For Your Enjoyment #27

"While traditional retailers will be monitoring store traffic and sales on Black Friday, online retailers have set their sights on something different: Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, which is quickly becoming one of the biggest online shopping days of the year."

- The history of Cyber Monday (image above, J. Crew) 

"Everyone on the internet thinks they could be a better dino supervisor - BUT YOU WEREN'T THERE."

- Phil TippettJurassic Park's Dinosaur Supervisor, will be back for Jurassic World

Over the next ten months, we learned to truly love our son. Period. No buts. No conditions. Just because he breathes. We learned to love whoever our son loved. And it was easy. What I had been so afraid of became a blessing. The journey wasn’t without mistakes, but we had grace for each other, and the language of apology and forgiveness became a natural part of our relationship. As our son pursued recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, we pursued him. God taught us how to love him, to rejoice over him, to be proud of the man he was becoming. We were all healing … and most importantly, Ryan began to think that if WE could forgive him and love him, then maybe God could, too.

The Christian parents of a 17-year-old who a drug overdose have become advocates for the LGBTQ community

White people simply love to spend their free time walking up and down mountains and sleeping in the forest. 

- The Great Outdoors has a diversity problem (See also: National Parks' attempt to appeal to minorities / Stuff White People Like)

[T]he boundary separating white Anglo upscale school districts from the burgeoning non-white and non-Anglo populations in downscale communities is fast becoming a flashpoint inside America.

- Robert Reich examines "border patrol" issues in regards to public school enrollment

1915 (Crisco) to 2014 (Soylent)

- 100 Years of Food (See also: 100 Years of Fears)

“But I think what I can say is that Toadette and Toad are not siblings -- perhaps it would be more accurate to say they are adventure pals."

- In case you were wondering, Nintendo's characters don't necessarily follow the gender binary

"Nothing is worse than not being noticed."

- Jeremiah Tower, of Chez Panisse, Stars and California cuisine fame, is set to take on Tavern on the Green

Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before. So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. [T]he thing is, we treat racism in this country like it’s a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates millions of people. You’ve got to get it at a lab, and study it, and see its origins, and see what it’s immune to and what breaks it down.

- Chris Rock on pop culture, civil rights and everything in between

Our single-minded focus on increasing wealth has succeeded in driving the planet's ecological systems to the brink of failure, even as it's failed to make us happier. How did we screw up? The answer is pretty obvious – we kept doing something past the point that it worked. Since happiness had increased with income in the past, we assumed it would inevitably do so in the future.

- In not entirely groundbreaking news: Money ≠ Happiness

"People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” 

- December 1, 1955