May 2012
24 posts
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“No, there’s very little connection between answering questions on the...”
– Writer Alain de Botton during a Q&A we just hosted about sex.
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How the kindness of (virtual) strangers on Twitter...
After Twitter followers helped me remove a BNP (extreme right party) banner from my street on election day, it’s my first port of call from now on
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Five steps to becoming a heavyweight Twitter...
Here’s rule #2:
• Hit hard and hit low
You’re in full view on a public forum, making Twitter the perfect venue to show everyone your intellectual bravery by using every instrument at your disposal to attack your antagonist. Well, maybe not racism as that’s quite frowned on. But misogyny? That is very much on the table. When [food critic] Coren told [Huff Po journalist] Vincent...
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“So imagine my horror on seeing a poster the other day for American Pie: The...”
– When you lose touch with popular culture, it’s tough to get back, says Charlie Brooker
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“By keeping his position “personal”, Obama escapes attaching himself...”
– Ana Marie Cox on Barack Obama’s personal evolution on same-sex marriage
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“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved...”
– Maurice Sendak (via nedhepburn)
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“Here’s a curious fact about the French economy: The country has 2.4 times as...”
– Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies - Businessweek (via jeffmiller)
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“Consumer society tantalises us. We then try within ourselves to control the...”
– Susie Orbach: ‘fat is a prejudice issue’
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Ladies: the case for stopping shaving
Emer O’Toole wrote a tongue in cheek Q&A about her I-am-not-shaving experiment.
Here goes:
I have conducted an 18-month experiment in body hair on your behalf and will now answer the questions people most commonly proffer when confronted with my prodigious manes of untamed womanhood.
Don’t men find you physically repulsive?
At first this was a problem. But then I starved myself...
“You won’t allow me to go to school.
I won’t become a doctor.
Remember this:...”
– Poem written by an 11 year old Afghan girl
This poem was recorded in a NYT magazine article about female underground poetry groups in Afghanistan. An amazing article about the ways in which women are using a traditional two line poetry form to express their resistance to male oppression, their...
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April 2012
66 posts
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Should Dwain Chambers be allowed to run in the...
The athlete tested positive for drugs almost a decade ago, but has just been cleared to run in the 2012 London Olympics. Was it right to lift his Olympic ban?
Answer below or on our poll page.
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What is the difference between The Hobbit and the...
Not as much as there should be, explains star columnist Charlie Brooker.
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“Here’s the thing about jokes. They only work when they’re aiming up. I wrote...”
– A Complete Guide to ‘Hipster Racism’ (via npr)
A thousand times yes.
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What's so wrong with eating alone?
Earlier this week, CNN reported on a new social networking site called Invite for a Bite. The concept is to match women with platonic lunch or dinner partners so that we can avoid the shame and loneliness of eating alone. Except, some of us love eating alone. My preference is to bring along a book or an iPhone’s worth of Instapapered articles, but even when eavesdropping is the only...
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“Im not trying to do some chest thumping or bragging here, I could care less what...”
– An ex-Marine posts in our thread about female officers in the US Army (he doesn’t think women are quite up to the task).
We do like the “British lefty candy asses” line.
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There is no "most beautiful person of the year." ...
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“There’s no stopping point for this competition; there’s no...”
– Marianne Kirkby, in ‘Six weeks to OMG: The diet that will make you disappear.’ Read more here.
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“Strange, that so many of us seem to be taking feminism up as a hobby. And...”
– Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett discusses the young feminist resurgence in ‘HBO’s Girls: please don’t quit your moaning.’ Read more here
Stat of the Day: 53.6% of Young Graduates Don't... →
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“On paper it’s virtually illegal to be anything other than thrilled to...”
– Charlie Brooker, in ‘Not excited by the Olympics? Then thank God for the sponsors.’ Read more here.
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“Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual: Jesus could have been any of these. There...”
– Paul Oestreicher in ‘Was Jesus gay? Probably.’ Read more here
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“If the anti-SOPA/PIPA protest were just ‘I can haz free moviez?’,...”
– Clay Shirky in our Q&A about online piracy