I started getting facials from Zubeidat Tsarnaeva (pronounced Zu-bey-da) six years ago when I was 17 at a spa in the Boston area. She soon after left the spa and contacted my mom to have us start coming to her house, at 410 Norfolk St., right on the line of Cambridge and Somerville. All throughout my senior year of high school and four years of college I went to her house about three times a year. The last time I went to the house was in December and January of 2011/2012.The first few years the third-floor apartment was often crowded with her two sons, now identified as the alleged Boston Bombers, and her two daughters, one of whom was around my age. It was definitely not a glamorous place to get a facial, as the “spa” was set up in her living room, and during these years the family expanded. The staircase was crowded with their shoes, the house filled with noises of arguing, cooking, etc. She would often apologize for this. Her daughters and Dzhokhar, the younger son, always struck me as perfectly nice and normal kids about my age. As far as I knew the daughters also attended Rindge (the local public high school) along with their brother. She gave a damn good facial, often working on my skin for two or three hours, and this is why my sister, mom and I continued to go back to her home for years.Continue Reading… … Read More
Google honors a feminist original
Maria wanted to study metamorphosis, if only she could find the time to investigate. Her two daughters needed her, many hours, every day. It was a thorny problem, this balancing work and motherhood, but she took the long view. When her children were young, she stayed close to home, investigated parasitoid wasps and tiger moths in the neighborhood and nearby gardens, taught painting and wrote two books about European insects. Later, when her daughters were grown and she was 52, she left her husband and sailed to South America to research the rainforest and venture, as she described it, “far out into the wilderness.” Her masterwork, “The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam,” was published in 1705, more than 300 years ago.Today, her 366th birthday, marked at Google by weaving her Surinam engravings in its Doodle for the day, is a chance to re-evaluate her legacy.Many discussions of work/home life balance take as their starting point the publication of “The Feminine Mystique” 50 years ago. Feminists of the 60s and 70s are praised for opening our eyes or blamed for raising our expectations. Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In,” Anne-Marie Slaughter’s essay in The Atlantic about the impossibility of having it all, Marissa Mayer at Yahoo banning the telecommute, countless blogs and television pundits, all tell us how to navigate the modern world.Continue Reading… … Read More
The Very Odd Set Of Coincidences In Downtown LA
I have to say this is the strangest thing I have ever written … Read More
UAE court sentences father to death who tortured two daughters
A UAE court on Wednesday sentenced to death an Emirati father for torturing his two daughters, one of them to death, and jailed his mistress for life on the same charges, local media reported. “An Emirati father who mercilessly tortured and killed his eight-year-old daughter Wadeema will be…
Eric Cantor Wants To Rescue GOP’s ‘Lost’ Message
WASHINGTON — As House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) entered the 10th-grade classroom at a private school in the Petworth neighborhood of the nation’s capital on Monday morning, he walked past a poster of President Barack Obama, the first lady and their two daughters on the day of Obama’s first inaugural in 2009.
“We create a new tomorrow by what we dream today,” said the poster, which showed the president smiling, his left hand on a Bible held by Michelle Obama, his right hand raised as he took the oath of office.
This was not the type of school — urban, majority African-American — that normally receives visits from conservative white politicians. Cantor was at the Preparatory School of D.C. because he says he wants to change that. In a scheduled Tuesday speech at a Washington think tank, he plans to expand on his new theme of connecting conservative ideas with helping real people, not just improving the economy or the budget’s bottom line.
Our family’s week on a food stamp budget
I love to eat. You won’t catch me on any diets or purifying cleanses or experiments in going gluten or lactose-free. I plan meals in my dreams, and put baking ingredients on my Amazon wish list. My idea of going voluntarily hungry is waiting until the previews are over to open the candy. And I’m lucky as hell, because unlike one in every six Americans who don’t have a choice in the matter, I don’t have to go hungry.
After I wrote about Cory Booker’s decision last month to take the SNAP Challenge – to take “a view of what life can be like for millions of low-income Americans” – I couldn’t get the idea of it out of my head. The challenge is simple in concept but demanding in its execution: see what it’s like to live for one week on a food budget equivalent to your state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s (SNAP) benefits. Participants can use their existing spices and condiments, but no other foodstuffs, nor they can accept food “from friends, family, or at work.” Because I live in New York, I’d have a slightly more generous allowance than New Jersey’s Booker got – a total of $36.86 for a week of eating. And because my two daughters are awesome, they said they wanted to do it too as I soon as I mentioned to them. So for the past week, we’ve been eating on a little over five bucks a person per day.
NRA "Disappointed" Joe Biden Wanted To Talk About Gun Control
“We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen.”
WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association expressed disappointment that Vice President Joe Biden wanted to talk about gun control in a meeting at the White House Thursday to discuss responses to the Sandy Hook school shooting last month.
A statement released by the organization said they were prepared to discuss just about anything — that is anything other than gun control.
“We attended today’s White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals,” the group said.
The NRA said they will oppose efforts to tighten gun laws following the shooting. “We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen.”
Vice President Joe Biden signalled earlier Thursday that he will recommend that Obama fight to restrict high capacity magazines and make background checks universal.
The group's full statement is below:
Fairfax, Va. – The National Rifle Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again. We attended today's White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.
We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment. While claiming that no policy proposals would be “prejudged,” this Task Force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners – honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans. It is unfortunate that this Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation's most pressing problems. We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen. Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works – and what does not.
NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre pauses as he makes a statement during a news conference in response to the Connecticut school shooting on Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 in Washington. The NRA called for armed police officers to be posted in every American school.
Image by Evan Vucci / AP
