Before we delve into the posts we’re reading and loving elsewhere on the internet, don’t miss Natalia Antonova’s #WednesdayWisdom, on climate change and all that other fake stuff we’re dealing with.
And subscribe to the Global Comment podcast on iTunes or Soundcloud — don’t miss the next episode!
‘The Religion No One Talks About: My Search For Answers in an Old Caribbean Faith‘ (Sarah Betancourt for Longreads)
On faith, family history, heritage, and the stories we tell behind locked doors.
In the years after undergrad, I’d spend Sundays hungover at brunch, having washed my hands clean of Catholicism when I was 15. After my mother sold our home, I never had to see the laundry room again, and my abuela wasn’t offering any coffee to painted saints in her very white nursing home. Thoughts of spirituality faded into the background. I went to one Spanish-speaking Catholic church and walked out after the homily. Tried hanging out in the back of a Episcopal worship service. It didn’t stick.
‘How Nashville Became One Big Bachelorette Party‘ (Anne Helen Petersen for Buzzfeed)
Bachelorette parties are getting a whole lot more elaborate. One city positioned itself to take advantage of this highly specific brand of experience tourism, and now it’s paying the price.
Sometimes, they wear matching flannels, or jackets, or shoes (one group I encountered sported white high-top sneakers; another, pink windbreakers, like a millennial update of the Pink Ladies from Grease). I met one group from Manhattan who refused to wear matching shirts, opting instead for blue fanny packs emblazoned with “BABE” in fluorescent pink. “Our bride hates tacky shit,” one of the attendees told me, right before they hopped on a foot-powered Pedal Tavern, where they’d spend the next two hours pedaling around downtown and obeying the commandment to chug every time someone on the street took a picture.
‘The bottom line: One in three families can’t afford diapers. Why are they so expensive?‘ (Kathleen McGrory for the Tampa Bay Times)
The high price of diapers is yet another way that society punishes low-income parents. The thing many people think of as a necessity is out of reach for some households — and the safety net is not keeping up.
She found a box that cost a little more, but contained far more diapers. She loaded six into her cart. Then she stopped to do the math. Lalandria had $180 in cash assistance that month to pay for everything that wasn’t food. Diapers would eat up more than half.
‘Why Do We Think Serial Killers All Wear the Same Glasses?‘ (Tori Telfer for Racked)
Glasses can become an integral part of our identity, and some frames have an iconic status — good or bad, which is how we ended up with this amazing read on the glasses we associate with serial killers.
Search for “serial killer glasses” on Amazon and you’ll be directed to the “So In Luxe Aviator Retro Fashion Glasses” — perfect for the manic pixie dream serial killer. Naturally, Spirit Halloween sells a pair, too. It’s a look that signifies “creep” and “outsider” so well that it’s become the punchline to a joke: Amy Schumer and Conan O’Brien have both done skits about how men who favor a certain style of glasses tend to be serial killers, molesters, cult leaders, or all of the above.
‘Why I’m suing over my dream internship‘ (Amalia Illgner for The Guardian)
Unpaid internships are exploitative and exclusionary, favouring the rich and those without family obligations and further stratifying industries like publishing and journalism. So why are they still allowed?
Today, firms have access to even sometimes highly skilled workers for low or no pay, while insecure positions and interns have come to replace a whole strata of entry-level paid jobs. The National Union of Journalists reports that 82% of new entrants into journalism undertake internships, which average at seven weeks, and nearly all of these – 92% – are unpaid.
And hey: Much like public radio, we’re listener supported. If you enjoy our work, please consider supporting us with a one time or recurring donation.
Photo: Andrew Wilkinson/Creative Commons