The NYT, on hipster suburbs:

"Hastings-on-Hudson is a village, in a Wittgensteinian sort of way," Mr. Wallach said. He added, "We are constantly hearing about the slow-food movement, the slow-learning movement and the slow-everything-else. So why not just go avant-garde into a slow-village movement?"

Kieran Healy, expanding on the theme:

Top Ten Ways that Hastings-on-Hudson might be a Village in a Wittgensteinian Sense

It is filled with very rich people affecting to be quite poor people.

It's located in a Remote Part of Norway.

If a lion could live in this village, we would not be able to find it a decent duplex. Maybe a condo.

Click through for the rest. I lost it at "duckrabbit".

For the record, φ is LIES, ALL LIES. I remember reading this before but I don't think this particular contrarian conventional wisdom correction has ever come up here before. And we're a gang that loves contrarian conventional wisdom corrections.

Photo essay of people sneering about Haley Morris-Cafiero's weight.

First, I think this is a completely fascinating project she's undertaken. Second, am I right that these photos are in New York, maybe some other northern cities, and some in Europe? I have no idea where that beach may be.

My reaction is that she would absolutely not get those reactions in Texas (and probably the south) because people of her size are so much more common. You just don't sneer if half the people in the grocery store look about like Haley does. In some of the photos, she's also transgressing rules of looking polished - ie wearing shorts in New York.

There's something about the combination of hot weather and poverty going on, too, with her clothing choices - none of them would stand out in a southern location with lots of poverty. If you're poor and live somewhere cold, then you're still going to be more covered up, and she's intentionally revealing more flesh than is considered okay for her, in those contexts.

The south does all kinds of shitty things that I wouldn't promote, but one consequence of widespread poverty and obesity is that it gets quickly normalized. This town in particular has a very popular river, and overweight people hang out in bathing suits, exposing a lot of not-taut skin, for about six months out of the year. I've never lived anywhere where I've seen so much non-young-beautiful flesh, but I think it's nice.

Crazy Russian meteor injures thousands, mostly from broken glass.

From the first link:

The Russian Academy of Sciences said the meteor - estimated to be about 10 tons - entered the Earth's atmosphere going at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph). It shattered about 30-50 kilometers (18-32 miles) above the ground, releasing several kilotons of energy above the Ural Mountains.

From the second:

Many Russian drivers have dashboard cameras for insurance purposes and to combat police corruption, meaning that plenty of vehicles were perfectly equipped captured the meteor's spectacular passage overhead.

Huh.

Yesterday I heard the compliment: "I can't praise [Joe] any more highly than I can right now." That is deliciously lame.

Perfectly safe.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper went to unusually great lengths to learn firsthand the strides the oil and gas industry has made to minimize environmental harm from fracking.

The first-term Democrat and former Denver mayor told a Senate committee on Tuesday that he actually drank a glass of fracking fluid produced by oilfield services giant Halliburton.

The fluid is made entirely "of ingredients sourced from the food industry," the company says, making it safe for Mr. Hickenlooper and others to imbibe.

I guess, if you like drinking gross flammable chemicals.

Original story where the woman cures her son's childhood arthritis using dietary restrictions, and reaction about general chemophobia in this country, and why it's nonsensical to prefer alternative medicine as "safer" than Western medicine.

Where I get chemophobic is that I have trouble believing that we have safeguards against corporations putting all kinds of dangerous chemicals in our products. So something like ScotchGuard trips my phobia, as do air fresheners (for no concrete reason) and cleaning products (sometimes). I just feel woefully unable to assess these dangers, and a total lack of trust for anyone who might profit by willfully ignoring health risks.

It's not like a real Olympian shot and killed his girlfriend.

(Actually the story sounds really sad and not funny.)

Does "red velvet" cake mean something specific besides dumping boatloads of red food coloring into the cake? I see on wikipedia that it does, but I don't actually believe all that is going into the mediocre red velvet cakes I've had.

It's a little weird to read a fawning profile of Ezra Klein, in a local boy makes good sense.

I think I stopped reading Klein regularly about the time that he took on all the cob-loggers, whose writing I find a little duller than his.

I know that when I'm getting stuck on getting work done, something that helps a great deal is giving up on prioritizing, and just starting to finish off randomly selected tasks. Which explains why I'm sitting at my desk, writing a blog post with my thumbs.

Saturday, February 16th. Drinks on Smearcase!

Where shall we go?

Bump, bump-be-bump. That's this Saturday, folks.

A de-lurker writes: In this giddy season of the Unfogged babysplosion, I am wondering whether it is still possible to throw myself at the fickle mercy of the Mineshaft for break up advice? I was the dumper; we were together eight years. When I was coming to terms with the decision in the new year, I knew absolutely I was making the only good and healthy decision left to make. Yet, now it is done, I feel like hell, like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. I can't sleep or concentrate. I ate chocolate for dinner last night. Plus half a bottle of wine. Then I wrote an email masquerading as an I-wish-you-well missive that was actually a masterpiece of disguised nastiness. I know I should be going to yoga and spending time with good friends but I feel unbelievably sad and wretched. Other people here seem to have survived divorces and long-term relationship break ups without going quite so mad, so I am wondering how on earth they managed that.

Heebie's take: Oof, I'm so sorry. I think of breaking up as deciding to swim to Europe. Once you're in the water, it sucks and it's tiring, but the idea of getting back together with the ex would be like returning to the wrong shore: you'd just have to get back in the water at some point and start all over again. (The other shore isn't necessarily another relationship, all you singletons. It's just wherever you feel happy and stable again.)

That said, here's my only break-up strategy: think of yourself as a binary of when you're Doing Okay, and when you're Not Doing Okay. For me, it'd be something like "in the morning, and when I'm at school/work, I'm doing okay, and when it's time to go home or on the weekends, I'm not doing okay." When you're doing okay, you hold your feet to the fire and try to hit the gym, eat right, surround yourself with friends, all the healthy stuff. When you're not doing okay, you indulge in treats and chocolate and vices, and give yourself free reign not to feel guilty, because you're Not Doing Okay. You're pampering yourself, and that's only allowed to this extent under break-up rules.

In the back of your head, I think it's also a good idea to think very concretely about what your must-haves are, in a partner. What values they have to have, etc. Not in a way that contrasts with the ex, but in a way that starts a new mental conversation, with your preferences/needs/values as a foundation. Just to prime the pump, and de-emphasize the ex in the process.

Ok, this post is in fact tangentially related to Black History Month. Why have assassinations become so much less common in the past couple decades (in the US at least), and why were there so many in the 60s? Just the domestic violence of the 50s and 60s and backlash of the Civil Rights movement? (I feel like that's the most common explanation, at least, and I'm not saying it's wrong. However, it's common to say that today's rightwing lunatics are unprecedented, and they're really not, from the POV of the 50s and 60s. It is kind of hard to believe that lunatics ever went away, though, as an explanation of why assassinations have fallen.)

Has the Secret Services have become much more effective at identifying and stopping threats? Or that crimes of a certain style ride waves of momentum, like bombing abortion clinics or school shootings? Or was it just the lead in the playground in the 1940s, all along?

What's the best song, category of rap? Probably not the overall winner, but certainly deserving of a nomination:

Provide a link for your obscure song, you coy show-off.

(I realized on my way into work today that it's February, and wondered if this post reads like a hamfisted celebration of Black History Month. But actually I just thought it would provide a good list of songs for a playlist and let's not overthink everything, Heebs.)

Mentioner asks "How did you get here?" This topic has come up before, but not in a long while.

It's somehow hard to remember, but I got here via Bitch PhD, I believe. Early 2006? Possibly specifically when she linked about Ogged having cancer, so I think he was on a hiatus when I first stopped by. I distinctly remember a post by Labs (I think) about how talking on the cellphone makes you a worse driver, and pointing out how when you're trying to find an address and really concentrate, you turn off the radio. Shortly thereafter, Almeida started posting her series of posts about sobering up, which was absolutely, um, addictive. (I lurked for awhile, and then I've mentioned before my coming out comment, which was to chastise Neb for plagiarizing Matt Groening. Clearly I had my finger on the pulse of the community.)