Blogaround

Baby goat. Image source.

1. Cold Reading, and the Christians Who Told Me All the Things I NEVER Did (posted November 13) "I had a strong reputation for spouting remarkably-accurate cold readings of people. None of us called it that, of course. We called it prophecy."

2. Why Most of America Is Terrible at Making Biscuits (posted November 22) "If you’re on the West Coast, forget it. Displaced southern bakers have been known to stuff a bag in their suitcases when visiting home. You can order the flour for delivery on Amazon, but it’ll cost you anywhere from $10 to $15 for a bag, many times the in-store retail price of around $2.50." Ha this reminds me of living in China and having SO MUCH TROUBLE finding "normal" things like vanilla extract or a meat thermometer.

3. The obsession with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s finances only amplifies her power (posted November 21) "After her win in November, Ocasio-Cortez said she couldn’t pay for a Washington, DC apartment until her congressional salary begins in January."

4. Science Stopped Believing in Porn Addiction, You Should Too (posted August 21) "In fact, they cite numerous studies showing that even feeling like you struggle to control your porn use doesn’t actually predict more porn use. What that means is that the people who report great anguish over controlling their porn use aren’t actually using more porn, they just feel worse about it."

5. 3 Children’s Books about Thanksgiving from Native Perspectives (posted 2017) Cool!

6. Why You Should NOT Choose Operation Christmas Child (posted November 26) Good post- and the point about kids in other cultures literally not knowing how to play with some of the toys blew my mind. I can't believe I never thought about that before. Simple little objects that are so familiar to us and immediately bring up feelings of childhood nostalgia may be completely unknown to people in other cultures.

I'm in China, and recently somebody from the US visited the company where I work and brought candy from the US for everyone. There was a big pile of mini Reese's cups. I wasn't even aware of the steps my mind went through to identify them as Reese's cups- little foil-wrapped things in that certain shape, obviously they are Reese's cups, I didn't even need to think. But then some of my Chinese colleagues came and were looking at them curiously, absolutely no idea what kind of candy they were. I said "it's chocolate and peanut butter" and they were like "ohhhhhhhhhhhh" like this is completely new information for them.

Same thing must happen when kids get their Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes, with little toys we think are so normal that of course everyone understands how to play with them and no explanation is needed. I never realized that before. Back when I lived in the US, I couldn't *really* understand what cultural differences were.

And another thing: Chinese culture doesn't celebrate Christmas. The concept of a huge gift-giving holiday just completely DOES NOT EXIST in Chinese culture. So if Operation Christmas Child is running ads about "isn't it SAD how these kids are too poor to have Christmas gifts", well, no, maybe it's not sad. Maybe they don't feel bad about not having Christmas gifts because there was never any cultural expectation that such things should even exist.

7. Party Rock Anthem = Trading My Sorrows Wow what a fun video!



8. The kingdom of heaven is like: A Dutch church has been conducting religious services for 27 days to protect a refugee family (posted November 21)

9. Unheard, Unimportant, and Untreated: Why We Need to Talk About Vaginismus (posted November 22) "I went to several doctors for help with my problem, feeling stupid, and got palmed off with a number of excuses: that it was normal for first-time penetration to be painful for people with vaginas, that I was probably just inserting the tampon wrong. That the fact that it felt like someone was trying to prop me open with a brick was normal, somehow."

10. The COMPLETE Pixar Theory (posted October 30) Personally, I don't believe in the Pixar theory, but I LOVE it because this is EXACTLY how apologetics works. Take a bunch of different works, produced for different reasons over a long period of time, claim that all of them are happening in the same universe and telling one giant logically-consistent story, spend tons of time and energy making up convoluted explanations for the contradictions, absolutely refuse to abandon your theory no matter what new evidence comes out, and end up with a bizarre understanding of the material that the creators certainly never intended... all the while believing you understand it better than anyone else because you got there by treating every single tiny detail as irrefutable fact.