So just thought I'd say, I don't care what this weekend brings - and I know it will bring a lot of dirty laundry! - I am one happy parent unit.

What can't you do without?

On leaving the homeland indefinitely:

Meant to post this here earlier. The after effects of all the booze at the BMW lounge, I guess...

Saw this at the Geneva International Motor Show today. Not quite sure what to make of it. It's a 6-foot tire with the Earth on it. So, the Earth is a giant petroleum-based donut? This tire will roll all over the Earth? I dunno, the green-washing (or in this case, blue-washing) of the automotive industry really bugged…

I thought this post of Ari Schwartz: Dark Lord of the Snark's was good, and also, I like Ari Schwartz, so I thought I'd share it over here. Also, I have always liked the word 'burpee', even if I don't always like to do them. Burpeeeeees!

So not only has the post-2000 era been a time of massive wealth transfer from bottom to top in the U.S., but the post-2009 'recovery' era has been a time of widening the professional gender gap.

That Faulkner quote that gets used on Gawker to such delight so many times, yeah, this one:

I was thinking about the post over on the mainpage, It Doesn't Have to Be This Way: The Infuriating Reality of Womanhood.

Most of you may not know this, but I am a huge fan of whisky and have been for a couple of decades. Long enough for a baby to be born and grow up and be old enough to drink in a U.S. bar, that's how long. It's safe to say that, in spite of the UrbanAchiever moniker that would imply White Russians, my drink is whisky.…

Or: Why we forgot to invite any female scientists to our all-male conference...

Artists of all species, unite: There is an under-represented group of artists whose work and aesthetics have gone ignored. Until now. The Painting Cat.

Or: Why we forgot to invite any female scientists to our all-male conference...

Arrangement of diatoms, a group of algae, on a microscopic slide. For your viewing pleasure. The entire image would sit on the head of a nail.