A.N

"A napping infant is busy learning and memorizing, a new study suggests." Yes…same.

In what is perhaps the most French thing to ever happen, a handsome, stubble-faced marcher wearing a manscarf at the Charlie Hebdo rally was photographed holding a sign that said: “I’m marching, but I’m aware of the confusion and hypocrisy of the situation.” I love this guy because this is precisely how I feel about a great many political and social things and most recently, the 2015 Golden Globes.

By now we’ve all heard that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler went in on Bill Cosby in their opening monologue (dialogue?). This is a good thing for anyone who is generally against people being raped and their attackers being shielded from consequence by fame, wealth, and patriarchy.  And yet, even as a person who is very happy to make Bill Cosby suffer, despite his status as my childhood hero, I did not feel relieved. The second joke made me uncomfortable and sad. While others were laughing, I’m pretty sure I looked more like Don Cheadle in this reaction pic. He’s…um…easy to spot.

The fact that the joke hinged on an imitation of Cosby’s voice was one problem for me. Any time a white person derisively imitates a black person’s voice, no matter the context, it just kind of gives me the heebie jeebies. I grew up in a fairly racist environment around fairly racist white people who loved imitating black voices for kicks, which, to put it mildly, hurt. But I’m not the only one. Our entire nation has had that experience. America has such a long and painful history of black imitation that it’s damn near impossible for a white person to do so in a way that doesn’t send chills down the spine of anyone that has actually been face to face with white violent aggression masquerading as “just a joke.”

Understandably, not everyone saw a racial tinge to the joke. In a twitter convo I had with New Yorker TV Critic Emily Nussbaum (who proved pretty good at being open minded), she pointed out that it didn’t come across as racial for her. This, to me, is kind of the point. Part of being Black is experiencing race where others don’t. I would imagine this holds true for any long-suffering group. This does not make others racist or wrong for not getting it. (It’s highly doubtful to me that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were like “Finally!  A joke that lets us take down a rapist AND offend those PESKY BLACKS!” ) It simply speaks to nature of the disconnection between oppressed groups and their allies. It’s more about tone deafness. Ignorance. The disappointment for me is not that these two women whose work I love, whose success gives me inspiration, are racist. It’s that they just sort of forgot about my history in their enthusiastic takedown.

One common way to misinterpret any criticism of of Fey and Poehler is to somehow cast it in the camp of “Black people defending Bill Cosby.” No one at this keyboard is doing anything like that. Sure, he’s innocent until proven guilty, but in the meantime it’s my belief that Cosby should be dragged over the coals and through the mud with gleeful abandon. Black Twitter has no problem doing so. And neither do I. It’s really a question about how to lambast Cosby without the side-effect of inadvertently making innocent people feel like shit.

And this leads to the second problem. We talk about Fey and Poehler’s joke being important. Which it was. But in doing so we lose track of the fact that it wasn’t actually funny. I don’t mean in a “dude, that’s not funny.” way. I mean from a purely comedic perspective. The Bill-Cosby-Pudding-Voice Imitation hasn’t been a quality punchline since about 1997, and also has zero to do with rape, so it made for a disappointing denouement to what was, in the Cinderella joke, a decent warm up.  There must have been a thousand witty quips that emerged when the best comedic writers in Hollywood were in a room preparing to roast Cosby. By which logic did saying “I raped people” in a hackneyed Cosby voice emerge as the wittiest? Why not a joke about the frequency of rape sexual coersion in Hollywood? Why not a joke that rapists are probably in the room? This creates a bigger problem than just comedy nerdery. It makes me wonder what it must feel like to be one of Cosby’s victims hearing celebrities make a poor-to-mediocre joke, low on wit and high on goofiness.  Would I feel relieved? Vindicated? Or would it feel like my dignity and experience had been ridiculed and minimized on some half-assed Hollywood bullshit? If someone is going to take a swipe at my attacker, I’d want them to do with with a very, very sharp blade, and not the comedy equivalent of those giant Q-tips from American Gladiator. The “pills-in-the-people” joke highlights Cosby’s silliness. I’d want one that highlights his monstrosity. That, to me,  would be the right kind of rape joke.

Speaking of monstrosity, you know who else I wonder about? Woody Allen. There were no jokes about him at all and I am definitely not the first to notice this double standard. It impacts the way I see the Cosby jokes. Allen received a lifetime achievement award at last years Golden Globes, and on that occasion Poehler and Fey, who also hosted, were noticeably quiet about his child rape allegations. One has to wonder why. Is it because child rape is still too scary and frightening to approach? Is it because Woody Allen, Poehler, and Fey operate in overlapping professional circles? Is it because Allen still wields political power over projects which Fey and Poehler could be involved? Or is there another reason? Whatever it is, this silence is difficult to ignore and casts further shadow on the Cosby joke.

In America, we have a habit of dismissing things that are too complex or nuanced. I find this to be relatively true on both sides of the political aisle. But the thing about intersectionality is that it is complex and nuanced.  And for us to succeed at grasping it we have to become very good at seeing and understanding when things have multiple dimensions. We have to be able to hold competing ideas in our heads at the same time, like that Charlie Hebdo protester. So I don’t want to piss on anyone’s snow cone here, but it makes me sad when a moment that is fraught and confusing and tinged with ugliness is held up by allies as an unequivocal victory. I’d rather see it hailed as a moment in progress, but one that proves we have further to go. The parallel movements against misogyny and racism should not compete. We should not have to be offended racially at the precise moment when two talented, successful and heroic women are making a stand. I want white feminists to win. I don’t want it to mean that we have to lose.

Carvell Wallace is a father, writer and tech founder. He fears only scrambled eggs and The Babadook. He tweets at @carvellwallace.

Matthew Carpenter was already hard at work at 4:30 this morning, at his home in Australia, filling the orders pouring in at ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com. “The house looks like it’s 1975 and Donna Summer has just hit the stage,” he told The Washington Post. The 2016 elections may just be gearing up, but glitterbombing, the most unusual protest tactic of the 2012 cycle, is back with a vengeance.

The sparkly stuff, traditionally associated with fairy godmothers, a much-ridiculed Mariah Carey film, and New Year’s dresses, has found a second, darker use. The "glitterati" gleefully flung the stuff at politicians, to express anger and disdain for their positions on LGBT rights and marriage equality.

ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, an Australian-based venture, is trying to strike gold with glitter. The site’s launch—and subsequent crash—on Tuesday means that it hasn’t been able to ship glitter to your enemies quite yet, but, as founder Mathew Carpenter told The Washington Post, “We are a real service, we actually do send glitter to your enemies.”

Glitter is an ingenious tool of protest. Its shimmery sheen carries an innocence and sparkling carefreeness that prompted The New York Times to declare it "a kinder, gentler form of pranksterism." Its association with fanciful things make glitter easy to dismiss as silly, random, even fun. Even the first glitterbomber, Nick Espinosa, believed glitter to be essentially "harmless," as he told news outlets after launching the first glitter attack: "I knew he wasn't going to be hurt by it, but I also knew that it would stick with him and that, you know, for the days to come he'd be remembering what I said as he pulled the glitter sparkles form his hair. And that you know, of course, who doesn't want to see Newt Gingrich covered in glitter?"

One reason why glitterbombs are so effective is that they make their targets look ridiculous. They make an explosive statement, but without hurting their targets. Glitterbombing, in essence, makes a serious point about the status quo without the serious side effects.

But glitter's sparkle disguises its ability to be intensely annoying—it's been derided as "craft herpes" for a reason (“Like the STD herpes, once you have glitter on you, you cannot get rid of it”). Glitter’s—and glitterbombing’s—associations with the gay community and flamboyance have made it a popular tool for protesting stances against marriage equality. What makes it perfect in this context is its symbolism. It's immediately identifiable with the LGBT platform and makes a not-so-subtle statement about what protesters want. Unlike classic protest staples like pie, it can’t easily be wiped away, making glitter an ideal means for LGBT activists to make their point.

The first instance of glitterbombing can be traced to Espinosa, a then-25-year-old activist who took a Cheez-It box of glitter to presidential candidate Newt Gingrich while screaming, "Feel the rainbow, Newt! Stop the hate! Stop anti-gay politics. It's dividing our country, and it's not fixing our economy!"

At least 21 glitter attacks soon followed, their targets overwhelmingly Republican—former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Karl Rove. But even liberals—a group one might think would be exempted from such attacks—were not immune. Dan Savage, the popular and openly gay sex columnist, got showered in pounds of sparkles for his controversial comments regarding transgender people and rape. Savage, for his part, "laughed it off and said that, being gay, he loves glitter."

Its sparkle, though, may hide some real danger. The spate of glitterbombings against Republican candidates had doctors warning the public of glitter's corneal crushing capacity.

"If it gets into the eyes, the best scenario is it can irritate, it can scratch," Dr. Stephen Glasser told The Hill. "Worst scenario is it can actually create a cut. As the person blinks, it moves the glitter across the eye and can actually scratch the cornea." Snort or sniffle and your sinuses could take the shimmery dust and stab it in your lungs.

But Lauren Dyer, manager at Glitterex Corporation, a worldwide supplier of wholesale glitter, doesn’t think ordinary glitter has the capacity to inflict harm. “The stuff kids use in school is plastic,” she explained. When asked if glitter could be ingested or inhaled without harm, Dyer said: “Our glitter is 100 percent safe. Everything is tested.”

That hasn’t stopped those assaulted by glitter from claiming that they’ve experienced pain and danger, which in turn, raises a Constitutional question. Is glitterbombing a protected form of political speech or is it, as former presidential candidate and ex-Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee argued, "an assault"?

Gingrich and Santorum, the most frequent targets of activists, actually cited glitterbombing to justify their requests for Secret Service details. Gingrich complained to the Times that "glitter-bombing is clearly an assault and should be treated as such." Is he right?

“This is easy: Glitterbombing is not protected by the First Amendment,” Erwin Chemerinsky, a First Amendment law expert at the University of California-Irvine School of Law, told me. “There is no First Amendment right to throw something at a person, whether glitter or anything else.”

Chemerinsky explains that glitter is no different than pie or shoes or any other object thrown at a person’s face. It’s assault. “A person cannot punch another and then say it was just to express anger,” he said. “[It] is a nuisance. There’s no right to throw ashes or paint or glitter or feces at someone else. It would be an assault and there is no First Amendment right to assault another.”

It's too early to tell whether glitter will become even more popular as a tool of protest during the 2016 campaign, or if it will disappear as a historical footnote, a sparkly, curious form of protest associated with the 2012 race. Marriage equality is gaining momentum across the country, though it's not federally mandated and has faced setbacks at various levels.

But newer issues in the LGBT community have come to the forefront, and activists will want their voices heard during the election season. Transgender rights have become a hot-button topic—thanks in no small part to pop-culture phenomena like Orange Is the New Black and Transparent, which snagged a Golden Globe. Given the success they enjoyed with the tactic in 2012, it's hard to believe that activists won't use it again.And with ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, a tactic that debuted on the 2012 campaign trail has gone global, expanding the range of potential targets from a small group of American political figures to everyone on the planet.

Ironically, Carpenter, the founder of ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, is apparently the victim of his own success. On Wednesday afternoon, he posted a plea to the public to "stop buying this horrible glitter product—I'm sick of dealing with it." But it might be too late: Thousands of orders are in, and we may be in for an ultra-sparkly 2016 election season.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/glitterbombs-are-back/384527/

Every now and then, I stumble upon a business idea that makes me laugh out loud and nearly spill my coffee, Ship Your Enemies Glitter is one of them. As a parent of crafty little ones, I can fully attest that glitter is the most annoying thing that anyone could spill in your house.

(via Thierry)

Suggested evening reads.

Previously: Ayn Rand, Cat Fancier.

The Letters of Ayn Rand is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. It is a perpetual source of comfort and inspiration to me. Every morning, Ayn Rand must have thrust herself forth from her steel bed and asked herself "What is the most Ayn Rand thing that I can do today?"

On May 22, 1949, the answer was to write a letter to her young niece, who had sent her a short note asking to borrow $25 for a new dress. Here was Ayn's reply.

Read more An Actual Letter Ayn Rand Wrote To An Actual Teenage Girl at The Toast.

We’ve both seen it happen again and again. When a woman speaks in a professional setting, she walks a tightrope. Either she’s barely heard or she’s judged as too aggressive. When a man says virtually the same thing, heads nod in appreciation for his fine idea. As a result, women often decide that saying less is more.

[...]

As this and other research shows, women who worry that talking “too much” will cause them to be disliked are not paranoid; they are often right.

OK, so I'll be real with you: I don't have a NYT subscription and I am always very wary about clicking around aimlessly on the Internet out of fear I will waste a click. (Article compilers: ALWAYS TELL ME WHAT I AM GOING TO CLICK ON. I ONLY HAVE 4 ARTICLES LEFT TO READ THIS MONTH FOR FREE AND I AM NOT WASTING THEM.) The Women at Work series is always worth a read, but if you're already out of articles for the month, here's all you need to know: everything is still the worst. Women who speak up more at work are thought to be bossy, unhelpful, and less competent than their male counterparts.

Remember Sheryl Sandberg's (who co-wrote this article with Adam Grant) whole push to eliminate bossy? That never really did it for me—I genuinely don't mind being called "bossy," because I am bossy. It's true! I tend to take control of situations and assume I'm in charge. Fine! So sue me (please don't sue me). Sandberg and Grant provide some solid, realistic solutions to change this—namely, diversify offices and hire more women in leadership roles, which I am 100% behind—but this might be a good way to start: why don't we just embrace bossy? When people call women bossy, we know now what they really mean—"she's a woman who dares to share her opinion!"—so to that I say: "That's me!" It reminds me of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's (two women who are not afraid of the bossy moniker) fantastic Weekend Update sketch about people calling Hillary Clinton a bitch, where they implored us not to get offended by it and prompted a million Tumblr GIFs and thinkpieces with the reminder that "bitches get stuff done." And we do (research shows, when it comes to leadership, men are more confident but women are more competent). Just focus on the subtext: when a man calls a woman a "bitch" or "bossy," he is saying "I don't like that you are speaking out, I don't like your good ideas, I want to put you in your place and shame you for doing this." Screw that guy—let's reclaim those words, because being a powerful, outspoken, confident woman is never anything to be ashamed about.

But really: who cares what people say? I'm too busy bossing people around to think about that.

Here's a story that will resonate with anyone who has flown in China. On Friday night, after a three-hour weather delay, passengers boarded a Beijing-bound flight in Dhaka, Bangladesh that had a stopover in Kunming, a provincial capital in southwest China. Scheduled to leave Kunming at 8:45 p.m., the connecting flight was delayed until 11 p.m. by additional poor weather. This did not make the passengers happy. Several refused to board and demanded compensation, but by 1:45 a.m. the airline had persuaded everyone to board.

But that wasn't the end of the passengers' problems. After they boarded, the airport staff had to clear snow from the runway, which took over an hour. Finally, the plane began to taxi at 3:15 p.m.—15 minutes after the pilot inexplicably shut off the air conditioning. When passengers complained, the pilot reportedly asked: "Are you going to die soon? If not, just wait." Two passengers then burst open the emergency exits, which resulted in their arrests. And scene.

This was not the first time, even this month, that an airline passenger in China has opened an airplane's emergency exit in a non-emergency situation. More broadly, dramatic incidents of customer dissatisfaction with air travel are remarkably common in the country. After I moved to China in 2004, I witnessed the following over the course of six years, during which I took dozens of domestic flights:

• A passenger leaping on top of a check-in counter and lunging for a staff member who, for whatever reason, would not issue him a boarding pass. He was restrained before he could reach her.
• A group of 25 adults standing on top of a tables positioned near a gate, waving their jackets like fans waving towels at a football game, and chanting. Their flight was delayed without explanation.
• Two men getting into an enormous fist fight (eye gouging attempts and everything) after one accused the other of cutting in line.

Flying is a miserable experience just about everywhere, and China is hardly the only country that experiences air rage. Just ask Koreans, who winced with embarrassment when an airline executive lost it over the inadequate presentation of macademia nuts in first class. But in my experience, flying in China is worse than it is elsewhere, in many tangible ways.

First, there are the delays. In July 2013, fewer than one in five flights departed on time from Beijing Capital Airport. The percentage of on-time flights from JFK—an airport of comparable size in the U.S.—is 65 percent. Beijing's legendary pollution plays a part in these delays, but only a small one. The real problem is that the Chinese military controls 80 percent of the country's airspace. Last July, the military ordered 12 airports across the country to reduce departures by 25 percent over a three-week period in order to accommodate large-scale army drills. Communication, too, is a problem. Airport staff often announce delays without providing an explanation, causing immense frustration among passengers who don't know what to do.

The journalist Matt Sheehan, who in 2013 described a Chinese airport melee in hugely entertaining fashion, told MSNBC that “Chinese people have just begun waking up to this idea that as a consumer you're entitled to certain protections, but they don't have any of the institutions like consumer rights groups that do this professionally.”

Airlines—and the airline industry—are a useful lens for viewing China's development as a whole. In his excellent book China Airborne, Atlantic national correspondent and aviation buff James Fallows described how China is attempting to condense a century's worth of developments in aviation into a few decades. This breakneck pace has resulted in a dazzling array of new airports scattered across the country, but has included some serious growing pains.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/the-unique-misery-of-flying-in-china/384417/

During the Academy Awards show of 2013, Seth MacFarlane performed a song. It was directed at the female actors in the show’s live audience. It was titled “We Saw Your Boobs.”

The number played out exactly as you'd expect, given its name and the setting of its performance: It was cringe-worthy and awkward, one of those satires-wrapped-in-satires-wrapped-in-satires that tend to leave audiences angered and/or indignant and/or mystified. It left many of the people who watched it looking like this:

“We Saw Your Boobs,” and the various laughs and eye-rolls and thinkpieces that sprang from it, were the result of, among so many other things, the fact that awards shows are one of the few remaining opportunities for appointment viewing: hours-long spans when swaths of TV-watchers are watching the same thing—and reacting to that thing—in unison. Producers are acutely aware of the commercial opportunities offered by these rare concentrations of human attention, which means that they often treat their shows not just as spectacles of entertainment, but also as opportunities to make political points.

The shows' stars do, too. Kanye’s “Imma let you finish” interruption of Taylor Swift, Miley’s twerk upon the thrusting undercarriage of Robin Thicke, Ellen’s star-studded mega-selfie, Beyonce’s dance before a billboard emblazoned with the word “FEMINIST” … these are fleeting moments in awards shows, yes, but they're also culture-wide status symbols. They're little dots that, connected by a collection of far-flung human eyes, offer a fuzzy impression of who, and where, we are.

Last night’s Golden Globes show was the exception that proved the rule: It featured not a single, notable moment of politics-laid-bare, but rather an ongoing infusion of those moments. From its honoring of culturally progressive shows like Transparent and Jane the Virgin to its scripted jokes and banter, the show was uncommonly unified in its political message. And that message was: feminism. (Actually, more accurately, it was a more emphatically Beyonce-esque FEMINISM.) As a theme, this was presented with the aggression of nonchalance—feminism (FEMINISM) not as something to be debated or discussed or thinkpieced, but as something that's as present and unmistakable as the disco-ball gowns that swathed so many of the women on last night's red carpet.

It started, as so many feminist developments do these days, with the glorious life partnership that is otherwise known as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. The pair reveled in their status as “queens” and “goddesses” last night. They daringly made fun of the dethroned god Bill Cosby. They delighted in gender-bending outfits (Tina Fey's tuxedo! Amy Poehler's boob-butterfly!), and also in, via a show-introducing game of "Would You Rather," the objectification implicit in any show that exists primarily to broadcast images of beautiful people.

The show also featured Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, former stars of the sexist-boss-murdering romp Nine to Five and future stars of the upcoming Netflix show Grace and Frankie, dismissing the women-aren't-funny conversation by mocking it. (Fonda: "It's nice that men at last are getting the recognition they deserve for being good at comedy." Tomlin: "We can put to rest that negative stereotype that men just aren't funny.") It featured Julianne Moore celebrating her Still Alice win in the face of being told that "no one wants to see a movie about a middle-aged woman." It featured Patricia Arquette, in her acceptance speech for Boyhood, thanking the single mothers who inspired her performance. And Gina Rodriguez, who won for Jane the Virgin and who once noted that “I have a real responsibility to all the little girls out there to be the story-teller I was born to be,” thanking her sisters. And Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt, clearly surprised to have won, dedicating her acceptance to rape victims.

As Maggie Gyllenhaal put it in her speech, as the show's cameras panned across the faces of female actors:

I’ve noticed a lot of people talking about the wealth of roles for powerful women in television lately, and when I look around the room at the women who are in here, and I think about the performances that I’ve watched this year, what I see, actually, are women who are sometimes powerful and sometimes not. Sometimes sexy, sometimes not; sometimes honorable, sometimes not.

She added: "And, what I think is new is the wealth of roles for actual women in television and in film. That’s what I think is revolutionary and evolutionary, and it’s what’s turning me on."

Similarly, Amy Adams, accepting her award for her role in Big Eyes, celebrated quiet women. “I am so grateful to have all the women in this room,” she said. “You speak to her [Aviana, Adams’ daughter] so loudly. She watches everything and she sees everything, and I am just so, so grateful to all of you women in this room.”

Which is not to say that feminism was the only order of the evening, or that progress—in awards shows as anywhere else—is not without its frictions. There was a robotic Jeremy Renner making a predictable, yet nonetheless groan-worthy, joke about J-Lo's "golden globes." There was the fact that Fey and Poehler's "Would You Rather?" bit was explicitly aimed at objectifying men. The evening's overarching tension—what does feminism mean, in the context of Hollywood?—was perhaps best captured by the show's unofficial star: Amal Clooney, the internationally acclaimed human rights lawyer who recently took a trophy husband named George and who, as Fey pointed out last night, is a "human rights lawyer who worked on the Enron case, an advisor to Kofi Annan on Syria and was a appointed to a three-person commission investigating rules of war violations in the Gaza strip."

Fey paused, letting the irony sink in. "So tonight," Fey said of this accomplished woman, "her husband is getting a lifetime achievement award.”

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/01/strong-female-lead-a-feminist-golden-globes-show/384437/

Disorganized because every time I try to organize my thoughts on these topics recently they kind of squirm away. So, fine, disorganized it is, then.

1. As noted in one of the tweets shown above, as a newspaper journalist, as well as, you know, writing here, I’ve done my share of enraging people with words, by mocking ideas that they hold dear, because I thought they deserved mocking. I have had my share of angry responses and even the occasional threat, and my response to those typically has been to poke harder. When I took up the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag, that’s what it meant to me. I’ve been that guy.

2. I also recognize that I know almost nothing about Charlie Hebdo, the newspaper, or the tradition of satire and comment that it exemplifies in French culture. From where I sit, a lot of what I’ve seen of it looks kind of racist and terrible. And I understand that Charlie Hebdo didn’t just go after Islamic extremists, and that it went after other groups and people just as hard (and just as obnoxiously). But it reminds me that “we go after everyone equally” doesn’t mean that I feel equally comfortable with all of it, or that it has equal effect. When I say #JeSuisCharlie, it doesn’t mean I want to create or post what I think are racist caricatures and justify them as satire, applied on a presumed equal opportunity basis.

3. But then again my comfort level is about me, not about Charlie Hebdo or anyone else. Free speech, taken as a principle rather than a specific constitutional pratice, means everyone has a right to share their ideas, in their own space, no matter how terrible or obnoxious or racist or stupid or inconsequential I or anyone else think they and their ideas are. I also recognize that satire in particular isn’t about being nice, or kind, or fair. Satire is inherently exaggerated, offensive and unfair, in order to bring the underlying injustice it’s calling attention to into sharper relief. Trust me, I know this. (Satire also has a high failure rate, and the failure mode of satire, like the failure mode of clever, is “asshole.”) A lot of what I’ve seen from Charlie Hebdo isn’t for me and seems questionable, and that’s neither here nor there in terms of whether it should have a right to be published.

4. At the moment there’s an argument about whether news organizations are being cowardly about showing the Charlie Hebdo covers that allegedly were part of the reason it was attacked — the ones with visual depictions of the prophet Muhammad, who many Muslims feel is not supposed to be depicted visually (let us leave aside for the moment the discussion of whether all Muslims feel this way (they don’t) or whether Muhammad has been visually represented in the past even in Muslim art (he has, here and there) and focus on the here and now, in which many Muslims believe he should not be represented visually). The argument seems to be that by not showing the covers (or Muhammad generally), newspapers and other media are giving in to the extremists.

I’m not going to argue that very large media companies don’t have multiple reasons for what they do, including making the realpolitik assessment that displaying a Charlie Hebdo cover puts their employees (and their real estate, and their profits) at risk for an attack. But a relevant point to make here is that aside from the asshole terrorists who murdered a dozen people at Charlie Hebdo, there really are millions of Muslims who are just trying to get through their day like anyone else, who also strongly prefer that Muhammad is not visually represented. It’s not a defeat for either the concept or right of free speech for people or organizations to say they’re factoring these millions or people who neither did nor would do anything wrong into their consideration of the issue.

5. Which is a point that I think tends to get elided at moments like this — free speech, and the robust defense of it — does not oblige everyone to offend, just to show that one can. I can simultaneously say that I absolutely and without reservation have the right to visually depict Muhammad any way I choose (including in some ways devout Muslims, not to mention others, would consider horribly blasphemous), and also that, with regard to depicting Muhammad, as a default I’m going to try to respect the desire of millions of perfectly decent Muslims, and not do it. Because it’s polite, and while I’m perfectly happy not to be polite when it suits me, I usually like to have a reason for it.

6. But isn’t Muslim extremists shooting up a newspaper a perfect reason? For some it may be, and that’s fine for them. But I tend to agree with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar here: shit like this isn’t about religion, it’s about money and recruiting for terrorist groups who use religion, at best, as a very thin binding material for their more prosaic concerns. I’m also persuaded by Malek Merabet, brother of Ahmed Merabet, the policeman and Muslim who was killed by the terrorists. He said: “My brother was Muslim and he was killed by two terrorists, by two false Muslims.” In which case, why offend the good and decent Muslims to get back at two very bad and false Muslims. I’m a reasonably clever writer; I have the capability to make my point regarding these asshole terrorists without a gratuitous display of Muhammad.

7. Hey, did you know that according to the UN, Christian militia in Central African Republic have carried out ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population during the country’s ongoing civil war? And yet I hear nothing from the so-called “good” and “moderate” Christians around me on the matter! Why have the “moderate” Christians not denounced these horrible people and rooted them out from their religion? Is it because maybe the so-called “moderate” Christians are actually all for the brutal slaughter? Christians say their religion is one of peace! And yet! Jesus himself says (Matthew 10:36) that he does not come to bring peace, but the sword! Clearly Christianity is a horrible, brutal murdering religion. And unless every single Christian in the United States denounces these murders in the Central African Republic and apologizes for them, not just to me but to every single Muslim they might ever meet, I see no reason to believe that every Christian I meet isn’t in fact secretly planning to cut the throat of every single non-Christian out there. That’s what goes on in those “churches” of theirs, you know. Secret murder planning sessions, every Sunday! Where they “symbolically” eat human flesh! 

Please feel free to cut and paste the above paragraph the next time someone goes on about how all Muslims must do something about their co-religionists (of which there are more than a billion, all of whom apparently they are supposed to have on speed dial), and how Islam is in fact a warrior religion, and look, here are context-free snippets from the Koran, and so on and so forth until you just want to vomit from the stupidity of it all. And don’t worry, there are similar cut-and-pastes for any major religion you might want to name, as well for those who have no religion at all, although I’m not going to bore you with those at the moment.

The point is that, no, in fact, I don’t see why I or anyone else should demand that every Muslim is obliged to denounce and apologize for any bad thing that happens in the world done by someone who claims to be doing it in the name of Allah. As it happens, many prominent Muslims and Muslim organizations did condemn the Charlie Hebdo attacks, just like pretty much everyone else. But silence isn’t complicity or endorsement, and if you demand that it is, you may be an asshole.

8. If there is one silver lining to the horribleness of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, it is that people have been confronted with the fact of something they take for granted — the right to say what they want to say, how they want to say it — is something that others will literally kill to punish. That Charlie Hebdo is a problematic example — that is offensive, and intentionally so, and it does make people uncomfortable and angry — is, well, good isn’t the right word. Instructive. Sometimes we have to be reminded that free speech isn’t just for the speech we like, or the speech that’s easy to be reasonable about.

At the same time it’s okay to ask if this welcome outpouring of solidarity is because free speech was attacked, and it was decided that it was worth fighting for, or because a newspaper that mocked Islam was attacked by gunmen purporting to be Muslims, and that this may be less about free speech than another front in a religious/ethnic clash of culture.

My thoughts are that it’s probably some amount of both, and that neither is cleanly delineated. The two men who shot up Charlie Hebdo say they were Muslim; so were some of the people they shot. Those people — the Muslims who died — have been mourned, at least it seems from here, equally with all the other dead. They haven’t been pushed out of frame for a convenient narrative.

And maybe that’s part of the silver lining to this very dark cloud, too — that this isn’t just “us vs. them,” or at least that “us” now contain people in it who might have previously been considered “them.” And that all the people who are saying #JeSuisCharlie, and #JeSuisAhmed, or who are standing for free speech, or any combination of the three, are standing in memory of them as well.

Buffer - Instead of asking the category of your problem, Buffer asks how frustrated you are on its customer support form.

/via Eduardo Arcos

This makes me feel better about any awkward encounter I may have ever had with a woman.

The Tonight Show

“Facebook is something we all got in middle school because it was cool but now is seen as an awkward family dinner party we can’t really leave.”

You’re a parent or simply interested in how teenagers and young adults use Social Media? Read this post. It’s written by Andrew Watts, a 19 year old. Such insights. Fascinating!

(via Mark)

There are (of course!) already a handful of articles about why this probably isn't a good idea, but I'm kind of loving this lame-duck President who's trying to stick it to as many for-profit colleges as possible before he heads out.

Read more That Free Community College Thing at The Toast.

Binge-drinking may seem like a primarily youthful indiscretion, linked as it so often is to college in general, and fraternities in particular. About half of college students who drink binge, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and there are indeed all kinds of problems that come along with that, including assault, injury, and death.

But it’s middle-aged adults who are most at risk when it comes to dying of acute alcohol poisoning specifically—drinking so much that the high concentration of alcohol in the blood shuts down parts of the brain. A report published this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 76 percent of alcohol poisoning deaths between 2010 and 2012 were adults between the ages of 35 and 64.  Men accounted for 75 percent of the deaths, leaving men aged 45 to 54 with the highest death rate: 25.6 deaths per 1 million people. Previous research has found most binge-drinking episodes to be reported by adults older than 26, and that men binge-drink twice as much as women, logically putting those groups at higher risk of alcohol poisoning.

It may be that older adults have had more time to develop alcohol dependence, thus putting them at higher risk than college-aged drinkers. But while alcohol dependence was a contributing cause (though not the main cause) in 30 percent of these deaths, the CDC notes that 90 percent of binge-drinkers are not alcohol-dependent. Of course, both alcohol abuse and dependence can lead to other kinds of deaths that aren’t included here, such as those from liver disease, or drunk driving.

Alcohol-Poisoning Death Rates by State

Other findings from the report include that non-Hispanic whites account for 68 percent of deaths, followed by Hispanics at 15 percent; and Alaska has the highest death rate (46.5 per 1 million people) while Alabama has the lowest (5.3 per 1 million people), which is in line with previous CDC research correlating colder winters with more binge-drinking.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/alcohol-poisoning-deaths-are-most-common-in-middle-age/384360/

It is no surprise, then, that director Ava DuVernay chose two-time Oscar nominee Ruth Carter to bring such a complex history to life. Carter has worked on more than 50 films, including Amistad, Malcolm X and Lee Daniels’ The Butler. I recently spoke with Carter, who offered exclusive details about how she and her small team of five crafted all of the looks for Selma. As a historian of the civil rights movement who writes about gender and fashion politics, I can say that Carter gets it right.

Black activists who dressed in their Sunday best as they marched through Selma, Ala., in 1965 consciously chose a strategy of visibility that challenged the social hierarchy. Carter aimed to represent the sense of collective action that unified Selma residents of various ages, classes and occupations.

Tanisha C. Ford talks to Ruth Carter about using clothing to communicate history, and it's perfect. Read the entire profile here.

It’s 3 a.m. and the emails are coming in fast and furious. My iPhone is pinging like a Vegas slot machine that’s come up all cherries. What’s the emergency? I had just joined a discussion thread for a popular online poetry class—ModPo—and Emily Dickinson’s "Volcanoes Be in Sicily" is the subject of hot debate. Within 24 hours, there are over a hundred posts about this poem alone: "Why the archaic use of 'be'?" "What of the perplexing 'lava steps'?" One participant lapses into German and has started a discussion group in Switzerland. Another gushes, "ModPo=cyber peyote."

It’s the third year of the Modern & Contemporary American Poetry course, the brainchild of University of Pennsylvania English professor Al Filreis. ModPo is taught out of UPenn but it’s delivered as a MOOC—also known as a "massive open online course"—meaning it’s a virtual, free class available to Internet users around the world. ModPo enrolled 42,000 students in its first year and some 38,000 this past semester. Enrollees get access to a syllabus, links to texts, and prerecorded discussions of the poems, along with other video clips. They take periodic quizzes and write optional essays. And every Wednesday features a live webcast from UPenn’s Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia. Filreis stresses that the community aspect—study and meetup groups, real or virtual—is integral to the online coursework, and he and his team strive to make themselves available to students. After our recent phone interview, Filreis even invited me to a meetup in Manhattan to see ModPo in action.

I shuffled down a dark stairwell into the basement of the Hudson Park branch of the New York Public Library, one of ModPo’s newest partners. Nearly 50 people of all ages were already sitting in a circle under blinking fluorescent lights by the time I arrived, a few minutes late; more students streamed in after. Like an AA meeting, we introduced ourselves one-by-one and then divulged our secret—that we were, in fact, interested in poetry.

Gregarious and welcoming, Filreis listened carefully as we identified ourselves and explained our backgrounds. The group included architects and archivists, lawyers and therapists, business people and more than one "science-y guy." Few of the attendees actually majored in English, though many were repeat offenders to ModPo. After reading Dickinson’s poem aloud, we each received our assignment—a word or phrase from the text for discussion. (Someone even got the word "I.") This meetup proceeded just like any of ModPo’s online sessions, the main difference being the time spent on each poem and the in-person interaction we shared with Filreis and his cadre of graduate students. The online course, which lasts 10 weeks, covers the whole canon of modern and postmodern poetry, from Allen Ginsberg to Rae Armantrout.

Contrary to popular belief, the "MOOC need not be impersonal," said Filreis, who describes close reading as "a social act." Filreis isn’t a fan of conventional lectures. Instead, he wants to show students a new way of consuming literature, how to "slow down and read intensely, get excitement out of aesthetics and form, not content." Filreis wants to engage a range of of people—not just students and educators, but doctors and engineers, immigrants who are still learning English. The diversity of the discussion groups isn’t surprising; ModPo discussion groups have exploded in popularity nationally and even internationally. As of last Fall, Filreis or other ModPo staff were moderating groups in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, D.C., San Francisco, and Prague. That’s on top of the dozens of user-led groups hosted around the world.

But ModPo offers just one example of how poetry is increasingly making its mark on the online-education world. Harvard University literature professor Elisa New, for example, has launched a similar virtual course called Poetry in America. Now in its third year, the class is being expanded to include a two-year exploration of the entire American poet tradition. Like Filreis, New’s mission is to make poetry resonate with a broader audience: "We have to get outside the gates. What we have [in poetry] is too precious. We have to stop beating ourselves up about how the humanities are dying and instead ask, 'How do we reach all those intelligent people who love language, all those kids who delight in the rhymes of hip hop?'"

New is also interested in how poetry "creates a sense of cultural self-understanding"—how it’s used as a tool to reflect on identity, relationships, society, and history. To help guide members of the Harvard basketball team through Edward Hirsch’s poem "Fast Break," for example, New dons an athletic t-shirt. She talks about Hirsch’s use of adverbs, the effect of the long "i" sounds, high and gliding; she concludes by comparing basketball to a poem and life itself, each of which has an "overall form that can be seen if we pause to look at it."

And now, in addition to the online class, New is targeting even more "casual" learners: She just developed a television show based on her course. The pilot features well-known public figures ranging from Bill Clinton to Sonya Sanchez reading their favorite poems. Like ModPo, New’s course is popular among users around the world, with students representing nearly 150 countries. Certain topics, such as Whitman, are more popular among participants than others. Others, meanwhile, have attracted specific populations. The section on Puritan poetry, for example, gained particular traction with users in the Middle East.

But skeptics of online education still question if academic subjects, let alone poetry, can be taught on the web. They stress that true scholarship takes patience and time—values that aren’t inherent to online education. Even though many MOOCs offer certificates of completion, only 5 percent of of those who enroll actually stick to it. And, despite their popularity, both UPenn and Harvard’s poetry classes have experienced high dropout rates as well.

But Filreis suggests that the courses’ objectives are more important than their measurable outcomes. ModPo, he said, isn’t about the number of people who complete it—and it certainly isn’t designed to replace a traditional college seminar. After all, data indicates that most of the students who sign up already have some formal higher education under their belt. Rather, ModPo—and Poetry in America—are about reaching more minds and opening more people to the possibilities of language. They're about finding Whitman not only under boot soles but on smartphones, too.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/web-poets-society/384283/

When people accuse a public figure of private monstrousness, some friends naturally come to that figure’s defense. So it’s unremarkable to see Phylicia Rashad dismiss the rape allegations against her former sitcom husband Bill Cosby. But what is remarkable, shocking even, is the way she encapsulated a whole culture’s attitude and tradition about fame and abuse and gender with three words: “Forget these women.”

She’s talking about the more than 20 people who’ve said that Cosby sexually assaulted them, in many cases after allegedly drugging them. “Forget these women,” Rashad told Showbiz411 writer Roger Friedman at a Selma luncheon. "What you're seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And I think it's orchestrated. I don't know why or who's doing it, but it's the legacy. And it's a legacy that is so important to the culture."

This isn’t “innocent until proven guilty,” the line from Cosby actress Keshia Knight Pulliam a mere day earlier. It’s not “that’s not the man I knew,” the response from anyone who grew up watching the Huxtables. It’s not even “don’t listen.” It’s “hear, then forget”—a straightforward assertion that a person’s cultural product is more important than whatever individual harm that person may have caused.

This is the logic that has allowed many, many men to live fondly in the public’s mind despite strong evidence they gravely mistreated women. The list is enormous. It’s near the logic that allows people to ignore Thomas Jefferson’s slaveholding and infidelity, or John Lennon’s domestic abuse and neglect of his child.

What’s been surprising about the Cosby case is how people woke up to accusations that had been in the public sphere for years; how America seemed on the verge of forgetting these women but then, perhaps because of the sheer magnitude of the accusations or perhaps by some combination of cultural conditions, started paying attention. For anyone who believes the voices of assault victims have been unduly minimized and erased throughout history, that was progress. Rashad probably isn't the only one who would like to undo it.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/01/the-horror-of-forget-these-women/384295/

Looking to find a new show on Netflix or Amazon Prime. I enjoyed House of Cards, Scandal, Weeds and The Good Wife. Recommendations anyone?

— Tina Roth Eisenberg (@swissmiss) January 6, 2015

I don’t own a TV, I watch shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime. I asked my Twitter followers what show I should watch next. OMG! So many answers! Thanks to everyone that responded. I went with Transparent and ‘devoured’ the first three shows right away.

I love the internet so much.

Dear Childfree Person,

I am writing to you to share some vital information that has only become available to me in the last couple of years, since I became a parent.

Before that, I was subjected to the same saccharine clichés from parents that you are undoubtedly hearing over and over again. You’re probably being told, like I was, that you never really love until you become a parent. You’re probably hearing a lot about how no love can compare to the love a mother has for her child. Parents might be telling you that you’ll never ever EVER understand what real love feels like unless you become a parent yourself.

Read more Loco Parentis: You Pretty Much Get It at The Toast.

Previously, from the same author.

When my employer called me into his office and granted me paternity leave on the birth of my first child, I had no idea what I was in for. Most of my male coworkers had already left the office at this point, having impregnated willing strangers in order to take twelve weeks' paid time off in exchange for eighteen years of financial and personal responsibility.

"It's twelve weeks' time off," Daniel shouted when he learned he'd successfully created a child with the head of the mechanics department. "I'm going to finally finish my heli-skiing novel!"

I simply wasn't prepared for what all of this free time would do to me. I had planned, of course, to participate actively as a member of the household and as my wife's partner -- grease the dryer, dust the teakettle, rearrange the cat, and so on -- but then, shortly after I walked in the door, I was tragically trapped under something heavy and have been unable to move from this spot in the living room. No one can move this burden from me, save the pure-hearted seventh son of a seventh son, and I do not believe that such a person exists.

Read more I’d Love To Help My Wife Do The Dishes, But I’m Trapped Under Something Heavy at The Toast.

I could stare at this all day.

(via)

This recipe is a spin off of the ever popular Quick Curried Chickpeas. It always amazes me how a recipe with so few ingredients can have such big flavor! For this version I subbed out chickpeas for lentils, added some diced carrot for color and sweetness (and because my New Year’s resolution is VEGETABLES!), and increased the curry powder. The result, although not exactly pretty, was so good that I couldn’t stop piling forkfuls into my mouth while I took the photos. Seriously, I couldn’t stop.

There are so many ways you can eat these Curried Lentils that I decided to present the recipe as the lentils them selves. They’d be great as part of a Indian platter with some creamed spinach and naan. You could stuff them into a pita as sort of a sloppy joe-like sandwich (but vegetarian, of course), or you could build a “bowl” meal with brown rice, a fried egg, and maybe even some spinach. Options, options, options!

This recipe made about four cups and depending on how you serve it, that should be at minimum four servings. Pretty stinking cheap. If you happen to have any left over, these lentils should freeze quite well.

Step by Step Photos

For this recipe I used brown lentils because they cook quickly and hold their shape. Brown lentils cook in about 20 minutes, whereas French or green lentils take closer to 45 minutes. Red and yellow lentils also cook quickly, but they tend to break down and turn into mush when cooked. I definitely wanted the lentils to stay whole.

To cook the lentils, bring a pot with about 3 cups of water to a boil (the amount of water isn’t so crucial, just as long as there is enough for the lentils to move about freely, kind of like when cooking pasta. It will be drained off later). Once boiling, add 1 cup of dry lentils. Let the pot come back up to a boil, then turn the heat down to low, place a lid on top, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, test a lentil to see if it’s tender. If not, let it simmer for about 5 more minutes. Drain the lentils in colander once finished cooking.

Meanwhile, prep and cook the vegetables. Mince two cloves of garlic and finely dice one medium onion and three medium carrots (about 1/2 lb.).

Add the garlic, onions, and carrots to a large skillet along with one tablespoon of olive oil. Sauté over medium heat until the onions become transparent, about 5 minutes.

Add two tablespoons of curry powder and sauté for one minute  more (this toasts the spices and helps bring out their flavor). All curry powders are a little different, so you can start with one tablespoon and increase it to your liking. 

Add the cooked and drained lentils, plus one 15oz. can of tomato sauce. Stir to combine and then heat through (about five minutes). Taste the lentils and add salt if needed. I added about 1/2 teaspoon.

Serve them hot topped with fresh cilantro (if you’re a cilantro person). 

There are a lot of different ways you can eat these Curried Lentils, this yummy bowl being one of them. I added a bed of brown jasmine rice, the lentils, a fried egg, and some fresh cilantro. SO GOOD. 

The post Curried Lentils appeared first on Budget Bytes.

Never talk about politics.

Talk about politics, but only about Nixon. Specifically, only talk Nixon’s final years post-resignation, how his pallor grew grey and his body wracked with phlebitis and his mind consumed with sad tales of the death of kings. Work on your Nixon impression. Remind yourself that real love means loving decrepit, angry failure and no one embodies this principle quite like Nixon, with the possible exception of most other politicians.

Sing your entire marriage, based on the score to John Adam’s Nixon in China.

Speak entirely in quotes from HBO’s John Adams.

Treat yourself to a manicure every once in a while!

Adopt all your partner’s tastes as your own. Better yet, adopt their memories. Laughingly describe your sister’s antics at Six Flags the summer you were ten. When contradicted, keep your face perfectly still and say “But I wouldn’t make a mistake about that, now, would I?”

Read more The Secret to a Happy Marriage at The Toast.

When I suffered my third consecutive miscarriage this past May, my mom said she wanted to help me out however she could, even if it meant being my surrogate. I laughed it off—a 60-year-old surrogate?—but it turned out that, as always, Mom had been on to something.

In 2011, Kristine Casey, 61, gave birth to her own grandchild after being surrogate for her daughter, Sara, who had delivered stillborn twins and then suffered a miscarriage after years of infertility treatment. Surrogacy isn’t typically allowed in post-menopausal women because of the need for hormone supplements and the associated health risks—but occasionally, doctors make exceptions, especially for relatives, and Casey is the oldest of an increasingly large roster of women who have birthed their own grandchildren. And in just the past year, post-menopausal surrogacy has become a seemingly mundane mode of reproduction when compared to the new frontier of infertility solutions: living donor-uterus transplants and bioengineered wombs.

In September, a 36-year-old Swedish woman gave birth to a baby boy in the first-ever birth from a transplanted uterus. The woman, whose identity remains anonymous, was born without a uterus but with functioning ovaries. She is one of nine women to participate in a transplant study led by Mats Brännström, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. The uterus was donated by the woman’s 61-year-old friend, and conception was achieved by in-vitro fertilization, after which the embryo was implanted in the woman’s newly transplanted uterus.

This unprecedented achievement was observed with keen interest by transplant surgeons and fertility experts the world over, who hope that transplants might soon become a viable option for women who lose a uterus to cancer, are born without a uterus, or who are unable to conceive or carry due to uterine defects or anomalies. While surrogacy is the more well-known method of helping women with infertility have biological children, it has drawbacks. The most obvious one is that a woman doesn’t gestate her own child, but surrogacy also carries an array of legal and ethical dilemmas, including the concerns that poor surrogates might enter the arrangement solely because of the financial incentive, or that a surrogate might become attached to the baby. Surrogacy is illegal in some European countries, including Germany and France; other countries, like Australia and Canada, permit “altruistic surrogacy,” a legal framework that permits surrogacy but prohibits payment.  

“A surrogate takes a large risk by going through a pregnancy for someone else, because pregnancy can cause various adverse medical conditions,” says Mats Hellström, an assistant professor at the Laboratory for Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Gothenburg, and a member of the research group that achieved the birth via transplant. “The whole ethical part of surrogate motherhood is why many countries don’t permit it. The successful uterus transplants have shown that there is an alternative to surrogacy.”

Now that the hurdle of the transplanted uterus has been overcome, researchers have turned to a technology borrowed straight from sci-fi: a bioengineered uterus. Doctors in the burgeoning field of regenerative medicine produce organs and parts of organs in a few different ways. One is by taking a small number of stem cells from a patient’s blood or bone marrow, and then amplifying and shaping the growth of those cells. Another involves taking a moderate number of the patient’s own uterine cells, and then de-differentiating them, meaning that they are converted from highly specialized uterine cells back into less specialized cells to allow cellular growth (called “cellular amplification”) in the lab. The cells are then applied to a uterus-shaped scaffold. When transplanted, they re-differentiate back into specialized uterine cells.

“Once you get the correct cell numbers, you place them on the correct scaffold, and at that point you have tissue that is not immunologically different from the host,” says Dr. Roger C. Young, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of biomedical innovation at the University of Tennessee Health-Science Center. “This is the beginning of the era of regenerative medicine, which will, at least in some part, replace organ transplants.”

Bioengineered organs have a number of practical advantages over donor transplants, including the fact that recipients wouldn’t need to take immunosuppressants for the rest of their lives, as transplant recipients typically do to prevent their bodies from rejecting the new organ. “A bio-regenerated uterus allows you to avoid immunosuppression, and you get rid of the risks of surgery for the person donating the uterus,” says Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Langone Medical Center. “The failure rates of transplanted organs are high, and we don’t have enough organs. Bioengineered organs are definitely the long-term solution.”

But the bioengineered uterus is years, if not decades, away. Hellström’s research group at the University of Gothenburg is on the cutting edge with their recent experiments in rat-uterus decellularization, a process that involves removing cells from tissue, leaving behind only the extracellular matrix (ECM), which then serves as a 3-D scaffold for introducing new cells. Yet Hellström laughed at my suggestion that artificial-uterus transplants might be available within 10 years: “Look at how long it took my colleague [Mäts Brannström] to develop the live-donor uterus transplant: 15 years of nonstop work. Now I have the same journey to make, the only difference being that my colleagues started with perfect material to transplant. I’m constructing the material as well.”

Years ago, the theoretical possibility of an artificial uterus gave rise to the idea of gestating a baby outside the mother’s body rather than transplanting the organ. This came to be called “Baby in a Box” after journalist Natalie Angier’s widely-read 1999 New York Times Magazine article of the same title. Angier predicted that the artificial uterus was “coming, if not in 10 years, then in 15 or 50.” The introduction to a 2006 anthology of bioethics essays, titled Ectogenesis: Artificial-Womb Technology and the Future of Human Reproduction, predicted that “we might soon see the day when a woman’s contribution to the birth of a live baby will be similar to that of a man, namely, both will only need to provide or donate gametes.”

The term “ectogenesis” was coined in 1924 by British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane to describe artificial uteruses that would forge a utopian future where only pre-selected, genetically “superior” sperm and eggs would be used for reproduction. Adopting the point of view of this imagined future, Haldane wrote, “Had it not been for ectogenesis, there can be little doubt that civilization would have collapsed within a measurable time owing to the greater fertility of the less desirable members of the population in almost all countries.”

Half a century later, feminists envisioned an entirely different type of future where women, freed from the barriers of pregnancy and childbirth, would finally be on equal social and economic footing with men. In 1970’s The Dialectic of Sex, feminist writer Shulamith Firestone argued that in-vitro fertilization and gestation would free women from the “tyranny of their reproductive biology.”

Despite these lofty imaginings, regenerative-medicine researchers are more focused on the immediate problem of infertility than they are on revolutionizing society. The optimism about ectogenesis in the late 90s and early 2000s had been bolstered by the research of Dr. Helen Liu, who today is director of the Reproductive Endocrinology Laboratory at Weill Cornell Medical College. In 2001, Liu grew a human embryo for 10 days in an artificial womb, then halted the experiment because of federal law prohibiting human embryo experimentation after 14 days post-conception. In 2003, she grew a mouse embryo in a bioengineered uterus, but the baby was born was deformed.

At that juncture, Liu realized that in vivo gestation (within a living animal) would show more promising results than growing a fetus entirely in vitro. So for the next experiment, Liu grew the mouse embryos in an artificial uterus for a week, then transferred them into the abdominal cavity—not the uterus—of the mother. These babies came out anatomically normal but small for their gestational age.

Soon thereafter, Liu halted her experiments. “There was a lot of pressure from the press,” Liu tells me. “Everyone was talking about it. The medical ethicists were against it. Pro-life people were against it, and pro-choice people too—both sides. This came as a surprise to me. When I started, I just wanted to help women who had implantation problems. But it turned out to have all of these social implications, and I didn’t want to deal with it.” Today, Liu instead works on improving methods of in-vitro maturation and cryopreservation.

Since Liu’s mouse experiments, the medical community has more or less abandoned in-vitro gestation. The past decade saw a renaissance in transplant technology, and advances in the burgeoning field of human prenatal epigenetics have rendered gestation outside a mother’s body a less plausible concept. Scientists are learning more about the interplay between fetal development and the mother’s whole body—not just her uterus.

“The fetus gets an advantage by developing within a maternal body,” says Janet DiPietro, associate dean for research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. DiPietro oversees the Johns Hopkins Fetal-Development Project, a 20-year endeavor that tracks how physiological aspects of the maternal-fetal bond shape development. DiPietro told me that everything from a mother’s circadian rhythms to her posture sends cues to the growing fetus.

“The maternal voice is heard very well, which probably sensitizes the baby to the sounds of their own language. Amniotic fluid develops the odor of certain foods that women eat, and so there’s a notion that cultural likes and dislikes are transmitted to the fetus via the amniotic fluid,” she says, “So the maternal context provides an environment that goes far beyond the direct circulatory-system connection.”

DiPietro explains that in the future, an artificial-uterus transplant is “far, far more likely” than in-vitro gestation, in part because the placenta, which grows from the uterus after implantation, is “one of the most enigmatic organs that we have.” Scientists can’t understand it, let alone construct it from scratch. The complex interplay between the placenta—which grows from the fetus’s own cells—and the mother’s blood flow, immune system, and circulating oxygen has been so poorly researched that Alan Guttmacher, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, recently called it “the least-understood human organ.” But with a bioengineered uterus, the assumption is that if you get the uterus right, a placenta, amazingly, will grow on its own once the transplant recipient becomes pregnant.

Even if the technology exists, however, uterus transplants—whether living-donor or artificial—might never become widely available. Funding for research is limited because a uterus, unlike a kidney or a heart, is not necessary for life. “In Sweden, people can afford this,” Caplan says. “Here we have healthcare-access problems, and transplanting a uterus would be in the bottom quarter of my priority list for what we need to spend money on. Does that mean only the rich would get it? Yes. And that’s just the reality of it.”  

Young at the University of Tennessee explains that a living-donor uterus transplant requires up to three operations—taking the organ from the donor, implanting it in the recipient, and then the possible C-section should a baby be born—all for a condition (infertility) that isn’t life-threatening. “I don’t think it will be widely accepted in the United States, and I personally don’t consider it a realistic solution to the problem,” he says. Young’s work is connected but somewhat different: bioengineering uterine tissue to repair a damaged or malformed uterus.

“Especially with the C-section rate being 33 percent in the United States, there will be more and more women with uterine defects and problems,” Young says. “There are many more people that need repair of the uterus than need replacement.” Young recently had to tell a patient that she can’t have more children due to damage from two previous C-sections; he hopes that within just five years, bioengineered uterine patches will be available.

In the case of my own miscarriages, the problem turned out to be chemical rather than anatomical: A thyroid problem was triggering an immunological response that is linked to first-trimester miscarriages. I was prescribed the requisite hormones, and I’m currently pregnant and safely in my second trimester. For women with uterine-factor infertility, the solution is not so simple, and advancements in bioengineered organs might one day prove to be a panacea.  

Young believes that even if a bioengineered uterus is many decades off, simpler fixes like uterine patches might help women within just a few years. “If we can take this step by step,” he says, “the steps allow you to climb the wall in a much more efficient manner.”

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/the-high-tech-future-of-the-uterus/383232/

UPDATED BELOW:

My daughter, Hailey, has been in Girl Scouts for years.  I was never a big fan of Girl Scouts but I am a giant supporter of my kid and if she likes Girl Scouts then we will be at every damn meeting while I huddle in the corner of the room, smiling at the other mothers while unsuccessfully pretending my social anxiety disorder isn’t completely obvious to everyone.

And, for the most part, it’s quite lovely.  Except for twice.  One of those things I’m still working on and will write about soon because I can’t do it without screaming a lot.  The other can’t wait because girl scout cookies go on sale tomorrow and I have serious reservations.

I contacted the CEO who told me to email the social media team, but so far I have no good answers so I’m just going to put this letter on my blog and maybe it will cause someone in head office to say, “This lady is 18 kinds of wrong.  Let’s straighten her out right now, and make sure that we answer people when they badger us because they might be psychopaths with blogs.”  Or maybe it will cause someone in the head office to say, “YES.  YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT AND WE CAN DO BETTER.”  Or maybe they’ll say, “Your daughter is kicked out of Girl Scouts.  Good luck starting your own club, loser.”  And that would be unfortunate but I’ve promised Hailey that if it does happen I will help her create the “What-If-Doctor-Who-Went-To-Night-Vale-and-then-the-Zombie-Apocolypse-Happened Prep Club” and she was mollified.

Now, enough preamble…here’s the letter:

Hi there. My name is Jenny Lawson and I’m having some issues I can’t seem to get answers to.

My daughter is 10 and has loved Girl Scouts for years but there are a few issues we have concerning cookie sales and I’ve been unable to get a straight answer from anyone I’ve contacted. Two issues:

1. I’ve read on the Girl Scouts website that the current pension deficit issue will cause most local councils to see a 40% increase in pension expenses starting the day girl scout cookies go on sale, and a 62% increase over the next three years. According to the girl scout.org site “For many Girl Scout councils, this means that the pension expense will suck up money that would normally go toward operating expenses such as staff salaries and benefits, camp maintenance, outreach programs for at-risk girls, scholarship support for low-income girls, and general programming.”

I know you’re currently trying to get congress to grant legislation to help you but I haven’t heard of any progress on that, so I’m under the impression that as it stands, cookie sales that previously went to scholarships and camp maintenance will now be used to pay pension debt.  I’m reading of many historic camps that are being closed or sold.  It’s a concern for many reasons, but particularly because the girls in our troop were always able to say that cookie sales help at-risk girls and support community camps. We haven’t been able to get any verbiage to respond to people who will ask why girl scout camps are being sold and whether the councils will be able to support scholarships as they have in the past.

2. The digital cookie sales that will allow girl scouts to sell online starting this year: From what I’ve read online, if my daughter sells a box of cookies to her nana online, her nana will be charged $4 for the cookies and $11.25 for shipping. So of the $15+ sale for one box of cookies my daughters troop will see about 60 cents. Is that right? Was that the most competitive shipping price available? Were there other bids?

Also, I’ve heard there is a handling fee of $1.25 if you pay online but have the girl scout deliver the cookies to you. Why is that, when the girls offer free personal delivery when ordering in person?  (I’ve also seen it called a “credit card fee” for girl scout delivery, but that number seems incredibly high if it’s a processing fee, and credit card surcharge fees are illegal in our state.)   Does the girl scout troop get the delivery fee?  Do people who buy boxes online but donate them to the official Girl Scout charity have to pay those fees as well?

I hate to be nit-picky but it seems like an extremely questionable business model and my daughter has been taught by the Girl Scouts to ask questions when you think something is wrong, and to make good financial decisions, so that’s why we’re asking you for a real response so we can make a decision on whether her time is best spent selling cookies, or doing something with a greater return to her community.

Hailey is currently working toward her Bronze Award, focusing on the Girl Scouts Journey which concentrates on stopping harmful gender stereotypes, and one of the inequities we’ve discussed ourselves is that, on average, women often accept and are paid less than their male counterparts. We looked at the breakdowns and agreed that this years cookie sales program undervalues her contribution, but we also thought it was important to voice our concerns, to work hard to make sure we understood the reasoning and facts, and to try to make this organization a stronger one by asking the hard questions. I hope that you’ll be able to answer us before cookies go on sale.

As always, good luck.

~ Jenny Lawson

UPDATED (day 2): First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Secondly, thanks for the great feedback.  It’s both relieving and disconcerting to see that so many of us have the same concerns, but I think that’s a really helpful thing for the Girl Scouts to know.   The good news is that last night the Girl Scouts twitter account said they’d touch base with us after the holidays, and this morning the CEO (Anna M. Chávez) DMed me to say they’d follow up with us tomorrow.  Hopefully they’ll have a good response explaining the details, or expounding on how they plan to improve in either deed, transparency or communications. It’s not ideal, but it’s a step in a good direction and hopefully one that will make the organization stronger.

Also, Hailey has decided to pass on the online sales thing this year, but my sweet daughter will probably be one of those excited young girl scouts manning a cookie booth outside a grocery story because she loves being an extrovert (I suspect she was switched at birth) so please keep in mind that the little girls asking for sales are not privy to -or responsible for- all of these complicated issues and should never be yelled at for their excitement. It’s fine to say “Sure, I love Do-Si-Dos” or “No, thanks” but yelling at small children isn’t really kosher. I know I probably don’t have to say this out loud for any regular reader with common sense, but just in case this gets to someone who isn’t a regular, please remember that children are children and are affected by your interactions.

If you’ve read my book you’ll know that already because my dedication page reads:

In other words, that shit sticks, so be nice to small children. That’s just basic human decency.

I’ll keep you posted on what I hear.  Also, Hailey was extremely excited to hear how many of you were interested in the Doctor Who/Zombie/Night Vale Club.  She’s designing a logo right now.  No dues.  Requirements: Be kind to one another.  And always carry a towel.  (We just finished The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy.  ‘Nuff said.)

PS. Some of you are saying that the shipping is for a case at a time and that you can’t order less than 6 boxes at a time, but I just checked it myself and was able to place an order for one box of cookies.  It was $11.25 shipping.  Also, it looks like if you choose to have your local girl scout deliver it or if you donate the cookies to the USO you’ll be paying a “handling fee” for online orders.

Here’s the breakdown:

Click image to embiggen.

 UPDATED (Day 3):  So, I don’t know what to tell you.  I was told the Girl Scouts would follow up with us today, but when I sent a tweet reminding them that we were promised a response, the Girl Scouts twitter account (very sweetly) said their Chief Digital Cookie Lead had sent me an email this morning.  I searched everywhere but turns out she sent an email to some random woman whose email is nothing like mine.  I asked their twitter person to just forward it to my email but they said the Digital Cookie Lead would have to do that and “she’s out of the office on holiday but should follow up soon.”

My response to them:

“I appreciate the thought.  Honestly though, I’m so disappointed.  Hundreds of people who are involved in Girl Scouts are on my blog asking for answers and no one representing the Girl Scouts has responded to any of our concerns, and more keep arising.

At this point I have to assume that the lack of a good answer is our answer and that’s very disheartening.

Also, I realize you personally are not the entire Girl Scout Organization and your hands are probably tied yourself, but if you have the ability to pass this up to someone who will listen it would be nice to know that these concerns are at least known.  Responsive and effective communications, transparency, and dialogue are so important.

Also, as a suggestion: Perhaps next year the online sales program should not be launched on the same week that the Digital Cookie Lead responsible for it is off on holiday.

I wish you good luck and I hope that these issues can be resolved in the future. I know you’ll agree that our girls deserve that.”

If any real response ever comes I’ll pass it on here.  Until then I’ll be buying Thin Mints because I like the cookies and love to see happy kids giddy over making a sale, but not necessarily because I think its a good investment in the girls.

UPDATED (Day 5):  Just got an email from the Girl Scout Social Media team.  It answers a few questions very well, is vague on others, ignores some altogether, and a few of the answers seem questionable, but frankly I’m just happy to see that someone is paying attention and responding.  I’ve also invited them to come here to respond to your questions.   Thanks for hanging in there, you guys.  And thanks for pushing for answers.  At least a few of them are here, and that feels like a small victory for all of us.  :

Response from the Girl Scouts Social Media Account (January 5th):

Dear Jenny,

Thanks for reaching out to express your concerns and apologies in the delay in repsonse over the holiday.

As you know, the Girl Scout mission is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place. It is a shared goal of our movement to maximize the dollars available to serve girls.

Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) made great effort over the past year working nationally with councils on two separate relief efforts to ease the financial burden stemming from the liability in the National Girl Scout Council Retirement Plan.

In April 2014, we were able to announce that GSUSA had officially signed an agreement with the IRS as fiduciary of the Council Pension Plan to extend the amortization period by more than four years. President Obama also signed into law H.R. 4275, a relief package unanimously passed by Congress that will smooth out council contributions over the next three years by allowing council pension plans to go back under the Pension Protection Act. Girl Scout councils and supporters nationwide united to contact over 100 Congressional offices, and wrote over 1,000 letters. The legislative support for the movement is truly historic—in fact, only 0.3 percent of Senate bills (three other bills) had such a high level of support. In addition to relief efforts, GSUSA included $1M in its Fiscal Year 2015 budget for pension assistance to councils participating in the National Girl Scout Council Retirement Plan.

To share a bit about our movement’s structure, each of the 112 Girl Scout councils have their own nonprofit status, budgets, operating models, camps, programmatic offerings, and cookie selling periods. Financial decisions such as whether or not to sell or close a camp based on usage, costs, and other camp property, are made by each local council.

The Girl Scout Cookie Program has been providing girls with educational and confidence-building experiences since the first recorded cookie sale in 1917. In keeping with tradition, the revenue from cookie sales will continue to benefit individual girl scouts. While a council may at times tap cookie money for core expenses like programming or staffing, the primary beneficiary is the girls, who decide how to spend their troop cookie money to reinvest in their communities and to have new learning experiences.

As Digital Cookie is a brand new initiative, we can understand that people need to become more familiar with the ins and outs. Shipping costs are in line with established industry standards from reputable companies, and comparable to what customers would pay to ship cookies. With time, we hope that the scale of sales through this part of the program will drive down the costs of shipping and handling.

We would like to assure you that Girl Scouts is committed to bringing girls a dynamic, exciting, and, most of all, FUN Girl Scout experience—one they cannot get anywhere else.

Thanks again for seeking clarification. We’re working to update our website and hope this note has addressed your concerns. Best wishes to your daughter, we hope she has a ah-mazing year with her troop!

And so there we are.  What have we learned?  We learned that the pension issue could have been answered a month ago when our troop first sent letters asking what it meant and then I wouldn’t have written this post in the first place.  But I did, and it was good because looking at the comments you can see real issues…some that we can change and others that we can’t.  We know that often the issues we think we struggle with alone are actually far-reaching, and are worthy of addressing.  We’ve learned that a large corporation cannot be all things to all people, and that the success of your troop depends almost entirely on the skills and choices of your specific troop, leaders, volunteers and local council.   We’ve learned that no one really knows entirely what is going on.  (I suspect we already knew that.)

But the thing I learned the most through all of this is that the woman who started the girl scouts was a bad-ass who looked like she would kill you and eat you if you messed with her or her girls.

There wasn’t a commercial cookie program when she was around (aside from sporadic bake sales of homemade cookies) and I suspect if she was around now she’d be asking a lot of these same questions, and pointing to her 1917 quote on the importance of “Thriftiness” being taught to girl scouts:

“The most valuable thing we have in this life is time, and most girls are apt to be rather stupid about getting the most out of it….Money is a very useful thing to have.” ~ Juliette Gordon Low

Of course, this was a woman who found out that her dead husband willed all of his money to his mistress and she was like, “Aw, HELL NO.  LAWYER UP, Y’ALL, BECAUSE THIS BULLSHIT WILL NOT STAND.”  (I’m paraphrasing.  BTW…she won that half million dollar lawsuit, against the advice of friends who advised her to not make waves.)

But there’s another quote from her that probably fits better here, even though it’s a bit poignant for this sort of irreverent blog.

Juliette Gordon Low on Girl Scouting:

“I realize that each year it has changed and grown until I know that,
a decade from now, what I might say of it would seem like an echo of
what has been instead of what is.

The work of today is the history of tomorrow, and we are its makers.” 

This might not be what Juliette had in mind when she starting Girl Scouts, but I’d like to think that our work today to ask the hard questions and fight the good fight would have earned a small nod from her.  And possibly a raised eyebrow at all the cursing.

Probably both.

In 2006, a man walked into an emergency room in Glasgow, Scotland, complaining of blurred vision and a splitting headache that had lasted for nearly a month.

Doctors were stumped at first—the man had no history of head trauma. But after a bit of prodding, the patient copped to the root cause of his agony: He had recently consumed 60 pints of beer over the course of four days. It turns out the man was suffering from what medical science might consider the worst hangover in recent history.

This New Year's Eve, many of us might hope to avoid the Scottish man's fate. A trickier question is exactly how to accomplish that while still partaking of all the merriment of your standard New Year's Eve soiree.

One problem is that scientists don't entirely know what causes hangovers—it has a bit to do with the way the body metabolizes alcohol, but there might be an immune response and other factors at play, too. And alcohol affects everyone differently. Women, for example, get drunk faster and on less alcohol than men do because of differences in size, body water composition, and enzymes. On top of that, personal differences can also influence whether we get hangovers. The use of other drugs and even a family history of alcoholism can determine whether or not we feel the "gallon distempers" the next morning.

The limited scientific hangover research that exists is clear on one point: If you don't want a hangover, you shouldn't drink. (Or at least, don't have more than one or two drinks per day.) Still, various studies have suggested a few ways that one might minimize one's odds of developing a hangover, if one is really determined to ring in 2015 with abandon and one's boss would not give one the day off on January 1. (Sigh. Typical one's boss.)

Hangover Severity by Drink

• ---

  Certain compounds called congeners seem to be a factor in hangovers, according to a few studies conducted in the 1970s. Whisky, brandy, and red wine contain more congeners than clear alcohol, so make like a Real Housewife and pour yourself martinis and white-wine spritzers. In one experiment, 33 percent of people who drank bourbon experienced a hangover, compared with only 3 percent of people who drank the same amount of vodka.
• Those who stick only to beer, though, might truly be in the clear. One study found that it took up to 13 or 14 beers to produce a hangover in Dutch college students, compared to seven or so for liquor. Still, another study of Danish tourists found that 68 percent of those who drank 12 or more units of various types of alcohol the previous night woke up hungover, regardless.
• A review published in 2000 found that for men, five to seven cocktails, consumed over the course of four to six hours, is “almost always followed by hangover symptoms.” For women, it's more like three to five cocktails.
• That same review found that other factors that increase hangovers include drinking on an empty stomach, not getting enough sleep, not drinking enough water, and, interestingly, being physically active while drunk.
• Two small studies separately found that people who took vitamin B6 or tolfenamic acid, a prescription migraine drug, had fewer hangover symptoms the next morning than a control group.
• Dehydration is part of, but not the sole cause of, the hangover. Drinking water may help, but only a little. Similarly, no studies have substantiated the idea that you should imbibe "the grape or the grain, but never the twain"—it's more likely that people who start out with hard alcohols lose track of how much they're drinking more quickly. The most important factors seem to be how much you drink overall and how fast you drink it.

If you somehow manage to forget these rules after your fourth glass of champagne and eleventieth Fireball shot, just know that you're in good company. Hangovers have been documented since the dawn of time. In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah wrote, “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink." Woe unto them, indeed.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/12/a-hangover-free-new-years-day/384067/