Health

1. Chris Y writes: Would you believe it? Yes, you would

Heebie's take: I heard several students on Tuesday saying things like, "Well you had to take off your glasses, because you couldn't find it otherwise!"

There's a kernel of truth to that. At times the sun would peak out, and you'd hear the crowd murmur, and I just could not find it with my glasses on. So I'd take the glasses off for the briefest of moments to locate where in the sky we were talking about, and then put them on again.

But of course, that's the uber-responsible version of a quick peek. I'm saying that I bet the cloud cover tempted a lot of people into discarding their glasses altogether.

2. This passed through my IG feed, a Slate article speculating that Trump is on Ozembic. And goddamnit, I have to admit I'm pretty annoyed that his risk of a heart attack is probably significantly reduced.

Testing

Mossy Character writes: And you think SAT tutoring is expensive.

Heebie's take:

Tibet is luring investors from elsewhere in China with a promise to let their children take university entrance exams there in return for an investment of at least $400,000, an unusual move to exploit what is considered an easier scoring system.

With a population that is 90% ethnic Tibetan, the region has one of China's lowest college entry barriers, a key edge for the millions of students who take the competitive "gaokao" entrance exams each year, hoping to secure lucrative white-collar jobs.

I recognize this kind of gaming of a system intended to assist an underrepresented group!

And just because I'm contractually obligated to view everything through a solipsistic lens, US schools are re-instating SAT test requirements. And it's not racist anymore, it's just measuring race-based inequality in the US.

Lazy jerks

Well this is kind of a bummer: Women end up doing the academic housework. But not exactly surprising.

I like the four categories:

The researchers split how the participants' addressed this issue into four categories: compliance, evasiveness, barter and investment.

...

A relatively large group of the male professors, around 25 per cent, participated in service work, and a smaller group of female professors, correspondingly, chose not to do service work," says Mik-Meyer.

"In this study, we looked at the most dominant pattern, but we clearly need to look at this more closely - i.e. these two deviant groups."

I feel seen! I mean, I do service work - I didn't know I had a choice not to - but I'm not one of the people who get stretched thinnest. For a woman, I'm probably deviant.

...

This is kind of funny on paper, but infuriating in real life:

"We were surprised by how brazen and explicit the male researchers were when describing their priorities."

"Several said that they actively didn't respond to emails, or acted in an exaggerated disorganised manner. This meant they were assigned fewer tasks, but were also less frequently asked, and thus got away without doing service."

Guest Post: Top of The Pops

Nick S writes: Two interesting articles about memories of what was or wasn't seen as behavior within the acceptable bounds of gender. First, a memory of seeing Boy George on the Top of the Pops "1982: Charisma Bomb":

Twelve million people saw Boy George that night, and most of us - whether we turned into Culture Club fans or not - have never forgotten it. He looked straight down the barrel of the camera while singing the plangent intro line, and the space between performer and viewer instantly collapsed. He launched himself past the studio crew and the editing suite and the Crystal Palace transmitter, and exploded like a charisma bomb in front of all the brickies and the barristers and the grannies and the teenagers. A couple of minutes later, bassist Roy Hay - always the most straight-looking member of the group, in all possible senses - was caught by the camera looking at George with wonder and a little bit of awe, even apprehension. In these four minutes George changed his bandmates' lives forever, and I think you can see the moment when Roy Hay realises what's happening.

Second, a longer and appropriately complicated essay centered around the combination of tightly policed gender boundaries and a large number of men who were comfortable with drag in the military "I Want To Break Free (From Your Lies)":

After my grandparents died, I inherited a treasure trove of family photographs and records stretching back more than a century. Thousands of photos. It took me years to properly go through them . . . And then I found the ones of [my grandfather] dressed like a woman.

Not just my grandfather either, but a whole group of his friends. It's clearly for a performance, almost certainly one at the local AMVETS' Hall where he was a member. I'm guessing a fundraiser of some kind.

What's important to observe, I think, is that nothing about these images, strange as they are to me, suggests my grandfather and his drinking buddies -- all WWII veterans -- are remotely uncomfortable with what they're doing on this stage. There's no attempt to hide it. They're grinning for the camera, proud to have this moment commemorated for their children and grandchildren, such as me, to find the evidence.

...

The thing about my grandfather is, I don't want you to think I confuse those photographs of him in drag as some evidence that he and millions of other American men had boarded the Woke Train in World War II and never hopped off. Because he would tell me all the time to stop crossing my legs like I did as a child.

"Don't cross your legs like that."

"That's how ladies cross their legs, kid."

"Don't do that."

Very early on, I recognized the attempt by him, my own father, and the culture around me to control and shape me into a man's man - which meant the least like a woman as possible. To allow anything remotely feminine to go unchecked could result in me catching the Gay, which would somehow be even worse.

...

That might have something to do with the fact that .. millions of [American men were World War II Vets]. All of them were accustomed to drag, which, as it turns out, was a formalized part of military service in World War II and an ongoing tradition in the U.S. military since 1880 until only recently.

My word choice is not reckless here: a formalized part of military service in World War II.

Heebie's take: First, the Boy George link doesn't contain any photos or video! Here is the performance in question.

Second, the second article is fantastic. Go read it.

Guest Post -- Still A Thing

Mossy Character writes: Prosecutors on Friday urged a military court in the war-torn east of the Democratic Republic of Congo to sentence to death 11 soldiers accused of "cowardice" and "fleeing the enemy", a lawyer said.

"The tactic of shooting deserters likely attests to the low quality, low morale and indiscipline of Russian forces."

Heebie's take: I've started trying 12 ft ladder to get around paywalls, lately. On the first link, it gets me a lot more of the article, but I can't tell if it's the whole thing or not. Surprisingly, the second link (to Forbes) wasn't paywalled for me.