ASK Musings

No matter where you go, there you are.

Monthly Archive: July 2015

Wednesday

29

July 2015

0

COMMENTS

More Social Justice Please

Written by , Posted in Politics

Someone posted on Facebook that she was annoyed at all the people who were expressing anger about Cecil the Lion but who haven’t commented about all the people of different religions who get killed every day. I’m not entirely sure what she was referencing specifically, but I’ve also seen her post similar things when people express sadness or outrage about something but hasn’t posted outrage about military deaths. I get it, to a degree. But I also understand that sometimes, people don’t want to use Facebook to state their values. They want to share funny cat pictures, or vacation pictures. And occasionally, they will post an article about a current event that they think everyone will agree is awful. I get it.

I’ve at times been doing that. I’ll post my weekly round-ups, and occasionally something feminist-y, but that’s USUALLY about it. But you know what, fuck it. I’m more interested in speaking up, and making sure my friends ARE clear about where I stand on important things. So I’m making a goal to post at least three social justice articles on Facebook each week. I don’t want my friends to be even a little confused about where I stand on things.

Sunday

26

July 2015

0

COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – July 26, 2015

Written by , Posted in What I'm Reading

Ability

– “Sometimes, even the most well-meaning of my friends will forget that my disabilities actually have an impact on my daily life. On occasion, even my disabled friends are guilty of this oversight.” 5 Things Even the Most Well-Meaning Non-Disabled People Forget (h/t @CamilleDeMere)

Anti-Racism

– “Feeling dissatisfied with Netroots’ framing of black issues and the narrow focus of its immigration-themed activities, I worked with Phoenix-based organizers to create #BlackRoots, a space to focus on black perspectives and connect national organizers with local black community members.” The Black Woman Who Interrupted the Netroots Presidential Town Hall, and This Is Why (h/t @dreamhampton)

Finances

– ““There are a couple of previous economic studies that find student loans to affect other areas of graduates’ lives, for example their career choices, so it seemed reasonable to expect marriage decisions to be affected as well,” says Gicheva. Her research found a negative relationship: $10,000 of student-loan debt decreased the probability of marriage by 3 to 4 percent, with the effect diminishing with age for women but not men.” In Love—and in Debt (via @TheAtlantic)

Misogyny

– “Some male players, however — the ones who were less-skilled at the game, and performing worse relative their peers — made frequent, nasty comments to the female gamers. In other words, sexist dudes are literally losers.” Men who harass women online are quite literally losers, new study finds (h/t Pretty Much Everyone)

Police

“After leaving the department, Davis says, he kept thinking about police conduct, especially shootings. Davis, who had a law degree, says he wondered how often the officers really faced life-threatening dangers that would justify deadly force.” City fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings (via @WBEZ)

– “Lampela, two federal lawsuits say, protected a PIB police officer who roofied two female cadets and raped them (on different occasions) 12 years ago. One lawsuit says that Lampela used his power to threaten one of the victims, saying he was the “God of Put-in-Bay” and could destroy her career if he wanted to. According to the legal documents filed in the U.S. District Court of Toledo, Lampela called the victims “whores” and even went to one of their homes and held a gun to her head. His general stance, which he was reported to (dickishly) vocalize, was that two [women] didn’t have the power to take down the department of which he was all-powerful dictator. Police Chief, Self-Proclaimed “God of Put-in-Bay,” Accused of Covering Up Police Rapes (h/t @ShaunKing)

Politics

– “Gerrymandering — drawing political boundaries to give your party a numeric advantage over an opposing party — is a difficult process to explain. If you find the notion confusing, check out the chart above — adapted from one posted to Reddit this weekend — and wonder no more.” This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see (h/t @conradhackett)

Racism

– “How did Swift end up in this terribly awkward — yet not on-brand awkward — passive-aggressive call-out of suspected girl-on-girl anti-feminist crime in the first place, which now has Minaj fans, as well as foes of white women jumping in to hog the spotlight from women of color, murmuring “noooooooo” in unison?” 10 questions Taylor Swift could have asked herself before picking a fight with Nicki Minaj (via @slate)

– “To put it simply: When Britney Spears got naked and covered herself in sequins for Toxic, she was nominated for Best Music Video. When Emily Ratajkowski got naked next to Robin Thicke in Blurred Lines, he was nominated for Best Music Video. When Miley Cyrus stripped off and broke a million health and safety rules by riding a piece of construction equipment, she wasn’t just nominated for Best Music Video of the Year – she won it. All of the above videos have been controversial, but they were acknowledged by the industry for their impact nevertheless. But as soon as Nicki Minaj – whose black body deviates from Caucasian beauty standards – dares to own her own culture and dance in a similarly provocative fashion, it’s glossed over and relegated to sideline categories of ‘female’ and ‘hip hop’. Meanwhile, white artists who adopt black culture as their own continue to reap professional awards. And it’s time to stop pretending that that’s OK.” The Truth About Racism In The Music Industry

Reproductive Health

– “In a statement last week, Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that “our donation programs — like any other high-quality health care providers — follow all laws and ethical guidelines” and that “Planned Parenthood stands behind our work to help women and families donate tissue for medical research when they wish to.”” The Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood (via @nytopinion)

Sizeism

– “My friend, artist and designer Mark Mitchell, and I conceived of the most beautiful dress we could imagine, which, according to the old orthodoxies, just happened to be the least “flattering” dress possible for a fat chick: a strapless, skin-tight mermaid gown exploding with silk flowers. The flowers – my god, the wisteria! – added extra bulk in areas I’m supposed to try and “slim”. The silhouette accentuated my stomach instead of camouflaging it. My arms looked like what they are – strong, and big. I didn’t wear Spanx. I was beautiful.” My wedding was perfect – and I was fat as hell the whole time (via @TheLindyWest)

Saturday

25

July 2015

0

COMMENTS

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline Arnold

Written by , Posted in Reviews

Three Stars

Continuing down my path of attempting to be more successful in my goals, I found this mostly well-done book a couple of weeks ago. The premise is fairly simple: large, sweeping changes don’t stick. Saying “I’m going to lose 20 pounds this year” on January 1 doesn’t work because it’s a pretty giant goal and it doesn’t address what is involved in actually losing those 20 pounds. What Ms. Arnold suggests is that instead you make microresolutions throughout the year, turning things into habits and slowly shifting yourself closer to reaching your goals.

I’ve had some success with large, sweeping changes (see: “The Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up”) and I’ve had some failures (see: “It Starts With Food”). But in general I think that what Ms. Arnold is proposing makes a whole lot of sense. I’ve done it a few times without really realizing it. For example, every night before bed I get out my workout clothes for the next day. Every night. So every morning I can easily shift into my workout gear without banging open drawers. Yes, probably once every three or four weeks the alarm goes off and I look at my running shoes, reset my alarm and go back to sleep, but the vast majority of the time, I go work out. It’s now a habit, and it feels weird to not do it.

The book is split into two parts: the rules of the microresolutions, and examples of microresolutions by common topic areas. Microresolutions need to be specific and easy. So a microresolution is not ‘eat healthier,’ because huh? What does that mean? Are you really going to change everything overnight? No. A better example would be ‘I will eat salad at lunch every work day.’ It doesn’t mean you’ll ONLY eat salad at lunch, and by limiting it to work days, you leave yourself some wiggle room for weekends or vacation, but it’s easy, you know what you’re doing, and it has a cue (lunch, work day). It’s kind of a cool idea, although it requires some patience, for sure.

The second half of the book I didn’t find to be AS useful, because a few of the areas aren’t really big problem ones for me. However, the first chapter of the second section, on sleep, resonated so much that I shifted one of my first two microresolutions to focus on increasing my sleep. I’ve also made a note in the to-do app I use to check in on my resolutions, and choose new ones.

One note that I would warn on – the section on losing weight is full of a lot of bull shit. The author reiterates a lot of ‘common sense’ ideas about why people gain and lose weight that aren’t actually supported by evidence, and in many cases are actively refuted by science. Like the idea that it’s ‘simple math’ as to why people gain weight (ignoring that two people can eat literally exactly the same food and still have vastly different weight gains or losses). So that definitely gave me pause, because what else in the book isn’t fact-based? But I’m willing to ignore that junk chapter in favor of the fact that the first half offers up what could be some useful advice.

Sunday

19

July 2015

0

COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – July 19, 2015

Written by , Posted in What I'm Reading

Criminal Justice System

“The prosecution team placed veteran informant Michael James Garrity in close jail proximity to Rodriguez in June 1999, coached him on what questions they wanted answered, and pretended the snitch accidentally stumbled upon information so it could be used in trial.” Hidden Injustice: County Counsel Works To Keep OC’s Snitch Scandal Under Wraps (h/t @RadleyBalko)

Cultural Appropriation

– “As the 16-year-old again captures the hearts of feminists across the Internet for wise-beyond-her-years thoughts on cultural appropriation and the Black female image (the first time was with this video just weeks ago), Jenner fans and others who could care less about Black girls have been extremely harsh in responding. The social media trolling is at predictable levels of mercilessness—which would technically make this the second time Stenberg was subject to racist abuse online.” Amandla Stenberg Didn’t Attack Kylie, Leave Our Princess Alone! (via @JamilahLemieux)

Homophobia

– “Shielded from the eyes and ears of major media, speakers at the Future Conference expressed the kind of casual homophobia that would otherwise offend mainstream audiences. More importantly, they discussed their plans for dealing with a country seems increasingly determined to protect LGBT people from discrimination.” Inside The Conservative Plan To Continue The Fight Against LGBT Equality (via @gaywonk)

Police Violence

– “But while officials say Sandra Bland committed suicide in her cell, an online campaign led by her friends and family is questioning that account. The woman’s family will hold a news conference in Chicago’s Loop at noon. A news release from a law firm representing the family says, “The family of Sandra Bland is confident that she was killed and did not commit suicide. The family has retained counsel to investigate Sandy’s death.”” Woman from Chicago area found dead in Texas jail cell (h/t @theonlybaccus)

Reproductive Rights

– “Planned Parenthood responded similarly, dismissing accusations that they are trying to sell remains at a profit. “In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases,” said Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications, Planned Parenthood Federation of America in a written statement. “Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different.” That Planned Parenthood Video Isn’t the Scandal Abortion Opponents Are Making It Out to Be (via @RobinMarty)

– “Abortion is a medical procedure, and the reality of medical procedures are not pleasant. But that’s not a reason to make abortion illegal, or nearly impossible to access, which is the the goal of this video.” Abortion is a medical procedure. The reality of those often isn’t pleasant (via @JessicaValenti)

– “Unlike what anti-choice rhetoric warns, abortion doesn’t haunt all women and transgender men like a ghost. And why is that? Because even when it was difficult to decide, women knew they were making the best decisions for themselves and their families (62 percent of the study’s participants were already mothers). Full stop.” 95% of Women Don’t Regret Their Abortions & the Reason Is Simpler Than You’d Think. (h/t @momstuffpodcast)

Seattle Elections

– “But what we didn’t dream about when we were dreaming about district elections was having to do candidate interviews with 47 fuckwits hopefuls running for city council, plus a few more running for Seattle’s port commission and school board. (Ah, the Seattle School Board, that graveyard of good intentions and political aspirations. Every few years, we toss a few goo-goo lambs into that wood chipper only to have more goo-goo lambs show up at our next round of endorsement interviews.) The Stranger’s Endorsements for the August 2015 Primary Election! (via @strangerslog)

Women in Sport

– ““Lots of us watch sports because of how it makes us feel as part of a collective, an identity to latch onto that really has no risk of hurting our actual identities,” author and sportswriter Jessica Luther told me. “And for a lot of men, that has been for them a very masculine space.” Given how historically fragile the male ego is, this is unsurprising. But while the misogynist’s grasp on sports is tight, it’s not inescapable.” There’s Nothing Boring About Women’s Sports (via @JamilSmith)

– “Flynn did not commit to equal pay. But he said he had met with top officials from Canada’s soccer federation during the World Cup’s final weekend to discuss the preparation of a post-event report about different issues around the Canada tournament. In those conversations, he said he brought up compensation and other areas that had drawn criticism, including the housing of opposing teams in the same hotel (which doesn’t happen with the men’s teams).” Top U.S. Soccer Official Pledges To Push For Better Pay For Women (h/t @maxwellstrachan)

– “The key thing to understand is that FIFA agrees on a price with the sponsors and TV broadcasters that’s based on their (i.e. their mostly male top executives’) perceptions of the value of the WWC. Those perceptions are tainted by sexist assumptions, primary among them being that 1) there is less of a market for women’s soccer and 2) that the women’s game is of a lower quality. Therefore, all parties agree to prices for sponsorships and TV rights that are far below those for the men’s tournament. The TV broadcasters then go on to sell ad spots for the games that again, are valued much less than the equivalent ad spots would be for a men’s game. This sexism, built directly into the economics of women’s soccer, leads to several results: the sponsors and broadcasters, having paid less for their rights, don’t market the WWC as aggressively as they do the men’s tourney. Additionally, different companies sponsor the women’s tournament, often makers of specialty products sold exclusively to women, such as Tampax.” Soccer’s Sexist Political Economy (h/t @EdgeofSports)

…And finally

Sunday

12

July 2015

0

COMMENTS

Heat Wave by Eric Klinenberg

Written by , Posted in Reviews

Four Stars

When you think about disasters that caused a whole bunch of deaths in one swoop in the US in the last 25 or 30 years (outside of a war), you probably think about the September 11 attacks, which killed 2,977 in the US. If I were to ask you what the next biggest disaster in terms of deaths, you’d probably also get it right: Hurricane Katrina and its 1,833 deaths. But do you know what caused the third greatest number of deaths in the past 25 years?

Surprisingly (to me, at least) it was the 1995 Chicago heat wave, which took 733 lives over the course of about a week.

It’s been hotter than usually in the Pacific Northwest, where I live. We had multiple days in a row above 90, which may not sound bad to those of you used to sweltering summers, but in general folks out here don’t have air conditioning (and if you do have it but you don’t have the money for an electric bill of gargantuan proportions, you might just leave it off). My apartment in the evenings was often still in the mid-upper 80s, and we don’t even get any direct sunlight (thank goodness for north-facing windows). I also work in public health emergency preparedness, so I have an extra special interest in things that cause a whole lot of people to get sick and die at once.

Author Dr. Klinenberg is originally from Chicago, and earned his PhD in Sociology at UC Berkely in 2000. Heat Wave is his dissertation, exploring not just the health causes of those 700+ deaths, but the social causes. His thesis is that the hot days didn’t kill these people alone; the systems society has set up (or not set up) instead failed many of these people in a complicated way that would be dangerous to ignore if we seek to avoid it in the future.

Much of his work focuses on comparing two neighborhoods that are very similar in some of the basic demographics, and even have the same microclimate, but had VERY different death rates. In one neighborhood (95% black), 40 out of 100,000 residents died in the heat wave; in the neighborhood next door (86% Latino), only 4 out of 100,000 residents died. That is a huge difference, and one that we should try to explain.

Beyond this, he looks at the role of city government and how they responded (or failed to respond), from the front-line police officers who were tasked with community policing but didn’t check in on the community, through the fire chiefs who ignored warnings from their staff that they should have more ambulances available, to the health commissioner who didn’t really ‘get’ that something was amiss. Dr. Klinenberg also explores the role the media played in not treated the story with the gravity it deserved until late into the heat wave.

Even if you aren’t interested in public health preparedness, or aren’t into sociological profiles, I think you might find this book to be quite fascinating. I’m impressed with the readability of what is essentially someone’s dissertation, and I think I can learn a lot that will be helpful to me in professional life.

This book got me back on track for my cannonball read, too, so I’m quite grateful for that. I haven’t finished a book in nearly three weeks. Between going to Canada for five World Cup matches (including the final – woo!), my computer dying, and learning that my back-up system failed, plus the aforementioned ridiculous heat wave we had, I’ve mostly wanted to just sit on my ass and play games on my phone. But no more! I’m back to reading and it feels fantastic.

Sunday

12

July 2015

0

COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – July 12, 2015

Written by , Posted in What I'm Reading

Reproductive Health

– ““There’s a lot to overcome related to anxiety and stigma,” Grant told RH Reality Check. “Speaking unapologetically that we provide abortion in our advertising was a key part of that goal.” Carafem’s ads certainly are frank. Plastered in subway stations and bus stops across the D.C. area, the ads all read, “Abortion. Yeah, we do that,” over a bright pink background and the text, “Here for you. Always. 24/7.”” Google, AdBlade Bar Abortion Clinic From Advertising (h/t @aisfor)

Women in Sports

– “The thing about being a women’s soccer fan is that on some level, you’re never just rooting for your own team. Because every time a team underperforms, every time a team is sent home earlier than expected from a tournament, that’s an opponent that might not exist much longer. That’s a country that has a little more fuel on the fire of sexism that women athletes all over the world face.” A Different Kind Of Party At The Women’s World Cup (h/t @beaglhaus)

Representation in Media

– “As it turns out, cutting the lines spoken by white actors out of many Hollywood films makes them extremely short. Like in the case of the acclaimed Wes Anderson film, “Moonrise Kingdom.” Marron’s edited version is less than 10 seconds long.” Actor re-edits films to demonstrate Hollywood’s lack of diversity (via @KPCC)

– “Broadly doesn’t need to be feminist, but a woman’s section should be run by a woman, and I refuse to believe that there are no women qualified to run such a section. I refuse to believe that there are no women who applied for the job who were equally, if not more qualified than Mitchell Sunderland.” It’s 2015. Why the fuck are men still being hired to run women’s publications? (via @stavvers)

 

Wednesday

8

July 2015

0

COMMENTS

I am Not on Good Terms with Crash Plan

Written by , Posted in Adventures

A little over two weeks ago, my computer died. The battery was acting up and then the hard drive starting to make a terrifying clicking sound. I got the blue screen of death. When I rebooted it, the screen was black, with the words ‘cannot find operating system’ appeared.

oh shit cat

I wasn’t too concerned, however, because just under a year ago I bought a subscription to Crash Plan. I’m in emergency management, so I was thinking a wireless back-up system would be preferable to an external drive, because if there were an earthquake or a fire, the external drive would be useless (crushed or burned), while a cloud system could be accessed from anywhere.

I subscribed and set up my account, then downloaded the Crash Plan app. Following the site’s instructions, I selected what I wanted to back up, and hit the ‘start back-up’ button. It was late on a Thursday night, but I really wanted to get it done (I get that way), so I stayed up and watched as it backed up all of my files. It took a fair bit of time. When it was done, I selected how often I wanted it to do a back up, and that was it.

proud cat

So, like I said, I was pretty relieved I’d done that, as when I took my computer in, they first thought they could recover the data from the hard drive, but in the end could not. Last night Austin picked up my computer, and we turned it on. The guy at PC Fix had loaded some odd items onto my computer (in addition to the standard things). For example, when I booted up, a gaming software system popped up, complete with his log-in information saved. Yikes. Eventually Austin did a full wipe and reinstalled Windows. In the meantime I went to the website of Crash Plan to follow the instructions to recover all of my data. I downloaded the app again, and signed in, and saw that it had completed a back-up 18 days earlier. Cool. I went to retrieve all of my files and …

Nothing.

oh shit cat 2

Panic. For a brief moment. But Austin talked me down and said he’d figure it out. I took a shower and came back, and he confirmed … yup. No files.

sad-cat

I mentioned Crash Plan on twitter while Austin sent a tech support item. Today, thought multiple back-and-forth conversations, their tech support have tried to convince me that I never hit the ‘start back-up’ button.

bitch please

This is not a matter of me making an error. I’ve done that. It happens and it sucks. But this? This I KNOW, with certainty, I did. I have a vivid memory of it. So my guess is that when that happened, something got fucked up on their end. Which is fine. I mean, a bummer, but fine. I just wish they’d own up to it, and accept that they screwed up. Instead, they offered me a year-long extension on my subscription.

dudewaitwhat

In what world would I extend a subscription with a company that so dramatically screwed the pooch the first time around? Because of them, I now have no tax documents, no dissertation, no cover letters, no work I did for a few of the organizations I volunteer with. No list of places I’ve lived for the next time I apply for a government job. Thankfully most of my pictures from the last few years are online, so those are safe. But I just finished a project scanning and uploading all of the documents I had in paper form, so those are gone. I have no record of any of the service performed on my car. No receipts for items of value for insurance purposes. Shoot, I don’t even have my renter’s insurance policy.

hissing

But it’s going to be okay. I’ll find the documents I’ve lost if I really need them (like, say, my tax returns for when we buy a house). I had emailed my book to a couple of people, so that’s not gone. And I learned a couple of lessons.

1. Don’t trust Crash Plan. In fact, don’t trust any online back-up. Once you’ve completed the back-up the first time, check that all of your files are there. Delete a couple that aren’t needed and try to restore them from online. Screen-cap the whole process and save that in your email, just in case. Every week or so, check and make sure it is still doing the back-up properly.

2. Use an external back-up drive. My goal is to secure one that is large enough for important items (probably won’t put photos and music on there, since I can save that to the cloud easily) and then save to it twice a year, and store it in a safety deposit box.

cat on computer

Thanks to Austin, my computer is now mostly back to normal. I’ve got the right OS, I’ve got my Microsoft office, and most of my other programs. I’ve still got some more things to download and sync, but it’s nearly as good as new. I doubt I’ll get any further with figuring out why Crash Plan failed, but that’s okay. I’ve learned my lesson.

And I got to find all sorts of cute pictures of kittens. Everybody wins!

happy

Monday

6

July 2015

0

COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – July 6, 2015

Written by , Posted in What I'm Reading

Health

– “Were it not for physicians who tried to treat something beyond my fat, physicians who saw my whole health rather than make assumptions in an otherwise healthy 20-something, I would still have cancer inside of me. I would still be sick. I would still be sitting in showers at night, coughing and vomiting.” My Cancer Pt. II, Medical Fat Shaming Could Have Killed Me. (h/t shakestweetz)

– “Parents would no longer be able to cite personal or religious beliefs to decline the vaccinations, although children with certain medical problems, such as immune system deficiencies, would be exempt. Those who decline the vaccinations would have to enroll their children in a home-based private school or public independent study program based off campus.” California Legislature passes mandatory vaccination bill (h/t @allisonkilkenny)

State-Sponsored Killing

– “When a journalist with the paper, Maya Lau, asked Cox for his response, he said that he thought courts should be imposing the death penalty more, not less. “I think we need to kill more people,” he told her. “We’re not considered a society anymore—we’re a jungle.” Cox does not believe that the death penalty works as a deterrent, but he says that it is justified as revenge. He told me that revenge was a revitalizing force that “brings to us a visceral satisfaction.” Revenge Killing (h/t @monaeltahawy)

Police Abuse

– “They too found it extremely amusing to debilitate colleagues with painful shocks. Lots of young men would react similarly, hence my reluctance to let them put devices they approach with jocularity rather than seriousness on people that they disdain. I am hardly alone in finding stun-cuffs creepy and suggestive of evil––for goodness sakes, Darth Vader seems to have pioneered their use on the Death Star.” The 80,000-Volt Handcuffs That Let Cops Shock Prisoners (h/t @brookpete)

– “Nationwide, police have shot and killed 124 people this year who, like Page, were in the throes of mental or emotional crisis, according to a Washington Post analysis. The dead account for a quarter of the 462 people shot to death by police in the first six months of 2015. The vast majority were armed, but in most cases, the police officers who shot them were not responding to reports of a crime. More often, the police officers were called by relatives, neighbors or other bystanders worried that a mentally fragile person was behaving erratically, reports show. More than 50 people were explicitly suicidal.” Distraught People, Deadly Results (via @WesleyLowrey)

Diversity in Tech

– “Imagine what it’s like to be constantly receiving these subtle messages from your colleagues, that something is wrong with the idea that you work here, that you are attending this event, that you are in this classroom. You wonder if maybe you made a mistake when you thought this profession was a good match for you, because as everyone keeps pointing out, you don’t have the expected background, or the expected personality traits, or the expected opinions about things, or the expected head start. On their own, each subtle message might simply be a harmless doubt, but at the scale with which we’re sending these messages, we might as well be brainwashing people into thinking that they don’t belong here.” Stop Acting So Surprised: How Microaggressions Enforce Stereotypes in Tech

Women in Sport

– “I am tired of having to remind people that yes, there is still a women’s professional soccer league in the US, it’s called the NWSL. (Even if the league’s athletes, which include national team stars Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, and Hope Solo, are paid so little they have resorted to using host families to subsidize player housing costs.)” – Americans should care much more about women’s soccer than men’s. Here’s why we don’t. (h/t @scATX)

Separation of Church and State

– “In a 7-2 decision, the court said the placement of the monument violated a section in the state’s constitution, which says no public money or property can be used either directly or indirectly for the “benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion.” Oklahoma Supreme Court Orders Removal Of Ten Commandments Monument From State Capitol (h/t @FatChickinLA)

Economic Disparity

– ““Our legislators heard the human cry from constituents who were very dismayed to see that there was a loophole in the previous legislation that allowed the developers to build a segregated building even though taxpayers’ dollars were involved,” Rosenthal said. “Now that indignity won’t happen.”” New York bans ‘poor doors’ in win for low income tenants” (h/t @deray)