Big Saturday roundup

Boko Haram is horrendously violent.

I can't believe people are in denial about Christianity's violent history.

People in Ukraine are really hurting. Even people who are hurting, need art.

Somalia can't afford a loss of remittances.

Genital cutting is a horrible thing.

Livestock is sucking the west dry. Agriculture's impact on the climate.

Food security isn't just about growing more.

Measles kills, and it's heartbreaking.

Guatemala's child brides.

There is no perfect victim, but Cathy Young sure goes out of her way to discredit women.

Everyone heals in her own way.

Self-declared feminist man preys on women (and men). That story is horrible, and I'm not equating my own (non-violent) experience with it, but it does remind me of the vocally self-declared feminist man I dated years ago. He was manipulative and gas-lighting, and he was either uncomfortable with women on their own terms or thoroughly confused about what feminism meant.

Meet the face of the Men's Rights movement.

Who else betrays some very unflattering views about women? I could go on.

This village in India got its first fridge.

Your tax dollars at work: diagnosing Putin from a distance.

Rich people don't understand why Picasso's granddaughter has to go lowering the value of their collections to make money for charity.

The problem with McDonald's pay-with-love campaign (link to the cited Nation article here):

But at The Nation, Bryce Covert argues that the campaign’s problems go beyond its potential awkwardness. She calls the mandate that McDonald’s employees request “lovin’” from customers “a pretty blatant example of emotional labor: the requirement that a low-wage employee not just show up to work and adequately perform her duties, but that she put on a veneer of happiness and cheer for the customer to elicit an emotional response in him.” Emotional labor, she writes, “requires poorly paid people to slather a smile onto their face and cover up the real conditions under which they labor.”

And, she adds:
“McDonald’s has been one of the fast-food companies hit by massive, repeated waves of labor unrest by striking workers demanding better pay, the ability to form a union and an end to retaliation for their actions. Workers have been vocal about the fact that they and their families can’t survive on the money they make. But the company instead wants its customers to see employees who are genuinely delighted that a mother hugged her son in front of them.”

For Ms. Bachelder, the “lovin’” campaign embarrasses customers and maybe McDonald’s itself. In Ms. Covert’s formulation, it may do something worse: force McDonald’s workers to do more work for their already-low wages, and to pretend that they like it.

Whither general relativity?

Thought experiment: would you rather your kid grew up to be this man who walks walked miles to work, or Conrad Hilton III? 

You don't need more protein.

What kind of entitled jerk doesn't understand that kids aren't welcome at all weddings?

Which languages are hardest for native English speakers to learn?

The quotative like has gone mainstream.

Cats, and the Times is on it.