Monday roundup

Guys, there are non-white people in Boston, running for office, and the Times is on it.

South Florida reels over pollution and its impact.

Electric cars aren't a panacea, nor a lost cause.

There are some (very important) things that online education can't replace.

Stories work, and they bridge the artificial gap between science/data and art/gut.

Competitive parenting serves no one, but it does serve your kids to see that they're not the most brilliant people in the world (unless they are). On that note, let's talk about fashion. Specifically, the notion that fashion should tone it down so that people don't feel bad about themselves. I don't know about you, but that strikes me as "let's not teach spelling because it's competitive and feelings might get hurt. Also, let's ban art because not everyone is equally good at it."

There are alternatives to increasingly technical agriculture, and factory farms don't actually save consumers any money.

OMG, I've never understood jarred mashed banana. That's an egregious example, but still, make your own baby food.

Wow, I'm definitely done with Popular Science. That article is soooo poorly written and full of crap:

Popular Science on "Why Vegan Diets Suck." Hard to believe a mag with "science" title would publish this quackery. http://t.co/las2xTlI6t

— Vegan (@vegan) September 9, 2013

Let's overlook, for now, the environmental and other ethical disadvantages of eating animals, which are thoroughly discussed elsewhere on this blog. Let's only take one quote from one of the latest articles on food safety, because it's too good to pass up: “Tremendous amounts of fecal matter remain on the carcasses,” he said. “Not small bits, but chunks.” Let's ignore the growing scientific consensus that less meat is better for most people. All that aside, does PopSci really think there's any science in that piece of crap they reprinted?

In honor of that piece of crap, I'm going to tell you what I (BMI: 19) ate yesterday: oatmeal, tofu scramble, two potatoes and a beet (three root vegetables! the horror!), a big bowl of pasta, ratatouille over quinoa, a few squares of dark chocolate, a glass of wine, an ear of corn, and some other stuff I can't remember. So suck it, smug omnivores with second-grade writing skills.

On that note: sure, there are smug vegans out there, too; they exist. But there are lots of smug omnivores, too. Also, there are probably some malnourished vegans out there; but there are also lots of malnourished omnivores. Not talking about people who can't afford food; talking about people who don't get enough nutrients.

Science says that there are drawbacks to big balls, but I'll still insist on huge proverbial ones.

Is Jennifer Weiner crying sexism to deflect legitimate criticism? Who knows?

But it’s easy for me to claim that my criticisms of Weiner are unrelated to her gender. It’s a lot harder for women to pick apart whether potentially sexist terms are being employed in a malicious context or a benign one. In 1970, Harvard professor Chester M. Pierce coined the term “microaggression” to refer to minor slights that are “subtle” and often subliminal, but that nevertheless contribute to a culture of racial or gender harassment. One of the most pernicious aspects of microaggressions is that they’re more difficult to assess than more explicit threats. Did that person just cross the street to avoid the black man walking her way, or because her route just happened to take her there? Did he call her strident because she’s a woman, or because she's strident? As a woman, I understand that because targets of microaggressions are often criticized as overreacting or playing the race or gender card, these potential slights are allowed to slide under the radar unchecked. But from a writer’s perspective, it seems unreasonable to totally excise certain descriptors from the English language—or to only apply them to men—in order to avoid the perception of sexism.

I agree with some of Jessica Grose's points here (on Delia Ephron's piece) but I think she's missing the overall point. Yes, we should all drop "having it all" from our discourse; yes, the fact that women (and men, for that matter) generally have it worse in some other countries does not mean that women in America can't aspire to career and family. I don't need to remind you that it was Nora Ephron who said of course you could have it all, what else are you going to do? DE's column chose a concept with an unfortunate gendered connotation (in fact, I've always argued that if we're going to question whether women could have it all, we should be asking the same question about men), but her point was more universal; it was not about the work-life balance that the term is associated with. Her point was, can we be happy if we're always grasping for more, in the superficial keep-up-with-the-Joneses sense (rather than the more fulfilling feed-your-soul sense). So sure, we can call her out on her terminology, but that doesn't undermine her overall message.