Strong Verbs Are Just Better

The idea that the decision not to include a single YA novel on a single booklist is automatically the work of the patriarchy creates a straw man of the teenage girl, oppressed by college coursework that is not interested in her experiences or her feelings. This teenage girl, regularly conjured up in the name of fighting sexism, is failed by an elitist literary world that denies her the only books she cares to read—young adult novels with characters who look and think like her. But what happens when the teenage girl does not enjoy books that authors insist are written for them? Does that girl’s or young woman’s opinion matter less? Dessen’s book did not give Nelson pleasure. Perhaps Nelson was dismissive in saying the book was written for teenage girls, but the book was, in fact, written for teenage girls. One woman, still in her early twenties, wanting the books included on a college booklist to be written at the college level does not warrant a two-day public shaming by some of the highest-paid authors in the industry whose criticisms are emulated and amplified by hundreds of thousands of fans.

Yet our research, published today in the International Journal of Wildland Fire, modelled thousands of fires in Tasmania and found that nearly a third of the state would have to be burned to effectively lower the risk of bushfires.
The question of how much to burn and where is a puzzle we must solve, especially given the inherent risk, issues caused by smoke smoke and shrinking weather windows for safe burning due to climate change.

The first step is examining a patient’s uniqueness according to medical procedures such as childbirth. Some individuals are unique given public information, and many patients are unique given a few basic facts, such as year of birth or the date a baby was delivered.
We found unique records matching online public information about seven prominent Australians, including three (former or current) MPs and an AFL footballer.

As World War II approached, Thailand was in a precarious position. For years, the country’s leaders had clutched their independence closely, worried about the French and English, who had colonized neighboring Cambodia, Laos, and Burma. Now, Japan was expanding imperially into East Asia, having invaded China in 1937.
In response, Plaek Phibunsongkhram’s government took action. As part of a national campaign called “Noodle is Your Lunch,” the Public Welfare Department gave Thais free noodle carts and distributed recipes for a new national dish: pad Thai.
At the time, the dish was little known, and no one called it “pad Thai.” In rice-centric Thailand, then known as Siam, the dish seemed more Chinese—similar noodle dishes likely arrived in Thailand centuries earlier with Chinese traders. But Thailand’s prime minister, who first rose to power as part of a military coup against the longtime monarchy, had spoken. As part of his strident nationalism, he wanted all Thais to eat pad Thai.
A noodle project may seem trivial in the context of world war. But Phibunsongkhram, better known as Phibun or Pibul in the West, thought it was the very seriousness of the situation that demanded this response.

I left with such a communal sense of myself that my “I” was almost a “we.” I felt gloriously free to choose my own community and assumed having one was essential. I never found that community. I’ve assembled a network of friends, and I stumble [upon] a lesbian from time to time, but I’ve found little or no sense of LGBTQ community. I left [the Hasidic community] 15 years ago. At first, the loneliness was astounding, as if without a community I wasn’t quite sure who I was. But over time, I learned how to be alone and came to treasure—even love—being alone. I learned to assume I was usually going to be the different one in the crowd. I carry that differentness quite happily; it’s a pride.

But for Aikins, a German Ghanaian, and other people of colour living in the country, the reality of reunification was different.
"The patriotism that followed reunification centred around Germany being one again, but unfortunately, what surfaced soon after that was a seriously racist dynamic," Aikins said.
"There was a surge in far-right youth movements and activism, which led to an increase in outwardly and aggressively racist violence. Slogans like 'Wir sind ein Volk' (We are one people) and 'Wir sind das Volk' (we are the people') which had been used in the peaceful revolution and reunification movement were now appropriated by the far right.
"Nazi ideas of the German Volk as a project of homogeneity and superiority were evoked. Such talk was laced with threats of racist violence.
"We were witnessing this and I began to question what this meant for the country I was born in."