Sunday morning roundup (probably Part I)

Dissent is cautiously popping up out in the open in Cuba.

The bible is not the law of the land, nor the basis thereof.

Britain embraces the behavioral science of nudging.

What is a clean house, anyway? The standard shifts as women opt not to pick up the slack.

The Atlantic on why we must look critically at popular science reporting (and how to do so). Which is not to say that we can't uncritically enjoy science photography.

Carolyn nails it in her response to judgy, greedy siblings.

Oh, remember that douche-canoe who wrote that click-baity piece for Slate about how vegetarians should get over themselves and have chicken broth? The thing with douche-canoes is that they're often not that bright or well-informed, and this one in particular scored 296 on Slate's news quiz this week. I can't remember a time where the guest comparison point of the week scored lower than average (this week, that was 326). I scored 442, so suck it, douche-canoe, and keep your chicken broth to yourself.

***
I'd thought about wading into the two--or two of?--this week's tempests in the blogosphere's teacup, but all I can say about either is 'meh.' When I was browsing Jezebel headlines, I browsed right past the piece on R. Kelly because I couldn't care less, and then noticed a Twitterstorm about Jezebel's epitomizing white, exclusionist feminism. So I went back and read the offending post and the offended comments, and wasn't sure which were dumber; the best comments were, "please tell me you guys are trolling," because the post was--I thought--obviously satire; but I also thought it was satire in bad taste. That said, the comments were just silly. What does "Jezebel only cares about white victims" accomplish? It's pretty obviously not true if you look at the site, which has become a punching bag. Which is interesting.

I read Jezebel. I don't agree with every opinion voiced on there, and I don't care enough about everything on there enough to read it all. I also don't think everything on there is well enough written to bother reading. It's a forum like any other. Sometimes a less-expressly-feminist site handles a given topic better (see The Frisky on R. Kelly, and on Rashida Jones, the second tempest). Although one of Jezebel's posts on the second matter made some excellent points. I'm not the site's defender--I have no stake in its reputation or credibility--but I find some of the critiques overwrought at best and off the mark at worst.

I guess my overall point is, there are certainly conversations to be had about feminism and race, and what Jezebel means in the nexus of the two, but whatever conversations are popping up in the commentsphere are getting us nowhere.