Roundup for most of the week, including old tweets

Turkey's PM gets caught in a scandal, blames outside interests.

Friedman on the peace process. Here, also, merely out of continuity, is David Brooks' incoherent column on the topic. Actually, it's more continuous with the Times' analytical piece on the POTUS: means well, but it's a bad situation.

By the way, I am truly not one for schadenfreude, but it's difference when there's hypocrisy. I'm not glad that Sarah and David Brooks are divorcing, but I can't help but be a little satisfied that someone who preached about the importance of marriage, gets humbled.

Really, the Times op-ed column to read (besides Friedman's) is Charles Blow's take on Duck Dynasty. He hits it out of the park, i.e., does what a columnist is actually supposed to do: bring out the essence in a complicated situation.

I very recently linked, again, to the 'stupid logic of poor people' piece, and here's another angle on the same theme. As a think white woman, I have to disagree at least from my own experience: I still don't think I can get away with being sloppy. And my first thought is, maybe if I were tall, I could. So I wonder whether we always look toward another factor. But what does resonate is that getting away with sloppiness is a privilege; maybe it is an incremental privilege.


Amanda Marcotte nails it re: evolutionary psychology:

Sapolsky's article shows what is one of the fatal flaws of evolutionary psychology, which is this tendency to read too much into the results because the researchers are so eager to reinforce their beliefs that men and women are practically different species and our behavior is "hard-wired" and immoveable. Because of this, they tend to leap right to these elaborate theories of instinctual behaviors, when it may be something as simple as our inability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

This can apply to that so many of the other inane studies that have come out about women and bling, women and luxury goods, etc.

On the topic of questionable (and, subsequently, more robust) science, how do our names affect us?

Carolyn has some suggested answers to impertinent questions. Carolyn's earlier words on "one's best self" is priceless. I'd excerpt, but I'd end up excerpting the whole thing.

There's a veritable treasure-trove of great articles in Elle this month, but they're not all available online. Do check out the one on weight-management being the last taboo of feminism (check out also a similar piece in Salon from last year). There was also the peace on harvesting intuition (check out Maria Popova's related, or contrarian, piece, and, while you're at it, her piece on The Art of Observation).

The creepy part of the Target data breach is that I got an e-mail from Target (I bought kitty litter the weekend after TG). How did Target get my e-mail address (or connect it to my credit card)?

Doesn't everybody know by now that dietary fat in and of itself doesn't really matter?

Oh, yeah, I'd promised to link to the stuff I'd been tweeting instead of posting while my laptop was down. Here's the Twitter roll:

Eastern Europe's far-right isn't taking to Syrian refugees.

The most sensible way to reduce methane is to tax meat. Also, just when you thought factory farming couldn't get more disgusting.

I want this eggplant tomato dress.

Play "composer or pasta?" and let me know how well you do.

I've always loved Emma Thompson.

The Atlantic's photo essay has some good stuff.

Fact-checking is crucial.

Another piece I'd almost excerpt in its entirety (on Nice Guys):

A Nice Guy is always there for you, in every situation, with a shoulder to cry on, a salve for your ire, the ultimate yes-man. A guy who is nice will be there for you when he can and only if you need him, and he won’t be afraid to tell you if you’re wrong.  A Nice Guy will bend over backwards to be the kind of person you’ve always wanted, a guy who is nice will have a personality that is not forged from the ashes of your own, with interests that are entirely separate from yours. Nice Guys yell at you to “SMILE BEAUTIFUL!” on the street, and don’t understand why you scowl and pull your scarf tighter around your neck. A guy who is nice will just smile at you as you’re walking home from the subway. Women like guys who are nice. We want to date them. But Nice Guys, not so much. Why?

Nice Guys treat friendship as a carefully calculated series of hoops that they must jump through in order to defeat the final boss, and get in your pants. They show up at your door bearing magazines and Kettle Chips when you’re having a hard day, and will endure hours of “Dance Moms” just to be in your presence. These small acts of “kindness” are just the foundation for what will inevitably turn into a rebuffed advance. Nice Guys seethe when they are rejected, telling you that they deserve things because they’ve always been NICE to you. Nice Guys are bitter. Nice Guys aren’t really that nice at all.

Here’s the thing about being a Nice Guy: we can sniff that shit out a mile away. We have all been around the block enough times to see you bending over backwards to be the kind of person you think a woman wants. We are already anticipating the heat that we might catch if the date doesn’t go well, or if we gently decline your texted advance after the night is over. We are ready, but it doesn’t men that it’s not a huge pain in the ass.

The truth is that nobody really deserves anything, except for human decency, which, if you’re not a monster, is a perfectly feasible feat. No one has to like you because you were NICE. No one has to be interested because you held the door or awkwardly helped us take off our jacket. Hearts are not so easily bought, they are won, by guys who are nice.