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The New York Times is on a DIY bread kick again. Mark Bittman's 2006 article on the miracle of no-knead bread and a 2008 follow-up piece both spent weeks on the Times' most-emailed list, generating reams of enthusiastic comments and suggestions. This week the paper of record published not one but two articles on baking your own bread: "Better Bread With Less Kneading" and a recipe for Golden Whole Wheat Bread from the newly updated Amy's Bread bakery cookbook.
The question that occurred to me reading every one of these pieces is how anyone trying to succeed in New York or a similarly pricey and competitive cosmopolis finds the time or reason to engage in elaborate culinary exercises like bread making. Perhaps these articles are geared to a middle-aged, upper-middle-class demographic secure in their careers with some leisure time to spare. But the Times articles also validate the idea currently floating in the zeitgeist that while building our actual careers, we under-35-year-olds should also be joyously training ourselves in the art of fresh-market-simple-slow-nouveau soul-food preparation. Think of the multitudinous cook-offs, the astonishing amount of cookware urban twenty-something engaged couples receive as shower and wedding gifts, the "young artisanal food scene," or Noteatingoutinny.com. The overall implication is that if you stock your freezer with Trader Joe's frozen entrees, or worse, anything non-organic, if you aren't making your friends buttercream-frosted birthday cakes or whipping up truffle frittatas, you do not live "seasonally, locally, sustainably, cost-efficiently and healthily"; you are immature and possibly lazy; and the worst of all possible Gen Y fates, you are NOT WELL-ROUNDED.
The truth is that unless you are a chef by profession or truly love cooking, spending a minimum of seven hours a week in the kitchen—and that's just making dinner—is not the best use of an ambitious youngish person's time. Wouldn't the energy we expend making the meatloaf our mothers never did, or feeling guilty that we don't, be better spent connecting with peers, putting in extra hours at work, or pursuing personal projects? If you want an Amy's loaf, get it from Amy's. Otherwise buy a sleeve of Nature's Own, and leave the no-need bread for retirement.
Photograph of woman by Stockbyte/Getty Images.
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The Utah Senate recently approved a measure aimed at punishing women who arrange intentional miscarriages. The overly broad bill authorized homicide charges against expectant mothers who miscarry as a result of an “intentional, knowing, or reckless act.” Under current law, the standard of “recklessness” connotes a situation in which an actor does not intend to cause harm but chooses to disregard a reasonably foreseeable risk. As many bloggers have shrewdly noted, the inclusion of such a minimal mens rea requirement means that women who indulge in an occasional glass of wine, trip on the stairs, or reunite with an abusive spouse may be charged with murder. Given that nearly one out of every five recognized pregnancies ends in miscarriage, manipulative partners could easily use this law to threaten women with a criminal investigation if the relationship turns bad.
While this scenario is deeply troubling, there is another, more perverse consequence of Utah Rep. Carl Wimmer’s carelessly worded bill. As Michelle Goldberg wrote yesterday, in socially conservative countries like Nicaragua where all abortions are illegal, doctors cannot offer pregnant cancer patients chemotherapy out of concern for the fetus. Under Utah’s new law, a pregnant woman diagnosed with cancer in her second or third trimester who consents to receive chemotherapy could be liable for murder if she miscarries. Any woman convicted of this crime—“criminal homicide of an unborn child”—faces a penalty of up to life in prison.
Utah lawmakers were careful to grant immunity to women who refuse medical treatment or fail to follow a physician’s advice, but the drafters did not carve out an exception for women who elect to undergo treatment. By heeding an oncologist’s recommendation to receive therapies that imperil the health of a developing fetus, a cancer victim can now be convicted of murder and face a maximum of life in prison.
Some may argue that this absurd situation is a mere thought experiment meant to stave off anti-choice legislation, as no politically ambitious prosecutor would ever pursue such a case. This is irrelevant. It is no moral failing to risk miscarriage in order to battle a deadly illness like cancer, and any provision so poorly constructed as to permit such a prosecution must not be signed into law.
Photograph of woman by Photodisc/Getty Images.
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There’s a lot that’s still unanswered about the allegations that New York Governor David Paterson might have used his state police detail and his own influence to protect his friend and aide from domestic violence accusations. At the top of my list, as a former domestic-violence prosecutor, is this: What happened to that second-degree harassment charge the Bronx police are said to have written up against David W. Johnson, who’d left the home he shared with his then-girlfriend before police arrived? The New York Times reported that because the charge wasn't a felony, it wasn't referred to detectives for further investigation—but that doesn't mean it went away.
Paterson is sunk, but his aide, David W. Johnson, should be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Johnson’s accuser later appeared several times in family court, seeking an order of protection against Johnson—but New York’s mandatory arrest policy in domestic cases means there should have been criminal-court action. The eventual dismissal of her request in family court (apparently besides the visit from the state police and the alleged phone call with the governor, she'd been unable to serve her order of protection against Johnson, which would have required the cooperation of the NYPD or Johnson's attorney) would have no effect on a criminal case.
As a practical matter, Johnson's accuser is probably safe now—it seems unlikely she'll be needing that order of protection. But her accusations against Johnson—that he choked her, stripped her of a Halloween costume he objected to, smashed her against a dresser, and prevented her from calling for help—should be answered. To do anything else tells victims of domestic violence that what most of them have secretly suspected has been right all along: It's not about justice, it's about expediency. If you're not an emergency, you're on your own.
Photograph of David Paterson by Mandel Ngan/AFP.
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For two weeks every two years, women athletes get top billing in prime time during the female-friendly TV coverage of the Olympic Games. Sometimes those athletes are cute pixies showing off their flexibility and fearlessness on ice or gymnastics apparatus, but sometimes they’re big-thighed speed skaters, dominating downhill racers, or steel-kneed moguls skiers. And sometimes they’re team players. Earlier today, a friend in Toronto described her awed surprise at seeing her 7-year-old daughter shed tears of joy when the Canadian women won hockey gold Thursday night.
But on Thursday morning, IOC President Jacques Rogge hinted that future 7-year-olds might have to find their inspiration elsewhere if other national hockey teams don’t improve their skills enough to give the North Americans some competition. Rogge insisted, “I would personally give them more time to grow, but there must be a period of improvement. We cannot continue without improvement."
The Vancouver Sun summarized the challenges to improving women’s hockey in Europe and beyond—they need funding and better coaching, and the players need a reason to devote time, effort, and money to the game. There’d be far less incentive without the Olympics to shoot for. If women’s hockey is dropped from the Olympics, it would be another blow for team sports—remember, softball was dropped from the Summer Games after 2008.
Seeing the Canadian women celebrate their victory last night, I caught a glimpse of Hayley Wickenheiser, the Great One of the DoubleX set. She has four hockey medals, played on the Canadian Olympic softball team in 2000, and she’s also a mom, which came to mind when I read Anna-Liza Kozma's piece on the CBC Web site about the lack of day-care facilities for Olympic athletes who happen to be parents. The organizers didn’t provide any child care in Vancouver, but a motivated woman named Jane Roos set about lining up donations of space and staff. The “athletes' house” she set up became a place for Olympians’ families to hang out. It sounds like a fantastic idea; it’s just too bad it didn’t come from the Vancouver Organizing Committee.
Photograph of Canadian goalkeeper Kim St-Pierre by Cris Bouroncle/AFP.
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In her new book, The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time, Judith Shulevitz begins with ambivalence about the Sabbath and ends in that same place. As a child, she is profoundly alienated by her mother’s version of enacting Jewish rituals and as a grown-up, she enforces the rules only halfway for her own children. But in the meantime, Shulevitz goes on a fascinating intellectual journey to discover why the Sabbath has an enduring pull not only for Jews, but for Christians and for any of us who are looking for some holy respite from mundane workaday time.
Shulevitz’s book explores the Biblical and also mythical origins of the Sabbath. She explores how Jews, Christians, and secular philosophers have embraced and reacted against it. Most importantly, though, she explains the urgency of a Sabbath in our own age, when mobile time makes it near impossible for us to carve out any discreet space to connect with family and community, or even just the concrete world. She makes you conscious of time and its moral implications in an entirely new way.
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Mayhaps you already have your tickets? Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are hitting the road together next month, along with country singer John Rich (yeah, I've never heard of him either) on a super maverick-y tour called "Taking Our Country Back" that's sure to be filled with grammatically questionable rally chants and lots of white people in Happiness Is a Warm Gun T-shirts. But before your mindhole implodes, consider this: Each event, conference, and pseudo-political "rally" that Palin signs up for is, in my mind at least, a sign that she's positioning herself more towards talk show host than president of the U.S. of A.
The simplest indication of this came months ago: Future presidents keep their governorships. And they tend not to repeatedly sign up for public appearances that only serve to highlight their hilariously bad character flaws (I'm thinking specifically of the taxes-jotted-on-hand incident). As a future politician, Palin is shooting her own foot with her repeated gaffes and D.O.S.es (Demonstrations of Stupidity), but as a public personality she's succeeding mightily. There's still a rabid conservative base that finds resonance with her down-homeness, and now that she's not a direct threat, liberals enjoy taking her in like they enjoy watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians—for the train-wreck entertainment of it all. Maybe I'm assuming too much, but I think Palin's smart enough to know that she could be wildly successful—and rich—as a paid personality, but she doesn't stand a chance of gaining entry to the White House. She may very well be our next Oprah, but I'm betting she's not our next president.
Photograph of Sarah Palin by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images News.
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Emily Gould interviewed Millionaire Matchmaker’s Patti Stanger for the Daily Beast early this week, and Stanger’s advice (don’t marry a guy who makes less than you, expensive hair treatments are a good investment in your “man future”) provoked the expected horror. I would just propose that the feminist lens is not the best lens through which to enjoy a spectacle called “Millionaire Matchmaker.” Stanger’s job is to absorb the irrational longings of her sad clients and translate them into “rules” like “Make him smell another man on you.” Filtering that process through any sort of ideal is bound to be fruitless; the point is that Stanger won’t let clients cling to ideas of what they think dating ought to be like. “Shouldn’t I find a girl that just likes me for me?” a hapless millionaire will ask when Stanger demands that he change everything about himself, and we wait wide-eyed for Stanger to flip out and rip into his pathetic fantasy-world.
Indeed, the joy of watching Patti Stanger at work is the joy of watching a mind totally unbothered by the will to consistency. Most of us have at least some impulse to make our statements or actions conform to statements just made or actions just taken. Stanger has no such impulse. At a casting call for women who say they want to date millionaires, she will, oddly, go on a witch hunt for “gold diggers,” though it's not clear why she thinks anyone has shown up if not for the prospect of bagging a millionaire. She will demand that a man change his personality, wardrobe, and place of residence; this, she will explain in all fairy-tale earnestness, is the way to “true love.” When, after weeks of bullying he does finally move and affect a fake, alpha, Stanger-approved personality, but nervously refuses to change some part of his wardrobe in order to hold onto a last shred of his dignity, she will declare, without irony, that in her view “the customer is always right.”
This is crazy in a useful way, as her ability to profess lofty ideals of love while purveying brutal advice actually renders undateable men dateable. Stanger’s immunity to reason lends her a kind of clarity; unsullied by any need for coherence, she just absorbs and reflects mating preferences back at people. That’s never going to be pretty. I’ve no idea whether it leads to something called “true love.” But it’s good television.
Photograph of Patti Stanger by Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment.
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When I saw the headline on Nicholas Kristof's latest op-ed piece—"Do Toxins Cause Autism?"—I'll admit to flinching. Kristof has a reputation as the voice of common sense in the New York Times. He usually deserves it, and so if he was supporting the thoroughly discredited anti-vaccination movement, this could be tragic. Luckily, he isn't, and in fact notes that the anti-vaccination theories have been discredited. But unfortunately, I still fear that anti-vaxxers will pick this up as "evidence" for their dangerous nonsense anyway. The word "toxin" is close to the word "autism," and for many, that's all they need to know.
I wish Kristof had thought about this more carefully. The idea that in utero exposure to certain chemicals might exacerbate a genetic tendency toward autism is far from a controversial theory in the world of non-kooky science. Just recently, I heard Paul Offit, the leading voice of reason on vaccine safety in country, explain on a podcast that the in utero environment is being seriously considered as one factor in autism. Kristof attacks the issue like there's a major controversy afoot, and from what I can tell, there's not.
Part of the problem with reaching public understanding on these issues is that they're very complicated. Autism research is chugging along, but the discoveries indicate that there's probably no singular cause of the disease, and that it's likely a mish-mash of genetics and in utero enviroment (of course, most things about us are like this). I'm sure in time science will learn more about the mystery of what causes autism. In the meantime, I do wish op-ed writers would be more careful to avoid wading into a situation rife with misinformation while using inexact, alarmist words like "toxins."
Photograph of polluted river by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images News.
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- 3
Hanna, like you, I have been fascinated by the competitive relationship between skiers Julia Mancuso and Lindsey Vonn. The friendly battle between the two was at its height last week, when Vonn won the gold and Mancuso the silver in the downhill. It all seemed in good fun then, Mancuso poking fun at Vonn's overseriousness and Vonn taking the high road, saying diplomatically that Mancuso merely "approaches things differently."
But things have been less than golden this week. First, in an unfortunate turn of events, Vonn's crash in the giant slalom on Wednesday ruined Mancuso's first run—they had to stop Mancuso in the middle to clear Vonn off the course. Mancuso was understandably furious at the situation. She won gold in the G.S. in Turin, and says she "can't wonder what if" Vonn hadn't crashed and marred her first run. Then things became more upsetting for Mancuso: She got news that a close friend of hers from Squaw Valley, professional skier C.R. Johnson, died in an accident on the slopes. Though Mancuso's second giant slalom run was the third fastest*, and she ended up in eighth place in what was her final event at the Olympics. The rivalry no longer seems happily spirited, only bitter and sad. Vonn will compete in the slalom today, despite several injuries, while I imagine Mancuso will be heading back to the lower 48.
*Correction, Mar. 1 2010: The original version of this blog post stated that Julia Mancuso's second giant slalom run was not great.
Photograph of Julia Mancuso by Sandra Behne/Bongarts.
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—To the surprise of no one, South Korea’s Kim Yu-na takes home the gold in women’s figure skating. [New York Times]
—But do her boobs hurt? [Gawker]
—One female writer wonders whether it was a mistake to share custody of her child with her ex-husband. [Salon]
—Despite Asia’s longstanding preference for boys, a new study reveals that more South Korean mothers-to-be now want daughters. [NYT Motherlode]
—Fox News rabble-rousers Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck team up with country singer John Rich for a “Taking Back Our Country Tour.” [Politico]
—A transgender woman will host VH1’s new makeover show Transform Me.[PR Newswire]
Photograph of Kim Yu-na by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP.
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