Monday morning roundup

Russian voters have had it.

Europe is thawing somewhat, but Turkey has moved on. Sort of.

Asylum detention, while less abusive, is still rampant.

Friday evening roundup

You know how I've had the recurring experience of reading a few paragraphs into a New Yorker article to think, "goodness, this is terrible writing," and inevitably finding Adam Gopnik to be responsible for the offending prose? Well, the good news is, more often than that when I read the New Yorker, I find myself thinking, "this is exceptional writing." In those cases, as well, I often check the author and think, "of course!" Well, one of the writers who takes my breath away whenever he writes is Aleksandar Hemon, who has once again come through with a beautifully written, poignant, evocative, true-ringing piece.

Israel's cultural guilt trip against American Jews backfires.

A friend and I were just having a related conversation--about people's inexplicable struggles with, not to mention regular butchering of, our relatively simple names. Having that experience one's whole life, you wonder why any parent would deliberately name a child with something that begs for mispronunciation. Some parents--including those who give boys girls' names--doom their kids to added challenges. Doesn't it remind you of that old Saturday Night Live episode... "I have a pizza for Asswipe Johnson"/"That's Oz-Wi-Peh!"

Don't talk to your phone in public.

What is a vegan strip club?

***
Over the last year or so, but especially over the last few months, people have pointed out to me with varying levels of tact that I have apparently lost weight. Today, someone said it in the way that you should say it if you're going to say it, so that one's not left wondering how huge one must have been. She said, "Are you... even tinier than you used to be?" It was quite artful.

Wednesday evening roundup

Poverty across most of Latin America is easing up.

Get some tissues handy for this:

That's no way to treat your actors or sensible patrons, but nobody asked me.

Tuesday evening roundup-rant

Celebrate freedom: follow the Kansas teen tweeter.

Embrace the immigrants in your midst.

I am *so* sick of people going on about how homemade food is elitist I might physically swing at this woman if she were in my presence. Look, if you want to feed your kids processed, chemical-laden crap, do it without trying to justify it to the world and painting the rest of us as extremists who, for example, grind our own flour.

Actually, I think the champagne solution is an excellent one: parents get to travel with their kids, and they have an incentive to encourage good behavior.

Check out the belly project.

Monday evening roundup

This has me fuming. Since when do medical professionals demand a choice with regard to whom they'll treat?

What is it with Safeway and Spartan policies against children? At least the parent didn't lose custody this time around. I sort of have mixed feelings--I think the guard should have said something to the parent, asked him to pay for the apricots--but I don't think the parent is completely off the hook. I know you can't watch your child every second, and things happen, but it is your responsibility to keep your kid out of trouble in public. I've been on the business end of wayward children in supermarkets, and there's definitely some room for more parenting there. Again, I know things happen and you can't catch everything, and the guard definitely overreacted, but I'm just sayin': the world is not your kids' sandbox.

I don't think this is offensive; I think factory farming is offensive.

Have you ever read something and thought, "this was so written by a man who has no business writing women"? Exhibit A.

WTF phone call

Mom: So, what did you have for Thanksgiving?
A.: So, I went to two different celebrations. At the first one, my friend served Tofurkey...
Mom: Huh?
A.: Tofurkey.
Mom: What's that?
A.: It's a "turkey" made of tofu.
Mom: Ha ha ha ha ha! Whoever would have thought!
A.: You laugh, but it's quite the thing. The Post front-paged its Thanksgiving food section with a fake turkey taste test. (Pause.) How was your Thanksgiving?
Mom: It was great. We went to Tanya's. You know, she called me the next day and said to me, "I tell you this because I love you: you need a haircut. Your hairstyle is aging you. I know of a great Italian place where you can go to get it cut." It meant a lot to me that she said that--you could tell it made her uncomfortable.
A.: That's because she doesn't know you.
Mom: Anyway, can't wait to see you. Maria, too.
A.: Mom, we talked about this.
Mom: So?
A.: Have you at least told her?
Mom: Maybe. I don't remember.
A.: I think it's only fair that you tell her.
Mom: Why? What's the big deal? Maybe it won't work out.
A.: Thanks, mom.
Mom: I'm just sayin'.
A.: Yes, you are.
Mom: These guys are educated, they're hard-working...
A.: This conversation is over, mom.
Mom: Who is this guy, anyway? Where does he live?
A.: Here.
Mom: What, Virginia?
A.: Yeah.
Mom: Where does he work?
A.: Also here.
Mom: Huh.
A.: Are we done?
Mom: What denomination is he?
A.: He's not really anything, but his parents are Protestant.
Mom: Oh! Protestants are awful. That is awful.
A.: I don't see how it's relevant.
Mom: Besides, I just don't see how it can work: one of you speaks Russian, the other doesn't? How does that even work?
A.: Bye, mom. Dad, talk to her, please. Dad?
Mom: Dad?
[Pause.]
A.: I guess he's asleep.
Dad: No, I'm here. I took the phone away from my ear because I couldn't stand to listen to this horsecrap.
A.: [laughs]
Mom: Please! Like you don't think it's important!
A.: Bye, mom. Bye, dad.
Dad: Bye. Have a good night.
Mom: Keep your options open. Goodnight.

Monday morning roundup

Alabama is reaping what it sowed.

It's a fraught time to be Santa.

May the best memes win.

Gotta hand it to Newt Gingrich, dude's got a sense of humor.

Sunday roundup

Do you think this is the Israel that my generation of American Jews is going to lobby for?

A new book on the women of the French resistance and their time in Birkenau.

Subtle(r) ways to flaunt wealth.

Saturday roundup

Manchester (NH) is having trouble absorbing refugees.

A man makes the most of his schizophrenia.

United Russia is losing support.

Gail Collins on Ron Paul.

On the new domesticity

What to make of "the new domesticity"? Ms. Matchar sums up my take on the whole situation here:

“Sometimes a can of jam is just a can of jam,” as Freud (never) said. Our tech-saturated generation craves creative hands-on activities, and nostalgic hobbies such as canning, knitting and baking fit the bill. We’ve realized that just because something was historically devalued as “women’s work,” that doesn’t mean we have to shun it to be taken seriously in the world. Plenty of young men are embracing their domestic sides, too.

She loses me here:

But lately, many women (and a few men) are diving into domesticity with a sense of moral purpose. The homemade jar of jam becomes a symbol of resistance to industrial food and its environment-defiling ways.

I'm all about resistance to industrial food, but it's not homemade canning that's going to make the difference. In any case, just like I don't see why food preparation is a gender issue (I did want to smack someone who called me a housewife because I made dinner for a group of people when we were renting a cabin at the beach a year ago), I don't see "the new domesticity" as a backlash to feminism. But then she writes this:

Many champions of the DIY movement explicitly say that domestic work shouldn’t be about gender. But I’ve also noticed a resurgence of old-fashioned gender essentialism from some surprising sources. I’ve lately been hearing things like “There’s just something natural about women taking on the nurturing role in the home” coming out of the mouths of women’s studies grads and Ivy League PhDs.

I don't know about that. There's something to be said for basic domestic skills... my dad always says that everyone should be able to sew on a button, and even I can do that.

It may be that a young stay-at-home mom in Pennsylvania recently told the writer, “The only way to know what’s in your food is to make it yourself.” But I could have told her that too. I've told you that, and I mean it.

I'm dating someone who knows as much about cooking as Gracie does, and is about as handy with kitchen gadgets. Would I judge this level of cluelessness more harshly if he were a woman? Probably not. I don't judge it; it just baffles me. I didn't learn to cook because I thought I should, as a woman; I learned to cook because I like to eat good food, and, my upbringing was not far from what Gary Shteyngart wrote in "Sixty-Nine Cents":

My parents believed that going to restaurants and buying clothes not sold by weight on Orchard Street were things done only by the very wealthy or the very profligate, maybe those extravagant “welfare queens” we kept hearing about on television.

Not long ago--perhaps the last time I was in Boston--my father--not my mother, who couldn't believe I would pay for a professional haircut, but my father--talked about how he couldn't believe the way his coworkers treated themselves to restaurant food willy-nilly. For us, restaurants were always a special treat. And even now that my parents can afford the occasional restaurant dinner, they don't particularly like it, and this is partly because they're both decent cooks. Yes, my father, too, is a decent cook. He recently told me that he started making vegetables "my way." As for me, especially being vegan (not to mention, mortgaged), restaurant food is rarely worth it. I can make decent food at home and know what's in it.

The guy I'm dating is a vegetarian. This shocked the hell out of one of my friends--the same one who came to my AVD party last year having eaten ahead of time because she didn't think she'd be able to eat anything vegan. Anyway, this friend urged me to play down my own veganism, not mention it to guys, because no one wanted to date a vegetarian, much less a vegan. Guys like to eat, she said. But I digress. So, this vegetarian I'm dating, who didn't own a salt shaker until a couple of weeks ago (after I sent him home with some leftovers and suggested he maybe add salt), didn't think that individuals could make decent vegetarian food. That it had to be ordered at restaurants. We're working on that.

Friday evening roundup

The Economist charts women in the workforce.

Best relationship advice ever.

Friday morning roundup

The African Union has surprised with its military successes, but it's struggling to win the peace.

"But what did she expect would happen" is never the right response to sexual assault.

I can't believe, in this day and age, that access to birth control is even an issue.

What do you (last-)name your kids?

Thanksgiving roundup

I've never cared for referring to Thanksgiving as "Turkey Day," only partly because it's not exactly a great holiday for the turkeys. It's even more that it's about so much more than excessive food. Food, great. Excessive food, not so much. I posted two links about gratitude yesterday, and here's one about hope. That's what the holiday is about, and it's not unimportant.

On a more humorous note, Gail Collins counts her blessings.

Wednesday evening roundup

Eggs can apparently be very bad for you.

Mothers and mothers-to-be, the future of the country is in your hands. Please don't let us down.

Apples without pesticides. Oh, did I mention it was the New Yorker food issue? More on apples here.

I don't understand why Amy takes such offense here; apparently, neither do these people (two separate links there). I once met a guy for dinner and he was wearing a sweatshirt. It was ridiculous.

Wednesday morning roundup

Gratitude is the answer. Here's some tips for raising grateful children.

I talked to my mother the other day. She said she and dad looked at a beautiful house with a beautiful view, where they like to walk, but she couldn't make an offer because the house didn't have a basement and what would she do with all the stuff currently in her basement.

Tara Parker-Pope shares some vegan recipes from Candle 79. That ravioli looks amazing.

Tuesday morning roundup

Yes, the whole 'Facebook friend' aspect mars the study, but within those parameters, the 4.74 degrees of separation finding is interesting.

Way to dramatize what's happening in Bahrain.

Monday evening roundup

I never really thought about Twilight bashing as a gender issue. I haven't seen the films (nor read the books) or followed the debates, so it wouldn't be right to weigh in, but I guess she makes a reasonable point (i.e. why don't we make fun of cheezy guy shit with the same rancor?).

Really, HuffPo? You couldn't find a Russian speaker to translate 30 seconds of video? I can tell you what she said, but I still can't tell you why she flipped off the POTUS.

Yes, good humor is based on truth. On that note, let's all give thanks to Eric Idle for a Shouts and Murmurs that is actually funny.

You can flip through the entire slide show but I particularly loved this photo and this one.

Monday morning roundup

The key takeaway from a long profile of Elizabeth Warren and her campaign:

But many of the people looking to Warren, as they did to Obama before her, are expecting material things — like readable credit-card pitches or safe bridges or jobs or a vote on a bill to create jobs — that are, at the moment, figments as imaginative as dragons and their slayers. And that’s dangerous, because when the person we decided was going to fix it all isn’t able to change much, it’s not just that we get blue but also that we give up. We mistake the errors of our own overblown estimations for broken promises. And instead of learning, reasonably, that one person can’t do everything, we persuade ourselves that no person can do anything.

The key is not just emotional investment in election-year saviors but also an engagement with policy. A commitment to organized expressions of political desire — like those that have been harnessed so effectively in recent years on the right — have been absent for far too long in Democratic politics. Now, with labor protests, campaigns to block voter suppression and personhood measures and the occupations of cities around the nation, there seem to be some small signs that liberals are remembering that politics requires more of them, that they need movements, not just messiahs. But their engagement must deepen, broaden and persist beyond last week’s elections and well beyond next year’s elections if there is any chance for politicians like Warren to succeed.

Because while she might provide her supporters and her constituents a voice that, if properly tuned, will rattle doors that are now gummed shut, what Elizabeth Warren cannot do is fix this mess herself.

Meanwhile, for the one percent of the one percent: first class is getting ridiculous.

Sunday morning roundup

Many fewer people are starving in Somalia, but people aren't out of danger.

The Census spotlights the near-poor.

Food facts (and happenings) to be thankful for.

What century do we live in? How is birth control controversial?

Well, of course talent matters.

Gail Collins on candidates and think tanks.

Phone call

Dad: Hello?
A.: Where are you guys?
Dad: [Sigh] Shopping. Mom decided we needed to go shopping. She just picked up some piece of crap and said, "look, this is $5!"
A.: [Laughs.]
Dad: Here, talk to her.
A.: Hello?
Mom: So, when are you coming to visit?
A.: In late December. We talked about this.
Mom: Well, good. I'm very much looking forward to your visit, and so is Maria.
A.: Did you tell her I was spoken for?
Mom: Yeah. So?
A.: So?
Mom: You never know. Besides, nothing wrong with a little competition. Oooh, those shoes are great!
A.: [Sigh.]