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Slate V: Dear Prudence: Family of Smoochers
Slate's advice columnist, Prudence, counsels a woman whose husband kisses his mother on the lips a little too often.
NFL 2010: The Saints won't win the Super Bowl because they just won the Super Bowl. Huh?
Tom, your note about Bob Sanders' health is where our chitchat about NFL brutality converges with traditional football punditry. Sanders, you see, has "problems staying healthy"—that is, the Colts safety is a small guy by NFL standards who has an unfortunate habit of getting himself split in half. The analysts at Football Outsiders have shown that a winning team is a team that evades injuries. As fans, we don't typically stop and think that this is strange or perverse—that as a predictor of success, avoidance of torn ligaments and high ankle sprains is more important than turnover margin or time of possession.
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Super Bowl - NFL - Bob Sanders - Indianapolis Colts - National Football League
DoubleX Gabfest on the gender pay gap, Franzenfreude, and women on SNL.
To listen to the DoubleX Gabfest, click the arrow on the player below. You can also download the audio file here, or subscribe to the DoubleX podcasts feed via iTunes or directly with our RSS feed.
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RSS - Podcast - ITunes Store - Syndication and Feeds - WWW
Donal Logue as a shambling P.I. in Terriers.
The latest among Southern California's inexhaustible ranks of gumshoes is Hank Dolworth, who moved into the private sector after a dishonorable discharge from the police force. It was part of the code of Philip Marlowe, the paradigmatic L.A. P.I., to be "neat, clean, shaved, and sober." Hank has the sober part down. Within moments of meeting him on Terriers (FX, Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET), we understand that his relationship with the force suffered at the hands of his romance with the bottle. Staying dry—which involves periodically stowing away his compulsive sarcasm to shudder vulnerably in an AA meeting ("the thing at the thing," he calls it)—is one foundation of Hank's own code of conduct.
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Southern California - Hank Dolworth - Police - United States - Alcoholics Anonymous
The many weaknesses of ovulation studies.
Last month, a study claiming that women buy sexier clothing when they are ovulating made the media rounds. "Not unlike the chimps featured on the Discovery Channel, women become more competitive with other females during the handful of days each month when they are ovulating," the study, which will be published in The Journal of Consumer Research next year, explained. "The desire for women at peak fertility to unconsciously choose products that enhance appearance is driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women." Highly clickable stories about women who gravitate toward tight sweaters because of their unhinged animal desires appeared on the Web sites of the BBC, CBS News, and the Week, among many other outlets.
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Discovery Channel - Ovulation - Clothing - Women - CBS News
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Don't listen to Tim Tebow: Hyperbaric oxygen chambers are mostly useless.
In a world aswirl with medical uncertainty, one thing is for sure: When a remedy promises to cure everything from autism to hearing loss and broken bones, let the buyer beware.
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Hyperbaric medicine - Products and Services - Business - Healthcare - Hyperbaric
Nine years after his death, Ahmad Shah Massoud is seen all over Afghanistan.
Nine years after his death, Ahmad Shah Massoud is everywhere.
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Afghanistan - Ahmad Shah Massoud - Asia - Politics - Politicians
The Slatest: Morning Edition
Whistle-blower says unskilled interpretors are putting U.S. soldiers' lives at risk; Taliban leader claims he's winning the war in Afghanistan; imam warns of retaliation by radical Muslims if Islamic center in New York is moved.
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The Great Divergence: Did the tech boom create inequality?
"What you earn," Bill Clinton said more than once when he was president, "is a function of what you can learn." That had always been true, but Clinton's point was that at the close of the 20th century it was becoming more true, because computers were transforming the marketplace. A manufacturing-based economy was giving way to a knowledge-based economy that had an upper class and a lower class but not much of a middle class.
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Bill Clinton - United States - Great Divergence - President - History
My fiance's ex gave us an exorbitant engagement gift. Should we keep it?
Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)
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Slate - Dear Prudence - Religion and Spirituality - Divination - Christianity
Play Lean/Lock and test your skills as a political pundit.
Test your powers of political forecasting.
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Slate - United States - Video Games - Games - Programming
Slatereaders try to predict the price of a share GM stock.
Sometime this fall, you will be able to buy stock again in General Motors. Right now you—meaning the American taxpayer—own about three-fifths of GM. When GM returns to the stock exchange, you—meaning a private investor—will be able to purchase shares in GM. And for a few weeks leading up to its initial public offering, we're asking you—meaning Slate readers—to predict how much a share of GM's stock will be worth at the end of its first day back. To help you crunch the numbers, here are several hundred pages from the former Largest Carmaker in the World, explaining its plans.
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GeneralMotors - Initial public offering - Stock - United States - Stock exchange
Welcome to Slate Labs: Experiments with multimedia journalism.
Experiments with multimedia journalism.
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Journalism - Education - Media - Multimedia - Business
What's the best way to set fire to a book?
The leader of a small, nondenominational congregation in Gainesville, Fla., plans to host the first "International Burn a Quran" day this Saturday. Despite criticism from religious and political leaders around the world, the evangelical minister says he will go forward with the event, during which multiple holy texts will be set ablaze. If you wanted to engage in a ritual of gross religious intolerance, what would be the best way to burn a book?
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Qur'an - Islam - Religion and Spirituality - Religion - Religious intolerance
Back-to-school pharm party: Time magazine, the Washington Post, and others resurrect this ancient urban myth.
Kids, here's a great idea for a back-to-school party! Run to your bathroom and empty all of your parents' prescription and nonprescription medicines into a bag. Now call all your friends, tell them to do the same, and ask them to meet you at your wackiest friend's house. Next, retrieve the biggest bowl in the house and have everybody dump their pharmacological loot into it. Stir the mass of pills with your hand, call the rest of your friends, and invite each arriving guest to scoop up a handful and swallow as they enter party paradise!
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Washington Post - Time - Urban legend - United States - Parties
Are members of the Tea Party more angry or more gullible?
The National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tenn., started small and started scandalous. Its organizers, small-time attorney Judson Phillips and his wife, Sherry, booked Sarah Palin as a keynote speaker. Next, they drowned under media requests about how much she'd be paid and why tickets were so expensive—$549 for a full pass, $349 just to see her speech. Many activists howled that this was a sham convention. The mainstream media was less sure, and more than 200 reporters, including plenty of foreign press, decided that this would be a great way to file that Tea Party story their editors were asking for.
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Sarah Palin - Tea - Keynote - Republican - Politics
What happens when language scientists use their own children as test subjects?
It's become the norm in America for parents to capture their children's smiles, tantrums, and impish shenanigans—sometimes cute, sometimes deeply embarrassing—on blogs, YouTube videos, and Twitter feeds. But MIT professor Deb Roy makes even the most obsessive at-home documentarians seem inattentive: He recorded, on video and audio, nearly every waking moment of the first three years of his son's life—not as an exercise in parental vanity, but in the name of science. His goal was to create as complete a picture as possible of how one child learns a language. For his study, "The Human Speechome Project," he embedded 11 cameras and 14 microphones in the ceilings of his home, and set them to record for an average of 12-14 hours a day. Now Roy and his team have begun the enormous task of trying to make sense of the data—all 120,000 hours of it.
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Language - Human Speechome Project - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - YouTube - Professor
Roger Clemens, James Frey, and the thrill of watching the overly ambitious fall.
Which is worse: lying to Congress or lying to Oprah?
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James Frey - Oprah Winfrey Show - Recreation - Oprah Winfrey - Mark Wahlberg
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Mad Men Week 7: Work-work balance.
John, I'm with you. I think this may be the best season of Mad Men yet. And—as a fan of January Jones and the stories involving Betty Draper (I can't believe you persist in dissing the truly brilliant maternity ward episode!)—it pains me to admit: I don't miss any of the Ossining characters when they're not onscreen, with the lone exception of Sally. Kiernan Shipka's portrayal of Don's troubled daughter is so nuanced and compelling and wonderful that I think there's only one way for Weiner to improve Season 4: SCDP should hire Sally Draper as its new receptionist. She can clomp around in oversize high heels and vie with Megan for supremacy at the front desk. Then we'll never have to go upstate again!
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Greenwich Village - London - Greenwich - Mad Men - England
My ghastly tale of trying to convince the credit rating agencies I'm not deceased.
I learned of my death in the midst of buying my first apartment.
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Credit rating - Business - Financial Services - Personal Finance - Home
Why do most cigarette smokers tolerate massive state tax increases?
State governments don't get a lot of fiscal good news these days, so it was surprising this week when the state of Connecticut announced that a recent $1-a-pack tax increase on cigarettes raised $5 million more than the state had projected. As economists would predict, the daunting total of a $3-a-pack tax in Connecticut—the fourth highest burden in the country—did reduce the sale of cigarettes.Some smokers reacted to the tax by quitting, with others finding different ways around the tax.
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Connecticut - Cigarette - United States - Tax - Health
Watch a video of Google's new live-updating feature.
Tech blogs are heavy with speculation over what Google will announce at a press conference it scheduled at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art this morning. But I don't have to speculate—when I logged on to Google.com last night, I got something completely different.
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Google - San Francisco - Museum of Modern Art - search - Search Engines
Why a series of Indian actresses have been arrested for prostitution.
The ultimate Indian male fantasy involves horizontal gymnastics with an actress from Bollywood or the smaller regional film industries such as Tollywood, in the state of Andra Pradesh, or Kollywood, in the state of Tamil Nadu. The fact that Indian actresses also participate in Miss Universe pageants, strutting the stage in bikinis, only heightens their desirability. The recent arrest of two Indian actresses for prostitution, or what the Indian media calls the "flesh business," however, raises the question of whether this fantasy may actually be within reach for men with enough money.
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Bollywood - Miss Universe - Actor - Tamil cinema - Tamil Nadu
You aren't responsible for Quran burners. Don't hold Muslims responsible for 9/11.
Two days ago, hundreds of Afghans gathered in Kabul to denounce the United States for burning the Quran. They torched American flags, chanted "Death to America," and carried signs calling for the death of President Obama. Some of them hurled rocks at U.S. troops. A student in the crowd said of the planned Quran burning: "We know this is not just the decision of a church. It is the decision of the president and the entire United States."
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United States - Kabul - Qur'an - United States armed forces - Barack Obama
Slate's Culture Gabfest on The American,income inequality, and the British phone-hacking scandal.
Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 103 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Thomas by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:
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Slate - Dana Steven - Stephen Metcalf - United States - History
How to volunteer in a community garden.
Dear My Goodness,I'm told that fall is a good time to work in gardens. I'd like to do some useful outdoor work on the weekends. How do I find out where I'd be needed and what I should know about gardening?
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Garden - community garden - Home - Community - Personal
My vacation at a nudist camp.
The most disconcerting part of my visit to a nudist camp I'll call "Hidden Bush" occurred when I got in a discussion about the benefits of nudity with a longtime member I'll call "Dick." Nudists, nudists will tell you, are very friendly, and Dick had spotted me as a newcomer as I stood naked and adrift by the pool. He came over to welcome me and proselytize for the benefits of nudism. He told me about the cruise he had taken to Alaska with 2,000 other naked people, and as I tried to envision all of this sagging flesh chugging toward unsuspecting caribou, I was distracted by a more immediate, awful sight. I could see myself reflected in Dick's sunglasses. All of me. It was impossible to follow our chitchat as I watched my pale flesh quiver every time I made a gesture.
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Naturism - United States - Recreation - Nudism - Recreation and Sports
Will a newly feisty, fired-up Obama be enough to save his party in November?
Cars, a dog, a Slurpee and the fish in the sea: These are just some of the topics President Obama touched on in his feisty Labor Day speech. With 58 days until the election, he has time to bring in a marching band or a kung-fu fight. Before the Milwaukee speech, a senior White House official said that the holiday kick-off to the final campaign sprint would allow Obama to break out of the trappings of the office that sometimes limit what a president can say. In campaign mode, the president would be "liberated." He was. "They treat me like a dog," he said of the special interests who opposed his programs like Wall Street reform. He joked that the expression wasn't in his prepared remarks. (This is not Obama's first time with the dog talk. But the phrase is actually most famously found in Jimi Hendrix's song of liberation, "Stone Free.")
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Barack Obama - Milwaukee - Jimi Hendrix - Labor Day - President of the United States
John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, failed another parole interview. What did they ask him?
Mark David Chapman, who murdered John Lennon on Dec. 8, 1980, had his interview for parole today and was denied release. Chapman has been up for parole every two years since 2000 and will have another chance in 2012. What happens during a parole interview?
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John Lennon - Mark David Chapman - Murder - Parole - Crime
TV or not TV? Newsweek makes the publisher's case for not sending print journalists onto TV news shows.
Appearing on television can be good for a print journalist's career. But does it add any publicity value to the publications for which they write and edit? The decline and sale of Newsweek indicates that when it comes to mass-circulation publications, the answer is no.
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Newsweek - Television - Journalist - Journalism - Media
Slate's Hang Up and Listen on Boise State, the new NFL season, and football tailgating.
Listen to "Hang Up and Listen" with Stefan Fatsis, Josh Levin, and Mike Pesca by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:
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Stefan Fatsis - Mike Pesca - NFL - Sports - Football
Why aren't politicians speaking out against the would-be Quran-burner who's endangering our troops?
Republicans are usually eager to trumpet their support for the troops and the war against terror. So why aren't they condemning the Florida pastor who plans to lead his congregation in a Quran-burning bonfire on Sept. 11?
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Florida - Islam - War on Terrorism - United States - David Petraeus
Dear Prudence chats live with readers at Washingtonpost.com.
Emily Yoffe Writes: Good afternoon. I hope everyone had a good Labor Day. And I don't care what the calendar says—summer seems really over.
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Washington Post - Dear Prudence - Emily Yoffe - Labor Day - Home
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Will the great American rabbi please stand up?
The religious are often led and inspired by the words and deeds of the dead: Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed. Within the Jewish realm, the list of great, late leaders includes the sages of the Babylonian Talmud, the Geonim ("the geniuses," 7th- to 11th-century scholars), the Rishonim ("the first ones," 11th- to 16th-century rabbis), or the Achronim ("the last ones," rabbis from the 17th century and on). All were great scholars, admired by many; all were religious leaders of their respective places and times who continue to guide the faithful.
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Judaism - Talmud - United States - Rabbi - Jesus Christ
Why young women out earn young men.
The news last week was that if you're a young woman without children, you have a shot at making more money than your boyfriend. "Young, single, childless women out-earn male counterparts," says USA Today; "Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top" says Time.
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People - Women - USA Today - Women on Top - Woman
Advice for a woman whose friend has a crush on her husband.
Is it just in jest, or does she have a crush on him?
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United States - Advice - People - Recreation - Humor
How Green is telecommuting?
I'd love to stay home in my pajamas rather than fight through traffic so I can sit in a cubicle all day. I need help convincing my boss that working from home is a good idea. How much greener is telecommuting than dragging my sorry bones to work?
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Telecommuting - Family - Home - Work - Parenting
Craigslist shuts its "adult" section. Where will sex ads go now?
Friday evening, after years of vilification for allegedly fostering sexual abuse, Craigslist shut down its "adult services" section. The company slapped a "censored" label over the section and went silent. It has ignored all media queries seeking an explanation.
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Craigslist - Sexual abuse - Sex - Attorney general - Website
Can the Tea Party win in Delaware the way it won in Alaska?
WILMINGTON, Del.—Mike Castle is in his element. It's Saturday and Delaware's only representative in the U.S. House has positioned himself at the entrance to the Arden Fair, a 103-year-old celebration of a left-leaning artist community with a jam band, beer garden, and row after row of homemade fudge and jewelry. As he shakes hands, the eight-term Republican, now running for the Senate seat vacated by Joe Biden, competes for attention with three other candidates and the occasional merchant wearing a wizard's cap and cloak. He usually wins.
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Joe Biden - Delaware - Republican - United States Senate - United States House of Representatives
"Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why"
Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Reeves Keyworth read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes..
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iTunes - Slate - Poetry - Arts - Online Writing
Forget East and West, Europe is dividing itself into North and South.
AGIOS NIKOLAOS, CRETE, Greece—A handful of Estonians and a Pole are sitting around a Greek taverna, telling stories. There are some jokes about the good life the Greeks lead—all that vacation time, and the Germans pay for it! There are some anecdotes about the way time seems to work differently here, about how things take longer. One regales the others with tales of the Greek real-estate market. The thing to remember, he says, is that all houses have two prices: the "official" price and the "real" price. You pay taxes on the official price. You pay the owner the real price. Everybody knows about this, and everybody winks—including the tax office.
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Greece - Tax - Prefectures - Business and Economy - Comedy
The taming and domestication of religious faith is one of the unceasing chores of civilization.
A recent blizzard of liberal columns has framed the debate over American Islam as if it were no more than the most recent stage in the glorious history of our religious tolerance. This phrasing of the question has the (presumably intentional) effect of marginalizing doubts and of lumping any doubters with the anti-Catholic Know-Nothings, the anti-Semites, and other bigots and shellbacks. So I pause to take part in a thought experiment, and to ask myself: Am I in favor of the untrammeled "free exercise of religion"?
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Islam - Religion - Religious toleration - Religion and Spirituality - Religious Tolerance
James Church's Inspector O detective series makes North Koreans seem human.
While publishers comb the fjords for the next Stieg Larsson, readers devoted to bleak international noir would do better to turn their attention from Northern Europe to Asia. North Korea, to be exact. The hero of The Man With the Baltic Stare, the fourth and perhaps last in a series of excellent crime novels following Inspector O, might not know how to use the cell phone he sometimes has to carry. But like Larsson's heroine, a petite Asperger-ish libertarian in the land of large blondes and big government, the self-contained Inspector O bucks the stereotypes that we associate with his country. He is an actual human being from a place we imagine is inhabited by zombies.
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Stieg Larsson - North Korea - Asia - Northern Europe - Crime fiction
Palinisms: Did she really say that?
"Obama speech tonite may make u dig out ur old Orwell books so rewritten history can be deciphered, depending on who gets credit 4 Iraq surge." Tweet, Aug. 31, 2010.
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Iraq - Barack Obama - Sarah Palin - President - United States
Why do we get Labor Day off?
The nation will observe Labor Day this coming Monday, allowing millions to enjoy the waning days of summer, as well their last chance to wear white pants without earning a "tsk tsk" from Miss Manners. How did this early September holiday get its start?
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Labor Day - Holidays - Work - Home - Cooking
Rupert Murdoch's News of the World lectures the New York Times on—gasp!—ethical standards.
Let's review the recent ethical conduct of Rupert Murdoch's London tabloid, News of World.
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Rupert Murdoch - New York Times - News of World - London - Newspaper
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The president refuses to stand up for immigration, gay rights, and religious freedom.
Barack Obama's redecoration of the Oval Office includes a nice personal touch: a carpet ringed with favorite quotations from Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, both Presidents Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. The King quote, in particular, has become a kind of emblem for him: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." For all the carping about his every move, the only big problem with the Obama Presidency is the gap between what's written on his rug, and what's buried under it—the distance between the President's veneration of moral leadership past and his failure, so far, to exhibit much of it himself.
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Barack Obama - Martin Luther King - Oval Office - John F. Kennedy - Abraham Lincoln
How did Operation Iraqi Freedom turn into Operation New Dawn?
The name of the U.S. military's mission in Iraq changed on Wednesday from "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to the soap-sudsy "Operation New Dawn." How does the military choose operation names?
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Iraq War - Iraq - United States armed forces - Warfare and Conflict - Operation Iraqi Freedom
Why the NRA suddenly cares so much about Supreme Court nomination battles.
This may finally be the year the NRA traded in its safety goggles for rose-colored glasses. Certainly the nation's most powerful lobby group is entitled to take aim at anyone it wants. But the fact that the National Rifle Association has begun picking targets based on fantasy rather than fact says something sad about both the NRA and the state of American politics. The NRA's recent foray into the judicial confirmation process reveals that, when the subject is guns in America, legal aspirations now trump legal reality.
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National Rifle Association - United States - Supreme Court of the United States - Supreme Court - NRA
The Political Gabfest for Sept. 3, 2010.
Become a fan of the Political Gabfest on Facebook. We post to the Facebook page throughout the week, so keep the conversation going by joining us there.
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Facebook - Online Communities - Social Networking - Politics - Government
The case against long-distance relationships.
You're sitting in the airport terminal, rolling your copy of the Economist into a sweaty tube and waiting to see a significant other who lives far away. You're excited. You're aroused. But there's something else, a nagging feeling that gurgles in your stomach and won't go away. Is it pangs of guilt? It should be: The planet is about to suffer for your love.
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Economist - Business - United States - Recreation - Middle East
Obama's economic policies aren't ambitious enough to reverse America's decline.
Fears that the United States is on the cusp of a Japanese-style "lost decade" are grossly overstated: We've already had it—from 2000-2010. Sure, the last two years of the decade were defined by a cataclysm of historic proportions that almost made us forget the bad news of the prior eight years.
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United States - Economic - Lost Decade - Barack Obama - President
What went wrong with Marc Hauser's search for moral foundations.
The recent (self-)destruction of Harvard evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser is both hard to watch and impossible not to. When the university last month found Hauser guilty of scientific misconduct—ugly and serious words, those, meaning in this case either tweaking data or fabricating it outright—someone really, really big started a long fall in slow motion.
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Marc Hauser - Harvard University - Scientific misconduct - Education - Evolution
Four shows about little people, some of whom make chocolate.
By coincidence, I beg the attention of Skokie, Ill., at the start of the High Holidays. On Sept. 26, Matt Roloff, the star of Little People, Big World (TLC, season premiere on Monday at 8 p.m. ET), will appear at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center (9603 Woods Dr.) in connection with its current exhibit on the pseudoscience of the Nazi leadership (degeneration). Roloff will discuss his advocacy for little people's rights. A question-and-answer session follows.
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TLC - little people big world - Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center - Skokie Illinois - Little People
Palinisms: Did she really say that?
"Those who are impotent and limp and gutless and then they go on, um, they're anonymous, they are sources that are anonymous, and impotent, limp, and gutless reporters take anonymous sources and cite them as being factual references, it just slays me because it's so just absolutely clear what the state of yellow journalism is today."—In a radio interview with Sean Hannity, Sept. 1, 2010.
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Sean Hannity - Journalism sourcing - Yellow journalism - Sarah Palin - Talk radio
Corrections from the last week.
In an Aug. 31 "Slatest" entry, Meredith Simons misspelled the name of Stanford University.
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Stanford University - United States - Colleges and Universities - Education - Private Colleges and Universities
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What will the president say to get Democrats excited for the coming campaign?
Labor Day traditionally begins the final sprint to Election Day. So starting today, we're going to offer a new end-of-the-week feature. Each week, I'll post some of the questions I'm trying to answer based on news of the week or something that's come up in my reporting. In the following weeks, I'll try to answer some of these questions. Feel free to weigh in with answers—or with more political questions—at slatepolitics@gmail.com or in the comments section below. Here are this week's questions:
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Labor Day - Gmail - Holidays - Politics - United States
Are the next-generation Neato and Mint robo-cleaners better than the Roomba?
If you ask a robot scientist why his industry is so interested in cleaning our floors, chances are he'll mention the "three D's." Robots, it turns out, are best suited to replacing humans in jobs that are dirty, dull, or dangerous. Sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping fit the first two D's, and depending on your dog's diet, perhaps the last one as well. It's no wonder, then, that the world had such high hopes for the Roomba, the autonomous floor-cleaning robot that first went on sale in 2002. The Roomba was built by iRobot, a company best known for its bomb-disposal machines—in other words, excellent preparation for designing a tool to help frat brothers clean up after keggers. The Roomba quickly became an icon—nerds hacked it, cats loved it, and lonely people grew to consider the bot something like a pet. There was just one problem: When it came to cleaning, the Roomba sucked, and not always in a good way.
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Roomba - Robot - iRobot - Mint - Dog
The U.S. auto industry is smaller but healthier.
Did you see the dreadful news about automobile sales in August? "U.S. Car Sales Plunged in August," the Wall Street Journal headline declared. "Auto Sales Post Weakest August Since 1983," noted Reuters.
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United States - Automobile - Wall Street Journal - Autos - Recreation
How many uses are there for a dead body?
Car manufacturers sometimes use cadavers in crash tests, according to Wired magazine. Researchers claim that, despite advances in dummy technology, there's still nothing like good old flesh and bone to validate new safety features. Everyone knows that medical students rely on cadavers, too—but are there other unexpected uses for donated remains?
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Cadaver - Technology - Safety Engineering - Automotive Safety - Recreation
Economists are making the case politicians are afraid to: Immigration is great for the U.S.
If you pay attention only to politics, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the current debate about immigration in America is limited to how severely it should be restricted—whether we need only to seal the border or actually change the birthright citizenship clause in the Constitution.
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United States - Immigration - United States Constitution - Law - Birthright citizenship in the United States of America
Drew Barrymore and Justin Long as slackers in long-distance love in Going the Distance.
Going the Distance (Paramount) is a pleasant, floppy romantic comedy that's hard to hate—the lead couple, played by Justin Long and Drew Barrymore, are too game and appealing to inspire much snark—but also hard to love. There's just not quite enough to the movie: not enough jokes, not enough obstacles, not enough sex. (Though there's plenty of talk about sex. Perhaps in an attempt to break down the wall between Apatow man-comedy and gooey chick flicks, the script by Geoff LaTulippe keeps up a steady flow of profanity.) Still, I'll give Going the Distance a pleasant, floppy stamp of approval. At least, unlike many recent romantic comedies (do I really have to name them? The Ugly Truth, All About Steve, The Proposal, et boring cetera), this film doesn't center around two mean, shallow jerks who communicate only in some sort of rigidly gendered mating code.
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Drew Barrymore - Justin Long - Going the Distance - Ugly Truth - All About Steve
The New York Times' "Thursday Styles" section discovers flat-chested pride.
The New York Times' "Thursday Styles" section discovers A-cup vanity.
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New York Times - New York - United States - Metro Areas - Business and Economy
Is the New York Times' book section really a boys' club?
Two weeks ago, best-selling author Jodi Picoult sent a Tweet in a fit of pique. Upon reading Michiko Kakutani's glowing review of Jonathan Franzen's new novel Freedom in the New York Times, the lady novelist took to her keyboard and typed out the following:
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Jonathan Franzen - Michiko Kakutani - New York Times - Freedom - Author
Prosecutors can ask for a five-year sentence for Illinois' ex-governor.
After the public spectacle surrounding the arrest and trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the jury's decision to hang on 23 of 24 charges has largely been viewed as an embarrassing failure for Patrick Fitzgerald, Chicago's top federal prosecutor. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, among others, have suggested that a retrial crosses the line from prosecution to persecution and would be a huge waste of public resources. Still, government lawyers declared that there would be a rematch, and the judge overseeing the case scheduled it for the beginning of next year.
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Chicago - Patrick Fitzgerald - Rod Blagojevich - Government - United States
An exclusive look at the artwork of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
An exclusive look at the artwork of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
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Guantanamo Bay Naval Base - United States - Prison - Guantanamo Bay - Barack Obama
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Palinisms: Did she really say that?
"Wow,media goofballs rearing heads this wk,big time!Wonder what's up?Taking the cake:ink re:Bristol=a diva? Silly;obviously have nvr met her"—Tweet, Sept. 1, 2010.
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Bristol Palin - Levi Johnston - Bristol - Home - Cake
The broadening backlash against American Islam.
Two months ago, Rick Lazio, the leading Republican candidate for governor of New York, challenged his Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo, to investigate a proposed Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero. When Cuomo replied that the issue was religious freedom, Lazio insisted that his concerns were strictly about who would fund the project and what its imam had said about 9/11. "It's outrageous, honestly, that Andrew Cuomo is raising [the] issue of religion here," Lazio told a TV interviewer. "This is about security."
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Andrew Cuomo - Rick Lazio - United States - Republican - New York
A review of Kristin Hersh's memoir, Rat Girl.
When Kristin Hersh was 18 years old, her indie rock band Throwing Muses recorded its first album, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and she became a mother for the first time. In Hersh's new memoir, Rat Girl, based on her diary, she chronicles an extraordinary year. I'm willing to bet that there are very few budding teen rock stars who have to figure out how to avoid the smoke in clubs, how to position their guitars over swollen bellies, and what maternity clothes are best for headlining concerts. (Hersh says '50s style dresses, if you were wondering.) Her original journal entries appear to have been fleshed out with dialogue in the published version, plus there are vignettes from her early childhood and snippets from her songs inspired by real-life events.
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Kristin Hersh - Bipolar disorder - Throwing Muses - Indie rock - Musical ensemble
I changed my mind and now want to have a child, but my husband won't hear of it.
Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)
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