Sunday roundup

Could Christians please quit trying to coopt Judaism? And no, don't ask me why I, Pastafarian Jew, get to pick and choose my rituals. Fine, do: it's because as a former Soviet Jew, my traditions were taken from my family through a policy of deliberate cultural dilution. Yes, that means we get to cling to rituals even if we don't believe in the theology behind them.

Oh, here's another artifact of being Soviet: you don't believe in socialism.

Don't be shitty. Do make art when people send you pictures of their junk.

Empowerment isn't about buying things; it's about not giving a fuck and being yourself:

“When you look at me on the telly, and say she should be on ‘The Undateables,’” she explained, in retelling, to the crowd, “you are looking at a 59-year-old woman. That is what 59-year-old women who have not had work done look like. Get it?” (In fact, Ms. Beard was 57 at the time, but the point stands.)

This, said Tina Brown, the founder of the Women in the World conference (in which The New York Times is an investor), amounted to a “battle cry,” a vindication of one of the rights of woman: to look, even in her 50s, like her unvarnished self.

These Audobon photography winners!