I was at a conference all weekend, and most of last week, so apologies for posting consistently, then disappearing. I’m going to crawl out from under this homework pile, and blogalogging shall resume!

1. I’m in a class about the Hebrew Bible this quarter, and we just covered the first two-thirds of Genesis. Which makes The Ride Back To Beersheba a timely link. (h/t Taylor)

2. “Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who refused to accept defeat in World War II until finally surrendering in 1974, died today. In thematically related news, Obamacare opponents have organized their latest campaign to repeal the “Obamacare bailout.”” That is a real opening to this article, and I think I love it.

3. Today in expensive things I want but shouldn’t buy, Durr watches. They vibrate every five minutes–no clock face, no readout–and make you attend to how much time is passing. Temporal orientation!

4. Wendy Davis Drops an Atomic Truth Bomb on Desperate Sexist Republicans. This headline is a real thing. On the other hand, this is a tumblr for kick-ass ledes.

5. On the other hand, Politico has a thoughtful article on Davis. Unlike many pieces of such style, it doesn’t pretend to know if it can answer whether she would make a good governor. Even more appealing to me–it doesn’t gloss over details in pursuit of a pretty picture. Yes, it’s possible that Davis’s ambition and work ethic might have resulted in the eventual divorce of the Davis family. Is it that surprising that a power shift within a relationship could be destabilizing? Journalists, take heed.

While she has been portrayed as the materialistic beneficiary of a duped husband, let me offer another plausible interpretation: At some point Jeff Davis astutely realized he had married a woman who aimed to do more than answer phones and serve salads. He saw that it would be not just in her interest, but his, if he facilitated her advance. He helped her go to law school not only out of the goodness of his heart but because he was betting on her economic prospects, as women have long bet on the prospects of men. How many hundreds of thousands of American women worked to put a husband through law or med school? Did we criticize the men who benefited? Jeff Davis did for his spouse what wives have long done for husbands: He invested in her—their—future.

6. I did not expect to find that a post titled “Why Scientific Papers Are Like Pop Music” would be an entirely apt metaphor, but here we are.

7. More snarky research papers.

8. Researchers have invented a bra that unhooks for ‘true love’. Yes, that is an actual claim they are making. I…..

…yeah, on that note, I think we’ll end. Happy Tuesday! If you live in the arctic tundra that is the Midwest, I hope you’re staying warm. Elsewhere, I am envying you. And I like winter.