by marjorieingall on November 19, 2012
Here is an Italian news story about SorryWatch! I shall Google Translate the key parts for you:
But if the excuse “stink” or is not credible? So here is a site that goes in search of false and too comfortable folds and explains why those excuses are not valid.
Exactly.
Sorrywatch is called, is a creature of course American and is a true “watchdog”. He – or rather because they are two women guradinae of them are true sorrow careful that any excuse pronunicata public is reliable and veritiorera.
Of course!
Because you do not think about it but there is no excuse to make things worse, excuses are missing the target. Excuses masquerading as self-defense, excuse adding insult to injury. Excuses are worse than the original offense. Excuses so “bad” that necesiterebbero a further demand for an apology.
Adding insult to injury indeed!
PS. I await Google Translate’s apology to me.
by marjorieingall on November 17, 2012
I have an essay I have been unable to sell (because it is “too advocacy-ish”) about how chubby children are portrayed in kidlit. If fat is mentioned as a character trait, in picture books and early chapter books and middle-grade novels, it’s almost always shorthand for laziness/meanness/bully-ness/stupidity. Unless this is an “issues” book, aka a didactic afterschool special, in which case it is a problem to be fixed (OMG DEATHFAT FREEEEEEEEEK LECTURE LECTURE CHILD OBESITY EPIDEMIC RUN AWAY RUN AWAY) because the child has to be self-hating and weight loss will turn out to solve all of his or her problems. (Forget the stat about 90-95% of people who lose weight gaining it back, just GO WITH IT!)
I cannot imagine how much it must suck to be a fat kid, already most-likely picked on for being a chunk, seeing only negative portrayals of kids who look like her. That’s why I was so thrilled to find Brontorina
by James Howe, illustrated by Randy Cecil. It is a sweet, funny picture book for little kids that wears its advocacy lightly. It stands alone as a BOOK-BOOK, not an issues book. Brontorina is a dino who wants to do ballet. The ballet teacher is skeptical, but with the help of two other students, Clara and Jack (and yay, a boy who likes to dance who is treated matter-of-factly by the text), she comes to realize that Brontorina can TOTES be a ballerina. The last line is (SPOILER ALERT) “Now Madame Lucille’s dance academy had room for everyone.” It passed the real-kid-test in my house (many virtuous books do not interest actual children — this does), despite my children’s own personal skinniness, and it would be a great buy for any picture-book-loving kid with a sense of humor. It should be in every school library in the country.
See for yourself!
Rock on, James Howe.
by marjorieingall on November 14, 2012
I have an essay in Tablet magazine this week about the new book Oddly Normal
by John Schwartz, and on how the Jewish community (which usually thinks of itself as tolerant) could do better by its gay kids — both out and closeted.
by marjorieingall on November 9, 2012
by marjorieingall on November 3, 2012
by marjorieingall on November 2, 2012
…from my lovely cousin Marissa’s apartment uptown. All’s well. We haven’t had power or cell service since Hurricane Sandy hit, but we’re all fine. Sorry if you left a voice or text message and I did not get back to you! We have a land line (but not voicemail) so if we are home, we will pick up.
It was fun watching my competent (longtime Burning Man attendee) husband smash dry ice with a mallet and dole it out to neighbors. The kids have been reading and playing with paper dolls by candlelight — it is so Little House on the Prairie all up in this joint I could just plotz. We have water, and other than a lot of expensive kosher meat, we’ve had no losses. Fellow New Yorkers on the LES, in Staten Island and elsewhere have not been as lucky. Bowery Boogie, the Lo-Down and EV Grieve are good sources of local info; people are really suffering in my neighborhood. There was massive flooding just a couple of blocks east of us, and a lot of old folks are stranded without water or food in high rises without working elevators. New Yorkers, please consider volunteering through The Educational Alliance; people outside the city and folks who can’t physically volunteer, please consider donating to Citymeals on Wheels, which delivers food to homebound (mostly elderly) New Yorkers. Con Ed is saying power will be back by tomorrow at 11pm, but persistent rumors say it’ll be back tonight. Fingers crossed.
by marjorieingall on October 27, 2012
I have been HOWLING over Fashion It So, the tumblr devoted to analyzing the fashions of Star Trek: The Next Generation, all morning. God bless io9 for pointing this wonder out. It is GENIUS, GENIUS I TELL YOU. My two favorite posts so far: The One With The Alien Backup Dancers in the Bounty® Paper Towel Burlesque Extravaganza (“you know Dov Charney probably saw this picture and was like ‘YES. INSPIRATION.’ And then he put those shorts on a dude with a handlebar mustache and called it a day by partying with some underage-looking Asian girls”) and The One That Analyzes Dr. Crusher’s and Troi’s Workoutwear (best lines: “So everyone is like ‘sweet, this wormhole is stable, let’s broker some DEALS’ and “Beverly’s Cameltoe is my new band name”). I cannot do justice to the lunatic writerly style-y perfection. You must look.
by marjorieingall on October 24, 2012
by marjorieingall on October 24, 2012
That’s my Uncle Michael leading my daughters and niece on a woodsy walk. Which does not happen much. Which is relevant to my current Tablet column, in which I interviewed Susan Sachs Lipman, author of the new book Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World
. We talked about how hard is to stop of the crazy over-scheduling treadmill.
Now let’s see if I actually follow through on my Havdalah resolution.
by marjorieingall on October 19, 2012
I have a piece in the November issue of Woman’s Day (it doesn’t appear to be online) about a fabulous, funny mom named Pam in Valparaiso, IN who has a 20-year-old son, Alex, with autism. I loved talking to Pam and so admired the way she copes with some fairly hardcore challenges. The first draft of the story was a little darker than what ended up published, so I’m not sure how much Pam’s resilience and determination really come through. I urge everyone to check out her blog, which is brilliant, offering a lot of useful practical advice for parents with adult children with autism as well as a portrait of her and her husband Ed’s life with Alex. The labyrinth of legal, social, medical and insurance-based structures parents’ with adult kids with disabilities have to navigate — oy.
Side note: I hate picking up the phone to call someone I don’t know for the first time. It’s ironic, given what I do for a living. I’m OK once I’m a few minutes into talking and listening, but pushing the buttons of a phone number for the first time gives me agita. With Pam, though, I felt comfortable instantaneously, two seconds into our first conversation. She’s funny and smart and generous. Her blog is full of evidence of her Christian faith — each post ends with a Biblical quote, and there’s a whole lotta Jesus going on — and I wonder if we’d hold similar political beliefs. It didn’t matter. I don’t usually think the connections of mommydom trump all differences, but in this case, really respecting the way this woman parents and shoulders adversity with humor and perspective made me connect with her in a flash. She rocks.
The November issue of Woman’s Day is on newsstands now, I do believe.
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