Re: Motley links

1

This seems less about home schooling and more about people who saw Carrie and sympathized with the mother.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:00 AM
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2

Full disclosure: I've never seen Carrie but I read the plot.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:01 AM
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3

Also, the article was too long for me to finish.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:03 AM
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In that long article about the Soylent guy it was revealed that he was homeschooled by fundamentalist parents, and considers his falling away from that the cause of his better-living-through-industrial-chemicals worldview.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:06 AM
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5

I didn't finish that article either.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:11 AM
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Neither did I. The part about homeschooling was near the beginning.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:17 AM
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7

It's probably telling that I've heard "baby-shaker" used as an epithet for a presumptively ignorant and unsuitable boyfriend.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:18 AM
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8

It's not that people don't shake babies and cause damage, just that you can't tell quite as clearly from the supposedly canonical symptoms what exactly happened and when. There are some fun acronyms I had to learn in mandatory Pediatric Abusive Head Trauma training about where to expect normal bruising on babies but I don't really remember them now.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:30 AM
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8.1 seems a good thing to keep in mind. Given the way the news works, I'm a little afraid that we'll see, "Go ahead and shake your baby" reports.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:37 AM
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Given the way the news works, I'm a little afraid that we'll see, "Go ahead and shake your baby" reports.

Doctors Hate This Local Mom's 1 Weird Trick.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:38 AM
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I actually looked up on the internet if it was okay to throw Zardoz in the air or onto the bed (because it's totally fun, obvs) and was bemused at the massive disconnect between "don't ever shake your baby even a little bit!" on parenting sites and "yeah, no, insofar as 'shaken baby syndrome' means anything, it's talking about really violent motion that you aren't going to do by accident" in more legit medical/scholarly sources.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:44 AM
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My grandmother repeatedly lectured/harassed Jammies and I for holding the baby while jiggling our legs, which we both do constantly but also found very useful as vibration to soothe babies to sleep.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:47 AM
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"Go ahead and shake your baby"
Go ahead and shake a friend,
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:13 AM
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14

More seriously, everyone hated Fred Phelps, but a lot of these Xtian homeschooler fundy types are practically indistinguishable with their ritual abuse and crazy politics.

Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:15 AM
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DoctorsForensic Pediatric Pathologists Hate This Local Mom's 1 Weird Trick.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:18 AM
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Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets.

"No dumping. Drains to river."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:19 AM
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17

Also: Drawing Eyebrows on Babies


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:19 AM
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18

17 is great.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:20 AM
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19

My friend had some great pix of her toddler with eyebrows & moustache drawn on. Why didn't anyone ever think of that before?


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:23 AM
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Why didn't anyone ever think of that before?

Survival instinct. How long do you think those parents are going to live once the kids grow up and see those pics?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:35 AM
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Guidelines say babies can't ride in a bike child seat until they're 1 because they don't have enough neck strength to keep their heads from bouncing all over, we started more like 10 months and it seems ok so far. City streets around here are really bumpy.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 10:47 AM
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I feel out of touch with my culture, I'd never even heard of the "stay-at-home daughter movement."


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 12:28 PM
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Tell me you know what a prairie muffin is though?

Someone I know had this book http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/product/KeepersatHomeHandbook for her daughter - it's almost enough to make one turn to Satanism.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 2:58 PM
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24

23.1: It's a cow plop.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:10 PM
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23.2 -- I must have missed the part in the New Testament where Jesus decrees that all girls must learn Appliqué, but I guess that's because I don't believe in biblical literalism.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:18 PM
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26

Will a two ounce sample of mango lemonade hide beer on the breath? Asking for a friend.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:28 PM
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24 - yes, an odd choice of nickname. The original prairie muffin manifesto seems to have disappeared, but there are still plenty of sites ripping it apart, e.g. http://rachelchitra.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/prairie-muffins-the-ultimate-in-conservative-christianity/


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:28 PM
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28

Dunno. Drink it, then breathe at me.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:28 PM
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29

My (gay) friend's parents have become crazy fundie over the past ten years or so. On her most recent trip home, her mom went on about how she is now leaving all decisions in the hands of her husband/friend's dad. Mom feels so much better and is so mad at herself for the past few decades of arrogance and misguided equality.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:33 PM
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Last three students please leave, I need to pee!


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:33 PM
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22: How much of this is your culture, exactly?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:35 PM
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Well, my family wouldn't have been part of such a movement, but Christian homeschoolers are still in some sense one culture even though its not monolithic in terms of movements and beliefs.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:41 PM
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33

Hiding beer breath from people at schools is part of my culture.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:43 PM
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34

Vaguely on topic for OP3, I just finished my last class of the semester in my Deaf History/Deaf Ed class. I had intended to make everyone do various informative and fulfilling exercises related to historic events and the discussion questions we started the semester with. Instead, it ended up being an hour and a half of them reporting how angry they were (about the readings/historical oppression, not at me) and how many long arguments they had gotten into with friends and family during the semester, about whether Deaf Culture exists, and whether or not ASL is a "real" language, and whether children should be forced to get cochlear implants, etc. I refrained from saying "yeah I get in fights with my internet friends about those things all the time too."

One of them suggested that next time I teach the class, I also establish a weekly support group for the students in it. So, this counts as a teaching win, right?


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:46 PM
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35

Eg I've been to an "I kissed dating goodbye" courtship rally.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:52 PM
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36

"I kissed dating goodbye . . . and said hello to group sex."


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:59 PM
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37

Is that just a fancy name for a wedding reception?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 3:59 PM
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38

37 to 36.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:04 PM
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39

I've been to an "I kissed dating goodbye" courtship rally

What's supposed to take dating's place?


Posted by: Idp | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:05 PM
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40

Actually a courtship rally sounds awesome

"Cleveland . . . are you ready to START FUCKING???? I can't hear you!"


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:08 PM
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41

One's father.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:08 PM
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42

And Father.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:08 PM
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43

Eg I've been to an "I kissed dating goodbye" courtship rally.

I thought "dating" and "courtship" were the same old-fashioned thing, replaced by "hooking up" in a thousand trend stories starting 30 years ago.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:14 PM
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44

It looks like a reference to this. I guess the idea is that you hang out in groups, which sounds more like hooking up culture to me but whatevs.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:22 PM
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45

34: Say, can you play native informant for a bit? I wanna write a grant to ADA-ify our website, and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that -- like, in particular, is there anything in the general guidelines/tips that is bullshit? Or anything that gets left out that Deaf people specifically want?
Mostly looking at this website for pointers:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/web-designer/creating-an-ada-compliant-website/

I'm probably going to be working with a designer who just finished the same kind of thing for a much, much bigger website, but thought it might be good to have some other opinions before we start.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:22 PM
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46

44: Helpful, thanks.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:29 PM
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47

Make sure any videos have (good, readable) captions. Other than that, there aren't any major web access issues for deaf people. Making things work with screenreaders and making sure all your images have descriptions, for blind access, is a bigger deal.

One thing that is often overlooked is that even captioned videos are not accessible to deafblind people unless the captions are fed in separately (that is, they are stored as closed captions that can be turned on and off, rather than as subtitles that are always there) and/or there's a link to a transcript.

Also, related to content rather than technical stuff, it's nice to have easily findable information about which events are interpreted and/or described, whether the venue is wheelchair accessible, what people need to do ahead of time if anything to request such things, etc. (You're still at the theater, yeah? if not, ignore that last part probably).


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:32 PM
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48

Isn't the best sex the sex you have with Jesus?


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:39 PM
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49

Yeah, but that's not really an accessibility issue you need to worry about at this point.


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:41 PM
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50

48 not to 47, just to the OP discussion.

47: Thanks! Those are just the kinds of things I was looking for. Would not have thought of the separate caption thing. I went to a seminar about accessibility the other day, and they did mention the stuff about telling people how to access various things. Lots to think about!

(I'm not at the place you stopped in to anymore, but doing very similar work)


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 4:42 PM
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51

If you are producing DVDs (such as for a promotion) try to get the darned things captioned AND subtitled. HDMI cables won't transmit captions. Found this out the hard way. (This is also an issue for DVR via HDMI, but can often be adjusted—with effort—on the DVR device.)

Don't convey text via an image (restaurants love to do this for some reason). Even with alt text, that can be a real challenge for some users. Also, it increases maintenance effort for you.

Oh, pay attention to issues for individuals with low vision. Color, contrast, etc.

Overall, the WCAG 2.0 standards are the ones to shoot for. Access Board will soon (this year I hope) have them included in the the federal standards and DOJ will quickly adopt that for ADA standards.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 5:04 PM
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52

Isn't the best sex the sex you have with Jesus?

...laydeez.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 5:10 PM
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53

51.3 is the real sticking point. We redid the website recently and I just wasn't thinking about that. We did wind up bumping up the contrast a bit from the original design, but I'm sure it's not good enough. I dunno, it's hard to simulate. So short of making this an actual redesign, I'm worried it might have to just be a bit blurry. Stupid of me.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 5:32 PM
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54

51.1 -- We generally only produce DVDs for archival/work sample purposes. And now everyone wants you to load them on Vimeo. I have not played around with captioning much.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 5:33 PM
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55

|| My cousin wrote a ML column. What a thing. |>


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 5:46 PM
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56

A nice piece, though. Common to face this, but not so young.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 5:50 PM
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53 - There's a Chrome plugin that simulates low contrast vision and colorblindness; I can't speak to that one in particular, but I used similar things eons ago when I had to check for circa-2004 accessibility compliance.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 5:54 PM
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55: So very young. My sympathies.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 5:59 PM
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That's tough, Charley. Sympathies to your cousin.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 6:02 PM
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55: Awful, but very kind of him to move with her. Poor guy, such a fast decline. Dementia is a cruel disease.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 6:05 PM
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Heartbreaking, Charley. Peace to your cousin and his wife.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 6:12 PM
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62

Likewise, sympathies. How agonizing.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 6:13 PM
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63

Oof, how awful. Beautiful piece, but seriously: at 43 years old, that's so tragic.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 6:32 PM
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64

That is awful, but a lovely essay about it.

And now I feel shallow wanting to complain about how dull it is eating with wine people. It's a beverage, not a serious topic of conversation.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 6:43 PM
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So sad. Familiar too. My mom had similar tumors. Some were inoperable with the tech of the 1970s. Epilepsy killed her in her early forties.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 6:46 PM
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I'm sorry, in retrospect, for your loss, md.

Neurology -- medical brain science -- is still really groping in the dark. An acquaintance, aged 46, recently fell down with a seizure for the first time in his life. I know from experience how upsetting that is, and talked to him for a while about it. Should check to see what's been learned with him in the last couple of weeks. We do not know what will happen to us as life goes on.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:10 PM
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Groping in the dark is apt, parsimon. I haven't been here in a while so bumping into this thread today is odd, as this is very near the area I'm working in currently. Stories like these keep me energized .


Posted by: John F. Kennedy | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:26 PM
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Stay energized, JFK.

My impression is that areas of neurology dealing with diagnosable conditions like brain tumors are very different from those areas dealing with idiopathic -- cause unknown -- disorders. Speaking just to seizure disorders. Dementia is yet another realm; I gather there have been some inroads in Alzheimer's research lately.

Anyway, extremely important work.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:36 PM
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Charley, that's awful. That is way too young.

It is a lovely essay. I really like this:

Last summer I said: "You can trust me. I'll always tell you the truth about what's happening."

Today I tell her small, comforting lies. Some promises, though, aren't just things you say or intend to do; they're about what kind of person you are. That makes it easier to decide what's right.

[I always felt uneasy (because dishonest) about the comforting lies we told our mother when she was dying of cancer (a particularly vicious and aggressive metastatic breast cancer that got into her bones, and then started attacking her vital organs). But what were we to say? Yeah, your case is hopeless, the average prognosis gives you about 11 months...]


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 7:43 PM
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That was a beautiful and painful essay, Charley. If you're in touch with your cousin, and you think he would appreciate it, please convey sympathy and admiration (for his courage and decency rather than his prose, though that too).


Posted by: Den E. Crumb | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:20 PM
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55: My sympathies, CC. A horrible story nicely told.


Posted by: biohazard | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:27 PM
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69: IMX those sorts of comforting lies are often times better than the truth, and the uneasiness make it pretty easy to avoid lying only for one's own benefit.


Posted by: biohazard | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:32 PM
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Yes, a remarkable essay. Your cousin somehow managed to convey the agony of his own position, without violating his wife's dignity or exposing her in a way that her earlier self would have regretted. (Something that I don't think John Bayley always achieved when writing about Iris Murdoch, although, God knows, who am I to judge?)


Posted by: Mme. Merle | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 8:45 PM
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IMX those sorts of comforting lies are often times better than the truth

Totally agree, bioh. But, you know, only up to a point, and after that point, it's just a shared delusion, and perhaps a bit insulting to the one who's about to die.

Not to get into the family drama, but a couple of my sisters wanted to maintain the fiction until about five minutes before our mother took her last breath. And I know for a fact (because she told me) that my mum was enormously relieved when my father finally called in the priest to give her the last rites. Because she was dying, and she knew she was dying, and she had known that she was dying for many months, but had felt she had to put up a brave face for the sake of her family (which family had felt they had to put up a brave face for her). And with the priest there to anoint her dying, cancer-stricken body with oil, and to say the age-old prayers over her emaciated frame, and to tell her "We do these things, Catherine, to let you know that you are not alone," my mother felt a large burden lift, she experienced a huge sense of relief. Finally, it was official, and we could admit that she was about to die. And then she really started talking, by the way...


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 9:07 PM
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Very sorry, CC. I recently lost someone close to a different type of cancer, but he wasn't nearly as young, and was lucid until very near the end. I can't imagine what your cousin's experience must be like, as well-written as the column is.


Posted by: widget | Link to this comment | 05- 8-14 9:07 PM
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It does sound hard, CC. It was very nice of him to move in there. Sometimes people decide to have one spouse move in to a facility while the other remains in the community. It sounds like a horribly difficult decision to make.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 4:10 AM
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Oh good lord. CC, my sympathies to you and all your family.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 4:15 AM
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Granted, I've only ever read ML columns that were being mocked on this blog, but that's easily the best ML column I've ever read. Heartbreaking. My sympathies to your family, CC.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 5:44 AM
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74: I don't think there's a hard and fast rule to be found. I've had someone say "I'm going to die, aren't I?" and answered "Yes, there's a very good chance you will. . . ." and on the other hand, our entire family kept health crises of all sorts from my mother because she was a high-anxiety catastrophizer of Olympic caliber and beyond. Those lies benefited her and the rest of us too, and we explicitly knew that.

The dance of evasion you described is about the most painful way to deal with approaching death, I think. (And now that I do think of it, it's not good for mundane dissatisfactions in any sort of relationship. Life turns out to be too short, there's little to be gained by prolonging one via that tactic.)


Posted by: biohazard | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 7:49 AM
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79: There's a big difference in telling a person who's lucid the truth about their condition and relaying information to family members. I think you're quite right in both cases, but figured I'd underline where I'd usually make the judgment call. Not lucid = no qualms about truthfulness if the truth is unkind or upsetting for me. Relaying info to someone who creates more stress and drama? Also very little guilt about lying.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 8:03 AM
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Oh, that "for me" is no qualms for me, not upsetting for me.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 8:03 AM
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82

easily the best ML column I've ever read. Heartbreaking.

Indeed.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 8:19 AM
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83

I don't think it would be a good idea for me to read anything heartbreaking right now, so I will just take everyone's word for it and send peaceful thoughts.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 8:28 AM
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My father-in-law no longer has any idea who I am, or who our kids are. I think he knows they're his grandchildren--and they seem to make him happy rather than agitated--but matching them to the parent is well past him. He still recognizes his own 7 kids, but the spouses are iffy, particularly the relatively recent ones, like me. Roberta's youngest sibling recently found out that she's pregnant with twins (which will be grandchildren 15 and 16, for context of just how confusing it must be), so he gets to be surprised and excited by that news every ten minutes or so. And it really is heartbreaking, especially to watch how depressed and exhausted my MIL gets dealing with it every day.

But there's at least some familiar frame of reference for it happening to someone in their 70s. I can't even get my head around going through it at my age. Jesus.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 8:32 AM
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85

What everyone said, Charley. Your cousin and his wife sound like a lovely couple coping admirably with a horrible situation.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 9:09 AM
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86

How very sad, and how gracefully handled. It is lovely to see people live up to the best anyone could do.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 9:14 AM
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87

Immense sympathy for all, CC.

Found out last night that friends' baby has 0% chance of survival once born, pregnancy about 5 months along. Shattered.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 9:16 AM
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87. Oh shit. Yes, shattering.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 9:20 AM
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Oh dairy, that's so sad. So sorry.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05- 9-14 2:09 PM
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