The Perfect Day

Every now and then, generally when we need them the most, perfect days materialize out of thin air and surprise us with their persistant delightfulness. Today was one such day.

First, today's news: the elimination diet has been unsuccessful, as I was sort of anticipating it would be. Fortunately, we have another lead to follow on the illness front, and not being allergic to foods I love is, while diagnostically unhelpful, not the worst news I could get. That means that I get to start reintroducing foods into my diet, starting TODAY! To celebrate, I tried a bit of the (soy-laden) chocolates I got for Owl as a thank you gift for her patience in dealing with a sick and grumpy me. So far, so good.

Today Owl and I were able to sleep in, which was an absolute blessing for me, as I've been sleeping terribly all week. Insomnia is super fun, kids! Owl was planning on taking the kids she nannies for to the zoo yesterday, and I was jealous because the zoo is wonderful. She did not end up taking the kids, but today, she and I went to the zoo together, and it was every bit as wonderful as I was hoping it would be.

The local zoo is free and subsists mostly off of donations, so it is understandably small. However, for a free zoo in a small city, it is still rather impressive. It is home to a fully grown Amur tiger who is constantly pacing his domain and stopping occasionally to stare down small children, two giraffes who always try desperately to reach the leaves of the trees just outside of their enclosure, a small pool of harbor seals, two delightful capybaras, an orangutan who likes to use the small plastic pool in his enclosure as a shield so that he can hide when he gets too shy, and a whole host of other creatures. We spent several hours there enjoying the gorgeous spring weather (and the sunshine!) and OwL let me drag her back to the tiger enclosure at the end of the day because big cats are basically my favorite thing ever.

The area around the zoo is one of the most interesting parts of our city. It's in one of the nicer neighborhoods, so some of the stuff there is out of our price range, but that doesn't make browsing around any less fun. We stopped by an oilery, which dealt in olive oils and vinegars, so we could window shop for some tasty fusion oils to taste when I add olive oil back in to my diet. (Soon!) After that we poked around through some of the more ecclectic shops on the street, including a gift shop full of African art run by a sweet older British woman, and an artsy shop next door that specilized in recycled materials, where we picked up some going-away cards for Crow, who is moving soon, but still hasn't read any of this blog so won't have the surprise spoiled. (He says he's waiting to read the blog until he moves, so he has a backlog of our writing to remind him of us, or something equally saccharine. If you're reading this from the future, Crow, we miss you!)

Next we visited my very favorite comic book shop. Our city has several, and I am fond of them all, but this partiuclar shop I like more than any other I've frequented, and I've found comic shops in dozens of cities on two continents and counting, so that is pretty high praise. It's one of those hole-in-the-wall comic shops, which tend to be the best, by my estimation. The owner is an older gentlemen who is incredibly friendly and helpful, and, I'm convinced, knows everything about everything. He knows all the big Marvel and DC comics, of course, but can also talk at length not only about indie comics and obscure manga, but also about video games, TV shows, history, religion, and art. And those are just the topics that have come up whilst discussing the newest issues of our favorite comics. Owl bought a Daredevil comic and a gift for a friend of ours who we haven't seen in several years, and I picked up the first volume of a Mouse Guard anthology, along with a Deadpool pin for my backpack. We chatted with the owner about our comics, he recommended several more, and he handed us each a piece of wrapped candy that he says he has become addicted to. Apparently it's pomegranate and mint flavored, and very refreshing. He's an incredibly nice guy, and his shop is one of the reasons I almost never buy comics online or at big chain retailers. There's not much I can do to stop the inevitable march of progress that will eventually deal the killing blow, first to small comic book shops like his and, in all probability, ultimatley to print comics as a whole, but I intend to do what I can to keep them around for as long as possible.

Owl had to work tonight, but we had time to sit down in the mall for awhile and read our comics. We got coffee from the small stand in the mall, from the friendly guy who works there bascially every day. He recognized me, since I come there often to get coffee for Owl during her shift, and recommended that I try the strawberry bubble tea next time I was there, which, diet allowing, I intend to! I often have trouble talking to strangers, since a combination of my speech impediment and general awkwardness leave me fumbling over my words when I get shy or flustered, but days like today make me grateful that I have encouraged myself to become more outgoing. We live in a world that is becoming increasingly fast-paced and dependent on technology, and human interaction is becoming less a necessity and more an inconvenience day by day. There was a time when I would have given anything to never have to talk to a stranger, even to order coffee, but increasingly, I have come to enjoy the small, simple conversations with store clerks, baristas, people waiting with me for the bus, and folks I would never have had the courage to so much as make eye contact with when I was younger.

After I dropped Owl off at work I went to the Barnes and Noble outside the mall, where I was stopped short by a display on the end of the science fiction and fantasy section. "A Lifetime Remembered", read the plaque, and on the display were a dozen Terry Pratchett books. A Blink of the Screen, a collection of his short fiction, was featured prominantly, and below it, The Folklore of Discworld, the series he cowrote with Stephen Baxter, Carpe Jugulum, Small Gods, The Night Watch, The Truth, and several other of my favorite books. I am not easily driven to tears, but standing there looking at the display I could feel my eyes welling up, not out of sadness, but out of this simple and yet touching memorial to an incredible life. I picked up The Folklore of Discworld, which I have been wanting for a while, and a copy of Good Omens, which despite being one of my very favorite books, I somehow don't own. On a whim I paid a visit to the children's section, the only place in this particular store that I have never yet been, and found a small selection of Pratchett's children's books. I picked up The Carpet People, his very first novel (which he started at seventeen), and have been sitting in the cafe reading it all night.

Soon I will go pay Owl a visit at the store, as Friday nights in a toy store tend to be fairly quiet. But I couldn't bring myself to leave without sharing a part of this perfect day with you, dear friends. Forgive me if I was poetic, or sentimental, but it has been a fairly rough week (or perhaps month, or perhaps even year) for me, and a day like today was exactly what I needed. It has been easy to fall into the habit of feeling badly, pitying myself, bemoaning all the things that are going wrong. But really, I am extraordinarily fortunate. I have an amazing family (I would be remiss if I didn't mention the phone call from my mother, which, even though it was about doctor appointments and medications, brightened my day like it always does), a wonderful and patient partner, a beautiful city to explore, and of course, all of you reading this now.

If you frequent this blog chances are I am terribly fond of you (if you're visiting this because you're a friend of Owl's or because you somehow found it in the recesses of the Internet and don't actually know either of us, that's okay, I'd probably like you too if I knew you) and am grateful to have you in my life. There. I said it! It's sappy and silly and I'm not taking it back. Thank you for reading. I promise I'll go back to talking about anthropology and food allergies and webcomics soon. (The combination of those three caters to a very niche audience, doesn't it?)

-Raven

A Lesson in Food Labeling

Hi Owl,

Okay, yeah, so. I haven't been great about writing, have I? I second your proposal for optional weekend updates, because apparently I can't even handle five days a week, let alone seven.

I am almost done with my latest (and hopefully last) elimination diet, so I will soon be back to eating normally. This means not obsessively checking every label to see if a product contains soy (protip: it probably does) and turning down any and all invitations to go out to eat pretty much anywhere. That's pretty exciting, since I haven't been able to find bread that I can eat that lasts longer than two days before molding, and I really miss toast. (And have not had the patience to make my own bread, though my wonderful mother did bake me some whole wheat challah that has been seeing me through my otherwise breadless trial.)
This diet (and all of the diets that have come before this) has been quite a learning experience. A lot of the lessons are obvious (guys, Americans really like putting additives in their food) but some of them have been less obvious (turns out that olive oil is a terrible cooking oil and there are SO MANY better options. Save your olive oil for dressings and dipping bread into, and you'll be happy.)

I wanted to share some of these lessons with you, since I'm sitting in the Starbucks cafe at Barnes and Noble and food is on my mind. (At least I can have coffee still. Thank goodness.)

Lesson 1: Allergen information is surprisingly hard to find

According to FDA regulations, most food sold in the US must be properly labelled. Generally speaking, any packaged food must come clearly labelled with the following, according to 21 CFR 101.3(a): the common name of the food, or if no common name is available, or "an appropriately descriptive term, or when the nature of the food is obvious, a fanciful name commonly used by the public for such food"; what form it comes in if applicable (whole, diced, chopped); whether or not the food is an "imitation" of another food; an information panel with nutritional information, including serving sizes, caloric content, and content and percentage of daily values for fat, sodium, carbohydrates, proteins, etc; a complete list of ingredients, with allergens clearly labelled. The whole list of rules and regulations is muuuuuuch longer and more complicated than this, of course, and includes provisions for where the labels must be placed, when to include preparation instructions, exemptions for fresh meats and dairy products, and so on.

Of course, this just covers prepackaged food. There are separate provisions for food served at restaurants, sold in vending machines, or prepared at grocery stores. Broadly speaking, the rule is that all food should be properly labeled and when a label is not applicable, such as at a restaurant, such information must be otherwise made available.

In reality, however, this is not always the case. For instance, according to the FDA website's page on the Small Business Nutrition Labeling Exemption, "one exemption, for low-volume products, applies if the person claiming the exemption employs fewer than an average of 100 full-time equivalent employees and fewer than 100,000 units of that product are sold in the United States in a 12-month period." So, if I wanted to order a pizza from Bob's Pizza Palace*, for instance, and Bob's Pizza Palace is a small, locally-owned restaurant with twenty employees, plus Bob, that delivers to a 2-mile radius in Nowhere, Indiana, Bob could apply for an exemption through the FDA and would not be obligated to provide nutritional information for his food. Moreover, the provision for restaurants that stipulates that all waitstaff must provide nutritional information when asked assumes that we live in a world where everybody a) takes their job seriously and b) realizes that terms like "vegetable oil" or "flour" are not necessarily as descriptive as they think. If I ask a waiter what my chicken is cooked in and they tell me vegetable oil, I may assume that they mean canola or rapeseed oil, which is generally the default cooking oil in the US, when in reality the chef used a mixture of sunflower oil and soybean oil. I could ask, and they might go back and check, but the potential for misinformation is still high, and if you're a shy and unassuming Midwesterner like I tend to be around strangers the chances of you even asking in the first place are, let's face it, relatively slim.

So, despite the best efforts of the FDA, it's not a foolproof system. And keep in mind, this is one area in which the US is actually doing pretty well for itself. In many other countries, the requirements for food labeling are much less stringent.

In a perfect world, every food vendor would supply a full list of ingredients for every food product they sell. This means making readily available information for every component of every item, including condiments, beverages, dairy products, flours and spices, baked goods, and prepared foods. Preferably this information would be available with little to no human interaction to minimize the possibility for miscommunication or misinformation.

There are some places that are already doing this, and they might not be the places that you expect. Oddly enough, two of the places that I have found (pretty much by accident) to be particularly accommodating are Taco Bell and McDonald's. While I don't generally look to fast food giants for health information, I was pleasantly surprised to find that both companies had information on their products readily available online. This discovery came while wandering around the mall waiting for Owl to get off of work. Finding myself incredibly hungry and without any "allowed" food in easy access, I took out my phone and began Googling allergen information for the restaurants in the food court. To my surprise, Taco Bell's website went out of their way to provide a handy chart of common allergens and a list of every item on their menu, so that consumers could easily see which of their foods had what allergens in them. This list included a legend that had symbols to demarcate the gradient of contact each menu item had with each allergen, from "contains allergen" to "prepared in common equipment", with a separate symbol for foods which contain soybean oil and a stipulation that soybean oil is not considered an allergen (though for the purposes of my particular diet it is, so I was overjoyed to see this additional note). Of course, there were virtually no menu items that were allowed on my diet available, but the list made it a lot easier to say for sure, and helped me to feel a lot less alone. In a similar vein, a little bit of Googling will get you a searchable .pdf of virtually all of McDonald's menu items with every single ingredient in them, including what they were cooked or fried in and what all sauces, condiments, and dressings contain, with common allergens listed in boldface.

I would love to see either or both of these approaches taken up by other restaurants. I don't necessarily expect this of Bob's Pizza Palace, but it's aggravating to go to Starbucks (which lists ingredients for bakery items made specifically by Starbucks, but has no information available on their beverages and stocks a great variety of non-Starbucks baked goods, such as a chocolate mousse from the Cheesecake Factory, which is known for not providing any ingredient information whatsoever) and not know what I can eat without bothering a barista who is already juggling eight other customers.



Lesson one took a lot longer to discuss than I anticipated, but it is by far the most important, and most in need of addressing. Check back next time for some more Food Knowledge, brought to you by The Hungry Raven. Next week's episode: Learning About Food Substitutes.

*This name is made up (as far as I know), but I would totally order pizza from a pizza palace.

Among the Very Young At Heart

Hey Raven,

I think the writing may be on the wall. Our lives may be too busy for weekend updates. What do you say to optional weekend updates? Yes/No?

But it's Monday - time to begin another week. This week has started out on a good note! I have tons of work this week, but it's all pretty fun, cool stuff so I can't complain too much. Today was one of the best days I have had in a while. I spent the day at my toy store job, which was pretty uneventful but I got to talk to some nice folk. The day was one of the nicest we've had for a while. It finally started to feel like spring so I bought a frisbee, some bubbles the met my friends and spent the afternoon out at a coffee shop and then a park playing frisbee, blowing bubbles and making terrible puns and math jokes (the math jokes were inaccurate because let's face it I'm terrible at math). Then we came home, made delicious grown up dinner (salmon, broccoli, and spinach), played a card game I haven't played since my childhood, and watched cartoons.

Today reminded me that you are never too old to be a kid. It's never too late to play with toys, goof around, and play make believe. Some of the things that made me happiest as a kid still make me happy today. I often feel like I should be ashamed of how much I enjoy doing kid things still, but days like this remind me that frivolity is more than just okay. It's sometimes exactly what every life needs.

So Raven, don't grow old with me. Just grow with me. Hopefully even when we're 90 we'll still be kids at heart.

Best wishes,
Owl

Sir Terry Pratchett

Floating through space, gently drifting towards horizons unknown, is a giant turtle. And on his back rest four* elephants. And atop of their backs in turn rests a large disc, dropping off suddenly into a giant waterfall that cascades out into space. The turtle is the Great A’Tuin, the elephants are Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon, and Jerakeen, and the world is Discworld.

It is on the Disc that Terry Pratchett set his forty Discworld novels, and it is his most wondrous gift to our (rounder but only slightly less improbable) world. It is on the Disc that gods play dice and laugh at the fates of mortals atop Cori Celesti, the guilds of Ankh-Morpork turn chaos into slightly-more-orderly chaos, the witches of the Ramtops and the wizards of Unseen University (and its brother in Fourecks) play havoc with the forces of magic, and Death, who is really quite a pleasant fellow once you get to know him, stalks through his domain.

When I was twelve, my brother lent me his copy of The Colour of Magic on a family vacation to Florida. From the very second I first stepped foot onto the Disc, it felt like home. And the man who created it all, though I never met him, felt like family. 

I do not use the word “hero” lightly but Sir Terry Pratchett was my hero. He was sharp of mind and brave of spirit, and one could do much worse than to aspire to be like him. As a writer and as a human being, I hold Sir Terry in the highest regard, and in his passing, I feel that I have lost an old friend.

To get to know a stranger through the words they write on a page, the characters they birth and the worlds they build, the stories they weave and the jokes they tell**, is a beautiful thing. In his most beloved characters, I have found friends, role models, kindred spirits.

As a general rule I tend to avoid definitive statements, especially regarding people I have not met. In this case, however, I am willing to make an exception: The world was a better place for having Terry Pratchett in it, and it will feel emptier with him gone. My world certainly was a better place because of Pratchett and his creations. 

I could cite a list of Pratchett’s numerous accomplishments, or tell tales of the beautiful yarns he spun, or talk at great length about the profound personal impact his books had on me. I am confident that I will write more about Pratchett soon, especially as I expand my already vast library of his books. But there is time for that later. Now is a time for saying goodbye to a beloved man, and though I do so with a heavy heart I am glad that he died peacefully and am eternally grateful for all he gave us.
  

Sir Terry Pratchett, you were a god among men. You were an astonishing example of humanity at its finest, and certainly at its wittiest. You will be missed dearly and desperately. It will be hard to let you go, but you will live on forever in your creations, in the minds of your fans, and in those who loved you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

To Lyn and Rhianna Pratchett, and to who knew and loved him, I am so sorry for your loss. May his memory be for a blessing.

On one final note, I would like to second Neil Gaiman in urging you all to consider donating to Alzheimer’s research in honour of Pratchett and everybody else who suffers or has suffered from this devastating disease.

 Sir Pratchett's official coat of arms. The Latin translates to "Don't fear the reaper"

*Or possibly five, if you’re into that sort of controversial thinking...

**And to get to know a person through their footnotes is a whole new kind of wonderful.

An Apology To a Man I Never Knew

Hey Raven,

It's been a rough day for you (a rough week) so I'm going to take posting tonight. But not just because you need the break. I need the space. I need the space to write what I've been feeling lately and give voice to some of the rage that has been burning for a long time. Sometimes quietly, unnoticed, while other stresses took priority. Sometimes like a wildfire out of control.

This post is going to be about race in the United States, but specifically about black Americans and the way our system treats them. And the way that affected how others treat them. I'm going to start with some disclaimers because this post is going to be very much about perspective. And it's important to know where mine is coming from.

Here goes: I am a white woman. I grew up in a wealthy suburb (though in the "poor" section of that suburb) going to one of the best high schools in the country. I was in the racial majority in school from kindergarten to graduation. My town was mostly white. I went to a college that was predominantly white. I live in a city that is mostly white, where blacks are not treated with equal dignity. And I live in a state that is among the worst in the country for blacks. And I don't mean top 10. I'm talking top 5. I don't say this because I am either proud or ashamed of myself - I say it because this is the world I have lived in and it is this life and these experiences that inform my opinions.

I could give you facts and research here about white privilege, the achievement gap, incarceration rates, and other symptoms of the prolonged institutionalized racism in this country, but I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do it for two reasons. First, because a good friend of mine has done a better job explaining it than I ever could*. And second, because I can't today. I can't spit out facts and numbers like that's all this issue is and all it can be boiled down to. I know numbers are important and some people will never believe anecdotal or common sense arguments, but emotions aren't logical. They don't feel quelled by a satisfying study or neat columns of statistics. And emotions are important here.

Today I am still angry. And hurt. And disappointed. And ashamed. And a whole host of other emotions that make my hands shake and stomach turn. Another life is gone and another conversation looms before us about the relationship between police officers and the black community, especially young black men. I don't know all the facts of Tony Robinson's death. Just like I don't know exactly what happened when Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, or Sean Bell (and many, many, many others) died unarmed at the hands of police officers. We will never know all the facts because we weren't there and any investigation, however thorough, will only reveal so much. We may never know the facts, but we should all know that prejudice certainly played a role. Every cop, no matter the color of their skin, internalizes the systemic racist image of the black man as a dangerous criminal. It is ingrained in us early and stays even when we don't realize its presence. Or its power.

I want to illustrate that image with an experience from my childhood that haunts me to this day. And marks the moment when I finally realized how much I had internalized a pervasive racism I never even noticed before that day. When I was 14 I was finally allowed to stay home on my own. I could walk home from high school, find the key in our mailbox, slip in the back door (the front door never opened even with a key), and hide the key back in the mailbox. Going through that routine one day I swung open the door to put the key back in the mailbox and there was a man standing there, hand raised, about to knock on the door. We were both surprised and the surprise already had my heart racing (and probably his, too). He couldn't have been older than 25 and I think I remember he was holding a clipboard. I know now he was obviously going around the neighborhood doing a poll or collecting data of some kind. But at 14 I was skittish, easily scared, and still nervous about staying home alone. I was also, as I discovered that day, pretty damn racist**, though I had never thought I was.

The man asked if my parents were home (I remember not wanting to answer the question because... I don't honestly remember) so I told him I'd just gotten home. I don't remember what he said in return, but I do remember he took a very, very slight step forward and I remember taking a step back and jerking the door a noticeable amount towards closed, as if preparing to flee. I don't remember much of the conversation before this point, but I still remember with shocking clarity his next words. "Not all black guys are that bad." I can still hear the words as he spoke them, full of indignation, disappointment, anger, and a lot of other emotions I can't put a name to now any more than I could then. Then he turned and left and I closed the door and sagged against it feeling equal parts insulted and terrified.

I told myself with indignation that I would have reacted the same way if it had been a white man. Though I had to admit even in the heat of the moment I probably wouldn't have reacted that way if it had been a woman. I didn't want to think of myself as someone who was racist. I don't think anyone (at least anyone sane) wants to see themselves that way. But I had to admit that the color of his skin had played a role in how I reacted. When I looked back at the encounter later I realized I had handled it very poorly. And probably hurt someone very badly in the process.

The larger point is that we both knew why we I reacted the way I did. I knew, at least eventually, that I reacted to him because I was used to seeing black men portrayed primarily as violent, criminal people.  I also realized that I saw men as a bigger physical threat than women in general. He was both. As his rebuke clearly showed, he knew both of my reasons. It took a very, very long time before I forgave myself for that encounter. I often wonder what its effects were on him or if he was just used to meeting with that level of distrust on a regular basis.

I realize now that even though the memory still causes me pain and discomfort to relive I am glad I had it. Many white people go through their whole lives never realizing they hold these prejudices. Never realizing that even though they say and firmly believe they aren't racist, they will still act instinctively when they feel threatened. And our subconscious, ruling over our instincts, has been taught from an early age that black and male is doubly dangerous. So we act and react that way, often causing an overreaction to a simple situation.

Now on the flip side of that encounter the black man I insulted had certainly gotten that reaction before. It was pretty clear even to 14 year old me. He was used to people not trusting him on sight. And now that I have lived a little and actually gotten to know more about black culture and black history I understand that black people learn different lessons in their childhoods than I did in mine. One of those lessons is that the police can't be trusted. And historically that belief is not unfounded. The 50 year anniversary of the march in Selma is illustration enough of that lasting cultural legacy.

None of this subconscious maneuvering in any way excuses my behavior. Or the behavior of the cops who have taken the lives of unarmed black men. Or the man who killed Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. Or the people responsible for the shooting of two cops in Ferguson. It doesn't excuse it, but it gives us insight and I hope it will help us stop more incidents in the future. It is disappointing that we don't teach every kid who passes through the public education system about racial injustice, internalized racism, and institutional racism. But it is, to me, unpardonable that we don't do this for cops. It should be mandatory that every single cop on the streets or behind a desk get trained and educated on the cultures they will be serving. They should know, before they pull the trigger, that they may be pulling it for all the wrong reasons.

Raven. I hope you feel better. Sorry for the feelings post on a day that has already been pretty feelings-full for you. Sorry the post is a bit late! Work got in the way of a timely update tonight. I hope to hear from you tomorrow - I know you have your own sad post to write. Maybe I'll update tomorrow with some kittens or something just so we can have a happy moment on here this week!



*If you like knowing things about the world you should read her blog. If you don't like knowing things about the world you should still read her blog because it's brilliant and everyone should read her blog.
**Racism here = Power + Prejudice (I, being white, have more systemic power than someone who is black)

Gutted

I know I've been dreadful about posting reliably this week. I apologize. Sometimes Life gets in the way, the nosy bugger.

Today has been...not a good day, for a number of reasons that I will not bore you with, but suffice it to say...I will once again not be giving you a full post. Owl is taking over my post for tonight, but I couldn't leave you without a brief word.

Those of you who have ever talked to me about literature likely know this: Terry Pratchett holds a very special place in my heart, right at the top of the pedestal of brilliant authors. I have long admired him both as a storyteller and a craftsmen, and though I know him only through his writing and his public persona, I have admired him greatly as a person.

In light of his passing today I find myself desperately sad that we have lost such a great man and a great mind, and incredibly blessed to have shared Discworld with him and with millions of other, incredible fans.

To say that Pratchett deserves a full post from me would be drastically understating the matter. He deserves several full-length books in my mind. But at the very least he shall get a full post, just not this one.

To all of you who have borne this sad news with me: Thank you for being there along side me.

Sir Terry, I hope that your journey across the endless plains is half as good a journey as the ones you've taken us on over the years.

If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story. –Sir Terry Pratchett, from The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (2001)

An Introduction to Rage

Hey Raven,

So it turns out I just do not have enough energy to rage properly tonight. And raging is exactly what I want (and I think need) to do this week.

Unless you have been living under a rock the last year you know that there have been a lot of cops shooting unarmed black men and boys. This past weekend there was another. I have a lot of feelings and concerns around this issue that I am currently too tired/worked up to talk about. So I wanted to post a few links today instead. I'm hoping I will be up to talking about it in my next post.

First: Here's a link to what happened last weekend in case you didn't know/haven't heard yet. The cliff notes is that an unarmed black teenager named Tony Robinson was shot and fatally wounded by a Madison police officer. Read more here.

Second: There has been a lot of talk about the differences between this shooting and some of the others during 2014, and I'll admit there are some big differences. But that it still happens and many people are intent on dismissing the issue makes me pretty furious. This piece gives a good quick read on my feelings about people downplaying the issue. Read here.

Last for tonight: Here  and here and here  and here are some articles I think are worth reading and thinking about in terms of race. Reading all of Kristof's articles on race I think is very worthwhile. He has some very good points to make and some very good resources to back him up.

That's all I've got tonight. More next time!

Best wishes,
Owl