Thursday morning roundup

Is the President showing leadership on fighting human trafficking?

They found the guys who assaulted Thomas Maslin; he's continuing to recover.

Christian iconography wasn't always a given.

When fact-checkers were even more overwhelmed.

The bottom quarter of this table is the most stunning. It's one thing to be blind to more indirect government benefits, but that many people getting a pretty clear transfer of funds have no idea they're doing it?

There's no lack of empathy for the poor and struggling on my part, but columns like this induce my eyes to roll, especially when it comes to "I didn't get a raise, I can't afford a designer bag." That kind of thing is the danger of journalism by going to a discount store and talking to people. Look: I know these discount stores intimately. My parents shopped at them exclusively, and did when I was a kid. It's what I grew up with. My parents never took me back-to-school shopping every year, because that was a foreign concept. But I digress. Ms. Dvorak cheapens the point of her column--which you'd think would be about people who are really struggling--with poverty "creep," i.e., "wah, I couldn't afford a Liz Claiborne bag."

Hmmm... the Bankrate tipping guide said not to leave hotel cleaning staff tips on or near the bed, but Budget Travel disagrees.


Vegan is normal is Southern California. Let's hope the effect spreads to the rest of the country. For restaurants, it really is just about "opening the vegan door." When I go out with friends--which is when I go out, and it happens to be regularly--I don't need an exclusively vegan menu (and in fact, most of my friends wouldn't go for that); I just need a few options. I have a recurring lunch date with some friends/coworkers, for which we usually go to Busboys and Poets. They get the Thai mussels, I get the vegan quesadilla. We always mean well and want to try something new, but always end up coming back to our favorite dish (actually, I tried the vegan calzone and it was gross; I like their vegan pizza but if if I'm the only one getting it, it's just too much food).

A non-vegan pastry chef was telling me that vegan desserts are more naturally tasty, because you can't just cheat and make something taste "good" by flooding it with butter and sugar.

I was just telling someone that wine should be a food group; it has more nutritional value than 80 percent of what passes for food in this country.