Friday, April 14, 2017

Weekend Reading: The Catching Up Edition

I've had a pretty good week, work-wise, and am almost caught up again. If I get a good Sunday morning work session, I should be set. (For those who don't know: I "trade" some work time on Sunday mornings for a Friday afternoon rollerblade, which I am just back from. The bay path is less crowded on Friday afternoons, and if I schedule writing work for Sunday mornings I rather enjoy settling in with my tea to do some work while the kids have a lazy morning, so this is a win-win arrangement for me.)

I am over the cold I caught on spring break, but still sniffly because there are wildflowers everywhere. I cannot remember another year like this for wildflowers. All open space is awash in color, mostly yellow, but with some splashes of pink/purple and orange. It is really pretty, but my allergies are going berserk. Then yesterday, I made them worse by pulling out a bunch of wild grass that was growing in our native landscaped front yard. There is more to pull, but I think I'll leave that for Mr. Snarky. He doesn't have a grass allergy!

Anyhow, let's get to the links.

I didn't save many links about politics. I'm still following what is going on, but maybe I have a bit of fatigue on the topic. I will re-up my recommendation of Talking Points Memo for a good round up of the most important stories of the day, along with some smart analysis (with a left of center tilt). I've found Josh Marshall's analysis of the Russia story particularly helpful. He's not prone to exaggeration, and is good and pulling together the strands from the reporting at the "big" places. Here is his latest on that topic, so you can see what I mean.

This story about the closing of hospitals in rural Tennessee highlights one of my problems with running health care as a for profit enterprise: just because there isn't a profit to be made in some location, that doesn't mean there isn't a need there.

The different standard women who run for office must meet.

Sesame Street has introduced a muppet with autism, Julia. Vox reporter Dylan Matthews, who has autism, wrote a really good piece about why this matters and why the particular way in which they introduced Julia is so important.

GoGoGrandparent sounds like a promising idea, really poorly implemented.

Sady Doyle considers that maybe women don't need to apologize less. Maybe men need to apologize more. Really, this one is worth reading just for the phrase "critical apology failure."

Read about Pauli Murray, the Civil Rights and women's rights activist who gets left out of a lot of our stories about those movements.

Kameron Hurley's post about trying to be a pro writer while also having a full time day job really resonated with me, even though I'm not trying to be a pro writer. One of the things that my current work arrangement makes possible is for me to focus on multiple career interests without courting burnout. I'm very grateful for that.

Jenna Price's 60th birthday note to her 30 year old self is wonderful.

Women surgeons are replicating a New Yorker cover and it is awesome.

This bunny reminds me of the pet bunny I had for the longest period of time.




Happy weekend, everyone!

2 comments:

  1. The men need to apologize more thing: YES.

    I stopped thinking that I apologized too much, because I don't, I apologize when it's appropriate. But a key to the culture is the men who screw up also sincerely apologize, admit fault, and try to make it right. That's made for a very good working culture.

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  2. We recorded the "Meet Julia" episode of Sesame Street but haven't watched it. I'm like 95% sure I'll cry when we do.

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