They weren’t really just acting out a scene from the movie, even though they later claimed to be: the children were asked to invent part of it. Young Srey Moch may not have understood the game—when asked to “come up with a lie,” she may have come up with a truth: her real-life family didn’t have money for her…

I read an article in The Atlantic last year, suggesting that rich private schools partner with poorer schools, and that it would be beneficial to both sets of students. The comments were chockablock with people saying, “I don’t want my [rich] kid wasting his time trying to help other kids! No one in their right mind…

I think that’s only a thing with certain, mostly evangelical, denominations, and it may also be regional. The Lutheran church I attended in childhood, on the west coast, never even hinted that Catholics weren’t Christians, and I didn’t think that Episcopalians did. However, I just tried to look it up online, and got a…

The Scouts were the most out-of-control assholes I’ve ever met in my life.

This reminds me of a terrible story in my town: two teenagers were abducted at gunpoint and assaulted; they went to the hospital and did everything right, but the police somehow lost the rape kit. It languished on a shelf while the perp assaulted another person. They finally tested the kit six years later, and managed…

From a recent New Yorker article on Texas politics:

Linda Mensch told several outlets...“Mr. Kelly unequivocally denies such accusations and will work diligently and forcibly to pursue his accusers and clear his name.”

Much of the landscaping there (not the actual course, though) was done by an untrained law student paid $7.50/hour. He figured Trump would like something “ostentatious” modeled on Versailles, and he was dead right. Trump now plans to be buried there.

I’ve always thought it was crazy the way so many adults just leave kids on their own to “work it out themselves”—I’ve even seen psychologists advise this. Kids don’t know how to deal with complex personal interactions. We don’t expect them to figure out how to tie their shoes themselves, yet they’re expected to deal…

I saw that in a theater when it was first made, and I remember it really well. I think it was later banned because of a lawsuit threat by the family. (Ah, I see the link you provided explains this. I had no idea it was directed by Todd Haynes.) There was later a live-action film about Karen Carpenter, I think for TV,…

I think that was part of the point: that the expectations were so extreme. I remember they have a costumer mentioning to her, approvingly, “you’ve lost weight!” and I thought, “how would that even be possible?” let alone something to approve. There was also that weird scene with the cake, which seemed like a strange…

Yeah, I read “The Best Little Girl in the World” when I was an adolescent and going through some issues, and it really helped me because the protagonist was practicing some of the same mental behaviors, though mine weren’t solely about food. Just knowing that I wasn’t alone in these behaviors was important. But I’ve…

“I asked Ivanka to hold seat.”

Someone I know was on the jury for a molestation case. It ended in a hung jury because a few people refused to vote the man guilty, even though he obviously was, because they just didn’t think the crime was deserving of jail time. (To show you how great his defense was, the accused claimed he mistook a 12-year-old…

I went to my friend’s Junior prom as his date when I was a Sophomore, wearing a spaghetti-strap, pink, Grecian-in-a-stretchy-synthetic-very-early-80's-way gown. I only liked him as a friend, but we had such a good time that I decided to “reward” him at the end with a kiss, assuming he went for one. He didn’t even try,…

He kept trying to be weirdly controlling

I really hope you find/post pictures.

I had a Gunne Sax dress with fluttery short sleeves for my 8th-grade graduation. I think we’re quite close in age, but at the time you would have seemed the height of grownup sophistication to me.

wear a white t-shirt under your button-up at work

Here’s the extremely weird contact form for the Speaker’s office, if anyone wishes to complain. Note that it offers a fill-in box for your first name only; no last name—so formal and proper!