Friday Chat: Advice Columns!

I love advice columns. I've never written to one, but when they're well done, they're such good reading. People display such an unimaginable range of crazy behavior that other people have to deal with! Do you also love advice columns? There must be some great ones out there I don't know about. What are your favorites??

Mine:

Dear Prudence, of course - I read it before but now that's it's written by the great Mallory Ortberg it's a constant joy.

Ask a Manager might be mostly of interest to those of us who work office jobs, but it's surprisingly fascinating.

Captain Awkward is good general advice that is particularly attuned to people with a variety of characteristics that might not make them the "typical" person for traditional advice columns - lots about questions of coming out, dealing with abusive or just unhealthy family relationships, navigating a social life with disabilities or health challenges, etc.

What awesome ones am I missing??

Morning Coffee (7/7/17)

Time for our customary happy Friday links!

Ooh, more casting for the new Little Women, finally!

This is the kind of hard-hitting international news I want to see right now: Shetland Pony tries to eat The Queen’s flowers

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Made the Queen of England Laugh (That was kind of him. Do you think we could get him to start traveling around making all of us laugh? That sounds useful.)

I know the person who sent me this amazing link yesterday TRULY LOVES ME: Use a Packing Grid to Ensure You Have Everything You Need for a Trip

This one I will absolutely try: Oreo Is Doing A Coffee-Flavored Collab With Dunkin' Donuts

Aw! This Aquarium Has a 'Naughty Penguin of the Month' Board

Let's go make some slab pie.

The Joy of Reading About Cooking

This is some impressive latte art: South Korean coffee artist recreates Munch's The Scream in cream

Heee: Artist Reimagines All 50 States As Food Puns

Afternoon Tea (7/6/17)

In Neanderthal DNA, Signs of a Mysterious Human Migration

This was an interesting, important, moving read: Shakespeare's Cure for Xenophobia

The Times has an interesting feature on the proliferation of new Oreo flavors. I'm sometimes a purist about this kind of thing, but in this case, as long as they're not taking the original Oreos away, I'm all for it.

Women's Voluntary Services records reveal grassroots wartime life

Ooh, let's go: Renovated Museum Wing Delves into Untold Chapters of American History

Morning Coffee (7/6/17)

‘Scarred and broken’: children escaping Isis in Mosul suffer waking nightmares

WHAT A SHOCK: White House gender pay gap more than triples under Trump

Months of Russia controversy leaves Trump ‘boxed in’ ahead of Putin meeting

The Media’s Unacceptable Silence on the Republican Health Care Bill

What happens to America if Justice Kennedy retires

This was quite something: NPR’s tweet of Declaration Of Independence angers Trump supporters

Tchaikovsky Hated The ‘1812 Overture,’ Which Sucks Because He Also Wrote It

Oh interesting: Tolkien Estate and Warner Bros. Settle Lawsuit Over Licensing

Ooh: British Museum to bring back Reading Room as part of revamp

Ha, poor kid: Sophie Turner Says She Found Out About Oral Sex From Her Game of Thrones Scripts

Afternoon Tea (7/5/17)

The Surprising Space Ambitions in Colonial America

The ‘Rewilding’ of a Century-Old Cranberry Bog

When the Goodness of a Woman Was Judged By the Bread She Baked

Cool: 1930s cities from the air: the aerial photographs of Walter Mittelholzer

The guilty pleasure of reading Hollywood memoirs

Morning Coffee (7/5/17)

Experts: North Korea’s missile was a ‘real ICBM’ — and a grave milestone

The Billion Dollar Cost of Child Marriage

Aww: Taoiseach Varadkar wears Canada socks for Trudeau visit

Well. A Fake Story Tricked Trump Supporters Into Protesting For No Reason, Then One Of Them Accidentally Shot Himself

Today in "sadly unsurprising, but good to have evidence" research: Study: Black girls viewed as ‘less innocent’ than white girls

Well, that's something: Court Blocks E.P.A. Effort to Suspend Obama-Era Methane Rule

Historians Uncover Slave Quarters of Sally Hemings at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello

Whoa: Lawsuit Reveals Gauguin Painting Was Not World’s Most Expensive

Interesting: Listening to the Piece That Made Chopin’s Career

You can now snort chocolate — but should you? Um, no. What? Why.

Morning Coffee (7/4/17)

Welp: Justice Department's Corporate Crime Watchdog Resigns, Saying Trump Makes It Impossible To Do Job

Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment

Save Free Speech From Trolls

Hahaha: Ukraine reacted to the biggest hack in its history with a GIF of a dog in a room on fire

Interesting! A Clever New Way to Predict Next Year's Flu

A Brutal Intelligence: AI, Chess, and the Human Mind

Whoa: My Dentist's Murder Trial

I don't really care about animated children's vampire series but this voice cast is great.

The Legend of WWII’s Bombsight Rapunzel

How Great Authors Became Style Icons

Morning Coffee (7/3/17)

Me elsewhere: TV news for the week.

Trump says states are ‘trying to hide’ things from his voter fraud commission. Here’s what they actually say.

Trump Foot Soldier Sidelined Under Glare of Russia Inquiry

This is a very good read: The classic American sitcom is exactly what we need in this fractured political moment

Interesting: Hugh Jackman to Play Senator Gary Hart in ‘The Frontrunner’ Movie

Perfect: Ken Dolls as Men of the Left

This is FASCINATING: The Hoax Poetry Movement That Accidentally Became Legitimate

Ooh: These Beautiful Medieval Wafer Presses Are Where Waffles Come From

Let's end on an alarming note today: What Are All The Ways That Land Can Disappear Beneath Your Feet?

Morning Coffee (7/2/17)

The Time I Got Recruited to Collude with the Russians

Welp: CBS News: No Staff Members Left In Science Division Of White House Office

This is SO COOL: What Happens Just Before Show Time at the Met Opera, in 12 Rooms You’ll Never See

Good for her: Gillian Anderson calls out 'X-Files' for next season's all-male writing staff

Feud: Olivia de Havilland v. Ryan Murphy

Ooh! Milk Bar Is Planning a Boston-Area Location

I really have no arguments here: ‘West Wing’ Characters Ranked By How Likely They Would Be To Catch Bigfoot

Ooh: The Remains of an Ancient ‘Skull Cult’ Have Been Found

Huh, I had no idea: A Pittsburgh Church Holds the Greatest Collection of Relics Outside of the Vatican

How an Organic Chemist Invented the Bone-Shaped Dog Treat

Morning Coffee (7/1/17)

Some good news! German Parliament Approves Same-Sex Marriage

Russian Hackers Reportedly Discussed Getting Hillary Clinton's Emails To Michael Flynn

Trump’s voter-fraud commission wants to know voting history, party ID and address of every voter in the U.S.

(Satire, BARELY:) After the president’s tweet, I must withdraw my support for everything but his agenda

MTV News: The Good, the Bad, and the Contradictions of an Ill-Fated Experiment

This is great: Paddington Bear, Refugee

Ooh, Jezebel is starting an advice column!

Heh: A Guide to All the Lifestyle Concepts You’ll Be Forced to Know About Soon

New Sentences: From ‘Supercut,’ by Lorde

Ooooh: Avebury stone circle contains hidden square, archaeologists find