Should you speak out at a wedding of a friend marrying an abusive man?
That’s Cary Tennis’s advice to a woman who witnesses her friend being subjected to a variety of abusive behaviors from her fiance. He beats up her dog. He monitors her phone. He violates her physical boundaries. I like Cary’s explanation — that silence is enabling — but I wonder if what amounts to a public humiliation will only marginalize the friend more.
The letter-writer should absolutely take that dog to the vet, though, permission or not.
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It takes more than a village — it takes good childcare
I was lucky enough to grow up with two families. My little brother and I were picked up by one school bus in the mornings around the corner from my house, where we lived with our mom and dad. Another bus dropped me off in the afternoons down the street from M&M Family Child Care Home.
...read moreElizabeth Smart didn’t run because she felt dirty and worthless.
Elizabeth Smart, kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom at age 14 and subject to horrible abuses for the next nine months, says she didn’t run from her captors because her abstinence-only education had taught her to feel like a worthless, chewed-up piece of gum.
...read moreShameless Self-Promotion Sunday
Promote yourself.
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Weekly Open Thread with a Thread and Nail Portrait
This closeup of an intricate thread and nail portrait is the host for this weeks open thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.
* with a few netiquette exceptions
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Spotlight on Haiti
Last weekend, I was in Haiti. The organization JCI sent me down there so I could learn about one of their projects: A community center for Haitian youth. I only spent four days in the country, but they were full of meetings and conversations and discussions, and I came away with the sense that the JCI community center is exactly what sustainable development is supposed to look like.
...read moreMountain Dew sells racism and violence against women
PepsiCo has pulled a Mountain Dew commercial that social commentator Dr. Boyce Watkins calls “arguably the most racist commercial in history.” [Content warning for racism, battery, and basically everything that's wrong with the world]
...read moreWhat if everything you knew about adoption was wrong?
Writing about adoption and Kathryn Joyce’s The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption
Spillover #4
The third #spillover thread was a month ago, so it’s time to set aside a fourth #spillover as as part of our comment moderation system for keeping other threads on-topic. Some reminders:
...read moreWelcome to a pro-life world
In El Salvador, a young mother pseudonymously called Beatriz is pregnant and dying. She has lupus and is facing renal failure; the fetus she’s pregnant with is anencephalic, meaning it has no brain and will not survive once born. If she dies, she will leave behind a husband and their toddler. With each passing day, she gets sicker and sicker, and the chances of death increase. She needed a termination weeks ago; more delays could pose significant hardships, as the probability increases that she will have to be on dialysis for the rest of her life — not a reasonable possibility for a poor woman living in rural El Salvador. But because El Salvador outlaws abortion under any circumstance, Beatriz cannot terminate the pregnancy that’s killing her.
...read moreIs Michael Pollan a sexist pig?
A great piece about blaming feminism for our current food issues, and how romanticizing a false past is bad for food cuture. A bit of it:
...read moreThe University of Arizona needs a new student code of conduct
Content note: Rape threats.
Dean Saxton, a student at the University of Arizona, is hanging out on campus with a “You Deserve Rape” sign. Because you’re dressed like a whore, of course, so you’re asking for it. The University says there’s nothing they can do, because he hasn’t violated the student code of conduct. I would suggest that maybe it’s time to rewrite the student code of conduct?
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