Sunday, March 22, 2015

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

I'm not even going to make excuses for how this weekly link round-up turned into a kinda, sometimes monthly one. Life's just busy. Like, so busy sometimes I forget to eat. Like, so busy sometimes I lose four hours and have no idea how they passed. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, but until then (then being, most likely, December), this is the best I've got. So, without further ado, here's what I've been reading that made me smile (The Good), cry (The Bad), and think (The Curious). What have you been reading (or writing)?

The Good

First and foremost, spring. We had a very mild winter with virtually no snow, and I really shouldn't be complaining about it, but I was so sick of cold, dark days. I took this picture today, and I am so ready for spring:


To celebrate all that glorious spring, I've been spending as much time as possible in the park. While there last week, a boy who looked to be about 10 asked me if I wanted to see a magic trick. He found my cards in an adorable, clearly oft-practiced trick. Then he went off to find some other stranger to continue honing his craft. 


Shannon Barber's Medium post reminds us that rules were meant to be broken, especially when those rules concern what grown women can and cannot wear on their bodies
I am over 30 and should have long ago hung up my fashion eccentricities- but what has happened is that I’ve shed my ability to care about how I am supposed to be doing it. 
I know the rules I just don’t care.
Also, my daughter finished her second round of roller skating classes:


One self-described "redneck Republican" is wearing IUDs as jewelry.

Michele Burmaster wants us to take back fitspo, and she has some choice words for a fitness magazine who asked her to submit "better" photos.

Read what K. M. O'Sullivan did when her teenage son brought home a condom.


The Bad

Everything about the DOJ report on Ferguson makes me cry, but this part is particularly shocking:
It turns out that nearly everyone in the city is wanted for something. Even internal police department communications found the number of arrest warrants to be "staggering". By December of 2014, "over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants that had been issued by the court." The report makes clear that this refers to individual people, rather than cases, so people with many cases are not being counted multiple times. (Though clearly some of these cannot be Ferguson residents, since the number represents more than the entire adult population and Ferguson policing applies to visitors as well.) However, if we do look at the number of cases, the portrait is even starker. In 2013, 32,975 offenses had associated warrants, so that there were 1.5 offenses for every city resident.
While we're on the topic of North St. Louis County overreaches in the name of "justice," take a look at this lawsuit against the city of Florissant. A "defective muffler" charge that the woman paid ends with an unwarranted arrest and brutality.

Cherelle Baldwin faces decades in prison for trying to flee an abusive partner whom she had an order of protection against.

And to balance out (though definitely not to brighten) the law enforcement portrayal, here's one police officer's horrifying account of responding to a five-year-old gunshot victim.


The Curious

Anna Ross has a great post at Vida on the many implications of saying "I don't know how she does it":
I don’t know how she does it. I don’t know how you do it. Not surprisingly, the only people who are actually interested in hearing a response to this statement are other mothers, and for them the particulars are practical, not theoretical.
Mental Floss posted 15 Phenomenal Female Circus Performers.

This post about one family's journey through opting out of standardized tests really brings up some of the tensions in this debate.

Bonbon Break has a great post on why overwhelmed moms don't ask for help.

What happens when one identical twin exercises and the other doesn't?

XOJane published a truly unpopular "Unpopular Opinion" piece about not tipping, and this Jezebel response said everything I thought (and then a little more).

This Love, Joy, Feminism post about the balance of parental needs and children's needs in Attachment Parenting hit home for me.

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