Monday roundup

A woman writes about her nazi grandmother.

My grandmother heard what she wanted from a leader who promised simple answers to complicated questions. She chose not to hear and see the monstrous sum those answers added up to. And she lived the rest of her life with the knowledge of her indefensible complicity.

But in her willingness to talk about a subject few members of her generation would, she taught me the vital importance of knowing better.

What is it about The Handmaid's Tale that so resonates today?

When it comes to jobs, there's quality as well as quantity.

On self-care via leisure.

When Charlotte Perkins Gilman experienced post-partum depression, her doctor prescribed the now-infamous “rest cure.” She was to “lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live.”

This prescription made Gilman so much worse that she began to talk of suicide. Eventually she separated from her husband, traveled, got better and wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a story about the horrors of lying in bed all day. Virginia Woolf was also prescribed the rest cure, also hated it, and also went on to write about it in disparaging terms, in “Mrs. Dalloway.

This starts out okay:

It’s a tough moment to be a woman shopping for business attire.

But wait...

The store does not offer discounts or use promotions, which have practically become table stakes in the apparel business. Its $200 to $300 price tags are an invitation to middle-class cubicle warriors to change their mind-set about shopping, to scoop up investment pieces rather than constantly refreshing their wardrobes with cheaper goods.

Um, no, because:

Plus, even though many women say they are tired of poorly made clothes and are ready to shell out for higher quality, MM.LaFleur might find that’s a hard sell for others. We live in a time when consumers are splurging on experiences, when the idea of investing $250 in a dress may be a non-starter for a woman who thinks nothing of spending that kind of money on dinner.

 We make a difference by eating less meat. Also, cows know you're taking their babies away.