Monday evening roundup

This personhood thing should scare the $hit out of everybody.

Russian activists continue to inspire, at their own risk.

The role of luck. My favorite part, about people who successfully leverage luck:

They use difficulty as a catalyst to deepen purpose, recommit to values, increase discipline, respond with creativity and heighten productive paranoia — translating fear into extensive preparation and calm, clearheaded action. Resilience, not luck, is the signature of greatness.

Halloween morning roundup

India's middle class discovers political engagement.

Is it okay that I don't have mixed feelings about genetically-engineered mosquitoes?

From Elif Batuman's "Natural Histories":

The body of the Egyptian vulture is brown and off-white, but its face is bright yellow. "They get that color from eating shit, which is full of yellow carotenoid pigments," Çağan [Şekercioğlu] explained. In males, teh bright-yellow face is an indicator of fitness and virility, signalling a capacity to eat enormous quantities of shit without getting sick.

That, my friends, is a turn of phrase.

***
Still haven't read yesterday's Post. I'll catch up this evening and let you know what I find.

Saturday morning roundup

Interesting article about Chipotle's philosophy and business model. Keep in mind that the verdict's still out on no-till, though less so when it's organic anyway.

Greek Parliamentarians get some absurd perks. On an unrelated note, I love that there's a Greek city called "Drama."

A very analytical look at the act of not liking Coldplay.

Mom repeats a classic

You know what you should think about? Maybe take up dancing. It would help with everything. I've just noticed that the way you walk... it's very man-like. It's just... goal-oriented. Dancing would help that. No, that's very important. Really, it helps in every way.

Thursday evening roundup

I suspect there's a real need for immigration reform.

Be wary of the pinkwashing and other brand-name causes.

I, too, don't care who wrote Shakespeare.

Wednesday evening roundup with rant

India's loving the fast food. Happy Diwali, by the way. Whoa--"Diwali" raised no spell-check eyebrows. That's awesome.

This kind of thing--let me be specific--this very liberal interpretation of a study f*ing infuriates me. Of course obese people forced to subsist on 550 calories a day are going to be hungry and gain it back. Are you people insane? How dare you pretend journalistic integrity while trying to extrapolate that to a general inability of people to keep weight off?

But if that f*ing infuriates me, just wait, because here's something that really f*ing infuriates me. I don't even know where to start. Maybe it's the straw man/extreme contrast gimmick: Mark Bittman talks about real, homemade food, and Josh Ozersky equates that with overpriced ingredients only available at farmers' markets or Whole Foods. And I don't think Mr. Bittman said that all home-cooking, all the time, is the best solution for everyone. But wait, here's the kicker: "other foods, like, say, fish, won’t exist at all if they are not farmed and most likely will require more high-tech monitoring and government oversight in the future." What? What? What the f* is this douchebag smoking? If fish won't exist if they're not farmed, it's because of how fish are being farmed now. Okay. I need to breathe. Breathe. Okay, let's do it this way: you tell me what's wrong with this sentence: "If the barons of agriculture hadn’t engineered the monstrous phalanxes of corn that everyone is so aghast at, food would be more expensive, and a lot of poor people would be dying from starvation instead of courting diabetes." What about this paragraph:

The U.S. industrial-food machine, Mark Bittman’s disapproval notwithstanding, is a one of the most powerful, responsive, and imaginative entities in history. Its goals may be amoral, in the sense it is driven wholly by profit, with a predictably destructive effect, but it and it alone has the power to feed the future of America in a better, or at least less resource-intensive way. Because whatever the future holds, it isn’t going to be 300 million Americans feeding themselves with handmade tagliatelle from pristine Vermont CSAs, no matter how much one might wish otherwise.

This just hits all of it at the same time. I'm pretty sure Mark Bittman--the Minimalist--uses dry pasta. Actually, I've seen him do it. Also, for the f*ing gazillionth time, not only industrial agriculture can feed millions. It's just not f*ing true.

***
There was something similar to this in "Bossypants." Tina Fey talks about how when she was at Second City, she proposed a skit, and the director barked that no one wanted to see two women on stage, talking. Years later, she dedicated her and Amy Poehler's Sarah Palin/Hillary Clinton sketch to that foresighted genius. Well, I couldn't help but smile when I read this article about Jill Abramson. Here's an excerpt:

When Eileen Shanahan, who went on to become a well-respected economics reporter, arrived for an interview with Clifton Daniel, the assistant managing editor, in 1962, she hid her desire to become an editor. “All I ever want is to be a reporter on the best newspaper in the world,” she told him.

“That’s good,” Daniel responded, as Shanahan told the story, “because I can assure you no woman will ever be an editor at the New York Times.”

I love it.

Wednesday morning roundup

Holy $hit:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2012 - The Great Right Hope - The 180 Club
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

***
The nation's top earners doubled their share of the nation's income in the last three decades.

The fight for rural Britain's future.

The jury rules in favor of the dog.

Oh, Smith, sometimes you remind me what a good fit we were.

Quick Tuesday morning roundup

Don't be lulled into complacency by the appearance of nice.

I guess I missed Food Day.

Sunday afternoon roundup

A broad look at human rights prosecutions shows that justice makes a difference.

I know you're sick of OWS/tea party compare and contrasts, but this isn't really one and it makes a good point.

Repairing the Cathedral has brought some interesting historical information, for those who care about that kind of thing.

Americans have mixed feelings about immigration.

Was Gertrude Stein a fraud?

Tom Sietsema dines in Boston.

Sunday morning roundup

Are celebrities sympathetic to OWS doing more harm than good?

I have principles, but I don't feel the need to have them tattooed on my ass. Seriously, though, those are some very good ideas.

Okay, whatever.

Careful with those emoticons. The results can be hilarious:

“In the text function of my BlackBerry there is a sidebar menu of emoticons (how ridiculous is that?) that shows the yellow smiley faces, except they are also crying and raging, and winking and blowing kisses, etc.,” Dr. Bates wrote. “I sent a fairly new acquaintance a ‘big hug’ emoticon — which, for the record, was ironic. But anyway, on his iPhone it came up with the symbols, not the smiley face, which don’t look anything like a big hug. From his perspective they look like a view of, er, splayed lady parts: ({}).“He then ran around his lab showing colleagues excitedly what I had just sent him. Half (mostly men) concurred with his interpretation, and the others (mostly women) didn’t and probably thought he was kind of a desperate perv.”

Also, I really like this analogy:

“To me, it’s like bad moviemaking, where as soon as Dad grabs the puppy, the shot immediately goes to Junior’s teary face — like the director does not trust the audience to have an appropriately developed emotion by itself,” Ms. Farinet wrote in an e-mail. “That’s what emoticons do. PLEASE don’t ‘show’ me that I should be happy-faced or sad-faced or that you are sad-faced or happy-faced.
“Can you imagine,” wrote Ms. Farinet, “reading the end of ‘The Great Gatsby’ like that?: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past :-(”

Thank you, Sasha Frere-Jones. I also don't like Coldplay, and sometimes I've wondered whether that means there's something wrong with me. Thank you for letting me know I'm not alone.

***
Haven't looked at the Post yet; I'll be back this afternoon.

Thursday evening roundup

Ignoring the need for regulation: a cautionary tale. Read it. Then watch this:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Indecision 2012 - Job-Killing EPA
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Things get interesting when type A parents have mellow kids. See also this insightful take on the article I posted earlier, about parenting for today.

My support for the President dipped today when I was robocalled by his campaign (or something), but this is redeeming information.

Use your f*ing heads, people. How generalizable is a study that bases humor potential solely on captioning New Yorker cartoons? I've thought about, but never managed, captioning New Yorker cartoons, but I've written $hit that makes people laugh.

Be angry

Be very angry. And vote accordingly.

Wednesday evening roundup and response to comment

To follow up on this morning's ecumenical post: Mitt Romney's right answer.

I'm not sure why I'm even posting this, because these vegan recipes are not terribly original or impressive, but she gets props for caring. And for saying that the less she uses dairy, the less she misses it.

California olive oils are catching up in cachet with Mediterranean ones. I highly recommend Olave, which, being Chilean, may be less local than Californian oils, but it's organic, sustainable, and very tasty.

***
Very good points. I hadn't thought about that, but you're absolutely right: dudes do get less attractive. Even the George Clooneys of this world do.

Ecumenical Wednesday morning

I do not like Mitt Romney. I don't want him to be president--although he's the lessest (i.e. least) of his party's evils. I think his behavior as bishop was despicable, as are other acts described in that article. But I can't sanction tarring all Mormons with the most ridiculous BS of their coreligionists. Every religion has it's crazy. We can't go point to that crazy and say, "this means that every believer is crazy." Maybe I'm brainwashed--I know a fair amount of Mormons, and they're awesome people. Maybe I'm sympathetic, because I don't want to be held responsible for the level of crazy, current or historical, of either Jews or Russians. And I doubt all Buddhists want to be associated with Sri Lanka's genocidal Buddhists. We could go on with every denomination out there, and examples of associated crazy people and crazy acts. But let's hold Mitt Romney accountable for his bullshit, not for his religion.

Tuesday evening roundup and ramble

Call it OWS or OWES, but it's not the Tea Party of the left.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

I am not an ideologue. There are conservatives whom I respect tremendously, and Anne Applebaum is one. Which is why I'm very disappointed with her column on OWS. The whole argument that OWS is remotely anti-democratic or detrimental to democracy, specifically because the protests occur in nations equipped with democratic institutions to address grievances, misses the point: people feel that those institutions are not working for them, that they've been coopted by special interests. They want their democratic institutions to work for them.

Believe me when I say that domestic violence is never funny. But this is not domestic violence, so I have no problem finding it f*ing hilarious.

Yes, it is ostentation in matters of food that infuriates people.

***
I am blessed to have health insurance, an awesome doctor, and health center within my office building. I leveraged all three today, and though the rest of this ramble concerns solely the third, I just wanted to count my blessings.

I was at the health center, filling out paperwork, when the center coordinator complimented my shoes. I thanked her, told her they were from a thrift shop; she said I could do that because I have small feet; I said, hardly. One thing led to another, and I started telling her that I was now in the market for synthetic shoes, and that I was struggling terribly, because they were so ugly and so expensive. At the same time. We talked a bit more about shoes, and I went in to get my shot.

When I came out, she asked me if I were, perchance, vegan. One of the nurses joined the conversation, said she had recently become a vegetarian but couldn't imagine giving up dairy. I told her I was the same way for a while, but I started feeling much better almost immediately after making the change, and wouldn't want to go back. So they asked me questions, asked me for recipes. I told them about how I recently spent the weekend with eight other people, and no one noticed, much less complained, about the three vegan dinners in a row. If it's done right, you don't notice what's missing. Anyway, I promised to send them recipes, and I hope they find what works for them. I'm glad people are interested, curious.

Quick Tuesday morning roundup

Jennifer Rubin has a point. I don't agree with the spin of her point--the mainstream media (or at least Jon Stewart) has covered some anti-Semitic aspects of OWES. But, as she herself acknowledges, the hateful fringes don't undermine the overall message.

Look, I like to know what's in my food, and to some extent, where it came from, but this is ridiculous.

Monday morning roundup and response to comment

More awesome OWES signs.

Herman Cain thinks you're stupid.

This, my friends, is why (some) conservatives piss me off. The federal government is imposing marriage? Imposing marriage on whom? How is someone else's marriage an imposition?

Muscular women are sexy, too.

***
In all fairness, I don't pretend to have known better than the people who bought at the height of the market; I, too, just didn't have the money to buy earlier. The only thing I did right was not buy in spite of not having the money. I had people tell me that it didn't matter how much a house cost, because it would keep going up in value. I chose to disregard those people. I had (smarter) people tell me that no market goes up indefinitely and to wait until I found something I could afford. And I had the sense not to buy for the sake of buying; I bought only when I found the house that worked for me. So I don't stand in judgment of people who bought at a less opportune time; I just don't see why they should get their mortgages forgiven, when I won't.

The truth is, you can follow all the best advice and best conventional wisdom and still get burned. That's what the OWES protests, at their essence, are largely about. Just like I was "lucky" that I wasn't in the market for a house when prices were uber-inflated, I was lucky to get out of college, and then grad school, in a better economy. But there's a generation of people who followed the rules, and got screwed. They were told that student debt was good debt, that it was an investment in their future. And it probably is. But for now, they're in debt because they followed the rules, and the bankers who broke the rules and f*ed everything up for everyone got bailed out.

***
I don't know whether you read the entire Atlantic article and/or some of the comments, but the comments are truly revealing. A ton of them are from guys who say "ha! women are getting burned for thinking they can ignore their biological predetermination! What did they think was going to happen?" It's that old line about how men get more desirable with age (because they get wealthier) and women get less so (because they become less good looking, theoretically, and less fertile). Let's take the first half of that equation first: these guys are failing to realize that as women become more financially independent, men's financial situation is less important. So that leaves the second half, to which I say, less fertile, sure, less attractive, bullshit. Leaving aside the reality that women of all ages partner up and get married, and that a lot of people who marry younger get divorce or stay stuck in unhappy marriages, it's just absolute bullshit that older women are inherently less desirable. I just *don't* buy it. And I personally hope that there are children in my future--particularly biological children--but, like the author, I refuse to let my biology dictate my future. In other words, I refuse to devalue myself as a partner just because I'm no longer 25. If anything, I think I'll make a much better partner and mother in my 30s than I ever would have in my 20s. Some people will disagree, but I'm sure I disagree with their value as partners and parents, too.

Monday morning roundup

This is so incredibly poignant.

Kenya has invaded Somalia.

No no no food stamps for fast food.

What to make of the baby down-boom?

Wall Street might wanna quit whining.

Bill Keller's not sure that our political system can be favorably compared to Slovakia's:

“We are similar to Americans,” a Slovak official told me. “We have fragmented domestic politics, but at the end of the day we get things done.”

I told him I was flattered to have my country compared to Slovakia, and he was right about the political fragmentation, but I wasn’t so sure about the getting things done.

McDonald's in Italy goes gourmet.

Shakespeare really did write Shakespeare.

Sunday roundup

The reset-with-Russia's human rights component.

The president's letters remind him of his community organizer days.

I thank Ms. Mangu-Ward for tackling the healthy-food-is-expensive myth, but I don't appreciate her attitude toward transparency and information. It's not that simple: it can be pretty hard to find out what's in your food, and I know that--for example, when I'm traveling--I really appreciate knowing. And you shouldn't need a keen eye for detail to decipher the ingredients in your food. You shouldn't have to know that casein is a milk protein to know that Trader Joe's rice cheese isn't dairy-free.

When should the Post draw the line at colorful language?

Tom Toles.

In which I snapped at my mother

Mom: Hello?
A.: [Hack, hack] Hello.
Mom: Your cough has gotten that bad!
A.: Yes, it has. I actually feel fine but don't have much of a voice.
Mom: No temperature?
A.: Doubtful. Just a sore throat. Anyway, you called?
Mom: Yeah... I had a question... what was it? What was it? Did I ask any questions in the message I left last night?
A.: No, you just said to call when I was available, and added, "I hope you know that this is your mother."
Mom: Oh. What did I want to ask you?
A.: I don't know.

Mom consults dad and a family friend who's visiting.

Mom: Oh! That stone we bought in China--what was it?
A.: I have no idea.

Why is my mother asking me about stones? I don't know anything about stones.

Mom: No, what was it--the green one?
A.: Turquoise? Jade?
Mom: No, neither of those.
A.: Then I don't know.
Mom: That stone we got in China--
A.: I DON'T KNOW, MOM!
Mom: Could you answer in an any more agitated voice?
A.: My throat hurts and you keep asking me the same question over and over again.
Mom: Fine. Feel better.
A.: Thanks, bye.