Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 8.7
On August 8, 1909, four women (including Alice Huyler Ramsey) became the first women to drive a car across the USA when they took an epic road trip from New York to San Francisco. It took 59 days. I bet it was fun to hang around these women! Oh also, only 152 miles of the 3900 mile trek were paved. Dang!
- The Mysteriously Long Lives of Male Holocaust Survivors – “Why has one of the most traumatized populations in the world led longer lives?”
- Dear White People: Could You Please Do Something About Your Scarier White People? – Haha, seriously y’all! From Will.
- How Long Until I Never Have to Leave Home Again? – This actually doesn’t sound that bad (to me). But then again, I am a homebody.
- An Open Apology to All of My Weight Loss Clients – I enjoyed this post a lot. And I also enjoy not feeling the need to “diet” anymore. From Moniqa.
- The rich really are different: Their bodies contain unique chemical pollutants – Interesting!
- āIām Sick of Talking about Sexual Harassment!ā – Read Karen Stollznow’s article if you haven’t already. Preach it! From Amy.
- It’s Now Possible to Hire Fake Protesters – Why am I surprised by this. Ugh.
- 5 Dumb Myths About Prehistoric Times That Everyone Believes – A lot of this was also mentioned in Paleofantasy, our previous-month’s Book Club pick. From CriticalDragon1177.
BONUS: Conan Delivers the Crazy Rhubarb Lady Parody the Internet Deserves (hahah definitely watch this if you want to end on a happy note today).
Mary,
It shouldn’t be surprising unfortunately, that its possible to hire fake protesters. Some people will do just about anything if you pay them enough, including pretending to have beliefs they don’t have, and care about things they couldn’t care less about.
On sort of the same vein as the fake protestors, some opera houses in the 1800s would hire professional applauders known as “claques” to applaud/cheer/cry/demand encores etc. at certain moments of the opera so that the rest of the audience would feel the performance was better than they might’ve otherwise thought, leading the audience to spread positive word of mouth around town afterwards. Claques even had specified rates depending on the level of enthusiasm requested, shouts of “bravo” or “brava” after an aria cost you more than simple cheering, or clapping, for example.
One mistake in the Cracked article: Modern hunter-gatherers tend to have lengthy postpartum periods during which time sex with that particular woman is taboo. It actually makes sense: You have to carry around the kid until he or she’s old enough to walk.
Fake protestors don’t surprise me. They’ve been manipulating photos to make crowds look bigger than they are for decades. What’s next but finding a way to do it IRL? Plus, in 1929, Bernays had women marching in the streets of New York, holding Lucky Strikes. And thus he associated smoking with feminism.
RE: ‘Dear White People’ I don’t mean to de-lurk and nitpick, but there was a flurry of discussion around who initially posted the satire/content of the segment on “All In with Chris Hayes.” There is a storify from Angry Black Lady from @wayoftheid: http://storify.com/AngryBlackLady/thewayoftheid-is-concerned-about-white-people The reason I mention giving proper credit is having followed the writing of @thetrudz, via GradientLair.com One post in particular discusses the exploitation of black labor, whether it is ideas, content, or just flat out plagiarism. http://www.gradientlair.com/post/57089878980/black-women-labor-exploitation-by-mainstream-whites As someone who identifies as a queer Asian American woman, I find that many hats I wear (PhD student in cell bio, queer, atheist, etc.) still feel very exclusionary. I have also watched as words I have said been disapproved/dismissed as an Angry Asian Lady, yet when amplified through a White voice been co-signed by many people in the room. This may be exacerbated by my cis female gender presentation, but nonetheless I would like to see credit where credit is due. is it possible to update your post with the link to @wayoftheid’s tweets?