To me a year or two of activism does not make up for 40-odd years of (among other things) voting Republican and being a generally awful parent who was largely absent from her children’s lives. I agree she’s trying and that deserves respect, but “woman of the year” is a stretch.

Laverne has done stuff — she’s an actress and advocate. Even if she wasn’t trans she’d be a reasonable choice for a Glamour magazine award.

Huh. I don't watch the show so I had no idea.

I noticed that too! I wonder if she really was religious in ‘85 or if it was just an “in” thing to do.

I may be alone here, but I thought the video was kind of adorable. I mean, shallow and ridiculously materialistic, sure, but that comes with the territory. It just seems like the girls actually like each other in it and are happy to be there, and I like that dorky cell phone video vibe. Plus, it’s sweet that they went…

They were married 15 years, give or take, and had three kids. If it was all for publicity, that’s a hell of a lot of effort to put into it. (Also, she’s more famous than he is.)

So it doesn’t bug you when people who make shit up for attention are rewarded?

And I think complaining about people who call bullshit on what is, in fact, obvious bullshit is an even bigger waste of bandwidth. It sounds like you’re an “a good story is a good story, who cares if it’s true” type, which is valid — but it’s also valid to be annoyed when somebody writes complete fiction and passes it…

That was where I decided that story was probably mostly fiction. You can’t just waltz in and “help out” with food service.

My kid did the same thing as the kid in the Coldstone Creamery story! When she turned five, one of the teachers at her preschool joked with her about “bring me a slice of birthday cake from your party!”. She took it Very Seriously and asked to bring a slice of cake in her backpack to school the next day. She did, and…

I have a child with severe apraxia who is not autistic, and I’m right there with you. We were ecstatic when he finally, at age 4, started clearly signing “daddy” as well as “mommy”; if there were some magical device that would make him talk, you couldn’t sell it to us fast enough.

He’ll also type with Stubblefield’s mom and a student at Rutgers who “helped” him with homework. But with his family or anybody else outside that circle, nothing doing.

To be fair, Stephen Hawking can’t go to the bathroom on his own, and I’m pretty sure he knows whether he wants sex or not. We shouldn’t conflate incontinence with low intelligence just because it’s icky.

Most definitely. That and the “more beautiful than any porn star” bits. She was using his body to write her Mary Sue love story.

I was fascinated to read the NYT story and kept looking for Jezebel’s take on it. Thanks for not disappointing me.

The wacky socks are his thing — look at any photo. Not my taste, but I can see why a guy pretty much stuck in suits for the last 30-odd years (if not longer) would want *something* personal.

Yeah, my husband said the same thing when I told him this theory. I’ve never bought drugs and probably underestimate how hard it is.

Right, plus he has young kids. And it’s one thing to destroy yourself if you’re single or have grown children, but growing up with an addicted parent is really, really hard on kids in general. So I get more empathy there.

True. It’s 2015. He could at least start dabbling in Oxy.

I am weirdly sad Jimmy Fallon is having drinking problems, if it’s true. He always seems like a good guy.