First, thank you for another thought-provoking and fantastically written piece!

Ugh, yes —ignoring generational wealth is a big favorite with that crowd. If my parents had the freedom and job opportunities to move to an area with good schools, let me live in their home indefinitely, had resources to shuffle me to and from part time jobs (or hell, buy me a car) then everyone's parents can do…

Haha, not that I know of — but I don't know so I wanted to limit my comment to American Libertarianism just in case. It would be hilarious if Reason magazine and Ayn Rand were inexplicable top sellers in Tuvalu or Liechtenstein or somewhere, though.

Exactly. American Libertarianism kind of relies on massive privilege-blindness. If you're "making it just fine on [your] own" you were either born on third base or are not as "on your own" as you think you are.

From one Red Stater surrounded by "blithering idiots" to another: thank you for doing what you do. The beautiful thing is that such obvious injustice really motivates people to take a stand on an issue that they may not have felt was important beforehand. I saw it happen in my hometown with Todd Akin's "legitimate…

It's so disgusting. Abusers understand that they can trust by letting their victim feel in control, grown up, "getting away with something," etc. Grooming behavior can absolutely leave a victim of abuse confused and thinking that they "want" the attention they're receiving. So... if you boil it down the judge…

I just laughed really hard at the mental image of Skeletor being like "Woah now, guys, don't lump me in with this dickbag!"

That's a good point. I can only imagine that Black Hispanics are hit with it from both sides. I think the stereotype of the barrio and cholo/chola as a uniquely Hispanic form of poverty is kind of recent to many Americans (although much less recent to California and the Southwest) but it's definitely its own thing.

Yeah, the erasure / invisibility of white urban poverty (and likewise, the erasure of black rural poverty) is a huge problem too and Hikki's right to point out that white urban poor folks exist, but it's definitely not Katie Baker who is responsible for "ghetto" becoming a code word for "black" in this discussion.

I was going to say — I had these on Sunday, at a luncheon. They're good!

Obligatory Jeff Koons shout-out. A gigantic puppy made of flowers!

The association between black and ghetto you're talking about isn't being made by Katie Baker or any of the others responding to this piece, it's made by the yoga studio owners and a million and one other racist Americans daily. Ghetto is used specifically to demarcate black/brown poverty from white poverty. The…

Wow. These comments... wow. It seems like everyone's either A. preoccupied with whether the kid is gay (really?! I can't even with some of you people speculating about a preteen's sexual preferences) or B. whether his parents are "exploiting him" by being open and honest about their choice to raise him in a…

I would watch the shit out of literally any show if it was hosted by Jujubee. ANY. SHOW.

Exactly. I managed to get all my info on this story from the MM4A article and Twitter, because there is no way in hell I'm giving a clickthru to that digital turd.

Wow. I am feeling some serious concert envy right now.

Totally agreed! If they had suddenly flip-flopped to some "let's party and drink, whee!" nonsense maybe it'd be a devolution, but Heartthrob is still as sharp as anything they've written. I love all their stuff, but I particularly love Heartthrob because I can listen to it on roadtrips without getting snoozy.

If this was a Hollaback-style project entirely made up of unsolicited pics then there'd be a good conversation to have. But as it is, this whole thing is disgusting. Beyond the obvious violation of the pictured mens' trust and autonomy, there's a whole layer of shaming aimed at women (and gay men on Grindr) who may, …

I know that in the UK men are guaranteed 2 weeks of paid paternity leave, and up to 26 weeks additional leave if their spouse returns to work. Australian law provides 18 weeks to whomever is declared the "primary caregiver," male or female. I would expect that's around average for many Western industrialized…

We all like what we like, but I think it's worth pointing out that there are entire ethnicities who, on average, have a difficult or impossible time growing what Americans would consider a "full beard." I always wondered about the speaking-in-code implications when people say "gentlemen prefer blonds," for example,…