A.N

What is it about the murder-mystery podcast Serial that makes it so gripping? This question has come up in conversations a lot lately, mostly with other journalists who, like me, instantly got hooked on the This American Life spinoff.

Serial is a weekly podcast that revisits the 1999 murder of a Baltimore high schooler and the man who was convicted of killing her. Each week, reporter Sarah Koenig takes listeners with her as she investigates the crime, the court case, and the characters involved in an attempt to sort out what really happened.

The story, it seems, is a whodunnit. The central question: Is Adnan Syed, in fact, guilty of killing Hae Min Lee?

But Serial is also a story about storytelling. Listeners ride along with Koenig each week as she does her investigative work. We hear the reportorial leads that don't pan out. We're privy to (at least some of) her questions and doubts. And from this format another key question emerges: Is it okay to be enthralled by all this? A person was murdered. In real life. And yet Serial's fans—is it weird to call them fans?—gather around the show like it's Twin Peaks.

Episodic television, of course, took its form at least in part from episodic literature—which in turn influenced what's known today as narrative or longform journalism. The serialized novel was one of the defining features of the 19th-century newspaper. Serialized non-fiction, too, has a long tradition in American journalism. Truman Capote's best seller In Cold Blood first appeared as a four-part serial in The New Yorker in 1965. All this is to say that it's not as though Serial is breaking any new ground with regard to format.

"It's just telling a longer story," the show's executive producer Julie Snyder told me. "And so serializing it kind of felt like it was a normal thing unless you wanted a really long 14-hour story or something, you know? You're going to have to break it out into chapters like the way a book would."

And there are many, many books about real-life murders—about the Boston Strangler, and the Craigslist killer, and the murder of two Dartmouth professors, and on and on. Thinking about production, the most experimental aspect of Serial, Snyder told me, wasn't so much the serialization as it was the idea that Koenig didn't know how the series would end when the first episode aired. The podcast team wondered if people would hear the story and offer information that might influence its outcome. But that's not an unusual approach, either. Just like with an "investigative series in the paper, as you are reporting out the story, more people are going to become aware of the story, see what other people are saying, reach out to you," she said.

So why does Serial feel different somehow?

Snyder says the popularity of the show—and the intensity of listeners's obsession with it—surprised her team. There's something disorienting, she says, about the way the conversation about the show feels akin to the kind of discussion you might find on a subreddit about Lost. Maybe the ethical implications of this kind of storytelling are less McLuhanian—they're not so much about the medium being the message—and more about the cultural context that shapes this moment in broadcast. In other words, maybe it has more to do with the show's listeners than it does with its producers.

Serialized nonfiction in the Internet age means that conversations that might have previously happened around the watercooler are now being published themselves. Which means Serial's audience is producing its own stories full of sleuthing, critique, and conspiracy theories. Slate even recaps the podcast the way it recaps Mad Men.

"That part of it is kind of weird," Snyder said. "I feel like maybe I was really naive... I think all of us are a little taken aback and kind of shocked at the little bit of an attention frenzy. It's a small world of podcast listeners but it does feel like, 'Oh my god. This is a lot more intense than I had ever anticipated.'"

What is it, exactly, that people are participating in here? Are Serial listeners in it for the important examination of the criminal justice system? Or are we trawling through a grieving family's pain as a form of entertainment? These are questions much more easily posed than answered.

What's clear is that a big part of what makes Serial stand out is how relentlessly thorough Koenig's reporting is. (So comprehensive that it's the quality she's lampooned for in this parody.) Koenig makes it obvious in her storytelling that reporting the story ethically—and treating people fairly—is a priority. Some of the thrill in following the story is that listeners are given what feels like a window into her reportorial process—including hints at the bits of info she holds back, whether out of fairness or to ratchet up narrative tension: "I'm going to call this man 'Mr. S,'" she explains in one episode. "I don't want to use his full name for reasons I promise will become clear."

"We are trying everything possible to not feel exploitative or, you know, the Nancy Grace type of a titillating thing or 'Let's get ratings off of the death of somebody,'" Snyder told me. "In all of those ways we've tried to do the opposite... Everybody is a real person. Everybody is a three-dimensional person. Hearing people talk, hearing complicated motivations, letting everybody get a full picture."

It might help, I told Snyder, if I knew what the victim's family thought of all this. Has Koenig talked to them? Will listeners ever hear from the parents of the girl who was killed? Do they see journalistic value in questioning the guilt of the man who was convicted? Seven episodes into what Snyder says will likely be a 12-episode season, we still don't know. On the show, Koenig hasn't yet talked about any attempts to reach the family. (A Baltimore Sun reporter who worked with her on one episode wrote last month that "despite extensive efforts... family members could not be found" when he sought them for an interview.)

"We will talk about it on the show," Snyder told me. But she doesn't want to say anything more about it until then. Fair enough. The narrative arc, after all, is up to the storyteller. That's true on the radio, and in newspapers, and in Facebook status updates. Deciding what information to include and when to include it is what makes something a story in the first place; it is one of the defining parts of any journalist's job.

And yet the decision to release the show weekly wasn't part of some narrative grand plan—it was mostly a way to bake deadlines into the production cycle, Snyder says. (It seems worth noting, too, that if Snyder and her team can raise enough money to produce a second season, they plan on serializing a non-crime investigation next.) The weekly production schedule also may be what makes Serial seem somehow edgier than the investigative crime stories we're used to. "In that regard, I did not foresee it at all," she said. "Maybe because that element of narrative tension spread over a week feels so akin to, 'I haven't felt this way since Breaking Bad,'... 'What's going to happen?'"

But just because something is suspenseful doesn't make it unethical. What Serial really reveals is that the ethical questions it raises about crime reporting and the treatment of victims in the media are the ones we should already be asking.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/is-it-wrong-to-be-hooked-on-serial/382500/

A smartly designed retro inspired iPhone charging cable: The weighted knot anchors the cable on any flat surface so it’s always there when you need it.

(via)

This made me laugh.

"I knew I couldn’t call the police because that would frighten him even more, and so the quickest and best solution for everyone involved was to get him inside his house."

Bill Cosby did not want to talk about rape with the Associated Press. That much he made clear in an interview with AP arts reporter Brett Zongker, who interviewed Cosby and his wife, Camille, upon the opening of an exhibit of their collection of African American art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. During the November 6 interview, which took place at the museum, Cosby rejected a question from the reporter about the allegations of sexual assault that have lingered over the popular performer—and national father figure—for nearly a decade.

“There’s no response,” Cosby tells Zongker during the filmed interview, which the AP released in its entirety on Wednesday. Seated in front of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s powerful 1894 painting, "The Thankful Poor," Cosby appeals to the reporter after the interview concludes (with the tape still rolling) to omit any discussion of the allegations of sexual assault. When that doesn’t appear to work, Cosby tells someone off camera, “I think you need to get on the phone with his person [Zongker’s employer], immediately.”

Now it’s the Smithsonian that doesn’t want to talk about rape. Through a spokesperson, both the National Museum of African Art and the larger Smithsonian Institution declined to discuss allegations from as many as 15 women that Cosby drugged and raped them. Two women, Joan Tarshis and model Janice Dickinson, have come forward with their accusations since the November 9 opening of “Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue.” A third woman, Therese Serignese, said yesterday that Cosby drugged and raped her when she was 19.

In a two-sentence statement, the Smithsonian made clear that it is standing behind Cosby, without saying as much. “Conversations” will remain on view through the start of 2016. That’s the end of the conversation from the museum’s perspective. But it should be the start of one. The National Museum of African Art had no business hanging Cosby’s art collection in the first place. But now, with serious questions about Cosby’s past finally coming to light, the Smithsonian must reconsider its own role in framing the one conversation that matters most right now.

“When you choose to launch a show about a collector, rather than a show about art, you’re putting the collector on the pedestal, rather than artists and art and its history,” says art critic Tyler Green, host of the popular Modern Art Notes podcast and blog. Green, an art-world watchdog, has been a vociferous critic of exhibitions like “Conversations,” collector-driven shows in which the focus is the pursuit of artworks, rather than an artist or a theme. “That can go south really fast, and here, it has.”

The individual collector hardly matters, Green says. Collector-driven shows run contrary to the mission of art museums, which serve to tell the history of art and its makers. While there does exist a school of thought that art history in fact is the history of its benefactors—a theory from the 1980s called the New Art History—critics today tend to dismiss this approach. And in practice, shows about collectors tend inevitably toward hagiography.

“Art museums, through their exhibitions or collection galleries, tell a story of accumulation: how artists accumulate knowledge from their cultures or the art around them,” Green says. “Turning the focus to acquisitors rather than artists makes the focus on accumulation a story about shopping.”

The Smithsonian has a record of condescending to viewers with thin collector exhibitions. “Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg,” a 2010 show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, traded on two of Hollywood’s biggest names for a scholarship-free presentation of one of America’s most overexposed artists. It was a blockbuster. The same museum planned an exhibit of Western ephemera from the collection of Tea Party backer Bill Koch, including Western art—like the celebrated nocturne paintings of Frederic Remington—but also non-artworks, like pickaxes and gold nuggets. (The show never panned out.)

Beyond their low nutritional value, there are other reasons to object to collector-driven shows. Collectors stand to see the value of their works rise after a museum exhibition, which is why museums should never entertain collector exhibits unless the collection is promised to the museum, as former Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik explained by email. But that’s not the real problem with the Cosby show at the Smithsonian, he argues (putting aside, for a moment, the horrific allegations surrounding Cosby).

“How many collectors, buying only over a span of a few decades, have really amassed just the works an exhibition needs to make some significant art-historical point?” Gopnik writes. “In judging any curatorial exercise, I always ask, ‘What mark would this get if a student handed it in as an exhibition proposal in a curatorial studies class?’ A one-collector exhibition (even including some comparative objects from the permanent collection)? That would get a definite D-.”

The timing of this exhibition can't be seen as a coincidence. Cosby has been on a publicity blitz this fall. Bill Cosby 77, an hour-long comedy special, was set to air on Netflix on November 27. (Netflix has since postponed the program, perhaps indefinitely.) A biography, Cosby: His Life and Times, was published in September to mark the 30th anniversary of The Cosby Show. (The book is now taking a drubbing.) Most notably, Cosby was set to reunite with Tom Werner, the producer of The Cosby Show, for a new NBC series. (That series has been cancelled.)

Even TV Land has pulled re-runs of The Cosby Show from its lineup. Only the Smithsonian is providing Cosby any cover. While it’s troubling to think that the National Museum of African Art can be lined up like an appearance on David Letterman—which, incidentally, Cosby cancelled—perhaps removing an art show in the face of controversy merits some debate. After all, it’s hardly the fault of the artworks that their owner is discredited. Removing powerful works by wonderful African American artists like Romare Bearden and Faith Ringgold does a disservice to museumgoers who want to see them.

The Smithsonian has censored an exhibit once in the recent past. In late 2010, Secretary G. Wayne Clough removed an artwork from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. A 1987 video called "A Fire in My Belly" by artist David Wojnarowicz, one of the works included in “Hide/Seek”—a groundbreaking exhibition of portraiture by LGBT artists—drew the ire of a conservative activist-journalist employed through Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center. Just as Bozell’s Parents Television Council used to overwhelm the FCC with complaints about indecency on television, the Media Research Center flooded the National Portrait Gallery with hundreds of phone calls and emails, all registering the same ultra-specific complaint: "A Fire in My Belly" was anti-Christmas. (The surreal video artwork featured snippets of ants crawling over a crucifix.)

When then-ascendant GOP leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor spoke in favor of taking down the queer-art exhibition, Secretary Clough took action: Over the objections of the museum’s then-director Martin Sullivan, Clough had the video removed. It was absolutely the wrong decision, and Clough later earned a (mild) rebuke from an outside panel organized by the Smithsonian’s board of regents. Artworks shouldn’t be removed from exhibitions that have already opened, the panel recommended. (Secretary Clough is retiring at the end of the year.)

In “Conversations,” the artworks are not the issue. (They present a skewed narrative of African American art history, writes Washington Post art critic Philip Kennicott in his review, but never mind.) It’s the show itself that is the problem. It should never have opened. Its origination calls into question the Smithsonian’s ethical standing as a fiercely independent public institution, and not a vehicle for celebrity. Removing “Conversations” would do the museum no harm.

“We’re not talking about a museum of art in Dubuque. We’re talking about the National Museum of African Art, which has a fine collection, and one of the finest collections of its kind in the United States,” Green says. “If it has to take down a show because it’s embarrassing itself, it’s not like they’ll be showing empty walls.”

Supporting “Conversations,” on the hand, invariably means supporting Cosby. But there might be a step short of pulling the exhibition: The Smithsonian could offer to strike the Cosbys’ name from the show. Pull down the Simmie Knox portrait of the couple that makes them look like modern-day Medicis. Scrub the word “Cosby” from the walls. That would show that the leaders of America’s cultural treasury are not willing to, as my colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates puts it, “take one person's word over 15 others.” It would no doubt lead to the show collapsing.

That would be for the best. In the AP video interview with Cosby, the gallery goes to a dark place. What happens in the room is an abuse of the dignity of an art museum. It’s not just Cosby telling Zongker to shut down the conversation, but several people. It’s not just the reporter that this room wants silenced, but by extension the women who have testified about their pain. One man from Cosby’s retinue tells Zongker that another AP reporter accepted Cosby’s refusal to discuss the allegations against him—and so should he. A woman off-screen whom Cosby doesn’t appear to know (he refers to her as “ma’am”) confirms Cosby’s opinion about Zongker’s line of questioning: “I don’t think it has any value, either.”   

“We thought, by the way, because it was AP, that it wouldn’t be necessary to go over that question with you,” Cosby tells Zongker. (The original November 10 story mentions the allegations in the final paragraph of a 1,000-word piece on Cosby’s collection.) “We thought AP had the integrity to not ask,” Cosby adds.

Now it’s the museum’s turn to prove its mettle. Does the Smithsonian have the integrity not to ask? Or does it have the integrity the situation deserves?

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/why-is-the-smithsonian-standing-behind-bill-cosby/383034/

I recently paid a visit to my sweet friend Helen Jane and was excited to find this book at her house.

(The second book of the “2 Books in 1!” is “Barbie [i can be…] an Actress.” We’ll get to that later.)

Helen Jane has two little girls under the age of six. I have a daughter who is almost two. “This is great!” I said. “Barbie wants to be a computer engineer! And fifty stickers!”

“Yeah, I was really excited at first, too,” Helen Jane said. “Because, like you, I believe in the good of people. But then, like I’m sure you’ve experienced a million times, I was reminded you should never believe in the good of people.”

“Oh, no. Should I read it?”

“You must. Immediately.”

And now you all will, too. Because this is a real book. A book you could buy right now if you wanted to. A book that right now, somewhere, is teaching possibly hundreds of young girls and boys the following:

At breakfast one morning, Barbie is already hard at work on her laptop.

“What are you doing, Barbie?” asks Skipper.

“I’m designing a game that shows kids how computers work,” explains Barbie. “You can make a robot puppy do cute tricks by matching up colored blocks!”

Barbie! That’s awesome. I love how your game is both educational and fun. Bonus points for keeping it cute, because you are so stylish. Please be careful not to drop your breakfast fro-yo on your laptop. I’ve done it, and it’s not so funzies.

Anyway, Internet, get ready to find your thing to be super pissed off about today.

“Your robot puppy is so sweet,” says Skipper. “Can I play your game?”

“I’m only creating the design ideas,” Barbie says, laughing. “I’ll need Steven and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game!”

What the fucking shit, Barbie?

This is where you assume Skipper will be like, “Oh, why do you need boys? We can do it ourselves! Let’s learn and work hard and do things all on our own because a sense of accomplishment and knowledge are powerful weapons for adulthood.”

But no. Nope. Barbie’s just fine ending her work with the “design ideas” and a laugh. She’ll need the boys before she’ll have a “REAL GAME.”

Wait, wait. I need you to know something, and this is hard for me to tell you, because I’m guessing that like Helen Jane and me, you maybe believe in the good of people. You still hope that when we turn the page, there will be something empowering for Barbie and Skipper to experience. That maybe Steven and Brian are… I don’t know, maybe they could still be girls? But, no. It’s about to get even more misogynistic up in here.

Barbie tries to email her design to Steven, but suddenly her screen starts blinking.

“That’s weird!” says Barbie.

Barbie and Skipper try to reboot the computer, but nothing happens.

“Looks like you’ve got a virus, big sister,” says Skipper.

“Luckily, I wear my flash drive on a necklace so that I’ll always remember to back up my work,” replies Barbie.

So, after this page, we–

Hey, where did you go? Oh, I see you. You’re on the floor, face down, having given up. Yeah, we did that, too. Is it because it took two girls to reboot a computer?

I feel bad for every time I made fun of my mother using technology, because right now some mom is having to read this book to her daughter, and after the “weird” blinking screen and reboot, she’s having to describe the computer’s state as: “nothing happens.”

Are you still on the floor because Barbie wears a flash drive around her neck? And that it’s a giant pink heart? At least Skipper’s doing her best to help the situation by pouring her sister some juice. Girls can be so helpful in the kitchen.

“May I borrow your laptop, Skipper?” asks Barbie as she follows her little sister into her bedroom.

“I really should finish my homework assignment. I am writing about a person I admire,” says Skipper.

“I only need it for a minute,” adds Barbie.

“Okay,” says Skipper.

Run, Skipper! Run from the haunted flash drive!

When Barbie puts her flash drive into Skipper’s laptop, the screen starts blinking.

“Oh, no!” says Barbie. “The virus must be on the flash drive!”

“I forgot to back up my homework assignment!” cries Skipper. “And all my music files are lost, too!”

“I’m so sorry, Skipper,” says Barbie. “I have to run off to school now. But I promise to find a way to fix your laptop.”

“You better!” Skipper replies as she playfully hits Barbie with a pillow.

A PILLOW. SKIPPER HITS HER SISTER WITH A PILLOW. PLAYFULLY.

Skipper has just lost her homework, all her music files and her laptop, but all she’s moved to is STATUS: PILLOW FIGHT.

Barbie makes it to computer class just before the bell rings. As soon as class begins, Barbie raises her hand.

“Yes, Barbie?” asks Ms. Smith, the teacher.

“If your computer gets a virus and crashes, how can you retrieve all the files you lost?” asks Barbie.

The fact that Barbie’s comp sci teacher is female almost lets you assume things are about to get less insulting. Don’t fall for it.

“Well, first you remove the hard drive from the crashed computer,” explains Ms. Smith. “And then you hook it up to another computer.”

“But won’t the other computer get the same virus that made your computer crash?” asks Barbie.

“Not if the computer has good security software installed,” says Ms. Smith. “Good security software protects your computer from catching a virus.”

Barbie gets told how to do something, so what do you think she does next? That’s right. Go find some boys to fix her computering!

After class, Barbie meets with Steven and Brian in the library.

“Hi, guys,” says Barbie. “I tried to send you my designs, but I ended up crashing my laptop — and Skipper’s too! I need to get back the lost files and repair both of our laptops.”

“It will go faster if Brian and I help,” offers Steven.

“Great!” says Barbie. “Steven, can you hook Skipper’s hard drive up to the library’s computer?”

“Sure!” says Steven. “The library computer has excellent security software to protect it.”

IT WILL GO FASTER IF BRIAN AND I HELP, offer the men voices. “Step aside, Barbie.” YOU’VE BROKEN ENOUGH, NOW.

From Helen Jane: Steven and Brian are nice guys, I’m sure. But Steven and Brian are also everything frustrating about the tech industry. Steven and Brian represent the tech industry assumption that only men make meaningful contributions. Men fix this, men drive this and men take control to finish this. Steven and Brian don’t value design as much as code. Steven and Brian represent every time I was talked over and interrupted — every time I didn’t post a code solution in a forum because I didn’t want to spend the next 72 years defending it. Steven and Brian make more money than I do for doing the same thing. And at the same time, Steven and Brian are nice guys.

“I’ve got Skipper’s assignment from the hard drive!” exclaims Steven.

“Fantastic!” says Barbie. “And her other files, as well?”

“I’ve got everything,” says Steven. “Now let’s retrieve the files from your hard drive. Both laptops will be good as new in no time!”

High-five, dude. High-fucking-five.

The next morning, Barbie gives her sister a big surprise. Skipper turns on her laptop– and it works!

“My lost assignment!” cries Skipper. “You are just too cool, Barbie! You fixed my computer AND saved my homework!”

Skipper gives Barbie a huge hug.

Barbie not only waits until the next morning to return her sister’s computer, she completely takes all the credit that it’s no longer broken! What an asshole!

At school, Skipper presents her assignment to the class.

“Hi, everybody,” she says. “The person I admire most is Barbie — a great sister and a great computer engineer!”

Everyone is impressed by Skipper’s presentation.

What?! Oh, wait. Didn’t she mostly write this assignment before the crash? Let’s give Skipper a pass. She almost lost enough already this week. Besides, if we upset her we’re likely to get trapped in the middle of one of her combination pillow fight/bikini car washes.

At computer class, Barbie presents the game she designed. Ms. Smith is so impressed that she gives Barbie extra credit!

Barbie’s terrific computer skills have saved the day for both sisters!

“I guess I can be a computer engineer!” says Barbie happily.

THE FUCKING END, PEOPLE.

Despite having ruined her own laptop, her sister’s laptop, and the library’s computers, not to mention Steven and Brian’s afternoon, she takes full credit for her game design– only to get extra credit and decide she’s an awesome computer engineer! “I did it all by myself!”

Flip the book and you can read “Barbie: I can be an Actress,” where Barbie saves the day by filling in for the princess in Skipper’s school production of “Princess and the Pea.” She ad-libs and smiles her way through her lines, and charms the entire audience. Standing ovation, plenty of praise. At no point did she need anybody’s help. She didn’t even need lines! Just standing there being Barbie was enough for everyone in attendance. See, actors? It’s not that hard. Even Barbie can do it.

When you hold the book in your hands to read a story, the opposite book is upside down, facing out. So the final insult to this entire literary disaster is that when you read “Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer,” it appears that you are so fucking dumb, you’re reading “Barbie: I Can Be an Actress” upside down.

Helen Jane and I were so livid after reading this book we spent the first fifteen minutes spitting out syllables and half-sounds. We’d go from outraged to defeated to livid in the span of ten seconds. “I want this thing to start a meme of girls screaming, ‘I don’t need a Brian or a Steven!'”

We knew we had to share this with you, because if we didn’t, we’d be saying it was okay. We couldn’t just roll our eyes at how insulting this book is, how dangerous it is for young minds, how it’s a perfect example of the way women and girls are perceived to “understand” the tech world, and how frustrating it can be when nobody believes this is how we’re treated.

Just about every review we could find on this book had readers equally offended and frustrated.

Oh, and the 50 stickers? I only saw one: “Nerdy is the new Fab!” The others had already been removed by Helen Jane’s small daughters. We can only hope that one of them doesn’t boast, “My other laptop is a boy!”

Add it to the list of ways Norway wins—soon the country will have a passport that reveals an image of the Northern Lights when placed under a black light.

That design element alone might make it coolest passport in the world (although Australian passports’ images of kangaroos, camel races, and platypuses pose a strong challenge). The black-light aurora borealis image is an innovative approach to security—it’s common for passports to have images that can be seen only under UV light, but the Norwegian design gives this functional feature an element of beauty and relevance to its purpose.

Here’s what the passport’s internal pages look like in normal light:

The juxtaposition is intentional—"The landscape with its vast variation from the south to the north, is the starting point for the design concept," according to an emailed statement from Neue, the design studio that won the nationwide competition to redesign the country’s passport.

The design beat out other competitors because of signature Norwegian traits: sleek design and attention to the natural elements that Norwegians—or at least the jury of Norwegians who chose the passport—hold dear. The jury’s statement praised the design’s “simplicity” and said, according to the Neue press release, “the design is attractive and stylish, the colors are subtle and the abstraction of the landscapes are exciting.”

The inside isn’t all that’s striking about the passports. Forget the dull earth tones so prevalent on other passport covers. The Norwegians will be bringing pops of color to international borders everywhere:

But you won’t see any of these documents out in the wild just yet. The new designs will roll out some time in the next two years.

This article was originally published at http://qz.com/298495/behold-the-coolest-passport-on-the-planet/

by Jazmine Hughes

Do you want to have children, and if so, when? How many?

How important is religion to you? Could you survive in household where there are two different, perhaps disparate views on religion?

Are you gonna eat that?

How close will we be to your parents?

OK, well, can I at least have half?

Do you like my friends? Do you expect me to hang out with your friends often?

How will we divide up money? How will we tackle debt? How will we decide what to save?

How important is equality in a marriage?

I just don't understand why you won't give me half—like, I know it's a good sandwich, but can I at least have a BITE?!

If we ever hit a rough patch, would you be willing to partake in couples' therapy?

Oh my god, this has a tomato on it. Why would you let me eat this?!

What will our morning routine be? Our evening routine?

How will we divide household chores?

You're really being super rude right now. Do you need to take a nap?

Are we able to openly talk about our sexual needs and preferences?

Do you see us traveling often?

Where will we spend the holidays?

What the hell is bugging you?

What do you mean, you've been reading my text messages? Those are private! I gave you my passcode six months ago and you held onto it this entire time??

Where do you want to settle down? Where do you want to retire?

How much affection do you require in a given day?

Why don't you trust me?!

Do you like animals? Do you want a pet?

Will we donate to charity?

Do you think it's ok for me to read your text messages behind my back?

Public or private school?

Will we celebrate cultural holidays?

Do you have a plan to care for your parents?

No, I don't really think you are a "uptight insecure sandwich hog." Don't you say things to blow off steam, too?!

Have we been honest with each other about our health histories? Is there anything we should prepare for?

If we were able to live off of one salary, do you think one of us should stay home and raise our family?

When have I ever not shared my sandwich with you?

When have I ever liked tomatoes?!

Would you ever serve in the military?

Are you afraid of getting older?

Do you think that maybe we're not right for each other after all?

Have you ever committed a crime?

What is your political stance?

Do you want to just eat the tomato-y part and I'll eat the rest?

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by Lili Loofbourow

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Google Maps - Building shadows display accurately according to the time of day.

by Jay Caspian Kang

Serial, the hit crime podcast from the hit podcast makers at This American Life, is an immigrant story. Adnan Syed, the man currently serving a life sentence for the murder of Hae-Min Lee, comes from a Muslim family; the deceased is the daughter of Korean immigrants. Sarah Koenig, the journalist telling their story, is white. This, on its face, is not a problem. If Serial were a newspaper story or even a traditional magazine feature, the identities of all three could exist alone as facts; the reader could decide how much weight to place upon them. But Serial is an experiment in two old forms: the weekly radio crime show, and the confessional true-crime narrative, wherein the journalist plays the role of the protagonist. The pretense of objectivity is stripped away: Koenig emerges as the subject as the show’s drama revolves not so much around the crime, but rather, her obsessions with it. Syed and Lee’s lives, then, are presented through Koenig’s translations of two distinct cultures.

To borrow a This American Life-ism: What happens when a white journalist stomps around in a cold case involving people from two distinctly separate immigrant communities? Does she get it right? (Spoilers ahead.)

On Tuesday, I called Rabia Chaudry, one of the prominent voices in Serial. Chaudry, a civil rights attorney, grew up in the same circles as Syed; it was she who initially reached out to Koenig to see if she might be interested in the story. Chaudry said that while Koenig had spent upwards of a year talking to people in the community, she has faced significant stumbling blocks in her understanding of it. “Initially she was kind of confused by the dynamics, especially that dating was such a difficult thing and the extremes people take to cover it up,” Chaudry told me. “I could sense when she was telling the story, the parts where she was confused.”

An example: In the show’s second episode, Koenig says, “Since [Syed] and Hae both had immigrant parents, they understood the expectations, and the constraints: Do well in school, go to college, take care of your younger brother, and for Adnan, no girls.”

Koenig follows up with this statement from Syed:

“You know, it was really easy to date someone that kind of lived within the same parameters that I did with regards to, you know, she didn’t have the expectation to me coming to her house for dinner with her family, you know, she understood that if she was to call my house and speak to my mother or father, I would get in trouble, and vice versa.”

At first blush, Koenig has done her job as a journalist. She has supported her statement about immigrant parents with a quote from the source. The problem is that Syed never says the word “immigrant.” Instead, he says “parameters,” which is about as neutral and clinical of a word as one could come up with in that situation. It’s possible that there are other parts, not heard, in which Syed explains the point further, but if they exist, they have been excised, meaning that all we’re left with is Koenig’s inference that those “parameters” necessarily mean “immigrant culture.” In a startling omission, the Lee family has not yet appeared in Serial. Without their presence, and Koenig’s insistence on directing the reader towards the typical immigrant family who raised the typical American teenager, the Lees and the Syeds have been rendered as Tiger Parents—overbearing and out-of-touch. The problem isn't just the leap itself—that we would hear about strict parents and assume they were all similar—but Koenig's confidence that we will make it with her.

It gets worse. Also in the second episode of Serial, Koenig reads passages from Hae’s diary. Koenig notes, “Her diary, by the way—well I’m not exactly sure what I expected her diary to be like but—it’s such a teenage girls diary.” (My emphasis added.) This statement seems to suggest a colorblind ideal: In Koenig's Baltimore, kids will be kids, regardless of race or background. But I imagine there are many listeners—especially amongst people of color—who pause and ask, “Wait, what did you expect her diary to be like?” or “Why do you feel the need to point out that a Korean teenage girl’s diary is just like a teenage girl’s diary?” and perhaps, most importantly, “Where does your model for ‘such a teenage girl’s diary’ come from?” These are annoying questions, not only to those who would prefer to mute the nuances of race and identity for the sake of a clean, “relatable” narrative, but also for those of us who have to ask them because Koenig is talking about our communities, and, for in large part, getting it wrong.

The accumulation of Koenig’s little judgments throughout the show—and there are many more examples—should feel familiar to anyone who has spent much of her life around well-intentioned white people who believe that equality and empathy can only be achieved through a full, but ultimately bankrupt, understanding of one another’s cultures. Who among us (and here, I’m talking to fellow people of color) hasn’t felt that subtle, discomforting burn whenever the very nice white person across the table expresses fascination with every detail about our families that strays outside of the expected narrative? Who hasn't said a word like "parameters" and watched, with grim annoyance, as it turns into "immigrant parents?" These are usually silent, cringing moments – it never quite feels worth it to call out the offender because you’ll never convince them that their intentions might be as good as they think they are.

Koenig does ultimately address Syed’s Muslim faith in Serial, but only to debunk the state’s claim that Syed’s murderous rage came out of cultural factors. The discussion feels remarkably perfunctory—Koenig quickly dispenses with Syed’s race and religion. She seems to want Syed and Lee, by way of her diary, to be, in the words of Ira Glass, “relatable,” which, sadly, in this case, reads “white." As a result, Chaudry believes Koenig has left out an essential part of Syed’s story—that his arrest, his indictment and his conviction were all influenced by his faith and the color of his skin. “You have an urban jury in Baltimore city, mostly African American, maybe people who identify with Jay [an African-American friend of Syed's who is the state’s seemingly unreliable star witness] more than Adnan, who is represented by a community in headscarves and men in beards,” Chaudry said. “The visuals of the courtroom itself leaves an impression and there’s no escaping the racial implications there.”

“I don’t know to what extent someone who hasn’t grown up in a culture can really understand that culture,” Chaudry added. “I think Sarah tried to get it, but I don’t know if she ever really did. I explained to her that anti-Muslim sentiment was involved in framing the motive in this case, and that Muslims can pick up on it, whereas someone like her, who hasn’t experienced this kind of bigotry doesn’t quite get it. Until you’ve experienced it, you don’t really know it or pick up on it"

Koenig and Serial are hardly alone. The staffs of radio stations, newspapers, and magazines tend to be overwhelmingly white, which leaves reporters and writers with a set of equally troubling options: either ignore stories from communities of color, or report them in the same sort of shorthand that Koenig uses throughout Serial. In loftier media outlets, the second choice usually goes unnoticed because the writer comes from the same demographic as the intended audience. Even the best works of journalism produced by white journalists about minority communities, which includes The Last Shot, Darcy Frey's chronicle of high school basketball in Coney Island, have the same problem: The writer can feel like an interloper, someone who will stay long enough to write a story and then leave.

This certainly doesn't mean that people should only write and report about the communities they know or are born into, but if we judge lengthy narratives by their thoughtfulness, the depth of their inquiry and their care, Serial lacks the hard-earned and moving reflections on race found in Frey's book, or, in, say, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family. Instead, the listener is asked to simply trust Koenig's translation of two distinct immigrant cultures. I can think of no better definition of white privilege in journalism than that.

There’s a reading of Serial that’s a bit more sympathetic, one in which Koenig has been intentionally presented as a quixotic narrator with Dana, her occasional sidekick on the show, playing the role of Sancho Panza. There’s ample evidence that this is what’s the show is striving for—from the unexpected asides where Dana interrupts one of Sarah’s obsessive rants with a roadside observation (“There’s a shrimp sale at the Crab Crib!”) to the reporting blunders to the callous way in which Koenig sometimes talks to Syed, as if he should be eminently grateful that she, a journalist, has decided to dig into his life. But if Serial is not so much a story of a murder, but rather, the story of how a journalist goes about reporting a story that has grabbed her; and if Koenig is a flawed, unreliable narrator, we should add “cultural tourist” to the list of flaws. That Koenig keeps in the bad, impolitic parts is a testament to the integrity and ambition of the project. But while I am willing to cut “Serial” enough slack to regard it as an experiment in form, I am still disturbed by the thought of Koenig stomping around communities that she clearly does not understand, digging up small, generally inconsequential details about the people inside of them, and subjecting it all to that inimitable “This American Life” process of tirelessly, and sometimes gleefully, expressing her neuroses over what she has found.

In a recent interview with Vulture, Koenig admitted that she was mostly making Serial up as she went along. "Yes, I could say, there was a point where I thought I knew the truth," she says. "And then I found out that I didn't know as much as I thought I did, and I did more reporting, and now I don't know what I don't know again! Are you mad at me? Don't be mad at me!"

When one considers the full extent of what Koenig does not know, this tone, which runs throughout the show, becomes particularly frustrating. Sarah, we're not mad at you for accomplishing the difficult feat of both whitewashing and stereotyping Hae and Adnan. We're just cringing, silently, every time you talk about them.

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Keep your holiday entertaining simple with this sweet-and-savory appetizer: smoky bourbon brie flatbread with fig jam and crispy prosciutto. 


Regular readers know that The Ninj is all about quick-and-easy real-food recipes, especially for weeknight dinners. But that holds true for all my recipes -- even for holiday entertaining.

I don't know about you, but whether I'm hosting or simply attending a holiday party, I like to focus on the company, the conversation and the cocktails (not necessarily in that order, heh heh), rather than fret over the appetizer prep. That's why I often turn to flatbreads for parties; it's easy to use a variety of spreads and toppings to turn a simple flatbread into a great appetizer pizza.

Clearly the good folks at Alouette Cheese think the same way I do, since they have teamed up with Stonefire Flatbreads to share some "flavorology" this holiday season. Simply put, it's their term for the art of creating unique, simple and delicious flavor combinations using flatbreads and soft cheese spreads. What could be easier (or yummier)?

Stonefire and Alouette invited me to come up with my own favorite flatbread flavorology combination: with cheese flavors like wasabi cheddar, smoky jalapeño and roasted red pepper, it was hard to choose. But of course I was pulled like a moth to a flame to the Smoky Bourbon Creme de Brie -- you know, because nothing says "holiday" to The Ninj like bourbon. Except bourbon and cheese.

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Courtesy of the guys over at Tastefully Offensive comes this definitive, two-and-a-half minute long supercut of clumsy baby elephants being super clumsy. How clumsy are baby elephants, though, you may ask? Well, it’s basically like watching a bunch of drunk-ass little elephants, like somebody poured a bottle of Smirnoff into their little elephant drinking troughs and then sat back and watched them stumble around like college freshman on the first weekend of university. Only better, because clumsy drunk baby elephants are at least 99% vomit free.

SVA Product of Design Student Eden Lew created Nutshell, aimed at reducing stress and providing a kind of respite from urban life. It’s a pod-inspired platform for productive break-taking.

I’d use it. Read more.

(Thanks Allan)

by Sara Lautman

Sara Lautman draws.

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A "like" on Facebook is a treat. You get a little red pop-up on your notifications icon, you see the little box on the-hand corner of your screen describing the like, and you get that warm, albeit fleeting sense of pride. Someone liked your post. Your post! You savor it. You inevitably want more likes. You wait.

To keep its 1.3 billion users clicking and posting (and stalking), Facebook scatters numbers everywhere. While it collects many metrics that users never see, it tells users plenty of others, too. Facebook tells you the number of friends you have, the number of likes you receive, the number of messages you get, and even track the timestamp to show how recently an item entered the news feed.

And these numbers, programmer and artist Ben Grosser argues, directly influence user behavior by being the root of Facebook addiction. In October 2012, he set out to find exactly what Facebook's metrics were doing to users after noticing how much he depended on them.

"There were times when I was more focused on the numbers than the content itself," he remembers. "I was more interested in how many likes I had instead of who liked it. I realized every time I logged in looked at those numbers. Why was I caring? Why do I care so much?"

In response, he built a browser extension called The Facebook Demetricator, which, when installed and activated, hid all numbers on Facebook. Instead of seeing the little red pop-up showing the number of notifications you have, you'd simply see the icon take on a lighter blue color. Instead of seeing the number of likes a post received, you'd see the phrase "people like this."

Since releasing the extension two years ago, more than 5,000 users have adopted the tool, sending Grosser feedback on how the tool influenced their understanding of the social network. Grosser used their observations to write a paper examining the impact of metrics, published Monday in the journal Computational Culture.

His findings are illuminating. Sure, Facebook addiction is probably the oldest social-network-related epidemic, but Grosser's tool allowed users to experience a pressure-free Facebook. This experience demonstrated that metrics changed user behavior by encouraging competition (the more likes, the better), emotional manipulation (deleting posts when there weren't enough likes), reaction (liking more recent posts instead of older ones), and homogenization (liking because others liked).

Put simply, the numbers encouraged users to feel compelled to want more numbers. For example, friend count is seen as a mark of status because Facebook places a small "+1" next to the "Add Friend" button. Even if the user isn't aware of doing so, the number encourages her to make more connections, because she's shown that adding a friend is a positive action. That results in an overall and innate need for more on Facebook.

The more competition, the more the numbers matter, creating a vicious cycle that eventually creates what Grosser calls the "graphopticon" model, where the many watch the many. You log on, see how many likes other posts have received, and feel compelled to like as well. Facebook users therefore contribute data while pressuring others to do the same.

Which is why many users of Grosser's Demetricator tool found it difficult to leave the numbers behind.

"People realized when the numbers were gone, they had been using them to decide whether to like something," he tells me. "I certainly didn't expect these tendencies of people saying, 'I literally don't know what to do [without knowing the metrics].'"

Some Demetricator users rejected the tool completely, seeing it as going against the benefits of using Facebook in the first place.

"A huge category of response was, 'Why would I want to [hide the numbers]? The numbers are the whole point,'" Grosser says. "Some people really like their metrics."

It's not just Facebook where users have been conditioned to appreciate more notifications and likes. On Instagram, the hashtag #100likes is applied to photos that, well, achieve at least 100 likes, a mark of success used mainly among teens competing to enter "The 100 Club." Twitter prominently places the follower count at the top of users's profiles, and tracks the number of retweets and favorites. Even Ello, which has promised it won't involve advertisers, displays timestamps and the number of views.

Not all users of the Demetricator found the lack of numbers paralyzing. Instead, most continued using the tool, finding it "enjoyable that their emotional well-being was restored to some extent," Grosser says. No numbers, no pressure.

But whatever the outcome, the influence of the Demetricator is clear: The numbers made a difference in the way people used Facebook, often affecting their behavior. Which, Grosser says, isn't necessarily a bad thing. His project served only as an experiment reminding users to think about why metrics matter.

"I think it's a problem when we don't know what those likes mean, when we start focusing on wanting more likes," he says. "If we aren't aware of how these numbers are telling us to interact, then it's a problem."

And perhaps that's where users are already headed. As users become more aware of news posts and advertisements catered to their preferences, they seek alternatives to avoid that control.

Or they'll just keep liking those likes. Because even if we are conditioned to want them, likes still don't have to mean anything at all. They can remain treats, tidbits of gratification used only on social media. It's an idea Grosser had once previously toyed with in another project called "Reload the Love," which allowed users to see their notification count go up, just for the satisfaction of seeing the engagement. He found then, just as he found with the Demetricator, that the smallest numbers deeply affected the way users felt.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/how-numbers-on-facebook-change-our-behavior/382005/

A new "net neutrality" plan released by the White House on Monday morning includes an endorsement of an old idea that some activists have been pushing for years: the treatment of the Internet as a public utility.

In a letter and a video posted on the White House website, President Obama said he believes "the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act," allowing Internet Service Providers to be more heavily regulated. According to Obama, the change would acknowledge that "the Internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life."

Obama's argument explicitly rejects proposed rules that FCC considered earlier this year to allow paid prioritization, a plan by which content providers can make deals with ISPs to get faster service to their websites. (Those rules are still under consideration and have not been finalized.) The White House proposal calls for no paid prioritization, no blocking of any content that is not illegal, and no throttling of Internet services, where some customers have their Internet speeds artificially slowed down.

The proposal also asks that any new rules include mobile broadband, which is already the primary access point for many users.

As the president himself reminds us, the FCC does not answer to him, and does not have to listen to (or even consider) his suggestions. So there are no guarantees that any of these rules will even come to pass. However, an endorsement by the White House would be the strongest push yet toward an FCC that treats all Internet traffic as equal.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler responded to the White House plan with a "Thanks, we'll call you," response—"I am grateful for the input of the President and look forward to continuing to receive input from all stakeholders—but also included one ominous sounding warning: "The reclassification and hybrid approaches before us raise substantive legal questions. We found we would need more time to examine these to ensure that whatever approach is taken, it can withstand any legal challenges it may face."

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/obama-internet-utility-fcc-regulation-net-neutrality/382561/

I think I've found my ASMR trigger: watching YouTube videos of ballet dancers preparing their pointe shoes.

Don't get me wrong, I like the actual ballet well enough. But there's something so uniquely soothing and satisfying about seeing these women (it's mostly women—male dancers are usually too heavy to go on pointe) ready the tools of their trade.

There's the slipping of the original, light-pink shoe out of its bag, and then the hours spent scraping, ripping, crushing, sewing, and burning (!!), only to end up with a shoe that looks identical to the layman but is uniquely tailored to the ballerina.

In this video from the Australian Ballet, dancer Jessica Fyfe explains how she has six to eight pairs going at once, including "a pair that's good for jumping in, a pair that's stage-perfect..." Her colleague Natasha Kusen, meanwhile, shellacks her shoes to extend their life and outfits them with ouch-pouches.

The principal dancer, Amber Scott, describes how she covers her feet in tape and sews on big elastics—a lesson learned from past injuries. "It's time consuming, but what would be more annoying is being unable to dance because of the pain," she says.

Then there's this hyperlapse, which shows a dancer cutting and ripping out the sole of her shoes (to allow for greater flexibility), and then super-gluing it all back together:

It's almost like the dance's most distinctive qualities—exterior perfection, inner struggle, insane physicality—get concentrated in the shoes. Even early retirement: After one or two stage performances, the shoes begin to "die."

In this one, Pennsylvania Ballet Principal Dancer Arantxa Ochoa says she goes through 60 pairs per season. To make them last slightly longer, she glues the tips. Like many other dancers, she also cuts off the material around the toes to keep herself from slipping.

At one point in my ballet-shoe wormhole journey, I began to wonder why the shoes don't just already come the way dancers like them. It would be like if I got a new tape recorder and then had to pound it with a hammer for a few hours before I was able to use it.

But then I realized that each woman likes her shoes slightly different, and the specifications can get rather complicated. The Western Australian Ballet's Andrea Parkyn, for example, not only rips out the entire sole lining, she marks the shoe where her arch is and then breaks it in half with her hands:

The ritualistic aspect gets passed down between generations of dancers. Here, a New York City ballet dancer describes how, her first year with the company, she had to use other dancers's shoes. Only later did an older ballerina show her the art of crafting her own perfect pair:

You would think all these hours of shoe preparation would make dancing on the very tips of the toes less painful, and you would be wrong. Dancers describe using everything from alcohol soaks to tooth-numbing gel to get through their practice sessions.

Though Scott said dancers's feet "look worse than what they feel," here, the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Kaori Nakamura opens with, "Does it hurt? Yes." Especially right now that she's dancing Sleeping Beauty, she adds, "Yep. Very painful."

Still, without the perfectly bespoke shoes, the gravity-defying art of pointe would be all but impossible. "They're part of my body," she says, "like skin."

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/ballerinas-preparing-their-pointe-shoes/382495/

“The day after our Halloween party, I woke up to this…”
- Krewski

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of meeting artist and photographer Julia Sherman of Salad for President when she interviewed my Julia for her blog. Salad for President is a fascinating project that involves a wide range of artists coming to the MoMA PS1 Salad Garden (which Julia S. maintains) and creating a salad. It’s a mixture of food and art in a way that highlights fresh local ingredients and artistic presentations. I’ve been following the blog’s projects all fall and was excited to hear that Julia had been working on a new project: a cocktail syrup made from the Shiso-Jalapeno grown at the MoMA PS1 Salad Garden.

Along with Morris Kitchen, Julia created this unique cocktail syrup and has been perfecting it in cocktail-form with some help from her friend and bartender, Arley Marks. Arley and Julia came up with a drink that combines concord grapes and tangy sumac. The tart flavor of the grapes pairs perfectly with the sumac (which has a lemony taste) and the syrup adds a kick to the drink that Julia loves. I’m so excited to share this here today and am excited to see what else Julia will create next! xo, grace

*Julia is hosting a giveaway on Instagram to win a bottle of cocktail syrup! Check out her Instagram @SaladForPresident feed for more details.The winner will be announced by 5 pm tomorrow.

Click through for the full recipe after the jump!

(more…)

by Haley Mlotek

I didn't think "read it and weep" was a real thing that people did, but this afternoon I proved myself wrong!

The thought of staying awake 12 more hours and then actively pushing was unfathomable. I looked at Dustin. “What do you think?” I asked him, begged him to tell me. He was at a loss, too.

“Whatever you want to do, it’s your body.”

I hated this. Stop reminding me. It was my goddamn body, I had to endure the physical, at the very least someone else should have to do the mental arithmetic.

I wanted the c-section so badly. I wanted it like you want a glass of water at a stranger’s house, but you still feel like you should demur. I wanted it the way I wanted someone to stick a finger in my butt during sex, but would never ask for. I was thinking like a woman. I was in the most essentially oppressed, essentially female situation I’ve ever been in and I was mentally oppressing myself on top of it.

Meaghan O'Connell has been sending out her birth story, chapter by chapter, as an e-mail newsletter, but it is now available in it's glorious, terrifying, hilarious, beautiful entirety. Her complete story is 14,248 words, will take you an estimated 57 minutes to read, and is so, so worth your time, energy, and tears. Read it. Weep.

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by Jessica Olien

Jessica Olien is a writer and illustrator who moves a lot.

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by Laura June

I don't remember the time before I could read. Reading has always been an integral part of who I am, how I define myself, and how I structure my days. When work or life interferes to the point that I don't get hours of reading squeezed in every week, I get antsy, and feel depressed and confused. It's how I recharge my batteries and refresh myself.

And then I had a baby. Given an hour alone these days, it turns out, I'd much rather lay on my bed or stare at a wall, just being, than pick up a book.

In the early days of Zelda-life, I hadn't realized that yet, and I felt frantic to read anything. We spent twenty-four hours a day together, and she was mostly just laying around, swaddled up in some container—a basket, a bassinet, her crib. It didn't, at first, feel natural to me to have a one-sided conversation with my daughter. That passed very quickly, but before then, I filled our time together with reading. Sometimes I read the paper, sometimes The New Yorker (though sadly, she didn't seem to enjoy it). Then I started buying her books I had cherished as a child, and we read them together.

The third book I read to Zelda was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (I'll get to the first two in a second). Then The Wizard of Oz. Then The Little Prince, The Canterbury Tales (boy did she love them!), Me & Fat Glenda, and then Island of the Blue Dolphins. Then we chomped through The Phantom Tollbooth, and The Call of the Wild. Then we branched out from children's literature and read My Struggle: Book One. Just kidding, I wouldn't do that to her. That one I read alone.

Alone. Reading is largely a solitary activity, but reading aloud to someone is very different. During a series of long car trips years ago I read my favorite book—Jane Eyre—aloud to my husband. It took hours and hours, and I remember noticing how different this book, which I've read probably a dozen times, seemed when reading it together with someone. So Zelda has changed reading into a social activity, one which I really cherished in the first six months, before she could move around, when she was patient and happy just to listen to the sound of my voice.

But reading a book aloud to a baby, even one who doesn't understand a word of what you're saying, certainly changes your perception of the book. The first two books I read to Zelda were childhood favorites: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie. When I was eight or nine, I inhaled these books, compelled to begin reading them simply because the author and I shared a first name. I checked them out of the library one-by-one, slowly becoming obsessed with the idea of a pioneering lifestyle, so foreign and unknown to me. Then I asked for, and received, a boxed set of the books of my own.

But I hadn't read the books since I was in middle school when I started to read them to Zelda, and though my memory of them was really quite solid—a testament to the vibrancy of the writing—I looked at these books with new eyes, and I didn't like what I saw. It started off with little things. Pa skins a deer, sets some bear traps, and makes a ball for Laura and her sisters from the bladder of a pig. "It doesn't hurt him, Laura," Pa tells a whopper of a lie about butchering a pig on page thirteen. Of course, the pioneer life was all about these harsh realities, and I'm sure it's at least partly what drew me to the books as a child. We don't read to see an exact reflection of our own lives, or lives as we think they should be, after all.

But then Pa sings a song on page ninety-nine. Here are its lyrics (imagine that Pa is also fiddling):

There was an old darkey
And his name was Uncle Ned,
And he died long ago, long ago.
There was no wool on the top of his head,
In the place where the wool ought to grow.

There is a second verse but the first is enough, right? Imagine me reading these lyrics aloud to my daughter in her crib, just two weeks old. I didn't. I started, then saw what the words said, and skipped right over the whole song. I imagined her, eight or nine years old, reading the words. Would she even know what it meant? Would she need an explanation? Would she ask me about it? "Oh you know, they were preeeettty racist back then, so sometimes people called black people 'darkeys' but not anymore. Great book though, right?" We kept going, even though at this point the varnish had started to wear thin on my childhood memories.

Nothing prepared me for Little House on the Prairie, formerly my favorite book of the series, which details the Ingalls family's move from Wisconsin to Kansas in 1869, which at the time was still Indian Territory. This book is brimming with casual racism about Native Americans. They are described as "savages" and "wild," and both Ma and the family dog dislike them openly. "Why don't you like Indians, Ma?" Laura asks on page forty-six. "I just don't like them; and don't lick your fingers, Laura," Ma said.

The Ingalls family are Manifest Destiny personified. The Osage Indians they encounter are a brooding pack of inconvenience, and just one Native American gets the role of the "noble savage"—a chief who supports the settlers against his own people to keep peace. Pa implies the worst about them (on page one hundred and forty-six) when he tells Laura and her sister that if given the opportunity, the Indians would certainly off the family pooch, Jack, but "that's not all" he says. "You girls remember this: You do as you're told, no matter what happens."

I didn't remember any of this from my childhood reading. I probably glossed right on over it in favor of the juicy details of skinning a rabbit or how Pa builds the cabin. The good stuff.

Zelda and I finished the book, but we decided (well, I did) not to read any further installments. These books are a fascinating and incredibly flawed version of a series of events which actually occurred, remembered through the eyes of a small child, and written in the nineteen thirties. As an adult, I can make sense of what I'm reading. I have context. I know history. And the events as described make me terrifically sad. I don't think that a child of eight or nine can make sense of these books without a lot of context, a lot of explanation, and honestly, I'm just not sure they're worth it. I'm not sure that their literary value is so high that I can overlook what I see as grave and deeply integral flaws. I think that they are outdated and old, and sometimes things just need to have an expiration date; they're like curdled milk to me. I've thrown them into the garbage with the Velveteen Rabbit, which I have decided not to read to Zelda either, because the name Skin Horse is creepy and why bother worrying her about When Toys Become Real? Reality is tough enough without thinking about that. I put them into the garbage with the many other books which reflect a largely white, very Christian ideal conception of the world, because that conception is both innately flawed and also outdated.

That's not to say that I think certain books should be censored or kept out of schools, or that they shouldn't be read. (I don't.) That's also not to say that I think she is or will be "too young" to read them and understand. If I have learned anything in parenting it's that babies and children pick up on things much faster than adults, and that she is capable of understanding so much, so easily. But parenting is all about making small judgements. When Zelda is seven or eight and can read, she will be allowed to read anything her heart desires. If she wants to read Laura Ingalls Wilder, I'll explain to her how racist they are, and how flawed their vision of the world is, was, and always will be. Until then, we're going to try to read something better. Like A Wizard of Earthsea.

THE PARENT RAP is an endearing new column about the fucked up and cruel world of parenting.

Laura June is a writer and a very cool mom. She is also the author of "The Vampire Diaries."

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