The Good, the Bad, and the Curious (Links for the Week)

Here's what I've been reading that made me smile (the Good), cry (the Bad), and think (the Curious).

The Good


Check out this cool brain hack (h/t IFLS).

Life lessons from Kurt Vonnegut! 

Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

The Bad

The national news is full of heartbreaking footage on the Paris attacks and heartbreaking silence on the attacks in Kenya and Beirut. My local news is full of heartbreaking footage of threats against Mizzou students trying to ensure their college campus is a space in which they can learn and racist rants aimed at them. 

I decided that was enough of "the bad" for this week. 

The Curious

There's an interesting back and forth about activism for racial equality and the issue of free speech (particularly on college campuses) between Conor Friedersdorf and Jelani Cobb. Friedersdorf published an article on the intolerance of the Yale student activists angry about racist Halloween costumes. Cobb responds to his piece with one of his own about the free speech "diversion." Friedersdorf responds to Cobb with a piece about how intertwined free speech and the activism of marginal groups truly are. 

Here's a list of 10 things feminist mothers do.

Is emotional labor the site of the next feminist battle? (And the link that got me to this article also linked me to a very interesting post about the common thread between prostitution, nursing, and nannying).