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"What happens, exactly, when a white family that wants a white sperm donor gets a half-black child instead? In the case of a lesbian couple from Ohio, it means a "wrongful birth" lawsuit against the sperm bank — two years after the fact. "
comment posted at 11:51 AM on Oct-3-14
comment posted at 1:11 PM on Oct-3-14

The Best Text Reply Ever.
comment posted at 8:47 AM on Oct-3-14

Soon after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin more than two years ago, George's loyal family learned that sharing his name meant sharing the blame. It also meant a surreal new life filled with constant paranoia, get- rich-quick schemes, and lots and lots of guns. Amanda Robb meets the Zimmerman family and finds out what it's like being related to the most hated free man in America.
comment posted at 10:07 AM on Oct-1-14

"I'm hardcore and I know the score And I am disgusted by the poor..." [NSFWish lyrics]
comment posted at 8:44 AM on Oct-1-14

Ebola and the Construction of Fear by Karen Sternheimer (Everyday Sociology)

"Sociologist Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things, explains how misguided panics are not just benign opportunities to prevent something horrible, but can divert attention and public funds away from more likely threats. He notes:

Panic-driven public spending generates over the long term a pathology akin to one found in drug addicts. The money and attention we fritter away on our compulsions, the less we have available for our real needs, which consequently grow larger (p. xvii).

comment posted at 8:35 AM on Oct-2-14
comment posted at 8:30 AM on Oct-3-14
comment posted at 3:17 PM on Oct-3-14

The true story behind the saddest scene in "The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air" history
comment posted at 10:53 AM on Sep-29-14

How to Justify Any Policy, No Matter How Bad It Might Be
comment posted at 10:47 AM on Sep-29-14
comment posted at 11:32 AM on Sep-29-14
comment posted at 1:23 PM on Sep-29-14

Beyonce feminism vs. Emma Watson feminism. "The Internet’s overwhelmingly positive reactions to Watson’s feminism were exciting, but also troubling when I remembered the way Beyoncé’s feminism was dissected, critiqued, and doubted last year when she dropped her self-titled album that included a recording of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaking about feminism."
comment posted at 10:39 AM on Sep-29-14

The NY Federal Reserve is supposed to monitor big banks and prevent another financial crisis. But when Carmen Segarra was hired, what she witnessed inside the Fed was so alarming that she bought a tiny recorder, and started secretly taping. This American Life reports.
comment posted at 8:20 AM on Sep-26-14
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comment posted at 9:36 AM on Sep-26-14
comment posted at 9:43 AM on Sep-26-14

Angry Letters to the One Member of Congress Who Voted Against the War on Terror

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Lee's story is how little credit she or her constituents receive for what they got right. Even though a majority now considers the war most understood the AUMF to authorize to be a mistake; even though it has been used to justify military interventions that no one conceived of on September 14, 2001; even though there's no proof that any war-making of the last 13 years has have made us safer; even though many more Americans have died in wars of choice than have been killed in terrorist attacks; even though Lee and many of her constituents were amenable to capturing or killing the 9/11 perpetrators, not pacifists intent on ruling out any use of force; despite all of that, Representative Lee is still thought of as a fringe peacenik representing naive East Bay hippies who could never be trusted to guide U.S. foreign policy. And the people who utterly failed to anticipate the trajectory of the War on Terrorism? Even those who later voted for a war in Iraq that turned out to be among the most catastrophic in U.S. history are considered sober, trustworthy experts.

comment posted at 10:41 AM on Sep-23-14
comment posted at 11:04 AM on Sep-23-14

I let Apple's QuickType keyboard take over my iPhone , Josh Lowensohn, the Verge, via Predictive poetry, Mark Liberman, Language Log.
comment posted at 12:19 PM on Sep-18-14
comment posted at 12:21 PM on Sep-18-14

I AM GROOT.
comment posted at 8:47 AM on Sep-17-14

Every competitive cooking show in America, ranked by the A.V. Club
comment posted at 1:12 PM on Sep-15-14
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comment posted at 11:16 AM on Sep-16-14

Today Apple announced the latest iteration(s) of the iPhone - an embiggened iPhone 6 and the positively titanic iPhone 6 Plus, as well as the long-rumored Apple Watch. But perhaps the biggest news went under the radar - the company's iconic iPod (lately rebranded the iPod Classic), which famously reversed the company's years of decline and launched the era of digital music, has finally been put out to pasture.
comment posted at 3:11 PM on Sep-9-14

A lot of the world’s most powerful people look like Lester Burnham: white, male, middle-aged, well off, and bored to death. There are Lester Burnhams in public office, in the Supreme Court, at billion dollar corporations, at record labels and movie studios. These people in power aren’t happy, and this movie gives them what must be a very comforting message: let go of your responsibility, but not your power. Don’t worry about what the world will look like after you die. You’ll be happy if you help yourself — not the people who need you.

Fifteen Years Later, 'American Beauty' is Just a Bad, Pretty Movie
comment posted at 9:29 AM on Sep-9-14

"International fast food behemoth Burger King Worldwide Inc. confirmed Tuesday that it will pay about $11 billion to buy Canadian chain Tim Hortons Inc., which sells coffee, donuts, and other breakfast food fare. The deal would merge America's second-largest burger chain, which is valued at nearly $10 billion, with the Canadian equivalent to Dunkin' Donuts, which is valued at more than $8 billion. It would also move the new company's headquarters to Canada, where corporate taxes are significantly lower."
comment posted at 2:46 PM on Aug-26-14
comment posted at 2:48 PM on Aug-26-14

Crazy Selfie From Hong Kong Skyscraper [16 second SLYT || some context || #exthetics]
comment posted at 3:01 PM on Aug-26-14

A north Texas man in the "sovereign citizen" movement attempted to take over a mansion in north Dallas on Monday. Upset with the current state of affairs in the United States, Douglas LeGuin attempted to occupy a mansion in far north Dallas. After knocking on the door and threatening a nanny, he started a dumpster fire. When first responders arrived, he began shooting at them, but no one was injured. LeGuin had also set up propane canisters around the house as explosives but none were detonated. He called 911 and it really is a doozy.
comment posted at 3:22 PM on Aug-18-14
comment posted at 3:47 PM on Aug-18-14

"The world isn't being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist -- the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other side is destroying the world. The world is being hurt and damaged by one group of people believing they're truly better people than the others who think differently. The world officially ends when we let our beliefs conquer love. We must not let this happen."

Andrew W.K. (previously applauded advice columnist) offers advice to a guy who reduces even his own father to a set of beliefs and political views and how it relates to him.
comment posted at 1:35 PM on Aug-11-14
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comment posted at 2:46 PM on Aug-11-14
comment posted at 10:22 AM on Aug-12-14

There is no place on the social structure for a second-grade boy who thinks rats are “pointy kitties” and calls his teacher “Mommy.” Kids can be misfits (Milhouse), or they can be brownnosers (Martin), or they can be troublemakers (Nelson), or they can be tattle-tales (Sherri and Terri), but being Ralph is simply not a taxonomically viable option. Ralph Wiggum's Finest Moments.
comment posted at 3:40 PM on Aug-11-14

The Worst Highways in America. "There are bad, bad roads in America. None have I-40's ability to warp time itself, and turn what should be a three-hour drive with traffic into a creeping space-time anomaly broken only by the words "hey, there's the exit for Bucksnort." I am convinced a person could extend their lifespan near infinitely and live to biblical ages provided they drove only on this stretch of I-40. No one will ever prove this, because no one would subject themselves to this even in the name of near-immortality. They would rather die, and wisely so."
comment posted at 11:41 AM on Aug-5-14

GOOD morrow. ’Tis I, Aelfric the Elder, with a piece of calligraphic parchment containing statements that I think — a “think piece,” let us call it — to be posted with a nail on our village’s biggest log, concerning youthful denizens born around A.D. 1000. These “millennials” are, without a doubt, the most narcissistic and hopeless cohort I have witnessed in my 35 long years on this stationary planet.
comment posted at 10:19 AM on Aug-5-14

"Neoliberal is the new hipster: everybody's it except you, and nobody can explain what it means"

I think that’s well-put, and that the similarity between the terms is no accident; hipsterism is an especially salient iteration of neoliberal subjectivity, one that gains currency by being slippery and inarticulable. These concepts become normalized by becoming boring and frustrating to talk about. The apparent vagueness in the terms seems to make them unalterable. The struggle to define them reflects the stakes of keeping them amorphous, capable of absorbing more and more behavior, making the way of thinking they describe feel inescapable, natural.

comment posted at 11:25 AM on Aug-5-14

Ira Glass tweeted that John Lithgow was "amazing" as King Lear in Central Park, but added, "Shakespeare: not good. No stakes, not relatable. I think I'm realizing: Shakespeare sucks." Then ProPublica reporter Lois Beckett had an idea: This American Lear.
comment posted at 11:54 AM on Jul-30-14
comment posted at 12:47 PM on Jul-30-14
comment posted at 1:01 PM on Jul-30-14
comment posted at 1:09 PM on Jul-30-14

Female 'Purity' Is Bullshit
comment posted at 3:49 PM on Jul-29-14
comment posted at 4:23 PM on Jul-29-14