Disqus - Latest Comments for angharad

Re: SXSW PanelPicker

angharad — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 16:44:53 -0000

Would love to see students invited to conversations about education more often - it's good to see them represented on this panel.

Re: SXSW PanelPicker

angharad — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 17:42:18 -0000

I'm encouraged to see student surveys getting more traction in K-12. It's been such an important tool in higher ed for years.

Re: SXSW PanelPicker

angharad — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 16:05:44 -0000

I'm encouraged to see student surveys getting more traction in K-12. It's been such an important tool in higher ed for years.

Re: SXSW PanelPicker

angharad — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 13:04:41 -0000

This looks fascinating. I'm particularly excited about the role student input can pay in teacher professional development. It's de rigueur in tertiary ed - why aren't we doing more of it at the elementary and secondary levels?

Re: Twilight Of The Magicians - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

angharad — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:11:19 -0000

WOW. Thanks for posting. Unreal.

Re: Twilight Of The Magicians - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

angharad — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:09:30 -0000

Does anyone have video of this Rove meltdown? So sad I missed it (while my stupid Boston affiliates were showing Liz Warren's victory speech while networks were calling it...).

Re: The Perils of Magical Scientific Thinking

angharad — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 17:49:25 -0000

I don't think the anagram comment was meant to have a specific object; I think it was just pointing out that Preibus has a silly name.

Re: The Price of Hugging the President

angharad — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 17:36:28 -0000

Communist synthesizer < Democra-Keyboard.

Re: Ask Richard: Clarity and Honesty in a Relationship With a Christian

angharad — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 11:28:37 -0000

I don't think this is fair. Of course it behooves the couple to figure out if they're incompatible before investing years and years into a relationship. It's only prudent to discuss it at least in the hypothetical.

Re: Rush Limbaugh Is Trolling Us - National - The Atlantic Wire

angharad — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:17:37 -0000

Wow, not at all true. IUD insertion also requires multiple doctor's office visits, and your estimate only includes the cost of the device, not the cost of insertion. Birth control pills cost in the realm of $90/month without insurance (over $1100/year). I certainly don't view condoms as cheap, and you're right, they should be used in addition to the above - but a.) they're substantially less effective than hormonal birth control, and b.) good luck convincing a reluctant male partner to use one.

However, you've still completely missed the point of Sandra Fluke's intended testimony. She was there to represent a friend with ovarian cysts that were a.) excruciating and b.) at risk of developing into cancer. Birth control was the recommended course of treatment, and it was prohibitively expensive.

Re: Money Mic: Why I Want to Marry Rich

angharad — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:51:13 -0000

My mother - a staunch feminist in her own right, like me - taught my sisters and me that before anything else, we had to be financially independent. That doesn't mean marrying rich, which is a fundamentally dependent position. Look at the stock market these days, and look at the divorce rate. Rich husbands leave. Investments dry up. Relying on someone else's charity is a good way to end up impoverished.

Re: Picture of the Day: Blogger Who Punked Gov. Walker Mocks Campaign Rival With Fake Website - Garance Franke-Ruta and Chris Good - Politics - The Atlantic

angharad — Thu, 05 May 2011 22:27:13 -0000

The font of "ian" in the who.is search looks suspiciously different to me, as if it were pasted over the original name.

Re: A Nice Guy Tells You How to Win His Heart

angharad — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:02:12 -0000

Yeah, I read that interview after some buzz on Jezebel. Pretty noxious stuff, especially when he basically called Kerry Washington a whore. I hadn't heard about the apology, though. "Intellectualize"? Please. John Mayer couldn't intellectualize quantum physics.

Re: It Takes a Man to Speak Truth About the Women of UNC

angharad — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:44:53 -0000

Having gone to a women's college, I have no sympathy for the single straight ladies of UNC... :-)

(Disclaimer: I adored my college, I really did, even though -- or more accurately, *because* it was a women's college. But to co-opt your battery metaphor for a moment, Susan, sometimes the only available resource is a pair of LITERAL AAs... if you know what I mean.)

Re: The Sex Risk For Women That No One Likes To Talk About

angharad — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:17:32 -0000

"The wholesale rejection of 40% of the human race is evidence of deep sickness." I think that virgins are, in general, treated abominably, and I think it's unfortunate that some people have a difficult time finding the relationships they want. But it is not the responsibility of any *individual* to not turn down any other *individual* as long as it's done respectfully. (I'm also not really sure what 40% you're discussing.)

With regard to your responses to both the STD issue and the issue that you assert that all promiscuous people embody certain character flaws: statistics are a tool to calculate likelihood. PLEASE show me a number that indicates that every promiscuous person has an STD, because -- I crunch numbers for a living -- whoever is producing statistics that demonstrate 100% certainty has revolutionized the field, since no one has been able to do that yet. Statistics are NOT a way to establish universality. You can say that a certain groups tends to behave in a certain manner, but you cannot unequivocally extrapolate that finding to EVERY member of a group. That is the essence of statistics. And those are exactly the same kinds of assumptions that make you upset when they are leveled against virgins.

And I don't know how many times I can say this, but I agree with you that older and especially male virgins are treated with contempt, but I still think that that is no excuse to attack other groups or individuals within them.

I just think it's important to remember that groups are made up of distinct individuals who may behave very differently. Those individuals are responsible only for their OWN actions, not for actions of other members of their group. And they have their OWN personalities, motives, and beliefs, which may not be the personalities, motives, or beliefs of other members of their group.

I think this is all I can productively say on the subject.

Re: The Sex Risk For Women That No One Likes To Talk About

angharad — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:24:29 -0000

By saying that a woman who sleeps with many many men "is effectively saying the bottom 80% of men should go away and die since she has no use for them," you are saying that if A chooses not to have sex with B, then that is a transgression against B. Now, B might have hurt feelings, and that is understandable, because being turned down for anything is unpleasant. But suggesting that A has done anything *wrong* would mean that B is *entitled* to sex from A, which is in no way true. There would be appalling consequences to this notion (rape would cease to be a crime, for example, because rapists could claim to be entitled to sex from their victims).

As far as STDs are concerned: you are assuming that someone who has had many sexual partners is having unprotected sex with them. It's true that it's never possible to be entirely safe -- a pastor who has only ever had sex with his wife is at some risk -- but it's not a "guarantee" of anything. 95% of the adult population has HPV, which obviously isn't a good thing, but it's obviously not confined to promiscuous people. Fortunately, now there are vaccines for the most harmful strains. But, again, while there are many women and men who have unprotected sex with many partners, it is inaccurate to extrapolate that ALL women (or men) who have had many partners have done so in a reckless manner, without regard for their/their partners' health or well-being.

And the assumptions that a person who has slept with many partners has an unhealthy lack of impulse control or an inability to plan for the future are a.) unsubstantiated and impossible to measure, and b.) frankly, irrelevant, since if a person, male or female, is having protected sex and is communicating respectfully with his or her partners, then as far as I'm concerned, no harm is being done. You may disagree, and state that harm is being done to the people that that person is *not* sleeping with, but in that case I'd revert to my point that no individual is entitled to sex from any other individual.

I agree entirely with your point that there is a lot of intolerance in our society for older virgins, but you seem to be extending that to people on *this* website, and I don't think people here hold that attitude at all. I just think it is equally as wrong to draw unsupported assumptions about one group of people as it is to draw them about another.

Re: The Sex Risk For Women That No One Likes To Talk About

angharad — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:14:28 -0000

I agree that older virgins are unfairly attacked and made fun of all the time and I don't think that's acceptable either. Please don't make assumptions about my beliefs and use your assumptions to declare me a hypocrite. I don't think any frequent readers or posters on this blog have called (or would call) older virgins unnatural, or pedophiles, or gay, or anything of that nature.

To get back to your comments on promiscuity: I don't think that promiscuity in and of itself is necessarily destructive. I think that having lots of unprotected sex with strangers is destructive, and I think that employing any deception in the course of having sex is destructive, and I think that pursuing a sexual relationship with someone who wants more than that is destructive. But a person's "number" doesn't tell us *anything* about the nature of that sex. Even if the sex is frequent, that doesn't necessarily imply that anyone was hurt or deceived.

Re: What Guys Are Really Saying About You When You’re Not Around

angharad — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:40:44 -0000

Hahaha, Decoybetty, I was a Smithie. Same deal.

This is discouraging, and the part of it I find most unpleasant is that they are actively trying to dodge the "what are we" conversation and look down on girls who ask. Girls who ask are just trying to protect themselves.

These guys ARE douchebags, not because they're looking for the kind of relationship they want, but because they're looking for it with girls they know DON'T want it and they're trying to secure their "relationships" by using deception. Why don't any of them have the balls to say "Hey listen, I really don't want anything serious or exclusive but I like you and I'd like to keep hooking up" ? Because they know that it's unlikely the girls they're with will go for that.

Now, undoubtedly there are girls who would be down with casually hooking up with someone who was casually hooking up with others, but these guys aren't putting any effort into finding them. In other words, they care WAY more about getting laid on a regular basis than they care about ensuring that the person they're getting laid by is actually cool with the arrangement.

Re: The Sex Risk For Women That No One Likes To Talk About

angharad — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:31:20 -0000

Furthermore, just because the person isn't posting here doesn't mean she won't see it. And even if she won't, or if she won't identify herself as the person in question -- insulting a person behind his or her back is as bad as, if not worse than, doing it to his or her face.

Re: Learning to Speak Hookup: Guys’ Edition

angharad — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:15:26 -0000

Yeah, in my mind, the high-maintenance thing falls in the same category as the psycho bitch thing, which we talked about a couple of months ago. Sure, some girls are high-maintenance (or psycho, and I'm sure there's plenty of overlap between those two groups). But most girls who are accused of either thing are simply being slandered by guys who, if you'll forgive the cliche, just aren't that into them. So in another example of hookup speak, "she's so high-maintenance" often (but not always) means "she has entirely reasonable expectations that I consistently fail to meet because I don't really care about her" -- just as "she's psycho" often (but not always) means "she has a valid complaint about our relationship and I'm trying to dismiss it by attacking her, because I don't want to admit it."

Perhaps I'm biased by my own experiences, but I also know a LOT of girls who've been branded as high-maintenance or psycho (or clingy, or needy, or whatever), but I can count on one hand the number of girls I know who actually *are* those things.

Re: Learning to Speak Hookup: A Pocket Phrasebook

angharad — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:08:36 -0000

Yup. "I was already selling myself short and sacrificing my dignity and self-respect, and now even THAT'S not good enough?!" That's what happens when you make decisions 7 months too late, as I was saying yesterday... :-)

Re: Learning to Speak Hookup: A Pocket Phrasebook

angharad — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:29:44 -0000

Marie, that means "When hell freezes over."

I am laughing my ass off, but a little bitter about how true some of these are. It really sucks when things are so done that one person isn't even interested in using the other for sex anymore.

"I'm sorry you got mad" also means "I know I did something wrong, but damned if I'm going to admit it."

Re: You Know You Want Him, So Have Him

angharad — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:27:02 -0000

I see Smartduck's point, but I also see Susan's. I think it's important, crucial, to be able to listen to the advice of people who have more life experience and can point you in the right direction. That said, I think most of the time people have a really hard time ACCEPTING good advice because they're too close to the situation to have any perspective. The light of harsh retrospect tells me that I should have broken up with my ex about 7 months earlier than I did. That wasn't the same situation -- it wasn't all about sex and there was obviously a significant emotional attachment -- but when it came down to it, he was a bad boyfriend, and I'd need to figure that out firsthand, repeatedly, for months until it would really sink in.

I guess my point is that you often do learn your lesson. Getting your heart broken at 19 is bad, but it isn't the worst thing in the world. Staying in that relationship for too long sure as hell taught me never to do it again, and now I'm in a happy, functional relationship with someone else. So while I did spend those last 7 months mostly unhappy, I don't consider it wasted time, because I'll be accruing future benefits, in terms of the lesson learned, for the rest of my life. I'm willing to have paid that price.

Of course, I was lucky to have been raised with enough confidence and self-respect that eventually I had to admit to myself that I deserved better, so I actually learned the lesson. But it's certainly possible for women to fall into the trap of thinking "oh no, I can only get losers/douchebags/alpha asshats," in which case they lose all self-respect, fall prey to Game players, and start a long downward spiral. But I don't think it's any easier for those women to accept outside advice, so I'm not sure what the solution is for them.

Re: Stop Putting Out for Alpha Asshats

angharad — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:43:58 -0000

I think that in a lot of heterosexual interactions, many men and women are guilty of surrounding themselves with bad specimens of the opposite sex and then generalizing from those situations to "all men" and "all women." If Tucker Max surrounds himself with women who don't respect themselves and use sex as a power play, it's no surprise that he'll come to think of women that way -- but he'd probably be happier and have a higher opinion of women if he weren't out just to bag "sluts". Similarly, if women took it upon themselves to clean up the market a little bit and stop putting power in the hands of assholes like Tucker, there'd be a lot fewer assholes like Tucker.

A little benefit of the doubt goes a long way in these situations. If guys playing the Game gave a little more benefit of the doubt to women as a whole rather than generalizing about gold-diggers and manipulative bitches, they'd have a much more accurate picture of the gender. And if women took a chance on more "nice guys" instead of settling for the devil-you-know Game-players, they'd be a lot less likely to lump all men into the asshole category. I'm inclined to think that men and women have a lot more similarities than differences, but that's impossible to see if you're determined to view the other as an adversary.

On another note, I just learned who Tucker Max was this morning while crawling the blogs, and I have to say I think my life was a little better before I knew who he was.

Re: Sleeping Around

angharad — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:27:51 -0000

I can see your point, but I'm with Susan in that the player is *always* going to some effort, no matter how small, to conceal his playing ways. I don't think it's at all true that most women (or men for that matter, since you're right, there are women who do this too) just don't want to know. If I wanted to just hook up, I'd be OK with knowing that a guy was seeing other people. And if I were looking for a relationship, I'd sure as hell want to know. Of course it's always best to ask, but I'm going to stick by my original contention that most of the time, if a play-ee doesn't ask after she's been seeing a guy for a while, it's because she (wrongly) trusts that she's not being played, not because she knows-but-doesn't-want-to-know.

And I don't believe that lying is *always* immoral regardless of context. I think that the occasional well-placed white lie greases the wheels of social interaction. But if somebody is greasing the wheels because he knows that if he doesn't, he's not going to get laid, then to hell with the false pretense -- "man up" is exactly what he should do. I don't care about biological imperatives or randy lads and lassies from the 1700s. It's like the argument that short skirts are responsible for rape. You can't discount human autonomy, and it doesn't take superhuman self-control, either. We are in control of and responsible for our actions, hookup culture notwithstanding. If you can't have sex without lying for it, you don't deserve it.