I have started my master gardener training and learned that potatoes are not in fact roots of the potato plant. They are actually a modified stem.
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Today I learned…
"A group of University of Pennsylvania students gave startling answers when asked by their professor what they thought the average American worker earns per year – 25% believed the mean annual income topped $100,000 and one student responded that it was $800,000.
In reality, the average annual income in the United States in 2020 was $56,310, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median household income – calculated by taking an entire data set and organizing it from least to greatest to determine the number at the midpoint – was $67,521"
" The average family income of a Penn student is $195,500, according to data from the New York Times. That analysis also finds that 71% of the school’s student body comes from the top 20% of earners in the country."
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Dang. My students probably think it’s $30k. All about context.
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What the fuck. The business school students should know a LOT better than that.
Wtfffffffff
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Today I learned about the inventor of cc television and the first home security system!
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Glad this is at least getting coverage! It’s exhausting to watch modern attempts at woke tv/movies where disability is still openly mocked (and the few characters are played and written by non disabled people…cough cough superstore) amidst thinly veiled lectures about practically everything else. The disability as monster or magic is such a strong trope (the witcher, american horror story, pet cemetery remake, sabrina, the matrix, anyone in anything with a facial deformity, blind people who “see” the future, it goes on and on) as is the disability as a punch line (broad city, 30 rock, arrested development, dynasty, basically everything else ever written). There’s also the disabled as a vehicle for able goodness, which you can find in literally every medical show ever. And classics like this shouldn’t be immune to critique in this way when they’re being critiqued in other ways, it reeks of hypocrisy (cough hunchback of notre dame).
" “I was a little taken aback by [the fact] they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White,” he told podcaster Marc Maron.
“But you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there, it makes no sense to me.”
“You’re progressive in one way but you’re still making that backward story of seven dwarves living in the cave,” he said. "Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soap box? I guess I’m not loud enough.
“They were so proud of that, and all love and respect to the actress and the people who thought they were doing the right thing but I’m just like, ‘What are you doing?’”
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YES. It doesn’t even seem that …hard? to make media and tell stories that don’t sideline or ignore or infantilize or tokenize etc etc. It’s tiresome and angering and lazy!
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ugh yes i love so many shows that are so problematic (including dinklage’s own GoT for entirely different reasons of course).
i’m most attuned to casual fat jokes (EVERYWHERE) but man i just watched an ep of the office last night that was SO fuckin gross towards a very short character (not sure his exact classification or terminolgy) and it made it hard to enjoy. we need to do better!
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Oh yeah the office has that entire wheelchair episode too, and several other disability jokes (blind jokes and a deformity joke) and the episode where michael is “disabled” by burning his foot. I think you’re talking about the “are you a troll? do you grant wishes?” with the little person episode. That one is pretty bad too. It’s also interesting how stand-ups who don’t make other offensive jokes are still ok with those, like John Mulaney.
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Honestly, on a show like the office (or south park or whatever) it bothers me much less because at least it’s offensive towards like, basically every type of person? I mean it’s also sexist and racist and has fat jokes all that and clearly the real joke is that michael is an insensitive asshole.
It’s harder for me to stomach when it’s a trying to be a progressive show and is all like, trying to teach lessons about equity and lecture me about inclusion and then slams in a bunch of ableist stuff for laughs or impact. It’s like, oh cool, thanks for the reminder that I have to be sensitive about everyone else’s stuff but I’m still fair game. That’s kind of how the 2020s feel to me in general, lol, and then the co-opting of disability language by other groups on top of it (especially “accessibility” and “ableism”) is just like…wow, ok. Message received, lol.
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Agree, it’s not hard at all!
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I think the main issue is that it’s impossible to force someone to believe something. And like, public outrage just isn’t there for this group. Rather than pulling it or revising it (people lose their jobs nowadays over more minor things!) the response is more like, “we really don’t think it’s offensive! we don’t mean it to be offensive! we talked to a disabled person!”
I think it can actually be harder to get it across to people who feel like they are the do-gooder types, because they just do not believe they could have such blinders on about something so big? So they just convince themselves they don’t. It’s like my very woke gym which has all the right signs outside, but won’t do an accommodated subscription for lockers (which would enable lots of para climbers to use the gym more easily), and won’t clear the parking lot for the one day a month there is a paraclimbing group that meets there. We had to beg them for months to fix the elevator, lol, but there are nice signs everywhere! I’ve found that vibe in a lot of LGBTQIA+ spaces as well, unfortunately, like your voice just gets shouted down or pushed aside. I find more totally clueless types to be easier to convince, in a way, because I think their identity is less wrapped up in being a Good Person, or something? IDK but it’s definitely a thing. Sorry for the brain dump, lol. I have therapy in like ten minutes so obviously I’m …thinking of a lot of stuff, haha.
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You are def on to something.
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Maybe there’s extra cognitive dissonance in those spaces because marginalized people have to work harder to get others to see their struggles, and so they don’t want to believe that they could be equally as likely to miss where they’re falling short? Like how “woke” white women can have a hard time seeing how they are contributing to racial injustice but can more easily grasp the ways the patriarchy makes their lives harder? Idk. I’m learning new things every day and always trying to catch and reroute my reflexive defensiveness because that is the learning space. Super hard. No one wants to be a Bad Person! (at least I hope they don’t yikes yikes!!)
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Yes, I think it’s exactly that!
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Yes! People want to be judged by their intentions and not their impact. My husband struggles with this with his parents. He will be like “Hey this thing you did hurt me!” and they are like “Oh that’s not what we meant to do” like he should change how he feels because he misread their intentions, rather than them changing their hurtful behavior. It’s maddening.
I think a lot of people are really incapable of or forget to try empathy, especially if it counters their “I’m a good person” narrative. It blows my mind how many times in my life I have said to someone “Hey could you try to look at this from my or another person’s perspective? How do you think it looks to me (or them)” and they just look at me like this is not something they have ever considered.
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There’s also an element of “I did the work!” And not thinking about how there’s all these other areas they haven’t done the work on.
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I hadn’t heard of their plan to remake it, but I agree it need some major revisions to be good. On the level of “Frozen is based on The Snow Queen” revisions; those stories have very little in common, though the general elements are somewhat there. I’ve read what I thought was a very good take on it and did not actually have a group of 7 people involved, but did have a (fully thought through, including their own culture) race of people who were primarily living underground, Fairest by Gail Carson Levine.
Agreed about all the other thoughts on total ignorance of disability and ableism and will be thinking further on that.
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I was thinking a lot about this one. And I think that if we try and strip the legend back maybe to fear of/rescue by the little people/old folk in the woods, we can get somewhere. And no same name. If my fairy tale anthology is still around, I might see what I can find.
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The Vimes Boots Theory of Economics and poverty will shortly be an economic index for inflation, if I’ve read this right.
Also I hadn’t heard of Jack Monroe before but they seems very interesting.
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Huh, this is really interesting!
I’m sure I’ll get hit by a load of information proving me to be a terrible person following terrible people on the I ternet. But to my knowledge jack Monroe is super cool. And I think lots of the recipes that made them famous would suit your family
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Chimps use medicine possibly?
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