Quickies: a Kitten Stuck in a Sunflower, the Wage Gap in Medicine, and the Little Mermaid

• Watch a Kitten Get Rescued After Becoming Stuck in a Sunflower – The video is even cuter than it sounds.
• White male doctors earn 35 percent more than black male doctors – “White male physicians in the United States earn a whopping 35 percent more than their black male counterparts — even after accounting for factors such as field of medical specialty, experience, and hours worked. Data published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal also showed a large gender gap. White female physicians earned 40 percent less than white men, and black women earned less still.”
• Beakman and Captain Disillusion debunk those “free energy” machines – “Beakman’s World went off the air in 1997, but performer Paul Zaloom has continued to reprise the role occasionally since then. His latest gig brings him right into the YouTube age. It’s a collaboration with Captain Disillusion, the silver-faced alter ego of Latvian-born filmmaker Alan Melikdjanian. The skeptical Captain regularly debunks internet hoaxes, but at the beginning of his latest episode, he’s having a career crisis. All the good hoaxes and conspiracy theories have been taken, he whines. Just then, sidekick Ellie (Crystal Shannon) shows up with a mysterious silver capsule from which Beakman himself emerges.”
• Why the Stanford sexual assault case has become a national flashpoint, explained – “Between law enforcement’s failure to publicly release Turner’s mug shot to media, Turner’s light sentence, and the consistent references in news reports to Turner’s squeaky-clean image as an All-American swimmer, this case has sparked widespread dismay and revived a larger conversation about sexual assault, particularly its portrayal in the media. While the case is part of a necessary conversation that seems to arise after every viral incident around sexual assault on campuses, justice in these cases can be inconsistent — and frustrating to victims, their allies, and their advocates.”
• The Little Mermaid TV show let Ariel live up to her potential – ” The show smartly realizes it’s more fun to watch a protagonist enjoy her super cool underwater world than reject it, and the series downplays Ariel’s dissatisfaction to focus on fleshing out the whimsical kingdom of Atlantica with some clever bits of humor—like the ruler of a neighboring shark kingdom who sounds just like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.” I have to admit, I fucking loved this show. Even as a teenager.
• How an “Indecent” Outfit Revolutionized Women’s Tennis – “The French finalist wore a startlingly brief costume. Described as ‘indecent’ in parts of the press, it was a simple frock with short sleeves and a skirt reaching only to the calves, to reveal white stockings. On her head was a floppy hat. Yet, hailed as a revolutionary change in tennis dress for women, it was actually the result of a long and much slower process. The way in which the women of the western world gradually shed their clothes between 1914 and the 1920s was hastened by the war, but was evolutionary rather than revolutionary.”

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