I was wondering the same thing. I must know.

Are there really a milllion women in One Million Moms? And are they all moms? What if you are an outraged conservative woman but not a mom? Can you join? What if you are an outraged aunt? Or sister?

Uh, no. The insults are not necessary. The person was arguing that the woman should not necessarily be a woman of color- that she could be from any background. She did not argue that she had to be white. I am arguing the exact same thing.

Yes! Not to mention that I don’t want to buy a wardrobe of new clothes or put out the effort to get ready in the morning like that! I figure that if I ever get lucky, maybe I’ll appear quirky- at best.

No. That would be if someone were arguing only to consider white women. I think it’s a perfectly fair conversation and not racist at all to discuss what criteria should be used to select the woman. What virtures/actions do we want to celebrate? For myself (not that my opinion matters in the selection process), I think…

You can’t correct injustice of any sort by putting someone’s face on a bill. What you can do is decide what sorts of virtues you want to celebrate. I agree that Harriet Tubman would be an excellent choice all around because of her particularly amazing life. You get humanitarian, abolitionist, suffragist, patriot, etc-…

While I think it would be awesome to have either Sojourner Truth or Harriet Tubman, I’d be very pleased with Susan B Anthony. She was awesome too. But she’s been on the dollar before, so I don’t think it will be her.

Yes, luckily we are capable of feeling many different emotions and thinking many different thoughts all at the same time. But I admit I had a bit of that “experienced” cockiness when I was young. Then as I got more experienced, I had bit of that “backpacker hate” sort of attitude too. Then, as I got more experienced…

Yes you are right. Another possibility is that a simplified experience like “ ‘gosh, I guess I don’t need *all* the things!’” might be easier to sell as an article. Nuance takes a little reader effort, and is usually harder to pitch.

Yes that’s a good point, but they pay somewhat better than the places where I taught so I guess my strategy there would be to work and save the whole year (or two) and then spend a year traveling around Asia- so you exclude the cost of the plane ticket. South Korea is not a super cheap place to be though, especially…

When I was young, I didn’t care about the financial problems. I would go home only after I’d literally run completely out of money. This happened to me twice. The first time, I lived with my dad for one summer (it took three months) while I saved enough money (immediately started waiting tables) to move into an…

Yes I know what you mean. To be fair, the article is about how backpacking changed her appearance. I'm sure there are other articles she could write about other things she learned. But I agree with you. I never understood how people could suddenly have the revelation that the material things aren't really all that.…

Sounds great! Great hobbies and great friends! Thanks!

Yeah, for places like that, I don’t even bother. I mean, I figure my choices are: A) attempt to be stylish and look frumpy and cheap. B) don't attempt to be stylish and just look out of place - different and comfy. I go with B every time.

YEs I agree with that. But it sounds like this is the author's first experience with really spending a lot of time abroad. It happens to people. They go out for the first time and really have a life-altering experience and then think that they have learned something that everyone else doesn't know and that it will all…

Yes exactly. The best way to do it, really, is to take a 2-3 year gig in a country near all the others you want to visit, and then traveling on holidays. Teaching is best for this because you get so many holidays.

Well, mostly yes. But not always wealthy parents. Plenty of people make their own money. After years of backpacking and living super cheap to prepare for backpacking, by the time I finally settled down and got a professional job that paid well, I was so accustomed to living cheaply and budgeting my money that I did…

Yup, my story is about the same.

Well, it's two totally different things to ask how this young woman affords her lifestyle and how young people in general go backpacking. You can't conflate the two in your response. Perhaps this young woman is wealthy. That doesn't mean you'd need to be wealthy to spend a few years of your youth backpacking. (I mean…

Thank you, that was so interesting. How do you know so much about this? Are you a fan of British and Continental fashion trends? Or a milliner yourself?