Sunday roundup

How to survive a chemical attack.

There are some rough but beautiful photos among the winners of the World Press Photo Contest.

This article about the glut of men in China and India is tragic but also fascinating in the stereotypes it quotes about women (or men) from other countries:

Russian women... are the most sought-after brides, prized for their fair skin and European features. They are seen as educated but accessible, less emancipated than Western women. 

and

Vietnamese women are seen as less “demanding” than some Chinese women and more focused on traditional family values. They are also sought after for their fair skin, their big eyes and slim waists, Grillot says. They in turn often prefer Chinese husbands to their own compatriots, not just for their wallets, but because they are seen as hard-working and family-focused.

Yeah, we know some of our people are awful; don't take your anti-Russian sentiment on Russians just minding their own business.

Captain Shults is better referred to as a pilot, not a lady pilot.

If you're on Facebook, you should be very concerned about how they collect data.

You should absolutely recycle.

On gaslighting and owning your emotions. That column means a lot to me, because both my mother and RM tried to gaslight me into thinking my need for space was invalid, even inhuman. This so invokes RM:

...how could it be sweet to do something repeatedly for someone that you know irritates that person? So, yes, if he continues after you’ve clearly asked him not to, then that crosses the line into gaslighting and/or controlling behavior.

Part of Carolyn's response reminds me more of relationships I've been in: it's about finding ways to "meet the other’s needs while still being true to themselves," which entails that "each of you identifies your emotional needs and owns them, instead of writing them off as ungrateful or rat-b---hy or whatever else" and "Respect for each other, and thereby not dismissing, ignoring or trying to change the other’s emotional needs." 

When Petri's good, she's really good:

“I must let America see what she has become. I call her “she” because I feel she owes me her silence and acquiescence; she is something to be talked about, not to...”

Same with Max Fisher. An amazing thread on really wrong maps.

Look at this sweet couple.

I call it passive mansplaining

Last night, my father made reference to DC being much warmer than Boston, just as he has periodically over the 15+ years that I've lived here, even though--every time--I let him know that DC really isn't much warmer. I'm sure I've told you about this before, and in any case you can check out the thread, so I'm going to go on to Other Dudes Who Do This. But before that, I can think of many examples where dad does it all the time: I tell him something will go bad if he doesn't put it in the fridge; it goes bad and he is surprised. And now, onto the other dudes.

There was, of course, RM, who just couldn't or wouldn't understand that I wasn't on an "eating plan"--that I planned out my meals for the week so that I could prepare them. As someone who never cooked for himself and also thought I was obsessed with nutrition--such that every food decision I made was nutrition-based--no amount of telling him otherwise would convince him.

While we're on the topic of food and nutrition: there are a number of people who don't buy the 'ethical vegan' thing. They think I'm making the ethical thing up but-really-I'm-just-dieting. They betray this in a number of ways, usually by questioning my food choices ("wouldn't it be healthier to have a salad rather than a veggie burger?" which is a question too inane for me to dignify with an answer). Women do this one a lot, even though I originally conceived this post out of my experiences with dudes pulling most of this shit.

There was the guy (the worst date ever) who didn't hear or believe me when I told him I was not interested in having dinner with him.

There was the guy at a party who, upon learning that my family had immigrated from the Soviet Union in 1980, insisted repeatedly that we must have been very powerful and well-connected to get out at that time. Now, not everyone has to be familiar with Jackson-Vanik but FFS when someone tries to explain it to you, believe them.

Too many others to write about, the most egregious are up there.

Sunday roundup

I am not linking to stories or images of Syrian kids being gassed (but Syrian kids are being gassed).

Don't watch Roseanne.

you mean the one where she held a tray of gingerbread Jews for an article entitled That Oven Feelin’ because she has actually claimed she’s the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler

is that the photo shoot, just checking pic.twitter.com/s5Elv8gbjR

— Erin Burr, sir (@erinscafe) April 4, 2018

We can't afford it as a society.

I had many thoughts when I read this - on many levels it sounds quite modern - cavalier populists playing with fire, apologists at every turn. We have to fucking wake up. https://t.co/f2HBr6Bmr0

— Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox) April 3, 2018

The Onion sadly nails it.

WTF, Michigan?

pic.twitter.com/XmrpHXA5ol

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) April 7, 2018

Women are conditioned to minimize other people's discomfort at the expense of their own safety. Men are conditioned to think they're geniuses. Also, men test the waters before escalating, and women have an uncanny sixth sense for unwanted attention (so don't tell us we're exaggerating or imagining things).

The 'describe yourself as a male author would' entries are priceless. I know the "where are you really from" dudes well.

Despite her round face, the only thing sitting higher than her breasts were her cheek bones. Eastern European, no doubt. He approached her.
“Where are you from?”
“New Jersey”
He smirked, and asked the question that would surely endear him to her forever.
“No. Before that.”

— Vanessa Salkova 🇺🇦👑🇺🇦 (@thetsarina) April 1, 2018

Every tweet in this thread:

3a. 90% of the time (I'm sensing a pattern here) we don't actually want male attention at all, much less of the sexual variety. I know it beggars belief but we really just want to...live our lives and go about our business unharrassed!

— Laura E. Weymouth (@lauraeweymouth) March 31, 2018

Men who cheat sure do justify it to themselves.

What these husbands couldn’t do was have the difficult discussion with their wives that would force them to tackle the issues at the root of their cheating. They tried to convince me they were being kind by keeping their affairs secret. They seemed to have convinced themselves. But deception and lying are ultimately corrosive, not kind.

In the end, I had to wonder if what these men couldn’t face was something else altogether: hearing why their wives no longer wanted to have sex with them. It’s much easier, after all, to set up an account on Tinder.

Vikings may have used crystals for navigation.