Thursday roundup, brought to you...

...my getting up before the crack of dawn so I can do laundry so that the cat has clean sheets to shed (and hopefully not puke on) while I'm on vacation.

We all pay a price for devaluing women.

Billy Bush's op-ed is good but not that good. He does succeed at framing.

We Americans tend to be, as a culture, skilled at telling and reacting to individual stories, and much less good at appreciating the systems that give those stories their broader shape.

At a conference in Iceland, gender stereotypes are reversed.

Mr. Prats Monné wanted to know more about the building, a striking modernistic structure, and someone pointed him toward a gentleman in a gray suit.

“The building manager or something,” Mr. Prats Monné explained after they spoke.

When I told him later that the man turned out to be the speaker of the Icelandic Parliament, Mr. Prats Monné laughed. “In this setting, when you see a man, you assume he’s the janitor.”

 When Petri's good, she's good.

There's a pretty clear line between something like this: A congressman's accuser: Blackballed and baby-sitting for cash and less power-driven flirting at work.

 It is completely within the norm of human exploratory romantic behavior for people to take steps—sometimes physical steps—to see if the other person reciprocates their feelings. It is OK to flirt with a person who you aren’t sure wants to be flirted with. It is OK to not be 100 percent great at reading signals. It is even OK to be grossed out by someone’s advances, as long as those advances stop once you make clear you aren’t into it. There are predators and harassers, even more of them than I thought, and there are some lines that are simple to draw, even if we haven’t been enforcing them until now... The difference between actions that can get you married and actions that can get you fired can’t simply be whether or not the person you are interested in is interested back. Careers should end when someone tries, and is rebuffed, and does not heed that rebuffing. Careers should not end just because someone tried. We’re not all attracted to the people who are attracted to us.

Kashana Cauley on patriotism.

Even artificial intelligence has to actively combat bias. I mean, look at that flow-chart with the cats and dogs!

Veganism isn't a white thing.

Check out these bad bitches.

RIP King Michael.

The Chicago Pile reactor was cool. Scallop eyes are really cool.

Some decent cleaning hacks for pet owners.