Have you seen the Penn and Teller’s Bullshit episode about cheerleading? It's fascinating and everyone should watch it right now. They discuss not only it's status as a sport, injuries (including interviewing a girl aho was paralyzed from cheerleading) and the bizzarre corporate conspiracy that owns everything from…

I read that quote and thought it sounded a lot like something from a dystopian society sci-fi movie... it reminds me of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake, somehow. So twisted that I’m sure we’ll hear it regurgitated by people who think they’re winning the argument when the listener is stunned into wide-eyed silence.

I was only a server for about 6 months and a terrible one at that. But it has resulted in me being super conscious of how busy my server might be, pushing family (perhaps annoyingly) to have orders figured out before you tell the wait staff you are ready to order (WHY IS THAT SO HARD?!), and pre-bussing my dishes by…

A tip I found from reddit, if you’re in the appropriate context: start rapping your favorite rap aloud. It regulates your breathing and focuses your mind on something else. I’ve had lots of success with this, although I still botch Still Dre’s lyrics..

Dealing with the public is the worst. I do not miss retail or customer service.

I think “being aware of the fact that women died pre roe” is not the level we need. People who lived it were horrified into action. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who died. We do not want to have to go back to a place where women’s lives are expendable until we reach the metaphorical tipping point. And we need…

I don’t work in a lab but I do work in a very diverse workplace. I have colleagues of all genders, sexual orientations, races, religions, etc. We manage to treat each other respectfully and not hit on each other all the time. Also, we recognize inappropriate behavior all the time. It’s not hard.

Shit, it starts young too. I helped run a STEM summer program for middle school students and one of the boys sexually harassed a girl by staring at her all day, following her around, and writing sexually explicit notes to her. The administrations general attitude was “boys will be boys.” The program was on a college…

Did you meet Gaston?

LOL. If you study at most urban universities in the US, it’s probably far safer to be abroad than it is to be at your campus. I would imagine that a student in most European and East Asian universities is safer than the average student in most American urban campuses (USC, NYU, Columbia, etc.)

The anti-vaxxer movement is a constant reminder that a large chunk of the population would rather their child dead than like me.

Anti-vaxxers are guilty of manslaughter. They are a blight on society.

Thank you. I pretty much stopped hanging out with a lot of my nerd friends because of shit like this. They don’t just want a girlfriend. They want the perfect girlfriend. The one who will play video games with them, do what they like to do. They never, I’ve never heard any of those guys be like, “I want a girl that…

“like someone burned down my archives”

I thought this comment from the NYT comments was interesting:

Thank you for mentioning Kiera, I had almost forgotten about her. The last article I can find is about her graduating in 2014. Even when there is a small viral backlash, there’s no follow-up to see what happens in the long run.

Not necessarily—a lot of these policies are designed specifically in ways that allow racist practices to continue (such as the disproportionately harsh punishment of children of color in schools) while offering seemingly “impartial” rationales so that they don’t look racist. Mentioning those policies isn’t necessarily…

Already started. I wonder about us as a society when we have to smear children to make ourselves feel better.

Porsche is roughly my age (31) so that’s no excuse. But, then again, she did think the Underground Railroad was an actual train.

I just read that 20 minutes ago. I still can’t get over the fact that they let the accused take a piece of evidence-the video camera-back to his lawyer’s office to pull the footage and are treating it as if there’s nothing wrong with that. And they’re still using the footage as actual evidence.