So I just finished Palace of Illusions

which is a take on the Mahābhārata from Draupadi's point of view. I don't know what I missed from not being familiar with the original, but from reading this and skimming Wikipedia I feel like you can sum up the entire story with the phrase "toxic masculinity". If those men would just get the hell over themselves and their inflated and, frankly, vainglorious sense of their own "honor", that story would be a lot shorter and hardly anybody would have died.

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Rethinking How Students With Dyslexia Are Taught To Read

How Wikipedia Portrayed Humanity in a Single Photo

Frozen music: The festival with ice instruments (Video)

A return to the 1990s? Why outlook brightens for lower-wage workers.

Ursula Nordstrom and the Queer History of the Children’s Book

Pro-choice campaign calls 40,000 Irish expats home for abortion vote

Schools brace for massive student walkouts over gun violence

How the Activists Who Tore Down Durham's Confederate Statue Got Away With It

Election tests Hong Kong's stomach for defying Beijing

This Is What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town

Rumors, mistrust hinder Brazil yellow fever vaccine campaign

Putin suggests ‘Jews with Russian citizenship’ behind US election interference

The Persistent Crime of Nazi-Looted Art

#MeToo is fresh backdrop in lawsuit over Haiti abuse claims

Myanmar builds military bases where Rohingya once lived and prayed: Amnesty

Amid little scrutiny, US military ramps up in Afghanistan

Bigoted Election Campaigns, Not Terror Attacks, Drive Anti-Muslim Activity

How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory

U.S. moving to repair relations with Turkey, endangering ties with Kurdish allies

Enjoying snuggle time with my Callie-girl

I think she's missed hanging out with me as much as I've missed hanging out with her. The dogs are nice, but they're not cats, and they're not Callie-cat.

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Physicists Found a Trick to Solve an ‘Impossible’ Puzzle of Gravity

Her Tiny Apartment is New York’s Most Secret Jazz Club

Famous movie quotes in chart form

The blind judo stars of India

What If Online Movie Ratings Weren’t Based Almost Entirely On What Men Think?

When Did Americans Stop Marrying Their Cousins? Ask the World’s Largest Family Tree

50's & 60's Toy Gun Commercials (What's interesting to me - besides the subject! - is how relatively calm those commercials are compared to the toy commercials I grew up with. Also note the emphasis some of them make on the safety of the toys for sale.)

A different portrait of black fatherhood

The life of a female billiards player is built on long hours, bad pay, and frequent travel. But at least you don’t have to share the table with men.

#MeToo Has Revived the Equal Rights Amendment

Why The Publishing Industry Can’t Get Disability Right

How Voters With Disabilities Are Blocked From the Ballot Box

Preschoolers exposed to nighttime light lack melatonin

Belief in brain myths and child development myths continues even among those who’ve studied psychology

Will NRA follow the path of Big Tobacco?

The gun industry has systematically demolished regulators and avoided the fate of cigarettes

Refugee skeptic lands top State Department refugee job

What swamp? Lobbyists get ethics waivers to work for Trump

EU official's response to Trump tariffs: ‘We can also do stupid’

What’s the matter with Oklahoma?

How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative

Shantou University was a model for China’s reform. Now, why is it toeing the line?

At the border's cloudy edge, Rohingya insist they will stay

The Killers of Kiev: How Putin Created an Assassin’s Metropolis

Signal boost

If you read SMBC you may have seen that the writer's nephew is missing. He's only about Ana's age.

He was last seen in Framingham, MA, so of course if you see him, call the listed number.