Monday, June 17, 2013

The Good, the Bad, and the Curious (Links!)

I hope everyone's summer is off to a fantastic start! We've broken out the sandbox and just got our porch repaired so that we can enjoy some nice, muggy, sauna-like Midwest weather (that is, if it ever stops raining).

Here's what I've been reading this week that made me smile (the Good), cry (the Bad), and think (the Curious). Please share anything you've been reading (or writing!) in the comments.

The Good

First, here's John Boutte singing "Bring It On Home to Me." If that doesn't make you smile, your smile might be broken. 


Look at what this guy does with a Wii remote!



In what I'm sure is some sort of karmic retribution for a past transgression, this comedy tour is not coming to my city, but if it is coming to yours, you should most definitely go

There's a new symbol for disability in New York City and it focuses on movement and independence rather than static dependence. 

The Bad

There is someone running for a major political office who believes (or at least believed) that yoga lets Satan into your mind and did not have the cognitive wherewithal to have someone proofread the title of his book. The title! (most pertinent part is at the 3:00 minute mark in this video from Rachel Maddow). 

The craziest part of this video demonstrating racial profiling is the people who willingly helped the pretty blonde woman steal a bike: 


There are actually and truly people who are angry that a Latino child named Sebastien de la Cruz sang the national anthem at the Spurs game because he's not "American" enough for them. Someone needs to read some history books.

This Slate article has some advice on how to be a successful woman in academia: don't have a baby.
Before even applying for the first tenure-track job, many women with children have already decided to drop out of the race. They have perceived a tenure-track job as being incompatible with having children. In our study of University of California doctoral student, 70 percent of women and more than one-half of the men considered faculty careers at research universities not friendly to family life. Others are married to other Ph.D.s; the “two body” problem. In those cases, one body must defer to the other’s career and that body is far more likely to be the woman’s. Or their husband’s career, not in academia, limits their choices. As one biology graduate student in our study said, “My husband has a job he loves, but it will require that we don’t move: This limits my postdoc and career options significantly. I think the chances of staying in the same city throughout the career and finding a tenure track position are almost nonexistent. However, I am not sure I care any more.”

The Curious

Perhaps the birthday song will be moving to public domain?

Code Name Mama's tips on alternatives to telling your child "good job" had me thinking about how I give praise and encouragement in my own parenting.

Watch Aisha Tyler explain her frustration over people who tell her she's not "black enough."


Nina Badzin has a fantastic piece about how it feels to let go of helicopter parenting tendencies while she watched her child botch a piano recital:
Sam eventually made it through the rest of the song, bowed, and took his seat. We, his parents and grandparents, were extraordinarily proud that he had not run straight out of the room like I imagined I would have done in his place. And of course that was the issue right there. Sam had shown all the strength and fortitude any parent could wish for a child in that moment. But I was too busy projecting how I would have felt sitting on that piano bench. I couldn’t seem to separate myself from Sam—I was Sam, Sam was me.
This post over at Feministe (especially the conversation in the comments) reminded me of just how much work we need to do to stop digging ditches between women with children, women who want children but haven't been able to have them, and women who don't want children. We have a lot more in common than the mainstream narratives about our collective lives would like us to believe.

Check out the fascinating history of breastfeeding, photos, and the narratives of motherhood

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