this story was the first news item I’ve laughed at all year. I want zero clarification, just more ‘rebellious daughter makes governor’s life full of inconveniences through dating life’ tidbits like a knock-off Chasing Liberty.

I am aware—frankly, I support the boycott, for several reasons, chief among them the fact that Disney evidently worked directly with four local propaganda offices during filming. My primary point was and remains that there are certain international discourses that deserve to be treated with significantly more nuance…

Yeah, I keep seeing some really bad takes on this. Americans have a tendency to want to take their own issues and view similar but crucially different political issues happening elsewhere in the world with the same lens, when that’s not possible. There are several important factors here people seem to be ignoring…

right, gonna spend the rest of today listening to “Obsessed” on repeat; cannot believe that I forgot “why’re you so obsessed with me?” was a Mariah lyric...I think that phrase to the music minimum once a daily, evidently I was Not On It in January 2009

I think this is less of an instance of cheap rich people and more an instance of “I intend to insult you and I want EVERYONE IN THE ROOM to be aware of it”.

She’s like, “Well, you know, the character, as written, she’s been to university and is educated.”

I have some difficulty believing that. Even in traffic accidents, if one driver is at fault and the accident results in a death, they’re nearly always charged with vehicular manslaughter/unintentional vehicular manslaughter/negligent homicide. Of course it varies by state (IIRC 3 states do not have a vehicular…

Everyone I’ve talked to who also lived there also thought it was named after him as a memorial. I guess being irrelevant for so long is its own kind of public death?

“Boy Pence” really got me like

This is the funniest thing I’ve read all week, A+ for you today.

Completely shocked to learn that Hugh Downs used to be alive??? Completely thought he’d passed at least 10-15 years ago (this is notable in that uhhhh...how to phrase this without doxxing myself...I walked past a place named after him every day for several years, 100% assumed he had passed at some point prior).

Oh my god. *slams head on desk* I feel like I’m losing my mind. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that I thought I was incorrect for seven years or the fact that I literally checked Wikipedia several times over the course of six hours while thinking about this/participating in this thread and had just so thoroughly…

Shockingly (or perhaps not), Penn Badgley had a really good comment re: cancel culture recently in the LA Times. I think he does an excellent job connecting what culturally we seem to forget every time some new person/celeb gets cancelled: that the problem isn’t just at an individual level, so unless the problem gets…

I haven’t read any of those before, but I’ll certainly be adding them to my TBR list!

I haven’t crocheted since college, but that’s an excellent idea! I’ll have to dig out my needles; I’ve got some beginner’s embroidery stuff but I have to concentrate on that quite a bit if I don’t want it to come out like shit at this point.

Hmmm most of the nonfiction I’ve been reading lately has been re: Ancient Greece, currently on Helen of Troy: The Story of the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Bettany Hughes. I’ve been on a bit of a Helen dive, and have worked through some of Anne Carson’s Helen-inspired stuff as well. Norma Jean Baker of Troy is…

FUCK 30 BC I am having a DAY

Would you like to hear an extremely hot take that I hope I one day get excommunicated from the catholic church for? Cleopatra VII’s death in 60 BC was more politically important from that year up to at least 100 AD (arguably up until Constantine the Great) than Jesus’s was. 

It’s fine, I don’t need to be constantly surrounded by smart nerdy people who have the same interests 100% of the time, but ranting to my old flatmate about this for 45 minutes did make me realize that uhhh maybe it is a requirement for any actual longterm relationship lol.

I have not, I’m awful at listening to podcasts (and audiobooks) usually because I get too distracted just listening to things without either simultaneously taking notes or watching someone speak. I’m actually getting slightly better at them though, so I’ll keep that as a recommendation for when I level up.