It’s very clear early on that the ensemble is both well-used and overshadows the more annoying aspects of Andy Samberg. And the adjustment to leveraging that comes impressively quick for a network show. There’s not a bad character in the bunch. It helps that his character is the butt of the joke about as often as he’s…

Thanks for this. I’m usually okay with Mother’s Day since my mom passed away, but this one has been particularly rough. I don’t feel as if I can share with my siblings because as parents, there’s still some active celebration to the day for them that I don’t want to dampen yet can’t quite muster this year. Lots of…

Nope.

Yet Andre Braugher winces at NBC’s failure to mention the Emmy he won on NBC. Yikes.

He really did have that intention, mixed in with the other stuff sure, but I think the takeaway on some level was supposed to build empathy for legitimately sad but very troubled characters. There was a romanticism to them as if we should think of them as some sort of anti-hero. Uh, no.

Good for you! One of the scariest and best decisions I made in my early 30s was to quit a promising job in a toxic office. I’ve taken those lessons with me ever since—it’s a short but non-negotiable list of things that I will no longer take from anyone in the workplace. I’ve been diplomatic but upfront about it in…

It was choosing to leave a stable life and move back home to be with my mother before she died. It was precious time with a loved one before they passed and also the opportunity to restart my life. I had the privilege of taking space to evaluate my priorities and try new things and find new passions.

This reminds me of the VSB article a while back about words white people aren’t allowed to say. A lot of the bellyaching took issue with people claiming to own words. I thought it was a weird take, but it wasn’t surprising because our supremacist society has a dominant culture that presumes to own things that are part…

Thank you for sharing this. My brother went through a similar journey, and this is something nice to share with him and also helpful for learning how I can be more thoughtful about his experiences, too.

Totally. A lot of what we’re exposed to makes it look easy, but making connections is so hard for most everyone!

That’s the thing, we’re both passive recipients of information and active consumers of it as well. The complicating factor is absolutely we care about what people do when they’re shown healthier behaviors. And I also think we should care that people are self-aware and don’t wait for better information to be given to…

I do totally agree about how pop culture grooms really terrible mind-sets. I did my graduate thesis on stalking and devoted a whole section on how people are conditioned through media to accept some really problematic behavior as romantic when it actually feeds into some of the worst forms of social deviance.

Not all bar soaps are created equal for sure. I stopped buying the mega-cheap ones for that reason. But a pack of even a marginally robust brand will last a while. And also weirdly, the CVS brand.

I don’t mind body wash, but it seems more wasteful. I also don’t want to travel with it. I didn’t realize it was an anachronism, though. The more you know.

I put the old bar sliver on top of a new bar (while both are wet) because they then meld together. Then it’s all good.

I think Donald Glover is in this conversation because he’s successful and very creative, but I think he’s only exceptional as a comedy writer/actor. He’s a good actor generally. His music is cool, and often interesting, but I don’t find it particularly transcendent.

Completely agree. To me, Beyonce is an icon for sure, but I wouldn’t consider her a genius in the context of how we’re discussing it and the artists you mention. In fact, my biggest criticisms of her are that for all her talent, she plays it too safe technically and in terms of composition.

The only damns I give are when people use this issue to be intellectually dishonest about cultural influences and realities of race in this country. The vast majority of people in interracial relationships have a healthy narrative on this. Those who don’t are going to get criticized and rightly so.

Now it’s a thing.

And nice work from the defense counsel, which was a joint effort among several offices representing these two men. There are so many other folks in various stages of this kind of injustice. We still have a long way to go. But I hope there are support systems to help these two in the meantime. What a damn travesty.