Thursday Reads

When you see women as objects good only for screwing and popping kids out, then it is no surprise at all there is such a thing as reproductive coercion.
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Another man is claiming to have killed JonBenet Ramsey.

Call me skeptical.
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Obituary:  Coffee ad icon Carlos Sanchez, 83, known to millions of viewers as Juan Valdez, the fictional representative of Colombian coffee, has died.

Mr. Sánchez first donned Valdez’s signature wide-brimmed hat in 1969. He took over for Jose F. Duval, a Cuban actor who had played the character since it was created by the New York advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach in 1959.

Mr. Sánchez was Colombian and grew coffee as a youth before turning to painting and acting. As Valdez, an indefatigable farmer with a warm expression, a lush mustache and a mule named Conchita, he became an avatar for the farmers who harvested Colombia’s coffee beans and a positive depiction of a country that was often equated with terrorism and drug trafficking.

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Obituary: Bernice Sandler, known as one of the major driving forces behind the landmark Title IX legislation which protected women and girls in education, died the other day at the age of 90.

Dr. Sandler, who died on Saturday at 90, was known as “the godmother of Title IX.” She was central to its development, passage and implementation.

The law would change the landscape of education. It required that male and female students have equal access to admissions, resources and financial assistance, among other things.

“Every woman who has gone to college, gotten a law degree or a medical degree, was able to take shop instead of home-ec, or went to a military academy really owes her a huge debt,” Margaret Dunkle, a research colleague and friend, said in a telephone interview.

As time went on, Dr. Sandler identified more areas where sexual discrimination could be fought with Title IX. One was college athletics. It has since been transformed, with far more women able to play sports today than in the past.
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Obituary:  First-time actor Mungau Dain, age somewhere in his twenties, died the other day.  The cause wasn't an infected leg.  He was the subject of a documentary called Tanna.






Dain was in his late 20s when he died a few days ago, and left behind his wife, Nancy, and two young children.

Tanna was the first feature film shot entirely in Vanuatu. Filmed in collaboration with the Yakel people of Tanna, it tells the forbidden love story of a young girl, Wawa (Marie Wawa), who falls for the grandson of her chief, Dain (Mungau Dain).

The movie, which won two major prizes at Venice film festival in 2015 and was nominated for the best foreign language Oscar, was acclaimed for its Romeo and Juliet-style storytelling, its picturesque cinematography and its cast: first-time actors pulled from the real-life village in which it is set.


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