Daring Fireball is 10. Shit.

Wow. I know a lot of blogs are getting up there, but for some reason Daring Fireball feels younger. Maybe it’s the relevance; Apple’s phoenix rise pretty much matches the rise of John Gruber’s excellent Apple-centric blog. On a more personal level, I’ll never forget the amazing black and white photo of the birth Gruber’s son posted 12 days before Leta was born. Beautiful and terrifying.

Happy Birthday, Daring Fireball, it’s been a hell of a decade. Here’s to several more.

Original Article

What: Anti-Fart Pad

From the product description page:

Laced with activated charcoal, these ingenious (but not particularly sexy) adhesive pads help neutralize even the most odoriferous of releases. Just think, no more embarrassing silent-but-deadlies midmeeting or blaming that noxious smell on the dog. They’re surely a lifesaver for anyone suffering from intestinal issues …

Via:

Anti-Fart Pad.

I wonder if these work? I’m asking for a friend.

Original Article

Papa Don’t Leave

transparency by .

Infographic showing paternity leave around the world:

GOOD.is | Infographic: Papa Don’t Leave (Flash version)

Raw image version

The United States is at the bottom. Surprise! Another stake in the heart of so-called family values.

When my first was born, I really saw just how anti-family the corporate world is, even in this state. Mom stays home. Dad works. The end. I will say that the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act played a role in my ability to be at home during a period of intense crisis. Most men in the U.S. don’t take the leave that is legally provided. While it is unpaid leave, if you know you are going to be a father, you can plan for your leave and save. I was unaware back then that the leave act didn’t just cover birth or adoption, but also family members with serious health conditions.

Hat tip: Caleb Gardner’s Twitter feed.

Original Article

Competent. Hands on.

I can’t favorite this NPR piece enough:

It’s not the world I live in — the one where every day, competent hands-on fathers (married, partnered, single) navigate their children from point to point without mishap. But then it’s not the world anyone lives in. With more and more women serving as primary wage-earners and more and more men serving as primary caregivers, it’s only logical that the organizing intelligence behind any given household might actually have a Y chromosome.

via Mom, Meet Dad. He Promises He’s Not Going To Break The Kids. : Monkey See : NPR.

Hat tip to Doug French: LOD, Babble Voices, Dad 2.0

The above story is a response to this New York Times piece about a kind of man I don’t know. Most of the fathers I know are not as distant from familial routine,  can schedule a play date and can make meals for their families. No father I know gripes about having to single parent if his partner or spouse travels. I may have had doubts the first time I was alone with my first kid. After that, I figured it out and was fine. Because that is what fatherhood is. You want the family? This is what it means to have a family: diapering, cleaning, bedtime stories, untold drinks of water at bedtime, cooking, homework supervision/assistance, school drop off and pickup, daycare drop off and pick up, scheduling play dates (including hosting play dates), comforting and conflict resolution. If you aren’t willing to do those things, why the hell would you have a family?

Certainly, I’m not alone in my thinking: Fathers can solo parent.

I should add an expletive, but.

On Wisconsin

It’s just that in post-union America, rich businessmen will be the only viable sources of political funding. So to an even greater extent than is the case today, politics will take the form of “culture war” battles or “sector versus sector” fights (pharmaceutical companies’ support for the Affordable Care Act is probably the shape of things to come) over rents in which the fundamental interests of rich businessmen qua rich businessmen are off the table.


So words from media figures do have an impact, unless they don't

This is a Media Matters link (included again here because when this gets posted on my internet personal weblog site, the formatting gets jacked) about Glenn Beck’s hard on for Francis Piven.

Beck’s fans have recently taken notice of Piven. On a website Beck runs, The Blaze, which also traffics in the Piven smear campaign, readers began posting lurid threats against the elderly academic. “ONE SHOT…ONE KILL!” announced one. “Why is this woman still alive?” asked another. And this particularly shocking threat: “Maybe they should burst through the front door of this arrogant elitist and slit the hateful cow’s throat.”

The warnings prompted the Center on Constitutional Rights to write Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, urging him to stop Beck from portraying Piven as a terrorist, and falsely accusing her of advocating political violence. “You can stop the reckless endangering of the safety of Professor Piven,” the Center wrote.

There is nothing from liberals in media today remotely close to the conservative media. Nothing.

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