Solidarity. I had cocker spaniels growing up. None lived beyond the age of 12, due to lots of congenital issues. Today I have a little "special blend" from a shelter. He's 12 and still healthy and spunky. Even though I regularly see dogs like him living to 15+, I get so scared. He's spoiled and he knows it... but he's…

Don’t even get me started on the cesspool that is the “90-day fiance universe”: based on the show that confirms every stereotype you have about foreigners and legitimizes child sex tourism, but then spins it as OK because so many of the Americans are also trash. Educational!

I’ll just add that the narrative of “extinction” is something many native people today continue to struggle with. Populations that continue to identify as Pequot or Taino, among others, have had to continually resist the notion that they are “extinct” when in fact their ancestors may have intermarried with other…

I don’t know if it’s because the guest hosts are nervous, or because Alex was such an even presence, or what, but a few of the guest hosts have come off as very loud. Savannah Guthrie was downright jarring.

I teach in another red state with soaring cases and it’s the same story. When we were having this debate a year ago, we were told by administrators that, “it will cost us $20 million in revenue each semester if we don’t offer classes in person.” Health did not even enter into the discussion. They also placed no limits…

Truly, casting her was what ruined the grand plans for the show. They probably thought they had set such high expectations for “the mother” that no one would ever actually hit the bar. CM was so good you just never wanted to see Ted go back to Robyn.

I’m still of the mind that no one asked for this, but I have a feeling Willie Garson will be the most entertaining part.

To be clear, guidance /=/ mandate. Here in GA we never had a mask mandate, CDC guidance or not. Herein lies the problem-- the states with the worst outbreaks right now were those that never bothered to make informed policy decisions in the first place.

My grandma is also in her 90s and was recently telling me about a scarlet fever outbreak when she was young. Not only was there a mandatory quarantine for any household where someone contracted the disease, but they would actually put a sign on your house warning others to stay away. You can do a Google search and…

Nellie was awful. Robert California, however, I read as a caricature of someone quite real in the business world— the men who experience a meteoric rise despite never really doing much of anything aside from projecting an aura of “business-iness.”

Agreed. There was something very meta about that entire arc. Ed Helms, on the other hand, tried way too hard to be Michael Scott 2.0.

Maybe this time someone will express concern about the glaciers melting—which seems quite a problem in its own right—rather than only fretting about what comes out of them.

Charlie Sheen comes to mind...

I’ve only ever had a prescription once, and the pharmacist walked me through all the does and don’ts, as well as (each time, I think?) an instruction sheet.

I’ll take the opportunity to crow about L&O: LA— a low-key excellent show that never got its due. I don’t know if it’s streaming, but I own it on DVD. I’m still salty about the decision to re-tool the show (which, IMO, put the nail in the coffin) rather than stay the course and allow it to develop an audience. I…

Personally, I’ll continue to dislike Ellie Kemper primarily because she plays the same character in everything and I don’t find her very funny. But at least some of this info clarifies my confusion over how she became a thing in the first place.

I have a cousin who was impregnated at 13 by an 18 year-old boyfriend. The families (Catholic) encouraged her to keep the baby and to continue seeing the father (who—surprise!—turned out to be abusive) because it was “important to the baby to have two parents.” No exaggeration to say that it ruined her life, her…

Police found no evidence of foul play in her death.

I’ll take it farther and say that I found Deathly Hallows Pt 1 rather unconscionable—both as a money grab and as a movie that was not very good. Given that some of the other books had entire plotlines cut out to fit the running time of a single movie, there’s no reason the final book needed to be hammered out to…

Yeah, I just came from reading the above-linked story, which basically contains no more information than the bullet point describes. Save yourselves some time: TH claims someone promised him some money and “non-monetary” things that no one will discuss further, and it seems like a big nothingburger.