Sunday Snippets: Fall adjacent

The mornings are getting cooler. Much as I love summer, I do love the anticipation of fall.

The Work-From-Home Revolution Is Also a Trap for Women

She Never Hurt Her Kids. So Why Is a Mother Serving More Time Than the Man Who Abused Her Daughter?

My Grandmother’s Desperate Choice

The Charlottesville rally 5 years later: 'It's what you're still trying to forget'

Police Used a Baby’s DNA to Investigate Its Father for a Crime

A man who held up a bank demanding his own money becomes an unlikely hero

What People Really Make (and Spend) Behind Bars

The old Capitol stones hidden away in Rock Creek Park are being moved

How climate change is muting nature’s symphony

SERENA, THE EVOLUTIONARY

What It’s Like to Parent in Canada

Female Saudi activist gets record 34 years in prison for critical tweets

Judges who got kickbacks for sending kids to for-profit jails ordered to pay $200 million

Vance, DeSantis rally puts ‘highly unusual’ restrictions on press

History for Sale

Sunday Snippets: Kavanope

This man doesn't deserve to be elected to anything.

To The Non-Racist White People, Please Just Be The First

Why White Parents Need to Do More Than Talk to Their Kids About Racism

Hundreds Of Roman Gold Coins Found In Theater Basement

Maryland is taking the EPA to court over air pollution coming from upwind states

Childhood Trauma And Its Lifelong Health Effects More Prevalent Among Minorities

Border Patrol Agent Arrested in Connection With Murders of 4 Women

House Farm Bill could prevent formerly incarcerated individuals from obtaining food assistance

Sunday Snippets: Posted on Monday Edition

All the things happened this weekend, including prepping for yet another snowstorm! I think Mother Nature is just trying to shake us all off like fleas.

How friggin adorable is this dog?

*grabby hands* Want! Those photos are intense.

Because cats win at everything

All the truth

Just today it decided to snow. Naturally this led to poor visibility. While dodging folks doing 30 with flashers on and idiots doing 75 in all lanes, I noticed one very distinct thing. Nobody bothered to have lights on in these conditions. Flashers? Sure. Go wild! But the set of headlights that come as a no cost option?

Beautiful reminder & Oof, anxiety

Give yourself the gift of a new start. Forgive yourself, let go of the past, and with confidence move on with your life.

The look of betrayal & With Further Death Glares

Love this photo

Beautiful obit

Mrs. Herz-Sommer, who died in London on Sunday at 110, and who was widely described as the oldest known Holocaust survivor, had been a distinguished pianist in Europe before the war. But it was only after the Nazi occupation of her homeland, Czechoslovakia, in 1939 that she began a deep study of Chopin’s Études, the set of 27 solo pieces that are some of the most technically demanding and emotionally impassioned works in the piano repertory.

brb, dying of all things cute Especially puppies

*drool*

LOL. I love it. I get so sick of seeing trite couple photos, so this is hysterical, if not heterocentric.

Holy shit, I need to do this.

I just see rage whenever I read about this.

“It’s unimaginable that a woman acting in self-defense, who injured no one, can be given what amounts to a life sentence,” said Free Marissa Now spokeswoman Helen Gilbert. “This must send chills down the spine of every woman and everyone who cares about women and every woman in an abusive relationship.”

Can. Not. Wait. For. This

Book Review: Etched on Me

Etched on Me is the latest from Jenn Crowell and it's a sprawling, heartfelt book that will have you want to dance at the end. In a Top 40 Latest Hits way.

Or maybe that was just me.

The protagonist, Lesley, has a difficult start to life and for a sixteen year old, she must face circumstances that no one should ever have to process. Grappling with the aftermath of abhorrent abuse from her father and subsequent gas-lighting from her mother, she seeks out a friendly teacher, Miss (a character readers will recognize from Crowell's debut novel, Necessary Madness) and copes in one of the only manners that blocks the pain out, which is self harm. Such acts, with one in particular, land her in two hospitals, where she begins to heal.

She remains friends with Miss and eventually meets Miss's husband and son, after graduating and moving onto college. A chance encounter at a post-college graduation party leads to the book's climax, both the euphoric and the reprehensible way Lesley is treated.

This is a beautiful book. I say that as a simple sentence because if I could review this book in one sentence, it would be that one. It's achingly beautiful and cheering for Lesley left me emotionally spent in the best way possible once the book was over.

However, I must note, for the readers, that there is depictions of self harm and abuse and they are hard to read. But I urge you, to pick up this book, settle into a comfortable chair and a blanket because once you start, you will not stop until the exhausting, exhilarating final pages have finished making you cheer and cry at the same time.

This novel should be on everyone's bookshelves. Buy it for everyone in your life and pair it with a box of tissues.

(Photo Credit: Good Reads)

Name Changing: Part 2320402384?

Jill Filipovic wrote about name changing last week and we all know what that means. I actually really liked her piece. Particularly:

The cultural assumption that women will change their names upon marriage – the assumption that we'll even think about it, and be in a position where we make a "choice" of whether to keep our names or take our husbands' – cannot be without consequence. Part of how our brains function and make sense of a vast and confusing universe is by naming and categorizing. When women see our names as temporary or not really ours, and when we understand that part of being a woman is subsuming your own identity into our husband's, that impacts our perception of ourselves and our role in the world.

We need to not spend so much time infighting and seeking cookies for our choices, whatever they are because ultimately they are each our own, as they should be. Let's question why women are automatically assumed to change their name upon marriage. Let's question why it's so expensive and difficult for a man to change his name upon marriage. Let's put these questions on the table and start doing something about them, especially since not all marriages are comprised of a man and a woman.

And then Kate Harding wrote this:

You know what I’d rather focus on until we all get sick of talking about it again? That “50% of Americans think it should be legally mandated” thing. Half of us! Half of us think women should have NO CHOICE AT ALL in the matter.

So sometimes, even when a decision is right for you, you still need to recognize that you made that decision within a social context that overwhelmingly supports your choice, and punishes women who make a different one.

But on the other side of the coin.....from Shakesville:

Especially when we acknowledge there are women who change their names for immensely personal and sometimes traumatic reasons.

This resonates with me because my last name links me with my abusive father. I don't judge women who change their name. The point is not to judge women, the point of these name changing conversations is be active and demand change so people, regardless of choice/gender/etc don't feel judged or alone in their choice. I worry that listening and trying to enact this change gets lost each time this conversation is had.

But again, as important as personal stories are, rehashing them every few months doesn't really help to push this issue further. Let's take action so women aren't judged regardless of what they do.

And then this morning, from A Practical Wedding:

I do tons of things that are not the feminist choice and make my life easier, but I need to fully respect people taking the harder road, even if that’s not my fight.

Preach.