Men! What are they thinking? We can't always answer that, but we'll be posting our favorite glimpses into their world in this space every Thursday.

Photo: Courtesy of Of a Kind

* This limited-edition (there are only 40!) leather wallet is simple enough not to intimidate the guy who's been carrying the same tri-fold since college, but handsome enough to give you a little something extra to smile about when he's treating you to dinner. (Of a Kind)

* SNL's Andy Samberg explains how he came to be Chief Shark Officer for Discovery's Shark Week. (YouTube)

* Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune, a documentary on the '60s folksinger who had "a stance, six strings, and an insistent voice," explores Ochs' contribution to both music and politics. Whether you're looking for the story of someone who fought passionately for his beliefs or you just want a killer classic soundtrack, the film came out on DVD last week. (PhilOchstheMovie.com)

* How adorable is this dad doing his daughter's hair? (Cute Girls Hairstyles)

* After speaking at the Save Our Schools rally, Matt Damon proves he's a real-life action hero in his defense of teachers. Warning: there's some NSFW language in the video. (The Stranger)

* Speaking of teachers, Dave Eggers has written a lovely remembrance of Jay Criche, the man who encouraged him to become a writer: "He was curious, so we were curious. He was hungry for learning, so we were hungry, too. He made us want to impress him with the contents of our brains. He taught us how to think and why." (Salon)

Every Monday, we're rounding up things--small and big--that made us stop and think. Today, we were moved and inspired by two survivors of violence, a writer reporting from the domestic front, a woman who stopped waiting to be chosen and more...  

Writer Ruth Davis Konigsberg on the "chore wars" being waged in American homes:
Actress Brit Marling on co-writing scripts with roles for herself:
"How terrifying to surrender your life to being chosen all the time. Writing so that I can act became a way of having not more control over my future but not having to wait for permission."

Tom Ford on the universality of the mid-life crisis:
"It comes to everybody, maybe in your thirties, maybe in your forties, maybe in your sixties or seventies, who knows. You get to the moment where you feel the clock is ticking and you are wondering if you are really getting the most out of your life."

Kara Curtis, a morbidly obese woman in upstate New York, speaking to NPR about her struggle with weight and shame:
"There were periods of time when I used to hang skinny pictures of myself up on my fridge. But that was brutal and mean. And I don't want to be brutal and mean to myself."

It's that time again. Who's got something to be thankful for? We'll start...

1. After being freed from a net, a humpback whale literally jumps for a joy.  (via Grist)



2. Cinemagraphs. They're "more than a photo but not quite a video," and good for an oooh and an aaaah.

3. Math and feelings—Not so separate, after all. (Via preliminary findings of a "What's your favourite number? experiment on NPR.)

4. The Dalai Lama turns out to be a terrible food critic and offers another shining example of forgiveness on the Australian ‘Master Chef.’ About a contestant whose gnocchi were undercooked, he said, “They tried their best."

5. Hope Solo will be on the cover of Sports Illustrated next week—the first woman athlete in a year, and only the third female soccer player to appear there IN 57 YEARS.

Thank you Hope. You inspire, well "hope." Happy weekend, everyone. What' are you grateful for?

Men! What are they thinking? We can't always answer that, but we'll be posting our favorite glimpses into their world in this space every Thursday.



* Stephen Colbert breaks character for Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project. [It Gets Better via The Daily What]

* Want to catch a good mood? When Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon reprise their roles as hip-hop chroniclers in "History of Rap, Take 2," their enthusiasm is positively contagious. [Vulture]

* "The magic of the relationship between the baseball field and its beyond is such as to invite the grandest mythical and metaphorical projections."—Herschel Farbman in "Baseball Fans and the Ball in the Stands" [The Awl]

* This old time sling shot is guaranteed to be a hit with any guy who is on good terms with his inner child. [Hicoree's Hard Goods]

* And if you're worried you might eventually regret gifting a weapon that has the potential to destroy both your favorite lamp and your vision, you can still satisfy the boyish curiosity of men and children alike with this neat study about how suits of armor influenced medieval battles. [BBC]

* "In our crucial human capacities to think, to create, to work, to love, I do not see men and women as different."—Robert Olen Butler, author of A Small Hotel, in O's Twitter chat with him.

We fight better. Or at least that's what Marriage Ref Tom Papa told Gayle on her show this morning.





What do you think? Is there really a right way to fight and do women do it better? Let us know in the comments, and if you're wondering, here are the 15 ways women are tougher, luckier and smarter than men.

Photo: Thinkstock

We have all been there—on the sidewalk, in the supermarket, at the mall—when a mother starts in on her kid, say, a four year old, clinging to a stroller that holds a toddler sibling, yelling,  "shut the hell up....shut the HELL up." The daughter hangs her head and the toddler starts wailing and the mother tells her, too, to SHUT THE HELL UP. And then the light changes or the elevator comes and they're gone.

We wish—god, we so wish—we knew how to respond at such moments, because they come around again and again. And not just what to tell the mother, but to ourselves, too. Because sometimes we overhear people saying what we know (really, what anyone would agree) is the exact wrong thing to say to a child, not always so loud and sometimes with best intentions but still, the kind of thing that makes you think, What is wrong with people—no, really, what is wrong with them? And what's wrong with me, standing here like a fool?

Leigh Newman has found an answer—not the answer—but one that makes it a little easier to share the planet with people, not as she might want them to be, but as they actually are.