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this week in I Am Very Smart: having enough money to go to the opera, museums and concerts correlates with having enough money for food, shelter and basic health needs

cyborgfirelord

They controlled for socioeconomic factors though! The people who conducted this study knew that people with lots of money to attend the opera were also more likely to be able to afford basic necessities, so they controlled for it in their analysis. The fun thing about statistics is that you can control for different confounding factors so you can look at the effects of one independent variable (opera or whatever) on the dependent variable (mortality). Part of being critical of potential biases is actually reading the article and knowing what to look for.

starstuffandalotofcoffee

In addition to that very good point about controlling for socioeconomic factors, the article says a single museum or concert per year makes a difference. Most cities have free community concerts (some even have free opera performances!) and museums that are either free, pay-what-you-want, or at least have specific days/times during which they are free or at a significantly reduced cost. Many libraries (which are free) provide free museum passes to card holders. In fact, the article quotes a museum worker who works at a free art museum in Baltimore.

If you actually read the article you would also read that educators are excited about this study because it provides evidence that the arts should be made more accessible financially - by restoring arts programs in the public schools, for example.

mugrosopirata

nicehatgeorgia

The two year-old is now a solid two and a half. Just now, he was sitting on the couch playing with his pretend flip phone and he frowned and said “for gods sake. My battery is empty.”

The other day at breakfast I asked him if he was going to eat any more of his oatmeal and he said “no, I think I’m just gonna move on with my life.”

nicehatgeorgia

Today we were walking along and he asked me “How many Octobers is it today?” I told him it was the 21st.

He tried a bite of his hot soup at dinner and made a face and said “Mama, my soup is a little too temperature for me.”

nicehatgeorgia

Upon being served 1% milk for the first time, instead of his regular 2%: “is this water?”

Me: “no, it’s milk”

Kid: “but are you sure?”

nicehatgeorgia

Came up to me the other day, the middle of his pants totally soaked, and said “mama, I’m having a situation called ‘I peed in my pants.’”

nicehatgeorgia

I don’t think I even told you guys about the six months he spent saying “fuck” instead of “truck.”

henryclervals

‪happy christmas to my favourite story of all time‬

philoclea

Ed Ruscha, Pussy, 1966

winntir

No one:

Cats when they love someone:

chelseajadexo

have you ever had a weird sort of crush on one of your friends where you cant actually tell if its a crush or not??? do i want to kiss you?? do i just really enjoy being your friend????? who knows? not me

umbreeonic

Hi there I’m here to unnecessarily add that this is called alterous attraction! It’s basically ambiguous attraction that’s indistinguishable between platonic and romantic and/or sexual attraction. It’s not uncommon to feel alterous attraction towards friends/squishes/crushes. This post describes it pretty well, actually. In my experience, it’s like… I’d be cool with dating this person but being their friend is just as good. Like I wouldn’t actively start a romantic relationship, but I wouldn’t turn one down. So yeah! Alterous attraction. It’s nice but confusing.

viv13drainbow

I DIDNT KNOW THERE WAS A WORD FOR IT.

apocalypsegay

when are yall gonna realize that romantic, sexual and platonic feelings can just mix and meld together bc thats literally what feelings do and they don’t need to have their own perfect little category that is okay. that is literally part of any and all human experience.

in fact i’d say wanting to separate platonic from romantic SO DESPERATELY creates a very unhealthy culture of what it means to be in a relationship - you, in fact, should be friends with the person you’re dating.

thinking “id be okay dating this person but i’d also be okay not dating them” isn’t some special kind of attraction. it’s called being a human being who can deal with their emotions and choose what to do with them.