God bless our homeland Ghana...for trying
Our AFCON hopes have been dashed.
Welcome to Quality Sheet, a weekly assortment of outside-the-box news, events, trends and offbeat oddities to indulge your curiosity. Subscribe for a midweek treat each Wednesday that'll make you hummm with intrigue and amusement.
I didn’t keep up with Ghana’s performance in the Africa Cup of Nations this year and it’s a decision I will never regret. A group-stage knockout—adɛn (why)? What is the meaning of this? My heart can’t take it. Anyway, welcome to Quality Sheet. Let’s jump in!
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Rats are really giving us a run for our money. The latest: they’re competing with us over selfies. Just look at these guys taking pictures of themselves, all handsome and intelligent. The images are the result of a Skinner box-style experiment by photographer Augustin Lignier, who wanted to understand “why so many of us feel compelled to photograph our lives and share those images online,” the New York Times’ Emily Anthes writes. To incentivize the rats to activate the camera, Lignier used a mechanism similar to the tricks used by social media platforms to keep us hooked.
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Why are we uncomfortable calling ourselves animals? Placing humans atop the chain of being has been used to justify harmful practices against the planet and its creatures throughout history, author Erica Berry writes in Aeon. Even so, our contradictory nature means we still possess a unique desire to imagine what it might be like to inhabit the bodies and minds of creatures different to us. It’s sadistic, really. She writes in Aeon: “I feel a giddy sensory overwhelm walking toward a blooming lilac tree, while the robin sees also the magnetic field around it, and listens to the earthworms writhe beneath its trunk. Neither of our sensory worlds is better than the other; they are just very different.”
TL;DR:
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“Who would think you could fund your retirement with a book about being a slut?” Dossie Easton, author of “The Ethical Slut”, asks The Cut’s Elizabeth Weil. Now approaching 80, Easton, who wrote the “poly bible” in the 1990s, reflects on her life turning people onto sexual liberation and pleasure in all its forms.
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“Not only does seeing Black leaders on campuses affirm that Black students belong and are a source of inspiration for what they can aspire to…but for white and non-Black students of color, it helps counter the default belief that leadership can only be synonymous with whiteness,” writes Anna Branch, a sociology professor at Rutgers University, about the impact of losing Black women leaders in academia, much of it down to racism and mistreatment.
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“A zone of exclusion, designed for a privileged minority in this country” or a self-proclaimed “city for everyone”? Cayalá, a gated community in Guatemala City that houses wealthy residents and expats in Greek-inspired buildings, is sparking debate about inequality—even among some of its original planners—in the Guatemalan capital, the New York Times’ Simon Romero and Jody García report. Similar concerns have followed the development since its inception.
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“Considering NYC's reputation as godless town, God came up a lot in the conversations,” writes Anne Kadet, author of the brilliant CAFÉ ANNE newsletter. To mark the 100th issue—and armed with 100 one-dollar bills—she asked 100 New Yorkers for one piece of advice. The results are heartwarming, hilarious and encapsulate all there is to love about the city. Related: New York was recently voted the best city in the world for 2024 by Time Out. Obviously!!
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Thank you for reading. Share to sweeten someone’s day—and have a lovely rest of your week!
Isabel :)
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