It's something I've had to learn about picking up stories that sound outrageous in a way that supports my worldview.

I've been spending a lot of time writing about this for the new book. Managing my confirmation bias. ita does a really good job of that. Strega does as well. I'm having a difficult time with it. Taking a deep breath and stepping back and saying, "I need more facts."

You know, and this happened recently when a friend posted a story to her FB about a woman in Florida who was taken against her will and basically committed to a hospital because she told her doctor that she couldn't go on bed rest during a high risk pregnancy. She was single, and the sole supporter of two other children.

She miscarried two days later while being held in the hospital.

And I felt this huge outrage...but then I went to my handy dandy google, and found that the ACLU took her case, and the judges found for her, and stated that they clearly wanted to set precedent so that this never happened to another woman. The judges said that. And I was like, "DUDE. THAT WAS THE IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY."

Not, "woe, the plight of women in america," it was, "woman in america triumphs."

Why you trying to Rage Fatigue me? WHY? There's enough shit to be angry about.

brenda,

I have never read that site in my life. I am not quite sure how I've avoided the crackpots, but I have. You'd think I just signed on to the Internet last night.

In general, I feel bad for family services type people. It seems like they are always the bad guys in the media no matter what they do, either taking kids from their loving parents, or not intervening soon enough.

Yeah, absolutely. Because you only hear about exceptional stories, and/or ones where someone raises a stink.

Sort of relatedly, last weekend's This American Life had a story from a guy who went to go rescue some kids from their meth head parents, and what actually happened. It was interesting.

I think that 1)The fact that it happened at all is rage making AND 2) That the judges recognized that and found for her is also important.

I couldn't find anything but religious home-school sites and right wing crazy sites carrying it. (Of course that probably would confirm a bias of a different kind-that the MSM doesn't report on Christians being oppressed).

what drives me crazy is that the social workers weren't telling them they couldn't pray, but they couldn't pray about reunification of the family because they didn't want the children to feel pressured.

so why couldn't they just have modified the prayers a bit in response to this?

fact: elizabeth taylor outlived the person who wrote her NY Times obit.

[link]

So, query to the board. A comic plot point in the last episode of HIMYM was that Ted mispronounced "chameleon" (as CHAM-uh-Leon) because it was a word that he had learned through reading and had little opportunity to use it aloud.

I myself have suffered the indignity of being laughed in my face by two people for mispronouncing "chimera" (the combination of it being a staple in my fantasy and mythology reading and having nobody to talk about it being the issue).

So, which words did you mispronounce and how embarrassing was it when you were corrected?

And in a last-minute miracle, the Vegas flight went down! OK, that's done. Oy.

Yeah, I had the same issue booking my London flight. It was steady and then suddenly it dropped by $50 one night and then I didn't buy it so it went up $100 the next morning and then by the time I was ready to buy it, it had thankfully gone down $75 or so, so I bought it, and then the next morning it was up $50 again. CRAZY.

Of course, if I bought my flight for Friday right now it would be $3,000. So there's that.

Those Smithsonian ads are awesome.

Happy birthday, Raq!

So, which words did you mispronounce and how embarrassing was it when you were corrected?

Until a few years ago, I thought bedraggled was pronounced "bed-raggled." My friend Emily corrected me. I was so confused.

So, which words did you mispronounce and how embarrassing was it when you were corrected?

I have a blind spot for revelation. Unless I stop and think for a second, it comes out my mouth as "relevation".

Also there's a restaurant in town called Sushi Shige that is a nightmare for me to say. But that's more of a tounge twisting issue.