Blogaround

1. This xkcd comic about credit card rewards. Because this is exactly how I think...

2. Chinese eagerly await return of panda from US zoo (April 11) "But in recent times, Memphis Zoo has been grilled by Chinese netizens over accusations that Ya Ya and Le Le had been mistreated during their stay."

3. World Book Day: A Bookstore for the Blind (April 23) "China is home to 17 million visually impaired people, who often face barriers entering the workforce and even colleges due to a lack of braille exam papers. China only has one braille press, and there were 959 braille libraries nationwide as of 2017, but many people aren’t aware of them."

Also from Sixth Tone: Holiday Hustle: In China, Most Resent Trading Weekends for Time Off (April 25) "Since 1999, the government has created longer vacations by swapping working days with weekends preceding and following the holiday." Yeah, we get 1 day off for May 1 (Labor Day), but they moved the weekends around to make it 5 days in a row.

One criticism I have for Sixth Tone's article- it says "China’s public holiday system, which allows employees to trade weekends for longer holidays" which makes it sound like we have a choice. Lol, no, we don't have a choice. This is the work schedule set by the government. Sunday, April 23 and Saturday, May 6 are work days. If you don't want to work on those weekend days, you have to use your own vacation days for that.

4. Community Memory and the Search for Unassailable Abuse (April 23) "This pressure to turn our worst and most painful experiences into argument fodder is part of what I aimed to highlight in The Glossary & The Gristmill — a post about how our own community is contributing, in part, to why it feels like certain stories can’t be told. When community dynamics dictate that argument fodder is the top priority, that creates inhibitions against sharing our stories."

5. Preston Sprinkle’s strange interview with Sheila Gregoire and Rebecca Lindenbach (April 13) "In one of the creepiest moments of the podcast, Sprinkle told of an experience he had at a local coffee shop." 

Also, Preston Sprinkle hasn't heard of Brio magazine. It was a magazine for teen girls, published by Focus on the Family, which promoted a lot of "purity" teaching. I read it all the time in high school. To be fair, though, Sprinkle's work is more along the lines of "how to pretend to be an ally to LGBTQ people", rather than "here are the reasons women and girls in the church have internalized sexual shame."

6. Mattel unveils a Barbie with Down syndrome (April 25) "'Our goal is to enable all children to see themselves in Barbie, while also encouraging children to play with dolls who do not look like themselves. Doll play outside of a child's own lived experience can teach understanding and build a greater sense of empathy, leading to a more accepting world,' McKnight said."

7. Ex-officer who fatally shot Breonna Taylor hired as a deputy (April 25)

8. The kingdom of heaven is like: Lizzo brings drag queens on stage at her Knoxville show to protest law (April 23)

9. Dragon catches on fire during Disneyland’s ‘Fantasmic’ show (April 23) Wow!

10. Tucker Carlson departs Fox News, pushed out by Rupert Murdoch (April 24)

11. Ranking the Pain of Stinging Insects, From ‘Spicy’ to ‘Shockingly Electric’ (April 24, via) [content note: article has a few images of bugs] This is about Justin Schmidt, a scientist who went around getting stung by various insects (over 1000 times) so he could compare them all objectively.