Back in the day, I worked for a medical publisher in Chicago. The editorial staff was almost all white despite Chicago's diversity. When HR said we needed to interview some non-white candidates for each opening, it wasn't hard to find solid applicants who weren't white. And once they got their foot in the door for an interview, they impressed the hell out of us, got the job, and excelled. They were no more or less qualified than the white editorial assistant candidates who we interviewed (there were always a zillion "no" applicants and a handful of "ooh, yes" applicants offered interviews--the criteria were same for all). Without HR's mandate, it would have been perilously easy for a bunch of white women to seek out candidates who were just like them (the whole unintentional bias thing, feeling entirely nonracist and yet making the same choices a racist would). I'm glad we were pushed to do better. It is the easiest thing in the world, but if you rely on the old-boy network or simply don't try for diversity, you can end up like TNR.

That is even more horrible than what I gathered from the essay in "Bad Feminist," Roxane. I am so sorry you were brutalized. Infertility as a result of rape? So inhumane. Your resilience inspires, but it really stinks that you have had to overcome such a dreadful trauma. Supportive tears flowing here.

Butter is awesome. My mother-in-law once brought a Rubbermaid container butter on a 10-hour road trip to Key West so we could have buttered Hawaiian rolls on the Florida highway. Butter for the road!

All right, fess up: Which one of y'all does crosswords? Hardly anybody talks about The Oleo outside of crossword puzzles. Or is it a Haitian-American usage, "oleo" instead of "margarine"?