So I guess I’m glad I didn’t even know the show existed, and that reading this made me not at all inclined to find it. Also, I have no idea who Alex Berg is.

Europe has a very non-American source of its righty rise: the fact that you can practically walk across some of these countries in an afternoon, and legacies of nationalism, and the erosion of national identity and barriers to competion thanks to EU membership.

We have no such issues except along the Mexican border.…

This is terribly sad. See Inara Serra’s comment.

What I don’t understand is why Sophie even needs the clutch. What can she be keeping in there? Car keys? A $50 for the babysitter? Birth control? MAC card? Tickets for Hamilton?

So, like, what is your problem, exactly?

The battle-pickers aren’t usually the ones who make anything change, because they don’t make anyone uncomfortable. And, like it or not, it’s the “If I do x she’ll come along and make a stink” that begins the change, and then it’s the noticing that in fact she’s got a point…

What on earth has your problem been the last few days, or is this a chronic thing with you? They seem perfectly happy, they’re doing no harm, they’re productive people, and clearly there’s a tremendously interesting neurological thing happening there, but you want to piss on it. Why?

No, you will have to go in and fight. Like I did. You will have to teach your child that you have to go and get respect, that you are not a walking menorah ornament at Christmastime, that the air is not Christian, that the school cannot schedule important things on major non-Christian holidays. You’ll speak up when…

Actually my kid went to a lefty hippie daycare. Came ou with good table manners and respect for others. Also wondered wtf was up with the savages in her kindergarten.

You gonna be exhausted anyway. This single mom of a jr-hi kid’s got an appt to go deal with the social studies teacher’s Fox bullshit next week. Superintendant knows me well. You can rest when they’re grown.

Nope. “Suck it up and don’t complain” is exactly the wrong message. Changing the culture doesn’t involve keeping everybody else comfy with what they’re doing.

It is 1992! BUY AMERICAN STEEL! Oh wait don’t, it’s overpriced crap.

Why women leave, generally: the man is crap and doesn’t respond to a few years’ worth of “honey, please stop being so crap.” The woman’s family and friends are all, “Sweetie, you deserve better.” And eventually she realizes it’s true. I’m very glad that my daughter has a low crap tolerance level, much lower than mine…

That isn’t what “writerly” means, but he’s still a terrible prick whose work I’m no longer assigning.

Never understood this. Yeah, he’s all symmetrical and everything, but goddamn if he doesn’t look stupid.

There are chemicals in onions that are actually mild antiseptics. Garlic, too. It’s not Keflex, but if you’re living pre-Fleming, it’s not bad.

Yep. Mine used to do a lot of complaining/insulting about camp expenses during school breaks and what a crap mom I must have been for not hosting playdates while working at home, but fortunately it’s all in email, which is always a good reminder for me and judges that he isn’t a nice or cooperative man, and the…

It’d be a terrific argument if the majority of men weren’t such crap. As it is, all these women with the bad pickers appear to have found ordinary men.

Maybe you should go tell the mirror and other men to be better people.

I could swear I lived all the way to 2016, but it seems it’s still 1992. Ross? Is that you?

Okay. I caucused for Bernie, though mainly because Hillary ran such a shit campaign that I began to question her ability to run anything at all. But yeah, the Bernie room had a goodly number of unbearable bros.

No, because the northern states actually have better-educated people and higher literacy levels. I used to make my living writing state-specific textbooks that had to be pegged to state standards, and states like Massachusetts and Minnesota actually expect the kids to be able to read and think, while God help the…