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Emily Y, with a couple of days to let Obama's first annual address to Congress sink in, I totally agree with you re: its uncomfortable expansiveness. He exuded a wonderful self-possession, an almost amazing glow and confidence—amazing given the uneven success of his administration's first moves and the difficult decisions he faces. OK, GOP responder Bobby Jindal's delivery was worse than Obama's—oh, God, so much worse. Indeed, his bizarrely lulling, cheesy mantra "Americans can do anything!" made Jindal sound like a child therapist.
But wasn't Obama's message kind of the same thing? Yes, he made rhetorical nods to sacrifice, but to sacrifices (like relying more on alternative energy sources) that aren't much of a sacrifice at all for the progressive-minded. Both Obama's and Jindal's expansive optimism that Americans Can Do Anything!, even cure cancer while crawling out of a deep recession, reminded me of the every-day-just-goes-up-and-up mood of ... the subprime mortgage bubble.
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Enough about dogs, presidential and otherwise. How about this disturbing story from today's Times about domesticated monkeys? It's pegged to the sad tale of Sandra Herold, whose pet chimpanzee, Travis, viciously mauled her friend last week. If you're unconvinced about the idiocy of keeping a wild animal as a pet, check out this passage about the proud owners of Higgins the baboon:
When Higgins was 3, he slept with the couple, often awakening Bob in the morning by climbing to the bedroom rafters and dropping onto Bob’s stomach. On one occasion, they got in a wrestling match, and Higgins put one of his “steel-like fingernails” through Bob’s scrotum.
I don't really have anything to add to that.
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Jessica, I, too, read the Los Angeles Times piece on "john school," the traffic-schoollike program for men who seek out prostitutes. As the article states, programs like this one are nothing new; they've been doing it in San Francisco for years. And, at least according to the article, it sounds as if it's an at least moderately effective way to discourage johns from seeking out working girls in the future. Typically, arrested johns pay a fine, do or not do a few days in jail, and are done with it. In this case, johns who fulfill the course requirements (they must be first-time offenders, have to take an HIV test, are required to fork over $600) can choose to attend john school, for which they will score a "free pass—of sorts." The solicitation charge is held over the john's head for a year after completing the course, and if he doesn't repeat offend, his case is closed. According to one study, since the San Francisco program was created over a decade ago, recidivism rates have dropped by 30 percent. Why? Well, perhaps it's because, at least in the case of the Los Angeles john school, looking at pictures of the penile consequences of sexually transmitted diseases, listening to the hard-core testimonies of real street workers, and learning how johns can get set up and robbed instead of laid doesn't really inspire johns to go out and repeated offend. What john schools lack, though, is any kind of deep-seated interest in why men seeking out prostitutes. As I've mentioned previously, I solicited stories from men about why they pay for sex as part of an online project called Letters from Johns. Without understanding the complicated realities of johns' psychologies, the system fails those caught up in it.
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I wanted to watch last night's finale of Top Chef, I really did. But I can no longer stand to watch Padma Lakshmi on TV. She is like a bad porn actress, slashing knives past her ample, tanned bosom, popping champagne corks, saying "mmmmm" and licking her lips. And I can guarantee you that she never swallows any of that food. Probably there is a gilded basin in the back room where she gently deposits the morsels. In this fawning Vanity Fair profile, she tries to pass herself off as a trash-talking intellectual, Germaine Greer for the post-feminist age. But the phoniness grates.
“I wish I could have shared this Emmy nomination with him," she says of ex, Salman Rushdie. ” Now they were divorcing, and, she said, “I’m really fucking sad.”
Yeah, and wipe the doorknob on your way out, Salman. Now, we know who's taken his place in her bedroom.
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Maybe since this whole presidential dog thing is such a symbolic act, Obama should use it as a teaching moment. It could be a perfect opportunity for him in his quest to convince us of who truly is man's best friend. How better to do that than to name the dog Government! The instructive moments are endless:
"Whose turn is it to feed Government?"
"Aww, you're getting so big!"
"Government, you're not supposed to be in there!"
"Someone go chase Government, he's run off again!"
But seriously, I'm starting to wonder if Mr. President realizes that all his promises have price tags. Somebody's not doing the math if they think raising taxes on 2 percent of the wealthy is going to fund a bailout, a whole new health care infrastructure, and push our transition to alternative energy. All this money will have to come from somewhere if not from taxes. Print more? Call China?
Lots of parents don't give in to their kids pleas for pets because they realize they're not prepared for the cost and responsibility involved. I'm starting to feel like it would be nice if our president could show that much restraint.
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I can't stop thinking about today's article in the New York Times about parents who obsess over food choices, who are sure to serve only organic food and have "5-year-olds ... [who] can't eat an Oreo cookie without being concerned about trans fats." On the one hand, it's tempting to dismiss the whole article as what my Slate colleague Jack Shafer would call "bogus trend-spotting": stories that hype a "trend" that may or may not exist, fueled by anecdotes rather than statistics and filled with vague terms like "many," "more" or "a sign that ..." However, the anecdotes are heartbreaking: A mom worries that her daughter is bulimic, but it turns out the preteen just doesn't like brown rice. When a dietitian tells the girl it's probably OK to order white rice when she eats out, the mom freaks. An 8-year-old is afraid of salt. Kids are afraid to partake in birthday cake at friends' parties.
Now, I will be the first to admit that my kids aren't the world's best eaters, and their reluctance to try new things and refusal to eat vegetables has driven me to tears in the past. And I'll be the first to admit that we could probably do a better job in preparing healthful food in our household. But I've learned that it does NO GOOD to obsess over it. I focus on the bright spots: Our kids drink no pop, very little juice (except for orange juice) and eat almost no candy, cookies, or chips. (I'm pretty sure there's a Ziploc bag full of rock-hard Tootsie Rolls, stale Skittles, and other remnants of Halloween lurking in the back of my pantry.) They eat fast food a few times a year, and even sit-down restaurants are a treat, not a regular part of their week. We talk to our 5-year-old about the importance of eating a variety of foods and about how healthy foods will help him grow bigger and taller, but if he's checking out the cereal box, it's to see if there's a toy, not to read the nutritional information.
It's easy to be annoyed that parents are seemingly passing their own neuroses on to their children, but I think there might be more to it. It's almost like they are passing off some of the responsibility that comes with being a parent: "My kid doesn't eat bad food, so of course he is healthy. I've done my part." The problem is, such strict control doesn't teach kids about making careful, measured decisions—"I'd like fries with my dinner, so I'll eat an extra apple tomorrow"—something that will help them as they grow up and go out on their own. It's impossible not be reminded of Todd Marinovich, a quarterback for USC and (ever so briefly) the Los Angeles Raiders. Marinovich's father controlled every aspect of his son's childhood, famously denying him Big Macs and Twinkies and surrounding him with specialized coaches and a psychologist. Marinovich flamed out, getting arrested for cocaine possession while still at USC in 1991. Subsequent arrests hint of a long struggle with drugs. ESPN.com ranks him as one of the biggest flops in sports. Granted, not every kid whose parents make her eat organic tofu is going to go to college and find a drug dealer, but there is more to raising a healthy kid than what you serve for dinner.
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Jess, how about this one for baby brothels: Six Pennsylvania teens are facing child pornography charges after the girls sent the boys nude pics of themselves by text message, known to the teen set (to clue in all ignorant parents) as "sexting." The girls, who are 14 or 15, face charges of manufacturing or distributing child porn. The boys, who are 16 or 17, face charges of possession. I don't know if the disparity in charges is fair or unfair. If my memory of high school serves me correctly, the power dynamics in these skanky relationships run all ways.
Our own Dahlia Lithwick explains what's involved in distributing porn of yourself if you're underage. Your average teen can explain the thrill of seeing an ant-size image of a naked classmate.
A recent study claims that 20 percent of teens admit to sexting at some point. However, the study asked about sending "semi-nude" or "sexually suggestive content." Which, as my friend Linda Perlstein, expert on all things preteen, points out, can mean "Hey baby, here's me in my swimsuit" to a confused 13-year-old. So as usual with these teen trends—grinding, blow jobs—likely an exaggeration.
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Have you ever been burned by a Modern Love column in the Sunday New York Times? Ever opened the paper to read about the boorish behavior of Nick or Pooky or Husband X, only to realize that Husband X is, in fact, you? Or do you know anyone who's had such an experience? Well, now is your chance to respond. If you, or anyone you know, has been written about by an ex-lover or ex-husband or girlfriend of an ex-husband in a Modern Love column, XX is asking to hear your side. Please send all leads, rants, long-stored and never sent vicious e-mails to hannawrosin@gmail.com.
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Now that the Obamas' commitment to the Portuguese water dog has been thrown into question (apparently the matter is still under debate) I wanted to second Julia's unashamed poodle partisanship—best breed ever, and completely undeserving of the "girly" label the president has pinned on them (unless by "girly" he means awesomely smart, athletic, and friendly, and why shouldn't he?) I also wanted to tell Hanna that my own beloved childhood poodle (who was gray, not apricot) was named nothing other than: Muffin!
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There are two stories today about how different prostitution-related crimes are being prosecuted. One is the story of 16-year-olds Tatiana Tye and Jazmine Finley, who are accused of running a brothel out of an apartment in Phoenix that they allegedly rented solely for prostitution. Both girls are being tried as adults, and according to CNN, Tye is charged with "one count of child prostitution and three counts of pandering, or serving as a go-between or liaison for sexual purposes," while Finley faces "nine counts of child prostitution; two counts of receiving earnings of a prostitute; and one count of pandering."
The other comes from Los Angeles, where men caught soliciting prostitutes are given the opportunity to attend a scared-straight-style program rather than face prosecution. According to the L.A. Times:
For eight hours, the men are yelled at, pleaded with and lectured. One weary-looking john, who says he has come straight from a night shift at work, receives a firm shake from Margolis every time he nods off and eventually is told to stand up to stay awake. Each presentation is aimed at either scaring them straight with all the terrible things that can be inflicted upon a john or opening their eyes to the ugly realities of the sex-for-money industry. It's not meant as a feel-good therapy session or an opportunity to explain away bad decisions, so there is no give-and-take in the class. The johns are not allowed to ask questions or speak. They sit and listen.
A similar program in San Francisco boasts only a 30 percent recidivism rate. There seems to be a dissonance to the leniency shown here and the harsh penalties Tatiana and Jazmine are facing. Is the decision to try them as adults a sound one?
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Time for a guessing game. What "things" are being discussed in the following text, excerpted from a forthcoming ad campaign, aimed explicitly at women?
"These things are the best invention since the push-up bra," one woman says. The other, admiring her bra-enhanced chest, responds, "I wouldn't go that far."
Cheeseburgers in a can? Blowguards? Mortgage-backed securities? Tropicana's new packaging? Take 5s? Nope! The correct answer is: Baked Lays. Well, at least it's true that Baked Lays aren't quite as awesome as push-up bras, what with them being salted cardboard and all. (Though the other kind of baked lays, Matthew McConaughey's presumed speciality, are obviously way awesomer than body-sculpting undergarments).
This snippet of dialogue comes from a print ad that is part of Frito-Lays new, big push to sell Baked Lays (and Baked Doritos, Cheetos, Tostitos, etc.) to women, who snack twice as much as men, just not on salty junk food, a situation that clearly needs rectifying. The Times has the skinny on the "thinking" that went into the new campaign. Some highlights:
Part of the strategy was to tone down the packaging and show off healthy ingredients in the snacks. ... Baked Lay's will no longer be in a shiny yellow bag, but in a matte beige bag that displays pictures of the ingredients like spices or ranch dressing. ... At the grocery store, Frito-Lay will pull all of its women-friendly snacks together at the end of the aisle where possible, Mr. Jones said. Often, he said, the chip aisle is disorganized and unappealing to women.
"The obvious is what's insulting to women," Freud said, like a pink package or something highlighting calories. ... Frito-Lay will introduce television, print and online advertising in early March, that features four cartoon women who are "fab, funny, fearlessly female," who talk about exercising, eating and men—something of an animated "Sex and the City."
I highly recommend reading the article in full because it taught me many, many astounding things besides the fact that ranch dressing is considered a healthy ingredient. Among them: Women feel guilty all the time, about everything, especially eating, but not if what they are eating comes in beige; ads mimicking Sex and the City are not too "obvious"; advertisers are now using "neuroscience" to make assertions about "women's brains" that are so hilariously banal and speciously scientific ("A memory and emotional center, the hippocampus, was proportionally larger in women, so [Lays' advertiser] concluded that women would look for characters they could empathize with.") I'm fairly certain Clueless's Cher Horowitz—"Sometimes you have to show a little skin. This reminds boys of being naked, and then they think of sex"—has gone into advertising.
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The Washington Post's Ylan Mui writes on the new American trend of "insourcing." This means, basically, do for yourself what others used to do for you. Apparently, people are pulling up their own weeds, dyeing their own hair, grooming their own Portugese water dogs, changing their own car headlights, baking their own birthday cakes, asking the manicurist to cut nails extra short to increase time between visits. One woman Mui quotes even tried dyeing a dress, to make it seem new! Stores, meanwhile, are reporting increased sales of sewing kits, car filters, and herb garden starters. I keep the XX lipstick level at 40. Until we are actually, you know, growing potatoes, or biting our own nails off, we're not yet desperate.
In the meantime, readers who are attempting their own creative insourcing, please send me ideas: hannawrosin@gmail.com.
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Just wanted to flag this great piece in The Root about Venus and Serena Williams—not simply because my sister and I played competitive tennis as youngsters, and were constantly being compared to the Compton-born phenoms—but because author Jewel Edwards is preaching hard truths about standards of beauty when it comes to athletics. Extra points to this piece for subtlety; it took me a while to realize that Edwards is male! His awesome point:
Black female athletes, on the other hand, are put in the unique position where developing their bodies makes them the object of spectacle. For female athletes, the perennial insult is, "You look like a man." As a result, any girl—black or white—involved in sports has to make choices that a boy never has to make.
That’s a very important insight; and the tough calls faced by female athletes extend not just to physical appearance but to lifestyle choices, such as when to have a baby, get hitched, or embark upon puberty.
Samantha brought up Michelle Obama’s guns getting lots of attention on Tuesday evening. (I thought that going sleeveless in February was a bit gauche—but that’s another tale.) Obama looks great, but that kind of positive reinforcement is a stark counterpoint to the ogling and snark that attends the biceps of the decorated Williams sisters. It’s clearly hurtful:
Serena, when asked about her body yet again, said, "Just because I have large bosoms, and I have a big ass [laughter], I swear, my waist is 30 inches, 29 to 30 inches, it’s really small! I have the smallest waist, but just because I have those two assets, it looks like I’m not fit."
Imagine that! You are the most dominant person in your sport in the world, but you consistently have to defend having your curves. Listening to commentators persistently speculate and scrutinize Serena about her weight and fitness—which are metaphors for her body—is like having the buttocks and breasts of Hottentot Venus debated for public consumption.
Yes, imagine that. More extra points for bringing up Saartje Bartman—made famous once more by inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander in this phenomenal work. But in terms of beauty norms: Really, what’s the difference between upscale yoga arms and those that can bench 200?