Thursday roundup

Wait, an upstate New York district superindendent in 2011 responded to complaints about swastikas with, “Your expectations for changing inbred prejudice may be a bit unrealistic”??

What cow dung and fertilizer are doing to Florida's springs.

Don't go liking General Mills' products.

I really didn't care for the Slate piece on no makeup because, precisely as the Jezebel takedown articulated, it started from a premise where makeup is the obvious default position:

"Not wearing makeup: is it feminism, laziness or the rise of cosmetic normcore?" wonders Slate. Huh. Good question: having a face and not smearing cosmetics upon it: is it a political statement, sloth, or, uh, some kind of weird fashion thing? Or could be it be some strange, unheard-of fourth option... such as being a human in possession of a face who doesn't feel the need to apply products to it, and it is really just not a big deal?

Katy Waldman, in the original piece, eventually gives away her bias by "defending" (as if anyone was challenging her) her own preference for makeup. She did the same thing not long ago with regard to tights, about which I had to say this:

And then there was the Slate Double XX piece on tights, which rivals the Jezebel series on Foods That Should Not Exist. I'm not asking these sites to be all seriousness, all the time, but is there anything to be gained by engaging in pissing fights about things that don't matter? Some people love tights; some people don't get tights; who the f* cares?? Is it even worth addressing? Some people love tofu; other people love Twinkies. That's certainly worth addressing, but not in a culture-war way. This type of coverage is a microcosm of idiotic internet discourse that dumbs us all down and wastes our time. F*ing hell, stop writing about tights, especially with regard to other people's preferences. Who. The. F*. Cares??

I get that, with makeup (as with ladyscaping), there's more of a perceived need to make it clear that one is following one's heart rather than succumbing to social pressures. And it's important on a societal level to recognize that one's level of makeup or ladyscaping or anything else needn't be read into, but on a personal level? Who the f* cares? Back to the Jezebel response:

It's terrifyingly overwhelming to think that everything a woman does has some kind of big hermeneutic repercussion. Seriously, though — some ladies don't wear makeup because they literally don't think about it ever! Some just don't like it! To posit that there must be some kind of big cultural reason for women to reject makeup-wearing is to imply that everyone sees makeup as a requirement of womanhood; to say that it's lazy intimates that it's a Female Duty. Not all women would agree with that. 

I'm on team "don't think about it ever" although I sometimes put on lipstick because I feel like it and it's easy. I hate the feel of anything on my face or eyes. And I wouldn't like looking madeup. But enough about me; I'd rather turn it over to another more articulate woman--India Arie:

Depend on how the wind blows I might even paint my toes
It really just depends on whatever feels good to my soul