In grad school, one of my professors did his research on delivering bad news. In his seminar we listened to doctors giving bad news to patients. It was fascinating, because most of them didn’t actually have to say the worst part directly. Instead, they spoke in syllogism. It was like,

Yes, I cosign this 100%. I wanted to name my childhood cat Steve. I was overruled, but we landed on Louie. I also think “Bill” is basically the best pet name you could have. Like, can you imagine a parakeet named Bill? It’s perfect.

Sounds like it’s rough all over.

Holy shit! So that’s why Twitter was all bonkaroo about it. I’m also glad I don’t have to decide on this. In Wisconsin we’ve got our own issue with choosing a Dem to try to finally get rid of Scott Walker. On the Dem side there’s a white dude who polls ahead of Walker (at least this week), and there’s an Emily’s-list…

Yeesh. That’s not a great look. Thanks for the info.

Sconnie here. Is the corporate money accusation the one that people on Twitter are all pissed about? I keep reading Tweets about how he’s attacking the woman candidate with unfounded claims and Fuck Bernie and stay in your lane, Ocasio-Cortez but I can’t make heads nor tails of the context and googling has given me…

That’s correct. The US is the only Western country without mandatory paid parental leave. In the US, the Family Medical Leave Act passed in the early ‘90s requires only 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employers that have a certain number of employees. Some individual states require better deals than that, and some don’t.

Yeah this is really the key to their question. Our tax system is designed to be messed with.

I completely agree that many writing problems are reading problems. In my senior capstone course, a lot of students seemed puzzled how to structure a big paper like that. So I gave them a ton of examples using different methods, ideas, etc. I told them to just choose whatever looked interesting to them, and use that…

I think that for the latter group, they simply can’t fathom a system of such meticulous attribution; I suspect that they see a lot of identical language on blogs/news sites, which contributes to their confusion.

I agree about the steel - I’ve found the increased heat transferability to really improve my pizza in general. The texture of the crust, the browning & spotting, etc.

Yeah, I’m not saying you’re wrong, I was just sharing my own experiences. Even though I teach at a struggling non-selective university I went to an ivy for grad school so I understand how this works. But thanks.

I’m sure that’s right to a degree (certainly more so at Chicago), but I do this little plagiarism game every year, with low stakes. (Winners get shit! Losers just learn where they messed up!) But most of my students straight up tank the thing.

Prof here too - they do this all the time and I agree, my students are also genuinely confused. No matter how many times I go over it, they’re puzzled. I give examples for them to look at, and they’re just flummoxed.

A college student really should know this, right?

Yeah, Jez could have spoken up. They also could have more South Asian representation. They routinely drop the ball on a lot. And? My point stands. People who were offended were being ignored because they didn’t have a voice.

I totally agree. Could a person be any less hysterical than Hari Kondabolu? He’s clearly a fan who sees a problem that hurts him, and speaks eloquently and calmly about it. He’s hardly frothing with outrage.

Where were all of you in the 28 years before that??!!

Can you access it here?

Danielle Guercio! I’ve missed your stuff since XO died. What are you up to?