Someone on Team Biden thought being able to customize your own "I'm on Team Biden" twitter postings was a good idea. Obviously, they'd never heard Baby Yoda say "begun, the meme wars have".

https://twitter.com/DocKilmer/status/1250876972303081479

Everybody else's cats are amazing.

https://twitter.com/allisonpearson/status/1250811313326043136

How about my personality? Can't I just share that instead? Beauty's really, on the inside, right?

Yes, my military-haircut years were atrocious.

I do, like, an extra comma, or two.

Sprotsball commentary.

https://twitter.com/FrankCaliendo/status/1250950502612795392

Here's J.R. brand-new column on the old way of maintaining parental sanity, during the crisis (I know for a fact he wrote this at least a week after his first COVID-related column):

http://www.indexjournal.com/lifestyles/columnists/john-rosemond/john-rosemond-reconfiguring-what-is-center-of-attention/article_7bc1f920-b373-50d0-b042-e30aebaea11d.html

Excerpt:

...Growing up, I was blessedly deprived of a mother who “parented.” My non-parenting mother, who was a single parent during most of my first seven years, did not put me at the center of her attention and hardly felt it was her job to keep me occupied. That responsibility fell squarely on my little shoulders.

“I’m bored, Mom.”

“Bored, eh? If you can’t find something to do, I’ll find something for you to do.”

And just like that, I found something to do, knowing that Mom’s solution would not be at all to my liking, as in “You’re going to wash the kitchen floor and if you’re still bored, I have plenty of other things with which to un-bore you.”...

(snip)

Oddly, though, aside from chores, he suggested taking kids to bookstores and libraries. I believe he's in North Carolina. I don't know just when libraries and most stores closed there, but I would have thought it was at least two weeks ago!

I believe he's in North Carolina. I don't know just when libraries and most stores closed there, but I would have thought it was at least two weeks ago! ~ Lenona at April 17, 2020 2:15 PM

It was. Mecklenburg County closed first, but the state followed soon after. Bookstores and libraries are closed.

Are you guys working from home?

Are you guys working from home? ~ Crid at April 17, 2020 4:24 PM

I was, 'til my contract got canceled due to a lack of work with the airline industry. I was working with a company on aircraft maintenance contract proposals.

Hoo boy. If he suddenly commits suicide..

https://twitter.com/Roran_Stehl/status/1251037294334705664

From the UK: "The Most Ridiculous Sex Myths, Debunked."

I was pleasantly surprised, once I opened it, to see that the writer chose myths that are somewhat recent.

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/g5xmej/sex-myths-truth-morning-after-pill-less-effective?utm_source=stylizedembed_vice.com&utm_campaign=93974y&site=vice

I didn't make it to the first paragraph, Lenona—

Apologies to cis men, but "wetness" and "arousal" are not the same.

I remember in the first week of college, there was a kid writing a column in a local alt-weekly... The 1" picture of his face at the byline offered a warning: The fuzz didn't add up to a mustache, and the fedora didn't constitute a good fashion choice. In the column, he swiftly but bitterly belittled a new Ted Nugent album… For the campus of what was then the second-largest school of music on the planet. And I wondered— Exactly how many albums of any kind has farmboy heard in his life, anyway?

Conan, best wishes.

It was a never a favorite Metheny tune, but it comes to mind a lot. This month.

There are people eager to belittle an attitude living most vigorously in their own (provincial) stereotypes, and those people often earn a living writing silliness for media. I suspect the 'myths' are recent because the author is too young to know any old ones (or to have seen any such illusions righteously die across years), and is not the kind of book-learner to have made original study of the folklore. ~ Crid at April 17, 2020 10:24 PM

That kind of "human history began with my awareness" lack of insight always brings to mind this little ditty from Kipling:

In August was the Jackal born;
The Rains fell in September
"Now, such a fearful flood as this,"
Says he, "I can't remember"

We study history because it teaches us what human civilization has overcome, the mistakes it made along the way, and why it's worth preserving. We learn from history that even our current predicament can be overcome; that we, as a species, have survived worse.

We study folklore because it teaches us what the hopes and fears of humans through the ages have been. We learn of the steady progress that human awareness has made - and get an idea of the progress it has yet to make.

Conan, best wishes. ~ Crid at April 17, 2020 10:31 PM

Thanks. Sucks, but I'm luckier than most; I have savings and a skillset that will be back in demand again when all this is over. I just have to ride it out.

BTW, I used to have that album. Lost it in a move somewhere in the murky past; bought it for Last Train Home.

Sorry. Got the album cover confused with Still Life (Talking).

Crid, *I* suspect the writer chose recent ones simply because a lot of youngish readers - not enough, mind you - have already had many old myths debunked for them. Such as:

First intercourse is heavenly. (Not true, for girls OR boys - it takes practice.)

Pregnancy is less likely the first time.

Etc.

Naturally, the writer didn't want to risk boring readers.

> Got the album cover confused

The PM Group albums often seem like a single, multi-decade masterwork. Release years are better conjoined in memory with the melodies than are the album names. (A few of the song titles really hit the spot, though; to wit, above.)

Pat once said most of us have our tastes established by what we liked —and by how patient we were with unusual music— between the ages of twelve and twenty-four. I'm really grateful for hanging around with a good crowd (experimental radio station) who brought him to my attention at 18. (It was the age when we were still childishly challenging each other about choices: 'Okay, Dood, but what do you think of *Metheny*?' You had to keep up.)

So from about '77 to '06 or so, every few years there'd be one of those blessed records that you'd forget to anticipate in a life of quotidian work and distraction… And it always had at least one tune as pretty as a supermodel who pined for you, and sometimes six of them. I wouldn't have bothered to pray for such a heavenly & cometlike recurrence at church in childhood; a mere Creator would not be so beneficent.

Mays passed in February. Just as for all who died in that season, I'm glad he didn't know about Wuhan.

Similarly, not a favorite piece, but what a title.

> the writer didn't want to
> risk boring readers.

That's kind of the point; there was little danger for her. The Motor City Madman was easy for the kids to mock if they weren't likely to drop out until the second sophomore semester.



> this little ditty from Kipling

It's a least the fourth time it's been cited here, but please forgive this tawdrier but more pungent version from Cosh:

…As opposed to precious, dire hipster silliness about how Elvis Presley invented fucking.

And see the link for now-ironic imagery about an escape from industrial constraint…

I mean, thanks for your conversation here, it's good to have looked it up yet again.

PS— "Are You Going With Me" is the daily 6:33am PST alarm on the phone. The piece is emotionally indestructible; one need not fear wearing it out.

Also, I envy Gog the tidy grooming of his military-haircut years

It's a least the fourth time it's been cited here.... ~ Crid at April 18, 2020 10:25 AM

Probably all four times by me.

Oh, and myths 3 and 6 are especially relevant to men.

> Oh, and myths 3 and 6 are especially
> relevant to men.

So you see what I'm getting at… These intensely contemporary pieces condensing ancient human complexities into streamlined, totable nuggets are written to flatter contemporary readers on the total up-to-datedness of their contempor-itude.

'Relax, Baby! This one's been solved! That one older cousin who you like took care of it the day you graduated high school, so you'll definitely get some of the credit! Gay marriage under UBI for trans people smoking legal weed!'

It's why Gens X & Y are so tired of the Boomers, and why we were so bored of Paul Harvey and James Reston and Walter Cronkite: You can only receive the proper expression of subtle respect and fraternal admiration from a media figure of your own generation, one who might be almost —if not quite— as youthfully fertile as you yourself just happen to be. Elvis invented fucking, Madonna invented oral.

And —this is weird— human feeling is always discovered anew by twenty-one year olds! Almost daily!

And —this is weird— human feeling is always discovered anew by twenty-one year olds! Almost daily! ~ Crid at April 18, 2020 7:51 PM

Yep, the Boomers were the first generation to have children. At least they were, judging from the avalanche of childbearing guides they published.

Crid, maybe, but it's also a fact that certain questions and complaints just didn't get addressed in past sex-ed publications, so it's refreshing when someone is thoughtful enough to do so. In detail.

Example: Sexologist Eleanor Hamilton (the Dr. Ruth of her time) wrote "Sex, with Love" in 1978, and despite its frequent sentimentality, it's remarkably down to earth and detailed in a way that makes it almost regrettable that it's out of print. It even debunks romantic myths about dating and marriage. Even so, while there's plenty of detail about birth control and even abortion, she pretty much danced around the subject of oral sex; she didn't even bother to debunk the myth that it's a way to avoid STIs, as if only long-term couples ever did it. (Also, one can get syphilis or hepatitis just by kissing, but she didn't make that clear in her chapter on STIs either. She did mention the need to have blood tests before having intercourse, but who does that before kissing?)

And Ruth Bell's "Changing Bodies, Changing Lives" is deservedly a classic for teens, especially in its emotional complexity and medical detail. It's almost as good as "Our Bodies, Ourselves." But I don't think even the last edition - maybe 15 years ago - really dealt with pornography and how much bigger a factor it had become in teens' lives compared to 1980, when the first edition of CB, CL was published.

On top of that, in the mid-1980s, Tom Carey wrote "Sex Etiquette," which is humorous, wise and cynical and very much deserves a revised edition. Even so, he couldn't even seem to figure out how to mention AIDS. He did cover STIs - but only briefly, in the sequel, in the 1990s!

And even when it comes to married adults, chances are plenty of THEIR medical books have needed revising, again and again. One cartoonist pointed out that you never hear about how, after a woman gives birth, she has trouble sitting down for quite a while! Why not? Maybe because people used to believe that the best way to keep women breeding was to keep them in ignorance, not just about how painful childbirth can be, but how a woman's body doesn't necessarily bounce back to what it was? We don't believe that ignorance is bliss anymore - but it's taken ages to make everyone acknowledge that.

> judging from the avalanche of
> childbearing guides they published.

Or the avalanche they needed!

> complaints just didn't get addressed
> in past sex-ed publications

Your enthusiasm for the topic suggests high hopes for improved sexual conduct through a well-composed classroom. That strikes me as [1] improbable and [2] a genuine state intrusion on the rights of parents to form their children's lives on the principles they hold dear.

I think sexual identity is always going to come more from the often-stilted and corrupt folklore of peers, and then by the guidance of family, rather than from teachers and books… and I'm pretty much okay with that.

But of course today, far too much youthful 'understanding' of eroticism and sex is from abject pornography and tawdry social media, which are nightmares. (They're probably the third most formative force, after family, and well ahead of Ms. McGillicuddy and her proud new textbook.)

I checked - CB,CL had a second, revised edition in 1988 and a third in 1998. Why there hasn't been another one, I can't say. In the 1980s, Ruth Bell Alexander also co-authored "Talking With Your Teenager," which REALLY deserves an update, since it's so user-friendly.

But anyway, authors, young or old, who write books and columns on sex ed, clearly have to address all sorts of questions that weren't asked in the past, such as "how am I supposed to get and keep a boyfriend without giving him nude photos of myself - and even if those photos accidentally fall into the wrong hands, what's the big deal anyway? All the celebs pose nude!" Or: "I wasn't popular in high school because I wasn't pretty and I refused to have sex, so where's my reward for my purity now? No one wants to get married - and those who do, think that virgins are just frigid!" Or: "I'm a boy and I plan to have babies, but if I don't get married, I don't have to support them, right?"

I think sexual identity is always going to come more from the often-stilted and corrupt folklore of peers, and then by the guidance of family, rather than from teachers and books
__________________________________________

At the very least, parents have a big obligation to beat their kids' ill-informed peers to the punch. Often, they don't, because too many parents want to believe that anything they don't approve of - such as ignorant conversations - that happened when they weren't there, didn't really happen. Plus, kids, like adults, believe whatever they want to believe, so it's too easy for them to believe anything they hear from a peer first - such as the idea that they're physically incapable of starting a pregnancy because they're "too young." (Which is easily the most damaging myth of all, re teen pregnancy.)

And don't forget the more reputable sites like Scarleteen. At least it's easy enough for kids to go there privately if they wish - they can use library computers.

A recent tweet comes to mind...

For those teens blessed with a steady and sober constitution but burdened by uncommunicative peers or detached social alliances, orderly websites and prim textbooks can indeed be a blessing, and thank Heaven for them… But those kids are going to do well anyway.

(We should outlaw student aid and tuition grants for anyone with an IQ over 137.)

But for most kids, sexuality —and the discomforts and crossed-communications which it nourishes— will disallow steady and sober investigation of things. We gotta consider the moment they're in, not the kind of learning they may have been capable of five years earlier, or the ways they'll accept critical information ten years later.

I assume the tweet was referring to what the school shutdowns are doing to kids in their senior year?

That reminds me. I was just reading the reviews of the book by Heather Corinna, founder of Scarleteen. It's S.E.X. and got very high ratings. The second edition came out in 2016.

From Dec 29, 2008:

"I agree with some of the negative reviewers that this book is written at an adult level and that it will not interest all teenagers. However, SOME teenagers DO read at an adult level and are interested in adult-level writing, and for those teenagers and twentysomething young adults, this is the perfect book for all things sexuality-related. And honestly, I'm not all that liberal when it comes to sexual attitudes. But I would have been far LESS likely to have premarital sex if I had read this book, with its comprehensive, informative, well-thought-out approach to sex. More information is always good, as long as it is well presented and accurate as it is here. I have already given this book to 7 of my relatives between the ages of 18 and 30 and plan to give it to every relative and friend I have as a late-teens birthday gift."

From June 2, 2012:

"I had good sex-ed books growing up, from what I remember. They were straight-forward, science based and once I got over the obligatory "eww gross!" reaction, they were really quite interesting. This book, however, outshines them all.

"Let me get my one complaint out of the way: the subtitle. "The all-you-need-to-know progressive sexuality guide to get you through high school and college" alienates anyone who doesn't finish high school, doesn't plan to go to college, or pursues an alternative education and quite often these are the people who most need access to reliable information about their sexual health. In reading the book, I didn't find the content to reflect this bias which was a relief.

"But back to the book itself. The author is the founder and owner of Scarleteen, probably the best web resource for teen sexuality. If anyone knows what teens actually want and need to know about sex and sexuality, she'd be the person. Right from the start she tells us that she won't be spending much time on discussing abstinence, backing that decision up with the following statistic: "...about 26 percent of young adults 'practicing abstinence' will become pregnant within one year." Instead she accepts that most young people will want and eventually have sex and tries to prepare them for that eventuality. Unlike may sex-ed books, she goes beyond just explaining how not to get pregnant or contract an STI - she actually talks about how to have GOOD sex. The discussion of safer sex includes the usual physically safer sex, but also emotionally safer sex..."

(snip)

The author wrote back:

"Annamarie: you are the first person who made that comment about the subtitle, and I feel incredibly foolish about it reading your very sound critique. All the more so as someone who supports and works with young people out of school, unschooling models, and other kinds of alt-ed or non-ed.

"Titles and subtitles are one of those things where an author and a publisher often go round and round a gazillion times to find something both agree on, and with this book, that absolutely happened. I don't know if I'll have the option to adapt that subtitle with any future editions should they happen, but if that is an option, you can bet I'll be rethinking it.

"Thanks for pointing something out to me which should have been as plain as the nose on my face!"
___________________________________

"Wow! This is the kind of responsiveness that makes Scarleteen such a critical resource for young people. This truly was an impressive book and I'll be recommending it to everyone in my life who works with or has kids. Thank you!"
_____________________________________

Heather Corinna:
"Btw, wanted to poke back here to let you know that we are finishing up the second edition now, and the subtitle for this edition notes it as for teens and twenties, not high school and college: thanks so much for that feedback, it was invaluable!"

Tell me again what you do for a living, and why you aren't one of Amy's esteemed competitors.