Saturday roundup

I love Carolyn's response here, because there's no judgment about choices; merely the statement that there are tradeoffs and they're up to the individual to weigh. I've written about how my issue with many personal finance columnists--like Suze Orman--is that they unhelpfully make decisions for those who seek their advice, rather than teaching them to prioritize. Pair that column with another recent one, where a miserable letter-writer asserts that she nonetheless has no regrets. Her choices are not those I would have made (or did make), but if it's worth it to her to be in an unhappy for a big house and kids, who is anybody else to tell her otherwise?

I also love Laura Bates' column in response to the inane Foster column (to which I will not link).

Feminism simply means wanting everybody to be treated equally regardless of their sex. It's as simple as that. And no part of that definition maligns or "bans" flirting, telling somebody they look nice, or going at it like joyfully consenting rabbits in whatever style, location, position or combination of partners your heart desires.

What it does mean is that women shouldn't be scared to walk down the street; shouldn't be faced with intimidating and aggressive sexual shouts from cars and vans; shouldn't be treated as dehumanised sex objects; shouldn't be made to feel that men have an inherent entitlement to their bodies in public spaces.

Strange though it seems to have to keep reiterating it, the difference between sexual harassment and flirting is really fairly clear. It's actually quite insulting to the vast majority of men to suggest that they aren't perfectly capable of knowing the difference between complimenting someone, starting a flirty conversation, and harassing them. The clue is in the name: harassment. And if you're hoping to end up in bed with someone, of whatever gender, it's really in your interests to steer clear of harassing them, as it's likely to be fairly unhelpful to proceedings.

and

But for those still in doubt, you could always run through this handy checklist of questions:
• Is the way in which I'm making this advance likely to scare or alarm the person?
• Has the person already made it clear to me that they are uninterested in my advances?
• Does the speed at which my vehicle is moving rule out any likelihood of a response to this advance?
• Is this "advance" actually just a shouted and uninvited assessment on my part of this person's attractiveness/body/genitals?
• Does the context of this situation (a job interview, for example) make a direct sexual advance offensive or inappropriate?
• Am I actually, all things considered, just being a bit of a dick?
If the answer to any of the above is "yes", then perhaps what's happened here is that you have accidentally confused sexual harassment with a respectful sexual advance. In this case I refer you to the advice of a lady on Twitter, who rather eloquently summed things up:

Frankly, if your "liberated sexual advances" are cock-blocked by the @EverydaySexism project, you're probably doing them wrong.
— Eleanor Orebi Gann (@almostalady) April 9, 2014

While we're still on Things I Love, Martha Nussbaum on nourishing your inner world:

As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves. As we grow older, we encounter more and more complex stories — in literature, film, visual art, music — that give us a richer and more subtle grasp of human emotions and of our own inner world. So my second piece of advice, closely related to the first, is: Read a lot of stories, listen to a lot of music, and think about what the stories you encounter mean for your own life and lives of those you love. In that way, you will not be alone with an empty self; you will have a newly rich life with yourself, and enhanced possibilities of real communication with others.

I won't go as far as to say I love this, but it's a good example of how to write about science: with nuance. In this case, vinegar as a jellyfish-sting remedy... is complicated.

And here's how not to write about science. I get it: people freak out about radiation and don't really understand what it is or where it comes from. But being all cutesy and cagey about it isn't going to allay any fears or address misconceptions. Start reading that and tell me what you think she thinks the issue is: is it radiation, or is it plutonium? It's too bad because there's a lot of decent information in there, but she needed to have chosen a message and stuck with it. If that message was, radiation can be life-saving, why throw people off with uranium writ-large and one "bad" isotope of plutonium? If her point was--and I think it was--"here's how smoke detectors work, and by the way, this process depends on radioactive decay, so don't reflexively fear radiation"--she would have done better to just say that.