Yeah, I take your point. I’ve never liked sports, but seemingly everyone I know does, so I could probably tell you where every single US team plays (and do respectably with UK football clubs, too) through no actual connection to the games themselves. I’m a little surprised you know so few sports fans.

It’s more like expecting someone who doesn’t follow sports to connect teams with their cities reasonably well. You just learn some basic shit whether you want to or not.

It actually strikes me as faux naivete. Even though he’s trying to convey the opposite, it makes me cringe in the same way I did when Elizabeth Warren pointedly announced she was going to get a beer.

I think you’re right that it’s just a dumb joke and one that isn’t correct on multiple levels, but Varys might define himself as something close to nonbinary (even if he absolutely hates the one who castrated him).

I’m jealous that you still get to watch Happy Endings for the first time.

I think hate-crime legislation makes it so we don’t have to depend on the judge to take the motive into consideration during sentencing. I’m inclined to agree with you on the surface, since that’s what judges are supposed to do, but judges are only impartial in principle. If they’re obliged by the law to sentence…

The side note about the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association having an issue with plant-based meats being called meat is interesting, too, because “meat” has a far broader definition than they’d like, as does “flesh.” Hard candies were not so long ago referred to as “sweetmeats,” and people referred to the “flesh” of fruits…

I enjoyed The Newsroom, too, though I see the problems people have with Sorkin broadly and admit that I have an unusually high tolerance (and outright affection) for bloviating but undeniably skilled writers in general.

You should write like this more. I completely agree with everything you said.

I meant the article that mentioned that Soft Cell released “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” rather than Eurythmics.  It now correctly attributes it, which means they can change the text of their articles.  I was starting to think they couldn’t edit the articles or something.

I’m convinced that staff is as stuck with their posts as we are once 15 minutes have elapsed. I’ve never seen a mistake fixed in one of their posts since the move to Kinja, including things that aren’t just typographical errors, like confusing Eurythmics for Soft Cell.

X-Files! Thank you! I only liked the Monster of the Week stand-alone episodes because the alien metaplot stuff never really appealed to me, but I loved folklore and mythology from an early age.

Not to be a contrarian, because I see the points people are making as valid criticisms, but I liked Parks and Recreation from the beginning. I think it ended up being a much more feel-good show, and I ended up appreciating it on that level, too. The comparison to Tracy Fleck is apt, but it absolutely did work for me.

I do not think there is a psychological difference in the example you give, really, partially due to the close ages and partially due to the word “wanted,” which is a tricky one.

I agree that the distinction should probably be legally moot, but there are such profound psychological differences between pedophiles and ephebophiles that it should still be made, regardless of how unpopular it may be to do so.

Like Laura M. Browning, I worked at Borders for several years, and not only do I organize my books alphabetically like some kind of moral monster of banality, I bring all of them forward to the lip of the shelf. I was a bookseller who would occasionally shelve, but I was told by an older shelver who had worked at…

I’m not criticizing you for using it, but why haven’t we reexamined the word “hysteria” the way we have so many other words? It literally means to behave irrationally like a woman, but we all still describe an unreasonable reaction as hysteria, let alone the use of “hysterical” as in very, very funny.

Well, you tried. It sucks that the loudest voices on this issue seem to be people like Barsanti or KinjaPlaya.

I think I was trying to draw a parallel to Picciolini, who came to mind as someone who admits what he used to believe (and the behavior that arose from it) and is celebrated for changing and working to change others. Though the word “obvious” was there for a reason, I failed to make a clear point for a variety of…

Not to mention it would be an entirely different situation if Northam remembered the existence of that time he posed for a racist picture and chose to bring it to his constituents on his own, which would be a closer analogy to what happened here.