Love this. Yes, I wonder how it would’ve changed everything to have them read back to back in high schools all these years. What totally different conversations we would have had.

This article is brilliant, thank you.

yes that is what I was going to say. These issues are EXACTLY why this is a good book to teach to high schoolers. So much of American literature is about exactly these issues. It’s just that I think many high school teachers either misread the book themselves or else just wing it from the movie.

Exactly. It made me think about Eisenhower upholding the law to desegregate the schools despite personally feeling that they should not be integrated. I think this is a much more interesting character to explore than just a good guy doing good deeds.

I don’t think the book is problematic. I think it is a very smart book written about problematic characters who live in a problematic culture- but I don’t think the book itself is problematic. I think it is sometimes misread, but I think more generally what has happened is that most people think they remember the book…

Sorry, did I miss something in the article? Did they say Atticus was actually in the KKK in Watchman? If so, that is disappointing. It’s a much more interesting character for him to be racist in a patriarchal, white savior sort of way as described here. Because that is how power structures often work- people who…

Really? I didn’t know that about onions! I’m going to try that for sure and if it works and I no longer cry, I’m going to convert forever! I used to keep swimming goggles in my kitchen drawer just to deal with the onion tears. They affect me so much!

lol I never miss American style groceries when I’m overseas, but I do find that European style groceries are really lacking if you aren’t in a major city. But it’s Asian markets that I miss. Those folks have figured food out for sure. I’ll be in Seoul in a few weeks, and I can’t wait to eat my way through. It’s like…

Chickens in an apartment would be really gross!! My dog was raised around them and doesn’t bother them at all. But my neighbor’s dog loves them, and not in a good way, and she did eat one of my chickens once. It’s a hard life on the bottom of the food chain. I’ve lost a couple to hawks and raccoons also.

I’ve heard that too. I don’t know what the factory farm process is, but this makes sense. However, I keep chickens, and sometimes the eggs are a mess and I wash them before I bring them inside. I’ve heard not to do that because the cleaning of the egg does what you say it does, but I’m not going to set a poopy egg on…

Well that may be. I’m by no means an egg expert. But I doubt that the eggs are worse in quality in the US than they are in Mexico or India or China- all places where I have never seen anyone refrigerate eggs, including the grocery stores (who are buying them from large farms, not local farmer markets).

Hate? Look, it might be a great idea for a charity or a government subsidized program. It’s a terrible idea for a business model. For one thing, there is more demand for childcare than there is supply, so you are starting with the idea that a daycare is going to supply something to a consumer for free when they…

Wow, thanks. That’s depressing.

Um, she’s not a wartime queen in 1932 or 33 as there was no war.

Yup climate and cooking habits definitely affects all of this! Onions do get moldy here too, but it takes weeks and I usually cook them in a few days. Eggs- eat them every day so they don’t have to sit that long. Six weeks- probably that’s pushing it outside fridge, and better safe than sorry.

People have to remember that news didn’t fly like it does now. This was a time of experimenting with different forms of government and social organization in Europe. Wasn’t there a time when Hitler’s rise to power seemed (to people on the outside who didn’t have all the information) like it could be a good thing- a…

Plus I think it was the discipline they developed having to survive that way. You get into household routines and then it seems absurdly wasteful to sit around and just buy stuff. My great-grandmother would get up and make her bed everyday and expect all visitors to do so also. This is fine, but let’s say later on in…

Why do you refrigerate those things? Eggs do not need to go in the fridge. I keep chickens and get fresh eggs every day, and I don’t refrigerate them. Some fruit, yes, some no. But why onions? I have never refrigerated onions, potatoes, garlic, beets, etc. Butter- like you said depends on the temp in your house and…

Yeah for sure. I think that is really the main culprit here- the way Americans shop.

How interesting. I wonder if that do that at the university near here. Also it makes it seem less wasteful. If the kids know someone is going to take their stuff, they might not see it as throwing it out and more like giving it away to folks so that they don’t have to haul it home.