readingstuffregularly

[readingstuffregularly]

A friendship like theirs, which has spanned nearly their entire adulthood and functioned as the nucleus of their support system, raises a fundamental question about how we recognize relationships: On what basis do we decide that a partnership is “real”?

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The Hungarian government has launched a public campaign to encourage couples to have more children. What’s humorous is the choice of stock photo: whoever was responsible for the giant billboards chose the same couple that appears in the well-known “Distracted Boyfriend” photo meme.

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He said the licence stipulated that if the image was used "in connection with a subject that would be unflattering or unduly controversial to a reasonable person (for example, sexually transmitted diseases)", it had to be made clear that the person was a model.

Lichfield pointed out that he didn't think calling someone a hipster was "unflattering or unduly controversial" but contacted Getty to be safe.

The stock photo giant checked the model release and lo! The guy in the image wasn't even the same dude who was complaining. "He'd misidentified himself," Lichfield said.

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I was at work when I received a very strange text message. ''Hi Sarah, my name is Will and I work for a company that sorts through donated and discarded books and came across a stack of your lovely notebooks. I am not sure if you would be interested in having them returned, but I at least would like to inquire about the pecan pie.''

The message was followed by a picture of the interior of a Moleskine sketchbook of mine. The first page of a Moleskine has a place for you to write your name, address, phone number and a designated reward ''in case of loss.'' I have about two dozen Moleskines from the past 13 years, and in them I have offered various rewards -- a painting, $20 plus a painting plus a kiss, a hot-air balloon and, in this particular book, a pecan pie.

[readingstuffregularly]

When Aimee Custis and Kian McKellar broke up after four years of dating, the couple divvied up their books, photography equipment and cookware. Left intertwined: their Netflix, Hulu and Pandora accounts.

They didn't discuss separating the subscriptions when Mr. McKellar moved out of their shared Washington, D.C., apartment. They just continued paying their respective bills -- hers, Hulu, and his, Netflix and Pandora. Two-and-a-half years later, they still share those services.

In the so-called sharing economy, even when love is no longer mutual, bills for entertainment and communication often are.

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Ed and I commiserated over the confusion that reigns between the Greek for “yes” and “no.” The German ja and nein have a clear resemblance to “yes” and “no.” The French oui and the Italian sì and the Spanish sí come easily enough, and all the Romance languages—even Portuguese—rely on the basic sound of no: no, non, não. But the Greek for “yes” is nai (ναι), which sounds like “no” or “nah,” a negative, while the word for “no” is όχι, which sounds like “O.K.” Why must life be so cruel? Sometimes when I’m travelling I can’t seem to get out the right word for “yes” in the country I’m in and I cycle through the whole litany: ja, oui, sì, nai, yes. 

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“Was there ever a time you felt unsafe?” a friend asked me recently. The answer was no, not like I have been in the past, when I escaped attackers in my Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood or on a trip to France; and also, “Always.”

Caution as a solo female traveler is healthy; blind fear is not. I find that for me the best system is to always remember that I am a tourist. It’s good to know what people who live in a place have to say about safety, but also realize that the rules that apply to them, who know where they are going, and can blend in, don’t apply to me.

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But refusing to accommodate pregnant women is often completely legal. Under federal law, companies don’t necessarily have to adjust pregnant women’s jobs, even when lighter work is available and their doctors send letters urging a reprieve.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act is the only federal law aimed at protecting expecting mothers at work. It is four paragraphs long and 40 years old. It says that a company has to accommodate pregnant workers’ requests only if it is already doing so for other employees who are “similar in their ability or inability to work.”

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The camera was “very dirty but appears to still work,” Vorster says. “There are two huge teeth marks on the rubber focus rings of the lens and small teeth marks on the plastic lens hood, both of which I decided not to replace.”

[readingstuffregularly]

Jack Thompson remembers hearing his name on an SOS message and says it was terrifying to suddenly have the presenter talking directly to you, especially after the news bulletin had focused on serious world news stories.

He was on a camping trip with his wife and three sons in the early 70s and was enjoying "whatever food it is you eat on camping trips" when they heard the radio message: "Will the Thompson family, believed to be travelling somewhere in Surrey contact Chesterfield Hospital as Mrs Thompson's mother is dangerously ill." The words are burnt into his memory.

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She has very fond memories of Volos, a beautiful port city that sits midway between Athens and Salonika/Thessaloniki. Before World War II, about 2,000 Jews lived comfortably there. At Rosh Hashanah, neighbors gave each other baskets of pomegranates from their yards with wishes for “chronia polla, kai kali chronia,” or “many years and good years.” The first taste at the start of the holiday — and to break the fast for Yom Kippur 10 days later — was of honey sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, symbolic of wishes for a sweet year of abundance.

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So, I really don’t have words for the wildfires in Greece. My understanding is that they are mostly contained for now, but at least 74 people have died and nearly 200 have been wounded - and every time I look the numbers have gone up. 

I wanted to highlight a few ways to help - charitable organizations I know are doing work on the ground in Greece and that I had heard good things about before this crisis.

Some disclaimers:

This isn’t comprehensive or unbiased by any means - feel free to add your own if you’d like! 

I’ve cited some sources in-line below, but I’m happy to consider new information. If you spot anything I’ve gotten wrong, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

I am absolutely going to find a typo as soon as I hit “post.” Apologies in advance. 

Ελληνικός Ερυθρός Σταυρός, or the Hellenic Red Cross, is the Greek national Red Cross Society

Their homepage is in Greek, but they have made their donation information available in English. 

According to the International Federation of the Red Cross (as well as a WHOLE bunch of news outlets) the Hellenic Red Cross is on the ground providing first aid and assisting with search and rescue operations in the short term and intends to provide long-term support.

As far as I know, they are only accepting bank transfers at the moment. I’m hoping you wouldn’t trust anything I copy/pasted here without verifying, so you can find the bank account details at the link above.

Médecins du Monde Greece /  Γιατροί του Κόσμου Ελλάδος / Doctors of the World Greece is the Greek presence of an international medical and humanitarian organization.

The English version of their homepage is here. You can read more about their work in Greece here. 

In general, they work to provide marginalized and vulnerable communities with medical services and access to healthcare.

According to their twitter, they have medical and psychosocial staff providing assistance and are working to plan next steps.

You can donate directly to the Greece team here, by a variety of methods, including paypal (though I could only figure out how to paypal in euros). 

If you’d prefer to donate in dollars and don’t mind donating to the parent organization rather than directly to the Greek country team, you can do so here.

Το Χαμόγελο του παιδιού, or "The Smile of the Child," is a child welfare charity based in Athens.

The English version of their homepage is here.

In general, they provide assistance for “children victims of any form of violence, missing children, children with health problems, children living in poverty or threatened by poverty” as well as preventative care. 

According to their twitter, they have a help line in operation, at least one mobile clinic on the ground assisting with first aid and medical assistance, and they are collecting donations locally (mostly seeking non-perishable food, baby wipes, and diapers).

They have a donation page here with a number of different donation methods, including Paypal. 

[readingstuffregularly]

The fixation on straws is weird. There's definitely way too much plastic in our oceans, so getting rid of any plastic can be a persuasive idea. I have been unable to find any evidence, though, that straws are a particularly big problem when it comes to the complex systems of use and waste that pour plastic into our seas, as opposed to plastic bags and micro-plastics, for example. Advocates of straw bans, including campaigners in Vancouver, frequently cite a study asserting that consumers in the United States throw away 500 million straws every day. When ban advocates in California cited the 500 million number back in January, Reason writer Christian Britschgi did some research and discovered that the figure had been guesstimated by a nine-year-old boy based on his phone calls to three straw companies.

[readingstuffregularly]

A team of biologists and chemists hopes that this alien environment might prod these floral cosmonauts into producing new and improved molecules for drugs.

It’s a tall order, given that pharmaceutical companies largely shifted away from herbs and trees as a fount of new medications decades ago, turning instead to synthetic chemicals. Even Joseph Chappell, whose plant chemistry lab at the University of Kentucky is leading the project, calls it “a harebrained idea.”

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In 1932, Willard Waller’s classic work on the sociology of teaching pronounced parents and educators to be “natural enemies”: Parents are concerned for their own children, while educators look to the success of all students. ... All parents want the best for their children, but a key goal of public education is to create citizens with a vision of a common good. Upper-middle-class parents are understandably anxious about the futures of their children in an increasingly competitive global economy, but not every issue is worthy of a fight. Parents should think about what matters in the long run and reflect on whether their actions might be contributing to greater inequality. Affluent parents bring powerful resources to schools. They should also model thoughtful civic engagement that considers collective, rather than simply individual, benefits.