Someday, my mother is going to have to learn

[conuly]

that her cable cutting out at 3am is not an emergency and doesn't merit a phone call to me, even if she does think I might be awake.

***********

Why This Charming Gay Fairytale Has Been Lost For 200 Years

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'Hispanic,' 'Latino,' Or 'Latinx'? Survey Says ... (Saw a thread about Latinx where somebody started handwringing about what "Spanish speakers" think about what Americans "do to their language". Hahaha, very funny, but when the word is being used in English, and not by somebody codeswitching between languages, it's an English word. We don't even italicize it, ffs. Words can exist in more than one language! I don't tell Spanish speakers how to use imports from English, do I?)

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The Hidden Costs of War: Vet Crimes (The article notes that veterans are only more likely to be incarcerated for violent crimes, not crime overall. Putting aside the fact that the demographics of the incarceration rate is only a very limited proxy for the demographics of the actual crime rate, I wonder how the numbers would look if we selectively eliminated most or all drug crimes from consideration.)

Fashion's dirty secret: how sexual assault took hold in jeans factories

Comments

[redbird]

Is that another person who forgets (or deliberately ignores) that a lot of Americans are Spanish speakers?

[conuly]

Maaaaaaybe?

To be fair, when told that the Latinx spelling originated in Latin America, they did shut up.

[cellio]

I wonder if you would see positive benefits from giving her bad advice at 3AM -- plant the seed that asking you to think clearly in the middle of the night is a bad idea and she didn't actually need to, I dunno, reboot all the TV-related devices in this precise order, oh wait no it's this other one, and change the batteries in all her remotes, and disconnect and reconnect all the cables, and...

If it doesn't change her behavior, you might at least get some good stories out of it. ("What do you mean I should sacrifice a goat over the cable box?! And where am I supposed to get a goat at 3AM?")

[conuly]

I'm pretty sure that what she really wants at 3am is to talk. She's very put out that I refuse to play, and every once in a while tries to sneak past my "No phone calls between midnight and 7:20 am" policy. I hold firm, though, even if it's 7:19.

[archersangel]

i decided to start spending my (incomplete) state quarter collection last year. i never got into the national parks and wildlife series.

[mtbc]

I was wondering how easy it is to spend my $1 coins in normal stores, I was sad the US Mint stopped trying to get us to use them as normal circulating coins.

[archersangel]

it depends on the store. the trays in cash registers typically just have spaces for pennies, nickles, dimes & quarters, so the cashiers don't want to take them, if they do, they put them in with the quarters. you could try spending them the next time you buy something, just have dollar bills for back up.

also some vending machines take them. they will typically have a "golden dollars accepted" sticker on them. or you can try putting it in & the machine will reject it.

[eva_rosen]

Given that we call the US 'Yankielandia', we don't have a leg to stand on that one.

[adrian_turtle]

My understanding is that Latinx, and Hispanic, have overlapping meanings but are not synonyms. Latinx refers to the ethnic group of the Latin American diaspora, and Hispanic refers to speakers of Spanish. The difference between Latino and Latinx seems analogous to the difference between "brotherhood" and "siblinghood." I'm not a bit surprised that that latter is mostly used by young people and people who care about gender inclusivity.