I am dog! I drive car!
In my first 700 days working at a major publication, I received over 800 threats. They’re tucked away in an archive folder, hopefully never referenced. I consider this an unfortunate but normal part of my job, a risk of science communication.
Not everyone who does science in public runs into this problem, but it’s almost impossible to predict the triggers. The reasons I deserved to die included aliens are real, the Earth is flat, Pluto is a planet, and of course, anything to do with women in science.
Sometimes I should die for making a homonym slip, or for using Canadian spelling. Once, I was condemned because I called the Cygnus spacecraft “cute” as an excuse to talk about its newly-designed yellow umbrella solar panel.
As science communicators go, I’m fairly low profile. My best articles hit a quarter million views – nice, but nothing compared to the science superstars. My beat is equally innocuous – very few people get riled up by gorgeous astronomy, and I’m careful about when I venture into politically hot topics.
Q. Bi the way?: I recently came out to my parents as male-to-female transgender. They were understandably shocked, and it took a while for them to come around. At the time, one of my father’s primary comforts was that I identified as a lesbian. I wouldn’t be dating a guy. At the time it seemed true—any interest I had in guys was purely sexual, nothing romantic. Now, after months of hormones under my belt, it’s fuzzier. I feel like I could develop romantic feelings for a man. I generally prefer other women, but could fall for the right guy. Do I come out to my parents as bi, and steal my father’s silver lining? Or should I wait to cross that bridge if or when I get to it?
A: There’s something tragically comic about your father saying to himself, “Well, at least she’s a lesbian” as some sort of solace. I’m glad that your parents have come around. I’m of the opinion that it’s better to come out before a relationship “forces” your hand so that you and your family have time to adjust and discuss it before introducing a new boyfriend into the mix. “Mom, Dad, I’m actually bisexual” is a challenging enough conversation; “Mom, Dad, I’m actually bisexual, and this is David” is varsity level. Tell them as soon as you feel ready to introduce the subject. Your dad will cope. Plenty of men have daughters who aren’t lesbians, and they’ve all survived.
Friend of The Toast Jess Zimmerman wrote a FICTION.
Rembert on Hillary’s recent attempts to woo black voters:
“I thought we’d get that talk from Bernie, but it was Hillary,” the woman said as she took her seat in the restaurant. The man with her nodded his head in agreement, and then they sat in silence, attending to the world in their cell phones.
“Hey, soror,” a woman half-shouted a few minutes later, as she scooped food into her Styrofoam takeout box. The seated woman looked up, smiled, and responded, “Oh, hey, soror, you see Hillary?”
“She was real good, right,” the woman making her plate said, now at a different food station. All three nodded their heads, almost causing me to join in even though I was not a part of the conversation. All of this took place at Manna’s, the self-anointed “Best Soul Food Restaurant in the Village of Harlem.” I religiously get a four-vegetable plate there whenever I go to an event at the Schomburg Center, the New York Public Library’s hub for black culture, which sits on the corner of 135th and Malcolm X.
The People v OJ Simpson, Nicole’s favourite show, which she watches in REAL TIME every Tuesday night, continues:
This episode really presses upon the cliché that lawyers can’t be trusted, particularly when it introduces Alan Dershowitz (Evan Handler) and F. Lee Bailey (Nathan Lane). Both start out vehemently (and publicly) asserting that O.J. is guilty, but are easily persuaded to join his defense “dream team” with nothing more than weak flattery from Robert Shapiro. It’s almost as disconcerting as Robert Kardashian constantly referring to O.J. as “Uncle Juice.”
Both the defense team and the prosecution are wrapped up in trying to combat the onslaught of tabloid press. Tabloids — and the fact that O.J. has become a mainstay in their pages — seem to fuel the fire from all sides of the case. Everyone is concerned about “cash for trash.” The confident and cocky Marcia Clark quickly loses steam after an ace news conference when she realizes that witnesses like Jill Shively, who claims to have seen O.J. driving away from the scene of the crime, are damaging the district attorney’s credibility by taking money to appear on tabloid TV. She’s trying to keep the media from defining the narrative, to keep the “tail from wagging the dog,” but it might already be too late.
oh wait broad city is my favourite show and it’s BACK:
Even while indulging in the things about millennials that are kind of terrible — Ilana, in the premiere alone, demonstrates both a tendency toward under-informed, self-righteous outrage and a passionate, deeply inconsistent code about what is and is not racist — Broad City taps into something positive about the most maligned, trend-storied generation of our time. Abbi and Ilana sprint all over New York with so much naive, ridiculous optimism. The series is a weekly shot of effervescence. Straight joy, no chaser. It’s a lovefest between two women who are unreservedly supportive of each other. (Ilana, to Abbi: “You look sexy and vivacious and artsy and like, young-wife material, but taut and tease-y still. It’s a perfect combo!”) It’s hilarious, weird, and vital.
Pizza’s strategy was brilliant: When a random Tumblr would write about “pizza”—either the food or herself—she’d reblog the post to her huge audience. Once, when a user wrote “so is tumblr user pizza god or beyonce,” she dug up the post and reblogged it with the comment “I’d like to confirm that i am both.” Users marveled at how quickly she responded, how you could “summon Pizza.” It made her seem all-knowing, but not superior. After Ellen DeGeneres ordered 20 large pies at the 2014 Academy Awards, Pizza dashed off the line “did u guys see me at the Oscars.” The post received almost 500,000 notes and was reblogged by John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars, with the comment “You looked great, pizza. Congrats on everything. I love you.”
I have only every cared about Mystrade fanfic, but Buzzfeed has rounded up some VERY delightful looking fics (rec your own in the comments!):
5. Twist and Shout by Gabriel and StandByMe
Word Count: 97,997
Completed: Yes
Author Summary: “What begins as a transforming love between Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak in the summer of 1965 quickly derails into something far more tumultuous when Dean is drafted in the Vietnam War. Though the two both voice their relationship is one where saying goodbye is never a real truth, their story becomes fraught with the tragedy of circumstance. In an era where homosexuality was especially vulnerable, Twist and Shout is the story of the love transcending time, returning over and over in its many forms, as faithful as the sea.”“I usually don’t cry very often, but this fic still brings me to tears a year after finishing it.”
Submitted by haleymdavis1652 and others
Please enjoy this thread:
Comment deleted for caring too much:
I imagine this is fake, but what. if. it’s. not.
