Work & Adventure

Very busy couple of weeks (hence the lack of updates). Andrew arrived on the 19th, and we had a good weekend -- a studio brunch, Canadian bbq, catching up. The Canadian bbq was hilarious: they served us (I kid you not) french fries, which were sprinkled with cheese curds, and liberally drizzled with gravy. I told Steve (our Canadian host) that they could totally make up a ridiculous "national dish" and serve it to us, relying upon our ignorance of Canadian cuisine. Steve assures me that the french fry/ cheese curd/ gravy mixture is actually the real deal: I still have my doubts.

The usual work week followed. Then a lovely Memorial Day weekend (which partially made up for the fact that I didn't make it to Reunion). On Friday night I "helped" at the Raines BBQ extravaganza, and Andrew joined me after he was done at the Google. Listened to the music, drank the beer, watched the "beach" volleyball competition.

Saturday we had a fantastic hike at Stinson Beach. We made a 7+ mile hike through a series of stages/ landscapes: 1) climbing up switchbacks in an old forest with massive fern growth, and an impressive population of slugs, 2) bursting out into a hilly meadow a la The Sound of Music, insanely blue sky with misting clouds traveling over the hills, 3) leveling out along fir tree forested areas, drier than stage 1, 4) hurrying across the highway to take a mellow descent along a stream with a series of little waterfalls, in a background that reminded me (and Andrew agreed) of the sort of foliage you expect on a Discovery Channel special with digitally rendered dinosaurs stalking about, 5) passing an old dam and coming out upon the coastal landscape, all low shrubs and within sight of the beach, where we were warned by fellow hikers that someone had seen a mountain lion, and that we should keep talking and making noise, although Andrew & I were more prone to call "here, kitty kitty" (until we saw a couple of deer: then we figured *they* could be the bait).

I discovered that Andrew stops complaining that he's tired around mile 5.

After the hike, we came home briefly & then had Andrew's belated birthday dinner at the cheesecake factory (yay tuxedo cheesecake!).

Sunday was also busy: Mountain View farmer's market (so many peaches, nectarines, apricots, strawberries...), reading on the beach at Half Moon Bay, short appearance at the cohort bbq, fried rice adventure back home, etc.

Monday we ran some errands & then went to Berkeley for a Memorial Day bbq with Rachel, Josh, and the new baby. Who is ridiculously cute. And is learning how to hold things. And has the best nursery room *ever.*

Another work week... I had all 15 of my student conferences, while trying to find the time to read all their papers & comment (oh yes, and also trying to fit in my own reading, an 800 page George Eliot novel, and various books of the Bible).

And another fantastic weekend: Saturday morning we got up at a time that, in my opinion, is more appropriate for just getting to bed at, rather than just waking at. 3:30 am. And waited in the dark for our Super Shuttle, which got us on our flight to Minneapolis. First stop with the rental car: The Mall of America! Yes it is huge. Yes there is a "park" in the center, and basically an indoor, year round fair. Wandered around a while, finally chose a pair of sandals from Nordstrom's to go with my dress, and ate at Wolfgang Puck's, where I was pleasantly surprised by the food (considering it's mall food): grilled veggie sandwich (good), tuscan minestrone soup (decent), and bread (amazing: at first I made fun of their giving me some more starch to go along with my other two starches, but I shut up after tasting it).

Then we quickly got ready for the wedding, which was gorgeous. In the unique Memorial Center -- rounded contour with irregularly placed windows (Andrew says it could be a modern synagogue). The ceremony was short and sweet, with a pretty chuppah (gauzy white cloth, gathered at the front two corners with bouquets), and a well integrated Lutheran & Jewish dynamic (it seemed to go back and forth: from candle lighting to rings to breaking the glass). Reception in another room, which was decorated with live grass, candles, and a beautiful chocolate frosted cake. Then back to the outer room, which was now a dining room & ballroom: table centerpieces very Midsummer Night's Dream -- tree branches hung with candles. Yummy dinner (strawberry & mandarin orange salad, I had the fish with rice and grilled veggies) and decadent wedding cake. Then a little dancing, with me getting stepped on three or four times (and only half of those by Andrew, somehow everyone near us manages to step on my feet), and then our taking off since we were pretty exhausted. Sunday we had a hell of a time finding a place to eat brunch, and finally ended up at an adorable bakery, called Cupcake. Would have been perfect if they didn't run out of oatmeal right before I ordered. Got some way too sweet crepes (raspberry cream cheese filling, smothered with raspberry jam, and sprinkled with sugar), which Andrew chivalrously returned for me, in exchange for a more neutral fruit cup. We did get some cupcakes to go, and a delicious loaf of multigrain bread, which I'm still working on.

After: the Minneapolis art musuem. I spent the most time in the Blake exhibit, with his illustrations of the Book of Job. The runner up: Psychadelic SF concert posters & 60's musician photos.

Then a short walk in the sculpture garden (what's up with the white spoon, holding a cherry, fountaining water over itself?).

Then more of the mall, which made me feel frustrated, since I just wanted a quiet place to read Daniel Deronda.

Then Ikea for french fries (my thinking process: craving for french fries, but who would most likely not fry them in trans fat? my answer, the Swedes!)

Then a wild ride to return the rental car.

Then a triple shot latte.

Then 3.5 hours of Daniel Deronda while on the plane.

Followed by an hour of waiting for the Super Shuttle, which it turns out, is neither super, nor very good at shuttling. Our prepay reservation wasn't honored, so we had to go with a different van, after waiting around for an hour (during which I kept reading D.D.). Speeding along the highways at an illegal clip. Finally at home: 1:15 am. Shower, reading response, more reading, finally in bed after 3 am.

Craziness.

Managed to finish D.D. (all 810 pages) before class... final reading group meeting at the Treehouse... picking up bakery goodness from Andronico's... getting Adela's help to serve our residents chocolate cake, cheesecake, hazelnut-chocolate cake, mocha cake, fruit tarts, mousse cups, fresh berries, etc. Cleaning of the apartment with Andrew. Finally reading some of the Book of Revelations.

Today was also busy, with Jill's birthday lunch, getting yet more bakery goodness & fruit for my students, watching The Shining (which, when not edited for TV, contains a number of scenes with racial & gender politics that I wish we could have discussed further, but we already were 30 minutes over the end of class), and going to the final Bible class. Where my hunch was confirmed: the Book of Revelations is the crazy.

I feel like I just exhaled a huge breath.

Some day I'll have pictures to post from Andrew's better-than-mine camera.

Banana slugs

I went on the EV hiking trip to Sam McDonald today, which is basically in La Honda. It was sunny at Stanford, but incredibly misty in La Honda (the hills are often covered with fog). Strange weather: it was misting, but almost raining under the trees, which seemed to attract and collect precipitation. I finally found the haven of the banana slugs: I must have seen at least fifty. And salamanders (or what are they Mer, orange bellied newts?). And millipedes. And some people with horses. Not very crowded, which was nice.



Back here... I've been cleaning house in preparation for Andrew arriving tonight, and grading some papers. Guess I'll get back to that!

Weekends

The weekend before last I felt like being domestic. I mopped. Made a large batch of tortilla soup. Baked a rhubarb pie. Baked cornbread. Did laundry. Spruced up my closet.

It was also pretty beautiful out -- I managed to sit outside for a few hours Sunday afternoon. Turned a bit pink.

Here's the rhubarb pie:



And this weekend I did no work. Friday I had student conferences. Then I did some reading, some relaxing in the evening. Saturday morning I headed into the city with Veronica. Had a great talk on the way, and we managed to find our way to Union Square to meet up with Jess. We spent nearly 3 hours in Forever 21 -- all three bright and glittering floors of it. I had nearly forgotten how lovely it is to shop with friends who browse and try on at the same pace. Then we refueled at Starbucks, and walked V. back to her car (sketchy area). Instead of heading back home to re-read Middlemarch, I ended up staying for dinner (Indian food!) with Jess, her bf, and his friend. Talked politics & food & stats & Hood River news. Some after dinner shopping, and then we headed back toward Palo Alto. It was 11:30 when I got back to my room, and I was feeling kind of tired, but Jess convinced me that indeed, we could get a second wind. Went to a party, where I was repeatedly hit on by a 20 year old. Who quickly left me alone after Jess's friend, N. (name witheld to protect the innocent) played along with Jess's "but she has a jealous boyfriend -- right -- over -- there!" and handed me a beer. Hilarious. El salvador, indeed!

Then I thought I'd go home, but instead, we ended up watching bits of Nightmare on Elm St. while listening to 80's music, and playing drinking games.

Woke up after noon on Sunday... and then I had a Desperate Housewives studio event to plan. After two shopping trips... reading in the sun... seeing people for the show... I finally sat down for some more Middlemarch. Somehow I did have time to skim it, re-read the chapters we were concentrating on, and read a significant portion of Leavis's Eliot chapter before Monday's class. Had a productive & fun reading group (in which we tried to come up with a theory of marriage plots in the U.S. & Britain during the 19th century).

Today was busy. Lunch with a job candidate (amazing), preparing for PWR, class (got through our example, though I think I could have done more; then the thesis wash, fueled by chocolate covered espresso beans), job talk, self-guided Bible class, Law & Order, baking a rhubarb crumble.

Here's the latest baking experience:

On "Convenience"

I've been sitting on this post for the last couple of weeks, ruminating. So without further ado, some thoughts on "convenience."

With the recent ban on the D & X abortion procedure that is typically used to save a woman's health and/or uterus from a doomed pregnancy, I've seen the word "convenience" thrown around quite a bit. You know, in the context of statistics showing that around 3-4% of abortions are done to save a woman's health and/or life, while higher percentages go to reasons such as: too young to have a family, no economic resources, no family support, would mean dropping out and losing chance to get an education, etc, etc. And these are, apparently, reasons that get grouped under the term of "convenience." In the famous words from The Princess Bride, I don't think that word means what you think it means. Convenience is walking to the market a block down the street instead of driving ten miles off to a shopping center. Or being able to buy both of your beloved Ben and Jerry's flavors in a single carton (it's called mixing brownie batter with cookie dough). Or that Grey's Anatomy is repeated on Fridays, just in case you missed it. It's not, however, a good word to describe a medical procedure (especially one as difficult to obtain as an abortion in this country) that prevents a more serious medical procedure (ie, sustained pregnancy and birth). We don't say, oh, I'm trying to get my body back from this flu virus "for convenience." Or, "it's so 'convenient' that I can drive a hundred miles to a clinic and walk through anti-choice protestors screaming that I'm a slut so that I can keep my minimum wage job and hopefully afford to buy my already very much alive kids food and clothes." Or, it's so "convenient" that I can wait to have children (despite my contraception failing) until I have a job and a life-partner. Or, it's so "convenient" that I can terminate this pregnancy before my abusive boyfriend finds out I was pregnant. I think the word "convenience" seriously undermines the moral decisions women make about their bodies and families.

I propose a new term.

Melamine

It's used in plastics and fertilizers. And it's the cause of the recent pet food recall. The NYT calls its use an "open secret" in China, dating back to the early '90s. Manufacturers -- with little to no sense of ethical responsibility -- add melamine to animal feed (rice, soy, wheat, corn) in order to artificially raise its protein content, thereby getting more money. This is what happens when you have a combination of human greed and little to no oversight or regulation. So melamine is in pet food, and we know it has been fed to livestock in the U.S. (pigs, chickens, God only knows what else). It's already in the human food chain at this point (people have eaten contaminated pork), and it has likely been so for many years. Right now I'm really glad I don't eat meat.

Only I'm not so sure these grain mixes from China haven't made their way into other products as well. This further confirms what I already believed: we should be eating local, organic when possible, and "whole" foods. And I don't mean "whole" as in, food that comes from an upscale market -- I mean whole as in, real food. Like vegetables and potatoes.

From the Huffington Post (which has a great, succinct write-up):
http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

"The practice is widespread in China," the Times reports, and has been going on "for years." And it is not just wheat, corn, rice and soybean proteins that should be suspect, but the animals who feed on it, including all imported Chinese pork, poultry, farm-raised fish, and their various by-products. Despite FDA and USDA efforts to allay concerns about consuming melamine-tainted meat, the health effects are unstudied, and the permissible level is zero. If China could impose a three-year (and counting) ban on the import of U.S. beef after a single incident of Mad Cow disease, then surely the U.S. would be justified in imposing a ban on Chinese vegetable protein and livestock products due to such a prevalent, industrywide contamination.

I agree: we should be banning these products *now.* The FDA has sat on their asses over this long enough. The day they knew, we should have known, and China should have known that until they self-regulate and can guarantee we aren't getting scrap melamine added to our food supply, we won't be importing *any* food products (for animal or human consumption) from the country.

I'm wondering now if Prissy -- who passed last October -- was an early victim of this practice.

I don't trust the FDA farther than I can throw 'em.

Shifted Burden of Proof

Finally, a well-designed study debunking the beloved anti-choice mythology that has attempted to link abortion with breast cancer. The previous studies that anti-choicers used weren't very good or very recent, but for some reason their fear-mongering was allowed to stand. And then we had to wait for science to prove, you know, that abortion doesn't cause breast cancer. It's what logicians like to call a shifted burden of proof. Thank God we've now shifted it back to its rightful place.

From the NYT (April 24th):

There is no association between abortion and an increased risk for breast cancer, scientists reported yesterday in a large study...

The possibility of such a link has been suggested by some retrospective studies — that is, studies that looked for a history of abortion in women who had already been given a diagnosis of breast cancer.

But such studies are subject to error caused by inaccurate reporting. Because of personal sensitivities and the stigma associated with the operation, healthy women may be reluctant to reveal that they have had an abortion, while those with breast cancer, seeking a cause for their illness, are more likely to report one.

This study, published in The Archives of Internal Medicine, tracked women prospectively to see if those who reported having abortions were more likely to develop breast cancer in the future. They were not.

“There are still some states that require women to be informed about the risk of breast cancer if they get an abortion,” said Karin Michels, the lead author and an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard. “I think that may not be justified based on the current evidence.”

Change the "may" to "is" and I think we've got better policy. Cancer is scary. If we're going to be scared, let's at least be scared of the right things. If anti-choicers care about women's risk of breast cancer, they should slap those warning labels on red meat at the supermarket, not on abortions/miscarriages.

The scientists found no difference in breast cancer incidence between the women who had had spontaneous or induced abortions and those who had not. Breast cancer incidence did not differ among women who had had an induced or spontaneous abortion before or after their first birth, or who had had no abortion at all.

At the same time, the authors write, it is well established that a full-term pregnancy before age 35 does reduce the long-term risk for breast cancer. So it might be said that a pregnant woman who aborts increases her risk for breast cancer compared with what it would be if she carried the pregnancy to full term.

The article goes on to get Joel Brind's opinion on this study. At first I was like, huh, so this professor still seems really invested in finding a link between abortion and breast cancer. I wonder if there's something wrong with this study, despite the fact that other scientists go on to debunk much of Brind's criticism? And then I Googled the guy. Apparently he's an anti-choice, born again "Christian," who's mentioned on the infamous site "abortionbreastcancer" dot com. Oh yeah, no vested interests there. I'm sure he's commenting strictly as an unbiased scientist, right? Take note, NYT: this is not journalistic integrity in the name of "neutrality": it's blatant political agendas tampering with science. Don't give them a platform.

And for the rest of us who actually *do* care about women and the risk of breast cancer: wouldn't it be amazing if we could muster up this level of outrage over big business polluting the environment with carcinogenic chemicals? That actually *do* cause breast cancer?

Outgilding the gilded age

Krugman never disappoints me. I'd been planning to write about income inequality, as I've read a number of articles/blogs lately tackling various aspects of the problem: the top 1% of Americans amassing an obscene percentage of the nation's wealth, the middle class going without healthcare (not to mention the poor), a tax system that audits the "little guy" and turns a blind eye to corporations and the rich cheating the system (both illegally and through loopholes that ought to be illegal), etc.


From 4&20 blackbirds (original has links to the statistics, stories):

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Eighty-five percent? Almost one in five tax dollars remains uncollected? Sign me up! Right? I mean, that’s a lot of tax dollars going uncollected, they won’t miss little piddly contribution to Bush’s grandiose and delusional foreign policy schemes!http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Not so fast. If you’re like me, a regular working joe with a five-digit income, you won’t be getting away with cheating. That’s right! The IRS has stepped up its scrutiny of middle-class taxpayers.

Admittedly the frequency of audits are much higher if you earn a million or more. But what about the super wealthy? The Bush administration has cut the IRS staff investigating the wealthiest Americans in half. Additionally, while IRS staff investigating the super-rich have gone down, the complexity of the tax laws has shot up, and it’s the super-rich with their paid accountants and tax specialists who have the tools and the resources to exploit those laws.

A study of Walmart’s earnings against its taxes shows how much it cheated state governments out of its rightful income. According to the report, Walmart and other multi-state corporations cook their books and shift income made in states with income taxes to states without.

And Ezra Klein:

From The American Prospect's poverty report:

In 2005, the top 20 percent of American households had 50.4 percent of the nation's income, while the bottom 20 percent had 3.4 percent -- the largest margin between top and bottom since this data series began, in 1967. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that between 2003 and 2004, the post-tax income of the bottom fifth rose by $200 a year, while that of the top fifth rose by $11,600, and post-tax income for the top 1 percent rose by $145,500. And the wealth gap is far more extreme, with the top 1 percent of households holding one-third of the nation's net worth, while the bottom 40 percent have less than one percent of the nation's net worth.

I'm always impressed by how remarkably stark the data is. "The top 1 percent of households holding one-third of the nation's net worth, while the bottom 40 percent have less than one percent of the nation's net worth." Utterly unreal. But, of course, we're all to believe that a hammerlock on the nation's wealth confers no advantages, and the children of the poor are exactly as likely to succeed as the children of the rich...

It *is* stark. It makes me wonder what capitalism's endgame will look like. But for now, why are we still cutting the rich's taxes, while shifting more burdens onto the middle class? [Note: I don't believe in Reaganomics. Some people don't believe in God, some people don't believe in evolution, I don't believe in trickle down.]

Anyways, so I had this post in mind. And then I read Krugman's editorial on income inequality hitting and surpassing gilded age levels (see how we just made it back to that first sentence?):

Consider a head-to-head comparison. We know what John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in Gilded Age America, made in 1894, because in 1895 he had to pay income taxes. (The next year, the Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional.) His return declared an income of $1.25 million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United States at the time.

But that makes him a mere piker by modern standards. Last year, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, James Simons, a hedge fund manager, took home $1.7 billion, more than 38,000 times the average income. Two other hedge fund managers also made more than $1 billion, and the top 25 combined made $14 billion.

How much is $14 billion? It’s more than it would cost to provide health care for a year to eight million children — the number of children in America who, unlike children in any other advanced country, don’t have health insurance.

The hedge fund billionaires are simply extreme examples of a much bigger phenomenon: every available measure of income concentration shows that we’ve gone back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s.

...

You might have thought that in the face of growing inequality, there would have been a move to reinforce these moderating institutions — to raise taxes on the rich and use the money to strengthen the safety net. That’s why comparing the incomes of hedge fund managers with the cost of children’s health care isn’t an idle exercise: there’s a real trade-off involved. But for the past three decades, such trade-offs have been consistently settled in favor of the haves and have-mores.

Taxation has become much less progressive: according to estimates by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, average tax rates on the richest 0.01 percent of Americans have been cut in half since 1970, while taxes on the middle class have risen. In particular, the unearned income of the wealthy — dividends and capital gains — is now taxed at a lower rate than the earned income of most middle-class families.

We're outgilding the gilded age. And it's obscene.

Wild ox

So the other night I was reading Deutoronomy. And I came across this line from Moses' parting blessing:

"His horns are the horns of a wild ox; with them he gores the peoples, driving them to the ends of the earth..." (33.17)

Remind you of anything (Merrie this is all you)?



Yep: The Last Unicorn. In a bout of nostalgia, I decided to watch it (because I have the DVD, thanks to Andrew). And there it was -- specifically, when the butterfly tells the unicorn about the red bull:

"...they passed down all the roads long ago, and the Red Bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints...and his horns are the horns of a wild ox, with them he shall push the unicorns, all of them, to the ends of the earth."

Ahh, the things I've been missing out on. I finished watching it tonight, over Strauss's organic dutch chocolate ice cream. Which I highly recommend. It's on sale at Andronico's for the next week.

Charlie : Candy Mountain

In the spirit of unicorns: When I got home today, I found this link from Karuna. It's *hilarious.* I'm going to watch it again right now.

In response to Brooks

David Brooks wrote an op-ed for the Sunday NYT, entitled "Postures in Public, Facts in the Womb." In which he spends most of his column space reciting science textbook facts over the developmental stages of a fetus. Which is supposed to have something to do with the Supreme Court decision. Yeah.

Here's my response, which I'm sure will *not* make its way onto the NYT members talk back page:

I was eager to read Brooks's column after the Supreme Court's ruling on so-called partial birth abortions (a term made up by the anti-choice crowd). From the title of his op-ed, I hoped to hear about the ramifications of this decision on women's health: after this ruling, doctors who judge the D & X procedure to be the safest option for a particular woman's health will no longer be able to use it (unless they can prove she would have died without it). These late term abortions are generally performed on fetuses with severe abnormalities and/or no chance of surviving (eg, no brain, severe spina bifada, etc.), and save a woman from carrying a dead or dying fetus, and then going through hours of painful labor only to deliver a dead body. The alternative procedure, from what I understand, can often be riskier (and certainly no less difficult to describe). And yet, the terms of the debate -- particularly in Brooks's article -- focused on the fetus rather than the woman carrying it. NARAL and Planned Parenthood aren't avoiding the term "fetus" so much as Brooks is avoiding the term "woman." If we truly cared about women, we would not take a procedure off the table when they need to make hard decisions about their health and families.

Further, Brooks's supposed "compromise" (that abortions be legal until a certain point, and after that only for rare circumstances; that minors be required to have parental notifications, etc.) continues this political posturing that he complains about. Either women own their own bodies and can make their own decisions regarding fetuses inside said bodies, or they don't. This isn't an issue that can be easily compromised upon, beyond of course the mark of "viability" for the fetus (i.e., the point at which it does not depend upon its mother's body for survival). Do we really want to force every teenager to tell her parents that she needs an abortion, even if one of those parents has raped her? Or abused her? Or will throw her out of the house? Instead of further laws restricting abortion, let's focus on getting these failed abstinence-only sex "education" classes out of our schools; let's make sure that contraception is widely available (and not politicized like the FDA's shameful delay in approving Plan B for over-the-counter sales); let's acknowledge that pro-choice policies are better for women and their families; and let's teach our children that sex is a natural part of life, but something over which they must make responsible decisions.

Life begins in the womb, but in the rush to consider the sanctity of potential life, let's not forget the sanctity of women's lives and the freedom to make their own moral decisions, decisions directly affecting their bodies and families.

Yep. Take that, Brooks. [Note: I did *not* include this last comment.]

That is all. I'm now going to read the Bible for my class tomorrow.

Bill Maher - New Rules 4/20

I kind of have a long standing and problematic crush on Bill Maher. His New Rules always make me happy. This one's particularly good: apparently bees are disappearing to "bee colony collapse." Could be related to our use of pesticides, GMO crops, global warming, or even cell phone use (they avoid flying near them: possibly some bad interaction with their internal navigation systems). Maher points out that Einstein warned if the bees ever went, humans would have four years before we'd die out as well. One more example of why we can't go on blithely destroying our environment so that some oil barons keep raking in millions of dollars.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are also incredible lately: Jones does the Rapture version of An Inconvenient Truth (what can we do to hasten the rapture? keep driving hummers!), and Colbert demonstrates that rBGH is "Jesus Christ" for cows (except that whole producing pus in the milk thing. yuck.).

More bad news.

The Supreme Court majority officially declares: women's health less important than the fact that these 5 white men feel a little queasy when you describe an IDX abortion (by the by: can we all agree not to fill them in on what happens during *most* surgical procedures, lest those are outlawed as well?)

From Amanda at Pandagon, who has an insightful post up:

What is medically recognized:

- 90% of abortions occur in the first trimester.
- Intact dilation and extraction (also known as IDX, or sometimes just D&X) is used in approximately .17% of all abortions.
- It is probable (though definitive data do not exist) that the majority of IDX procedures are performed because of fetal abnormalities.
- IDX, because it delivers a fetus whole, creates less risk of uterine perforation from bone fragments than other forms of late-term abortion.
- IDX has less risk of infection than other forms of late-term abortion, because it takes less time and requires the insertion of fewer instruments into the uterus.
- IDX (like other late-term abortion procedures) can prevent a woman who has found that her fetus is dead or not viable from having to undergo labor and delivery of a dead fetus.
- IDX can allow women whose fetuses are not viable to view and hold their dead babies after delivery.
- Most IDX procedures are performed between 20-24 weeks gestation–that is, within the second trimester, and before fetal viability.
In cases where a fetus has severe hydrocephalus (water on the brain, which can cause a fetuses head to be grotesquely enlarged), the options to a woman may be IDX or a Cesarean section–that is, a three-day outpatient procedure or major surgery, with attendant potential complications.
- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists explicitly opposed the ban.

Shorter medical facts: This ruling will not prevent a single abortion. It will, however, endanger women making difficult decisions about doomed pregnancies, and cut down on the options available to doctors in trying to preserve a woman's life, health, and future ability to have children.

From the NYT editorial:

As far as we know, Mr. Kennedy and his four colleagues responsible for this atrocious result are not doctors. Yet these five male justices felt free to override the weight of medical evidence presented during the several trials that preceded the Supreme Court showdown. Instead, they ratified the politically based and dangerously dubious Congressional claim that criminalizing the intact dilation and extraction method of abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy — the so-called partial-birth method — would never pose a significant health risk to a woman. In fact, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has found the procedure to be medically necessary in certain cases.

Wait, can we back up again and ask why five men without medical training are making this decision for women and their doctors?

Justice Kennedy actually reasoned that banning the procedure was good for women in that it would protect them from a procedure they might not fully understand in advance and would probably come to regret. This way of thinking, that women are flighty creatures who must be protected by men, reflects notions of a woman’s place in the family and under the Constitution that have long been discredited, said a powerful dissenting opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer.

And in the full write up from the NYT:

In her opinion, Justice Ginsburg said the majority had provided only “flimsy and transparent justifications” for upholding the law, which she noted “saves not a single fetus from destruction” by banning a single method of abortion. “One wonders how long a line that saves no fetus from destruction will hold in face of the court’s ‘moral concerns,’ ” she said.

Thank God for Justice Ginsburg. Protecting women from making their own decisions? Kennedy is sounding more and more like a pompous and self-righteous misogynist. The NYT's full write up has more, in which Kennedy waxes poetical about the loving bond between mother and child, clearly taxing his imagination to spew paternalistic stereotypes onto women's private medical decisions. But I think I'm going to refrain from quoting him, because it is simply too depressing.

In which I'm back

Where the weather's *nice* and the caterpillars are out of control. Spring in full swing -- we're past the trees budding and flowering, and in full leaf mode. Makes the view out of my window much nicer.

It was good to be home: my traveling ended well, as we had an aerial tour of the bay area (esp. around the Marin Headlands and the Golden Gate Bridge) before landing, sunny weather, interesting talk on the ride home, and the Super Shuttle driver let me pay with what I had in my wallet at the moment rather than bother with calling in my credit card. And then I quickly did a little unpacking and organizing before meeting up with Ryan and our final visiting admit. Which was a pleasant way to settle back into normal life. Then shopping, quick dinner, and out for more admit activity: sugar overload at the Cheesecake Factory.

The next day I had my first PWR class of the quarter: punchy group. I've been settling in: it was difficult to believe that I was starting over from the beginning of the syllabus.

Busy weekend, and slept most of Sunday. Agonizing over which classes to take. I'm taking Eliot & Trollope, and a class on the Bible and literature. And yes, I am indeed reading the Bible. Finished Genesis this week: have concluded that it should not be read literally (take note, right wing evangelicals). It's incredible how little I noticed that the first time around, back in the day. Best discovery so far: there are really *two* creations of humans, and the first is that man and woman are created in the image of God. It's only the second version (which Milton picks up and is then seared on our collective consciousness) that has woman at two removes from God. That's what happens when you have a holy text that's a compilation.

Not much else going on -- had a CA neighborhood meeting... faculty search lunch and talks...

Time to go to bed... although what I'd really like to do is finish Adam Bede.


RIP Kurt Vonnegut.

Spring Break

It's been a relaxing almost two weeks -- sleeping, watching movies, and eating.

Tuesday: Arrival and Law & Order!

Weds: Andrew skipped class, and I read materials for my final paper... Took a trip to Woodman's (largest supermarket ever) & the mall. Andrew made sushi for dinner, and proceeded to get me addicted to the show Lost.

Thurs: Continued reading for the final paper. Tv. Watched This Film is Not Yet Rated -- excellent film about the MPAA's rating system, which seems to be based upon 1) the assumption that sex is much more dangerous for kids to see than violence (which makes NO sense), 2) scenes in which women are enjoying and/or initiating sex are to be avoided at all costs, & 3) any hint of gay sex or female masturbation = NC-17 (however, if you show a woman being killed rather than masturbating, you'll probably slide by with a PG rating).

Friday: Outlining my paper, starting on the grading, shopping (clothes & food), and then going to Andrew's admit weekend party. At which I learned about the beard contest.

Sat: Started writing, continued grading...

Sun: Writing, grading, walking down State St. (sunny day, but windy).

Mon: INCREDIBLE weather. The lakes had been frozen when I arrived, but on Monday it reached 80 degrees. We ended up at the zoo (prairie dogs!!), and then sitting by the lake at the terrace, eating ice cream. Finally finished grading! Drove all over looking for a ripe avocado & mango for sushi. Best mango ever.

Tues: Finished paper. Watched Marie Antoinette and Law & Order over wine and cake.

Weds: Worked on my syllabus for spring quarter while Andrew was at school. Headed to Mother Fool's to proofread, where I realized I had actually originally read the play (last summer during quals studying) that I was now writing about. Amazing whipped cream on their mochas. More Lost!

Thurs: Andrew was at school most of the day, and I decided to finally take some time completely off. So I watched Medium and trashy MTV shows, until I finally had to sit down and read some of Adam Bede just to feel my mind work again. After Andrew's test, we decided we needed beer: which meant driving to the one nearby liquor store that's not officially in Madison, so therefore doesn't need to stop selling it at 9 pm. Then we had a late night grocery shopping extravaganza at Woodman's. More Ben & Jerry's!

Fri: Shoe shopping! Final day with the car before Andrew's lease was up. Haircuts at Cha Cha. Short stop at the bar to see people. Back to watch For Your Consideration -- hilarious. "Home for Purium."

Sat.: Andrew had to turn his car in, which was kind of sad (since it was the same car Andrew had while I was at MHC, and we've had many fun trips w/ it -- especially to the drive-in theater at the Dells & our U.P. adventure last summer). We had planned on going to school to watch a movie with Andrew's group afterwards, and even got so far as the bus stop, but due to the ridiculous rain we ended up turning back (my feet were soaked, and cold). So instead we watched The Day After Tomorrow (figured I should see it for my class) and some of The Village of the Damned (really bad movie). Andrew made an amazing dinner (as usual): baked halibut in vegetables and wine sauce, w/ a mango salsa couscous mix. Then headed over to Genna's, where we stayed with the group till after midnight. Andrew and I left a bit earlier than others to make our own onion rings at home (crazy). I started watching SAW, and then decided to watch some of a horrible MTV "Super Sweet Sixteen" in order to think of something more "cheerful." Not sure if it worked (not because I kept thinking about the movie, but rather because "My Super Sweet Sixteen" is also disturbing).

Sun: Breakfast, Andrew helped edit my final paper one last time, tv, and then: tried out the Mini to take one last trip to TJ's! Andrew joined Community Car (practical, environmentally-friendly, and cheaper than leasing/insuring a car), which means he now has more choice in what vehicle to drive.

Have begun packing... off to enjoy the last night in Madison before returning to sunny CA (love the sun, but not terribly excited for spring quarter).

Quarter, over

It was a decent last week of classes. I ended my PWR class with a screening of Donnie Darko (which was an entirely democratic choice: somehow we went from The Little Mermaid or Feris Beuler's Day Off, to a film that actually had something to do with BOTH "The Sky is Falling" and "The Rhetoric of Fear"). I'd forgotten the motivational speaker's character, and his "fear ---- love" spectrum. I'd also forgotten about the scene in which there is a discussion over smurf sex and gangbangs. Hence the R rating. Unfortunately we ended the quarter as we began, with a nomadic hunt for a DVD player and unoccupied classroom. The diehards ended up sitting around a student's laptop in the dark to see the end, as the teacher who next uses the classroom sat outside waiting on us.

I sat in the sun over the weekend writing a paper. And I've begun the research/reading for the second. And I've completely caught up on Real Time with Bill Maher (I love youtube. The 3/16 "new rules" was perfect: "I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning on the chance [the Bush administration] will open it up and read it").

I'm leaving tomorrow morning. And this is how I'm feeling, despite the fact that I have 1) another paper to write, 2) PWR papers to grade, & 3) a syllabus to revise before the new quarter starts. And despite the fact that I'm leaving CA for the midwest, in a lifelong pattern of spending spring break in places with a chance of snow:

Birthdays & colds

I'm tired of being sick. Viruses suck.

I have my suspicions as to why I have a cold:

1. Too much fun over last weekend. Watched a movie. Stayed out till 2 am on Saturday night (during which, at one point we ended up in the wrong meet-up bar: which had a mechanical bull). Did the usual Desperate Housewives get together on Sunday.

2. PWR. Because it's the source of my sleep deprivation. And because this week I read umpteen rough drafts and met with everyone individually for at least a half hour conference.

3. Spring fever. I can't help it, when it's sunny and near 70 I wear skirts. And then I sometimes get chilly when the sun goes down.

4. Paying dues. For another year without catching the flu. (knock on wood)

But I still had a lovely birthday! We had a cohort lunch, and EM made a beautiful "B" chocolate and oreo cake to celebrate our year's double birthday (Bri. & me). Had two conferences that went well. Opened present from Mum (homemade jam! a nearly indestructible potholder! food & chocolate! promise of clothes shopping over spring break!). Enjoyed cards from Mum (baby photos) and Mer (flying squirrel: it's complicated). Watched a little "British Beat" on PBS. Downloaded "Groovy Kind of Love" by the Mindbenders for old time's sake. Watched Medium -- which was pretty good this week.

And now I'm fighting off this cold... Meredith brought kleenex & frozen chocolate banana bars from Trader Joe's (still eternally grateful! there's nothing worse than running out of kleenex when you're sick). I slept over ten hours last night, and took a nap today. This is getting *ridiculous.*

And still my students are emailing me last minute drafts (you know, if I have time, take a look). I think that teachers must seem like parents: capable of everything.

Back to Benjamin's Arcade Project... which seems like strangely appropriate reading for when one's sick. Although The Awkward Age was better at taking my mind off it.

Any suggestions for miracle cures? I might try a little brandy before bed.

My mother

My mother* has this tendency to send emails and cards filled with a series of non sequiturs. But today she outdid herself:

Hi Becky,
I've been having some fun buying yellow towels on ebay...as you see!
Also, are you seriously thinking about meeting up with friends this summer in France?
Do you have a passport yet?
Tim & I are going to apply for a passport very soon, we have the forms, in case we want to go to Canada or Mexico. You'll want to apply for one soon. You may as well get one regardless.
It's been snowing here, but by this weekend it's suppose to be sunny and 60.
Talk to you soon.
Love, Mum

Yes. Just in case they decide to pack off to Canada or Mexico.

And a link to this towel set on ebay:



The potholder is a peep. You know, the styrofoam marshmallow peeps that show up in the stores around Easter, and which no one that I know of -- except my sister -- actually likes? And the towel is indeed patterned with a tesseration of peeps (at first glance it might look polka-dotted, but don't be fooled: those dots are in fact the eyes of peeps).

* In case you're thinking I'm a bad daughter for pasting my Mum's email: I did actually alert her to my intentions.

Time for less alcohol, more Adorno

Admit weekend hit us again. I hosted a fellow Oregonian in 19th century British lit. They arrived on Weds, and I went from a full day of PWR & the open house (ugh. I hate the open house. 18-year-olds asking "Rhetoric of Fear. So what do you read?") to the pizza party & wine. Then I hung around the dept. on Thursday, took a nap in the afternoon, and went out to dinner with the admits. Three Seasons again, but this year: so much food. I sat next to some of my favorite admits, and we decided to revert to frivolous topics as often as possible. Preferably involving Britney's lack of hair (we covered why typing "Britney shaved" into Google does not in fact yield the news story). Then all the cool kids started drinking at Nola's. Lost track of time.

Friday I basically slept. Some reading. Grey's Anatomy watching. The OC on youtube (thank God someone put it up). Waiting up for my admit to see how dinner in the city was.

Today I hung out with my admit in the morning (we chatted over oatmeal), and then hung out in the dept. Ostensibly to do some reading away from my computer, but in actuality to hang out instead of do reading. Somehow we ended up reading Joyce's dirty lust letters and The Pearl (19th century erotica, basically). A happy mispronunciation resulted in the coining of a new term: smeries (smut series). I read like 4 pages of Adorno. Then I ended up going out to dinner with the group at La Strada. Vegetarian risotto... good. Lemon creme brulee and chocolate souffle with vanilla gelato... so much better than the main course. And my espresso came with an information card. You know, so I could bond with where the coffee beans came from (somewhere with little rainfall, unlike Palo Alto tonight).

Back to my real life: The Golden Bowl and PWR lesson plans.

Also: How is it that the Studio 3/4 trip to Hobee's tomorrow is now down to four people? I'm sad more people didn't sign up. Seriously, free brunch. I think it's going to be basically Adela and I catching up.

How did this happen?!

You are Jack the Ripper You are completely insane. You do things spontaneously and always live in the moment. You are unconventional and strange, but you can act otherwise to fool people into believing that you are normal. You also may or may not be angry with prostitutes for giving you Syphilis. Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

This is how I feel

In which I learn that my smoke detector works

The title kind of gives this away, right?

This past Friday I was walking home with Meredith from a workshop/group talk about developing papers into articles. And gradually we acquired a group outside the studios and stopped to talk, as I saw basically everyone I know in our buildings. Which in itself was interesting. Anyway, we soon parted, and I realized I should make something for dinner. This is all set up, of course you've already seen, for why I had something to think about while ostensibly cooking.

I set water to boil, and proceeded to fold clothes and think. And think. It took a while for the potholder on the range top to start smoldering. The smoke alarm started blaring. I knew not to open my door (that sets off the building's alarms). I had turned on the wrong burner; I took the empty pan off the heat, dumped the smoldering potholder into the sink, opened a window completely, and waved clothing under the smoke detector. Which did, to its credit, finally stop blaring.

The pan was fine, the potholder was easily taken care of, and dinner was still ready in 10 minutes.

And luckily my neighbors did not knock on my door.

Sunny spring day -- mid Feb.

Sometimes I love California.

We must have had a high of near 70 today. I wore sandals. As I could have predicted from my bed, no one came to my office hours this morning. But it did mean that I got some reading done before noon. Our "retired" admit committee went out to lunch with the new, up and coming committee -- ostensibly to pass on our wisdom. But I think they already have it under control: they have not one, but SEVEN Excel spreadsheets. And that, in my opinion, = organization.

Anyway, we went to the Cantor Art Museum's cafe -- unfortunately named the "Cool Cafe." I'm not quite sure what they were going for with that name. The failure of creativity becomes more conspicuous when it's situated by the Rodin sculpture garden. And when you compare the cafe's name to the food they serve, which really is quite good. If you're going to eat on the Stanford campus, please, please eat at the Cafe. Lots of organic & veggie options. Beet salad. Purple eggs. Incredible mochas.

It reminded me of last year, when we took the retired committee to lunch... also at the Cafe... also on a particularly beautiful day.

After getting home, I didn't really want to spend the last of the day in my tragically-unsunny studio (no direct sunlight, ever. not even a sliver of a ray). So I did my biweekly grocery shopping extravaGANza! today. Walked to Mollie Stone's (I'm finding that I enjoy walking there more than biking. I discovered a route that takes me through a small park). Got milk at JJ&F, because somehow it's less there. Then I did the shopping center trip. Somehow I spent an hour in Target. I too am mystified. I bought mopping cloths and method shower cleaner; I need to do a deep cleaning before I host someone next week. For some reason I bought a box of Choxi chocolate. Seriously, a box made of chocolate, containing chocoate. It's ridiculous. Who does that? When I buy a box of chocolates, it's because I want the excitement of not knowing what the hell's in the middle of each of them. Having a solid block of chocolate, which doubles as a freaking BOX, does not excite me in the same way. What do you DO with this thing? The function of a box is to shield its contents. But when the box itself needs to be shielded, then what do you do? Buy a bigger box made of chocolate? You can't leave the box on the table to gather dust. You certainly can't eat it in one sitting. It's a puzzle, wrapped in a mystery, boxed in an enigma... or something like that.

Anyway, I'm incredibly glad that I won't be needing to enter Target for another three months or so. Trader Joe's was much easier.

Grey's Anatomy: one hour of my life, 20 minutes of time within the narrative, ending with Meredith supposedly dead.

I don't believe it.

Bought new types of tea today. This is something I really don't need to see when I'm making tea, by the way:



It's a monkey, making a cup of tea, DRESSED IN A CAP AND JACKET.

Highlights lately

It's been a while, it seems, since I updated substantially... and I'm having trouble motivating myself to 1) read Brecht (although he's much easier to read than, say, Adorno), 2) read Benjamin and prepare my presentation for Tuesday, and 3) make sure I have something planned with which to take up the last 20 minutes of my class on Monday (taking the students to the Writing Center = an excellent idea).

The last week has been busy and incredible.

- Dessert night about a week and a half ago. I love hazelnut chocolate cake (or as Andronico's calls it, gerhard michler). Medium seemed not up to par -- more melodramatic (of course the first time I subject others to watching it, it's less entertaining than usual).

- Playing Mafia last Friday. I'm a more believable liar than truth teller, apparently.

- Class on Monday: I had my students ripping apart Boothe Prize essays.

- Weds night: after a day of conferences with students, Sarah invited a group of us out to dinner with the CSN speaker. Perfect dinner & discussion. Which ended in politics, as all good discussions seem to do.

- Thursday: Conferences with students all day. Had one no-show. Back to school for the lecture, which was excellently entertaining (on nasty characters). Ended up going to dinner again, and felt guilty that someone else couldn't take my place. Especially as I'd gotten to enjoy their company the night before. But the best part: impromptu slumber party at Sarah's: talk over tea, the combined powers of Simon & Clever (the dynamic-grey-tailless feline duo), memories of admit weekend two years ago, and coffee in the morning.

- Volunteering for the Valentine Party. I had a bad conscience because I didn't do my CA service hours last quarter, so I was one of the first to sign up for this. Adela had also volunteered, and we drank champagne and wine and ate cupcakes while watching a door (we were supposed to count how many people left. I kept track on the pool score chalkboard. We saw one person leave, and one person enter). Best way to get service hours ever. I had the perfect excuse to act the wallflower at a party and people watch, while catching up with other CAs (example: hadn't seen Raj since our retreat last Sept.). And we were rewarded with bottles of champagne to bring home with us.

The walk home in light rain was also beautiful.

And now today I've slept in (till around noon), done some reading, some cleaning, and some dinner making. In between work tonight, I think I'll do laundry (Saturday night laundry is becoming my tradition) and watch some SNL.

Off the cliff

So this is where we stand at the end of this week's Grey's Anatomy:

- Izzy is holding down a man crushed by a car as he goes into seizures.

- Alex monitors a woman found under cement as she goes into surgery.

- Meredith has been flung into the sea by an injured man.

I get that it's a cliffhanger. But this is ridiculous, and I protest waiting a week to find out whether the little girl bothers to tell anyone that Meredith is drowning.

Growth

My little blue spruce Christmas-tree-turned-houseplant is growing: I noticed yesterday that four new branches have sprung out, young green & delicate.

Clearly, spring is here. Or maybe it's the larger pot & "all natural" soil. Yeah, you probably thought all soil was natural, right? Au contraire: Home Depot differentiates between organic, "all natural," or, you know, chemical-additive (addicted?) soil.

Here's me & the tree at Christmas, by the way:

Dear God what is that thing?

It looks like an updated furby.

Fat Cat

This is ridiculous: a huge Oregonian tabby.

I wish one would wander by my building in search of kibble.

What to eat

Michael Pollan (of Berkeley and the book that I so want to read, The Omnivore's Dilemma) had a great article in the NYT around "real food." Which breaks down into: green leafies, whole grains, less meat, less refined crap, etc., etc. It was very affirming. He even mentions flexitarians (come to find out, even just cutting down to meat on the rare occasion has the same health benefits as going all out veggie). Anyway, it's an intriguing look at major trends in food fads. Which I'm interested in this week because of reading Henry James's In the Cage alongside Jennifer L. Fleissner's article on James's "Art of Eating." Apparently James was a devotee of this movement dubbed "Fletcherism," which preached the need to slowly, meticulously, and continuously chew each bite of food. It sounds kind of disgusting: can you imagine chewing something a hundred times? But this apparently resonated with James.

Anyway, back to Michael Pollan. I excerpted some highlights:

Epidemiologists also had observed that in America during the war years, when meat and dairy products were strictly rationed, the rate of heart disease temporarily plummeted.

Naïvely putting two and two together, the committee drafted a straightforward set of dietary guidelines calling on Americans to cut down on red meat and dairy products. Within weeks a firestorm, emanating from the red-meat and dairy industries, engulfed the committee, and Senator McGovern (who had a great many cattle ranchers among his South Dakota constituents) was forced to beat a retreat. The committee’s recommendations were hastily rewritten. Plain talk about food — the committee had advised Americans to actually “reduce consumption of meat” — was replaced by artful compromise: “Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake.”

A subtle change in emphasis, you might say, but a world of difference just the same. First, the stark message to “eat less” of a particular food has been deep-sixed; don’t look for it ever again in any official U.S. dietary pronouncement. Second, notice how distinctions between entities as different as fish and beef and chicken have collapsed; those three venerable foods, each representing an entirely different taxonomic class, are now lumped together as delivery systems for a single nutrient. Notice too how the new language exonerates the foods themselves; now the culprit is an obscure, invisible, tasteless — and politically unconnected — substance that may or may not lurk in them called “saturated fat.”

And herein lies the tragedy of government-issued food guidelines and pyramids when said government bows to every lobby and industry rather than paying attention to health. We will never be told to eat less meat, even though that's a big part of the answer to both our health problems and our environment problems.

How did that happen? I would submit that the ideology of nutritionism deserves as much of the blame as the carbohydrates themselves do — that and human nature. By framing dietary advice in terms of good and bad nutrients, and by burying the recommendation that we should eat less of any particular food, it was easy for the take-home message of the 1977 and 1982 dietary guidelines to be simplified as follows: Eat more low-fat foods. And that is what we did. We’re always happy to receive a dispensation to eat more of something (with the possible exception of oat bran), and one of the things nutritionism reliably gives us is some such dispensation: low-fat cookies then, low-carb beer now. It’s hard to imagine the low-fat craze taking off as it did if McGovern’s original food-based recommendations had stood: eat fewer meat and dairy products. For how do you get from that stark counsel to the idea that another case of Snackwell’s is just what the doctor ordered?

And then Pollan gets into some simple guidelines for eating healthier, which I've parsed out:

From Whole Foods to Refined. The case of corn points up one of the key features of the modern diet: a shift toward increasingly refined foods, especially carbohydrates. Call it applied reductionism. Humans have been refining grains since at least the Industrial Revolution, favoring white flour (and white rice) even at the price of lost nutrients. Refining grains extends their shelf life (precisely because it renders them less nutritious to pests) and makes them easier to digest, by removing the fiber that ordinarily slows the release of their sugars. Much industrial food production involves an extension and intensification of this practice, as food processors find ways to deliver glucose — the brain’s preferred fuel — ever more swiftly and efficiently. Sometimes this is precisely the point, as when corn is refined into corn syrup; other times it is an unfortunate byproduct of food processing, as when freezing food destroys the fiber that would slow sugar absorption.

From Complexity to Simplicity. If there is one word that covers nearly all the changes industrialization has made to the food chain, it would be simplification. Chemical fertilizers simplify the chemistry of the soil, which in turn appears to simplify the chemistry of the food grown in that soil. Since the widespread adoption of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers in the 1950s, the nutritional quality of produce in America has, according to U.S.D.A. figures, declined significantly. Some researchers blame the quality of the soil for the decline; others cite the tendency of modern plant breeding to select for industrial qualities like yield rather than nutritional quality. Whichever it is, the trend toward simplification of our food continues on up the chain. Processing foods depletes them of many nutrients, a few of which are then added back in through “fortification”: folic acid in refined flour, vitamins and minerals in breakfast cereal. But food scientists can add back only the nutrients food scientists recognize as important. What are they overlooking?

Simplification has occurred at the level of species diversity, too. The astounding variety of foods on offer in the modern supermarket obscures the fact that the actual number of species in the modern diet is shrinking. For reasons of economics, the food industry prefers to tease its myriad processed offerings from a tiny group of plant species, corn and soybeans chief among them. Today, a mere four crops account for two-thirds of the calories humans eat. When you consider that humankind has historically consumed some 80,000 edible species, and that 3,000 of these have been in widespread use, this represents a radical simplification of the food web. Why should this matter? Because humans are omnivores, requiring somewhere between 50 and 100 different chemical compounds and elements to be healthy. It’s hard to believe that we can get everything we need from a diet consisting largely of processed corn, soybeans, wheat and rice.

From Leaves to Seeds. It’s no coincidence that most of the plants we have come to rely on are grains; these crops are exceptionally efficient at transforming sunlight into macronutrients — carbs, fats and proteins. These macronutrients in turn can be profitably transformed into animal protein (by feeding them to animals) and processed foods of every description. Also, the fact that grains are durable seeds that can be stored for long periods means they can function as commodities as well as food, making these plants particularly well suited to the needs of industrial capitalism.

The needs of the human eater are another matter. An oversupply of macronutrients, as we now have, itself represents a serious threat to our health, as evidenced by soaring rates of obesity and diabetes. But the undersupply of micronutrients may constitute a threat just as serious. Put in the simplest terms, we’re eating a lot more seeds and a lot fewer leaves, a tectonic dietary shift the full implications of which we are just beginning to glimpse. If I may borrow the nutritionist’s reductionist vocabulary for a moment, there are a host of critical micronutrients that are harder to get from a diet of refined seeds than from a diet of leaves. There are the antioxidants and all the other newly discovered phytochemicals (remember that sprig of thyme?); there is the fiber, and then there are the healthy omega-3 fats found in leafy green plants, which may turn out to be most important benefit of all.

…

From Food Culture to Food Science. The last important change wrought by the Western diet is not, strictly speaking, ecological. But the industrialization of our food that we call the Western diet is systematically destroying traditional food cultures. Before the modern food era — and before nutritionism — people relied for guidance about what to eat on their national or ethnic or regional cultures. We think of culture as a set of beliefs and practices to help mediate our relationship to other people, but of course culture (at least before the rise of science) has also played a critical role in helping mediate people’s relationship to nature.

…

It might be argued that, at this point in history, we should simply accept that fast food is our food culture. Over time, people will get used to eating this way and our health will improve. But for natural selection to help populations adapt to the Western diet, we’d have to be prepared to let those whom it sickens die. That’s not what we’re doing. Rather, we’re turning to the health-care industry to help us “adapt.” Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick. It’s gotten good at extending the lives of people with heart disease, and now it’s working on obesity and diabetes. Capitalism is itself marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into lucrative business opportunities: diet pills, heart-bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But while fast food may be good business for the health-care industry, surely the cost to society — estimated at more than $200 billion a year in diet-related health-care costs — is unsustainable.

…

1. Eat food. Though in our current state of confusion, this is much easier said than done. So try this: Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. (Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a time before the advent of modern food products.) There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.

2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give people heart attacks. When Kellogg’s can boast about its Healthy Heart Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly compromised. (The American Heart Association charges food makers for their endorsement.) Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health.

3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.

4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won’t find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer’s market; you also won’t find food harvested long ago and far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional quality. Precisely the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food.

5. Pay more, eat less. The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. There’s no escaping the fact that better food — measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) — costs more, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should. Paying more for food well grown in good soils — whether certified organic or not — will contribute not only to your health (by reducing exposure to pesticides) but also to the health of others who might not themselves be able to afford that sort of food: the people who grow it and the people who live downstream, and downwind, of the farms where it is grown.

“Eat less” is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact the scientific case for eating a lot less than we currently do is compelling. “Calorie restriction” has repeatedly been shown to slow aging in animals, and many researchers (including Walter Willett, the Harvard epidemiologist) believe it offers the single strongest link between diet and cancer prevention. Food abundance is a problem, but culture has helped here, too, by promoting the idea of moderation. Once one of the longest-lived people on earth, the Okinawans practiced a principle they called “Hara Hachi Bu”: eat until you are 80 percent full. To make the “eat less” message a bit more palatable, consider that quality may have a bearing on quantity: I don’t know about you, but the better the quality of the food I eat, the less of it I need to feel satisfied. All tomatoes are not created equal.

6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what’s so good about plants — the antioxidants? Fiber? Omega-3s? — but they do agree that they’re probably really good for you and certainly can’t hurt. Also, by eating a plant-based diet, you’ll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods (except seeds) are typically less “energy dense” than the other things you might eat. Vegetarians are healthier than carnivores, but near vegetarians (“flexitarians”) are as healthy as vegetarians. Thomas Jefferson was on to something when he advised treating meat more as a flavoring than a food.

7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren’t a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn’t still be around. True, food cultures are embedded in societies and economies and ecologies, and some of them travel better than others: Inuit not so well as Italian. In borrowing from a food culture, pay attention to how a culture eats, as well as to what it eats. In the case of the French paradox, it may not be the dietary nutrients that keep the French healthy (lots of saturated fat and alcohol?!) so much as the dietary habits: small portions, no seconds or snacking, communal meals — and the serious pleasure taken in eating. (Worrying about diet can’t possibly be good for you.) Let culture be your guide, not science.

8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be cheap and easy; that food is fuel and not communion. The culture of the kitchen, as embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism. Plus, the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it. So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe.

9. Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet. The greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases. That of course is an argument from nutritionism, but there is a better one, one that takes a broader view of “health.” Biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields. What does that have to do with your health? Everything. The vast monocultures that now feed us require tremendous amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to keep from collapsing. Diversifying those fields will mean fewer chemicals, healthier soils, healthier plants and animals and, in turn, healthier people. It’s all connected, which is another way of saying that your health isn’t bordered by your body and that what’s good for the soil is probably good for you, too.

And now I'm hungry.

Seriously, read Pollan. He makes me want to bike to the farmer's market.

Which feline...

Which famous feline are you?


At first I was Tigger. I decided that wasn't accurate, so I managed to get The Cheshire Cat.

PWR takes over my life

Currently under way is the consumption of my life by the PWR program. Lesson plans, xeroxing, uploading documents to the course website, reading papers, conferencing with students... Oh yes, and I'm supposed to be taking two grad classes on the Frankfurt School & Henry James.

Luckily, my students are amazing. Even if my lesson plan for today was derailed in light of their anxieties over a bibliography that isn't due for two weeks, and which is actually the most straight forward assignment (perhaps that's what's bothering them?)

Anyway, just wanted to document what I've done this week.

Monday: teaching in the morning, followed by lunch, class on Henry James, job talk, finishing Lukacs essay and writing a response, etc.

Tuesday: designing lesson plan, Frankfurt class, xeroxing for PWR, lesson planning & reading essay till 1 am

Weds: teaching, lunch, reading student papers, conferencing, dinner, now more student papers.

I think I'm going to make up for being insanely busy by drinking too much espresso & eating lots of starch & sugar.

Blogging for choice

It's blogging for choice day, but I feel that I've said all I can say on the topic. Luckily, Jill at Feministe has a comprehensive post on why being pro-choice is the pro-life, pro-woman position. So I'm just going to link to her brilliant post & reproduce a couple of favorites here:

I am pro-choice because those who attack abortion rights don’t plan on stopping there — they’re also going after contraception, science and even sex itself. And they’ve got a whole lot of political capital.

I am pro-choice because I see what places look like when “pro-life” policies are the rule of law. I see it again and again and again.

I am pro-choice because I see what places look like when abortion is safe, legal and available, contraception is accessible, and sex is considered natural, normal, and something we should take responsibility for, not be ashamed of.

I am pro-choice because “pro-life” policies kill and maim women. I am pro-choice because abortion rates are no higher in countries where abortion is legal than in countries where it is outlawed — but countries where abortion is legal see lower maternal mortality rates, lower infant mortality rates, greater economic prosperity, and greater gender equality.

I am pro-choice because women who live in the developing world account for 95 percent of the world’s illegal abortions, and I believe that access to safe health care should not be contingent on where you happened to be born. I am pro-choice because the countries with the lowest abortion rates — Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland — have liberal abortion laws, good health care, comprehensive sex education, and accessible and affordable contraception.

I am pro-choice because many countries where abortion is illegal or highly restricted have significantly higher abortion rates than we have in the United States, and astronomically higher rates than we see in Western Europe. Some of those countries include Brazil, Chile, Bangladesh, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, and the Philippines.

I am pro-choice because of the number of women hospitalized after unsafe illegal abortions in these countries:
Bangladesh: 71,800
Brazil: 288,700
Chile: 31,900
Colombia: 57,700
Dominican Republic: 16,500
Egypt: 216,000
Mexico: 106,500
Nigeria: 142,200
Peru: 54,200
The Philippines: 80,100

I am pro-choice because 80,000 women die every year from complications from illegal abortion, and hundreds of thousands more are injured.

I am pro-choice because the risk of dying from abortion is far higher in countries where abortion is illegal than where it’s legal.

I am pro-choice because illegal abortion is the cause of 25% of all maternal deaths in Latin America, 12% in Asia, and 13% in sub-Saharan Africa.

...

I am pro-choice because I care about children — and according to the Children’s Defense Fund, 100% of the worst legislators for children in this country are pro-life.

End of winter break, beginning of winter quarter

So Andrew is back in WI. The apartment feels very empty (although, since it is, after all, a studio, this might seem like a good thing). I miss Andrew.

Back to the running list of activity...

6th: I think we finished Memoirs of a Geisha? Anyway, got some work done, baked amazing chocolate chip cookies (tips from allrecipes.com: an extra egg yolk, melted butter, and more brown sugar than white), and went to Alex & Kaitlin's for dinner, dessert, & apples to apples (which is a crazy game).

7th: Finally, the trip to SF. We missed the train we had aimed on taking, but this gave me the chance to find hilarious chicken stickers at a stationery store (which became part of Mer's b-day present). In the city, we immediately wanted to get to the Haight-Ashbury. The MUNI workers didn't believe us at first about a free "family appreciation day," but Andrew prevailed. We got to Buffalo Exchange, only to find that my clothes are apparently not suitable for store-credit exchange. There's something very humbling about having your past fashion choices judged by a man wearing hip huggers, a butterfly print button-up, a cropped leather vest, and a tophat. In other words, dressed as a modern-day Mad Hatter. Luckily, I found a pair of cute jeans and a new skirt to make up for the humiliation.

After wandering about a bit, we ended up at the Blue Moon Cafe -- which we both remembered from the SF guidebook. Yummy falafel wraps. Brief glance through a used bookstore in wild disarray (books stacked on top of shelves -- not the best place to be if an earthquake hit). After they reprimanded Andrew for asking if they had any "crossword a day" books with a snide comment about the impossibility of ever finding a blank "used" crossword book, and after they confirmed that they didn't have a lit crit section, we got the hell out.

We headed to the park for the view of the painted ladies (beginning of Full House), and enjoyed the dog park area. Then we decided to walk back to the Caltrain station -- which was a long walk, with pleasing areas of beautiful houses, and dangerous areas of people screaming and one man notifying all passersby that he would "kill for meth." Passed through Hayes Valley (I think), and I found the Marx-Engels reader for $12. I hurried Andrew away from a music/dancing session in the street, and we made it on the Caltrain home... where we decided to make our own dinner.

8th/Monday: Last day before classes started... went to Meredith's party in the evening... thoroughly enjoyed being social with Andrew.

9th/ Tuesday: I had one class & prep to do for my first PWR session... Visited with Jill over our class plans.

10th: Very nervous about my first day of PWR. My bad dream -- in which too many students showed up, I forgot the syllabi, and we got kicked out of our classroom -- came partially true. After Andrew had set up my computer with the projection system and left, another instructor came in claiming she'd been switched to my room (because she likes having windows. Well hell, I like having windows, too, and I even more enjoy not being switched out of my room on the first day of class). Problems with PWR actually changing things on the official Stanford course site. Anyways, the rest went well, I think. An Incovenient Truth & the color coded threat level system are just too perfect as examples of rhetorical appeals...

Celebration w/ Andrew over dinner & Medium.

11th: Free day... we ended up at the library, then catching a bus, I think doing some grocery shopping?

12th: Friday night we went into Palo Alto for dinner with friends (Alex & Kaitlin, Dennis of Microsoft & his gf) at "Thai-phoon" (clever, right?), and then for drinks at Three Seasons. Poor Andrew -- I was intrigued by the chocolate martini... They drove us home, in an adorable Prius, and I felt rather tipsy still.

13th: Quieter day, and we stayed in...

14th: Mer's birthday! And Desperate Housewives get-together. Played some Cranium, and we continued the game one on one afterwards.

15th: Sadness. Last day of Andrew's visit... Had work to do, but we also had an expedition for buying ingredients for a special dinner. We made veggie lasagna (which is now rather old, but I couldn't bear to throw it out, so I'm freezing it). Also made our own interesting concoction of baked apples & sugar & vegan butter. Good stuff.

16th: More sadness. After doing various things while Andrew packed, and crying over lunch, I went on the bus with Andrew to the Caltrain station... said goodbyes, and he called me so I could walk back to campus and talk... Went to the English dept., finished reading, and went to class... which I think helped in that I couldn't really think about anything else then. I did PWR stuff after, avoided going home... talked to Mer on the phone on my walk home... Then I had an EV pizza dinner event coming up, so I didn't have to think too much...

17th: Class not as exciting as week before, I'm definitely making plenty of mistakes from which I hope I learn. After class I had lunch and a nap, then office hours... then coffee w/ Justin, James, & Lupe, which I very much enjoyed... then an English dept. meeting over pizza. Back home for some reading & Medium.

Yesterday I had office hours, and then I read about 160 pages of Portrait of a Lady. In the evening I went out with the cohort for drinks (definitely needed). Then there was the second half of Grey's Anatomy, and more reading...

Today was quiet: which is maybe why it seemed sadder again to be alone. I slept in (finally), and then settled in for an afternoon with Isabel Archer. Cried at parts. Went out briefly, and luckily my books came just in time for me to read them. Now I'm on to the criticism, and I'm hoping to do more planning for my classes this week, since I'll finally have two sessions.

This quarter is going to be ridiculously busy. I hope that that means I won't have time to feel sad about Andrew not being here. Although that usually wears off after a week or two, and it's back to feeling like just my place. I can't wait for the end of this year: it will finally mark the end of my being tied here. After one quarter of TA-ing next year, I'll be free to fly back and forth much more often.

Let's pretend...

That I posted this like a week ago.

Andrew got here on the 20th, and since then we've been celebrating the holidays (ie, gifts, candles, & cooking), taking day trips, watching movies, and generally catching up on together time.

Some highlights:

21st: Shopping in the rain for groceries & a glass pitcher. After buying brandy, and realizing I was never going to finish this bottle of red wine, I decided on embarking on the culinary adventure that is sangria. Beautiful with floating fruit.

Upon returning, we saw that a Crate & Barrel box had made it to my door. As soon as I saw it, I became convinced that Andrew had bought me the same thing that I had bought him: a fondue set. Because I had looked at some sets at C&B, and ultimately found a larger one at Target. So on the second to last night of Hanukkah, we officially discovered that we had, indeed, decided to buy each other the same thing.

24th: The Christmas portion of Chrismakkuh officially began.

25th: Was spent opening presents under my little growing tree, talking on the phone with the family as they opened presents, and preparing for dinner. Christmas is all about the cooking. We decided on a vegetarian celebration, with matzoh ball & veggie "stoup," butternut squash, homemade stuffing (including my homemade bread), & cranberry-apple compote. We took an evening walk in search of Christmas lights, found some cheery houses, and enjoyed the fact that in CA one can actually walk around looking at lights without getting frostbite. Played scrabble. Dessert: our own gingerbread cookies (slightly underbaked) & chocolate fondou.

26th: Andrew rented a car, and we became mobile. Since we didn't get it till after 3 pm, and because it was raining, we devoted ourselves to shopping. We returned gifts, picked out new ones, wandered about in Ikea for hours, & went grocery shopping. At Ikea I found a duvet cover that was on sale for $10, and which Andrew & I agreed might make a nice couch cover (studio couches are wretched: ugly neutral pattern & coated with a surely carcinogenic liquid proof substance). Come to find out, it's the exact same pattern on my little desk lamp. Apparently I am very attracted to red viney flowers on a white background.

27th: We attempted to take a nature walk, but ended up first in a smelly bird bath reserve, and secondly in a park that was supposed to be closed and that was especially wind-whipped that day. Saw overly friendly geese, then geese lined up on a rock wall in the wind (strange), and a heron and egret hanging out in the wetlands.

After, we went to the "Great Mall" in Milpitas. And it is indeed a huge mall. I won't go so far as to say "great" (that would be more of a value judgment), but there are a prodigious number of stores and outlets. Found a few things -- including some new jeans -- but mainly wandered around in circles and ate at the food court.

28th: Trip to Half Moon Bay -- We visited the tide pools, which were beautiful in the sun, and saw star fish, some sort of sun fish (basically like a star fish with legs multiplied), sea anemones, abalone shells, urchin shells, hermit crabs... Went back to the town to explore and revisit shops we liked last year. Especially the grocery store, which we remembered as being strangely inexpensive. Apparently though they figured out that everyone else is charging more for, well, everything. Caught the sunset, and Andrew further experimented with his camera.

Dinner: eggplant parm

29th: Finally made it to Big Basin! The trip there was intense in and of itself: winding highways that lead to ever narrower and twistier roads. Beautiful though. The park was pretty quiet -- we took off with a map & planned to make a loop. We quickly ran into trouble: a bridge was covered in caution tape. I figured the bridge was still safer than my trying to jump across a river, but Andrew insisted upon finding a better place at which to cross. And we did -- it just seemed a tad wrong off-trailing. Anyway, after lunching near construction (not sure what they were doing), we finally got onto the trail and stayed there. Didn't see a single banana slug, so Andrew took many, many pictures of trees. Trees in sunlight and in shade, big trees, trees with me for scale, trees growing against or into each other...

After, we went down to Santa Cruz. Made it just in time for the sunset on the ocean. We decided not to search for the monarch butterflies in the dark, and instead went to the bookstore we enjoyed last year. I found the copy of Portrait of a Lady we're reading this quarter and Ian Watt's Rise of the Novel. Successful trip.

30th: Got up early and headed into the city to meet Andrew's relatives for a wander through the SF farmer's market, lunch in the ferry building, & shopping. Got lost in the 3 levels of Forever 21 (eek), found nothing I wanted in my price range at Anthropologie (except, you know, gift ribbons), & tagged along as Andrew tried to find the perfect air blower to clean his camera lens (update: he finally found it at the first place we went to here in Palo Alto).

31st: Decided to take another trip to the coast, and went on a nice drive with views, especially around Devil's Slide. Took a short hike in the hills on the ocean, where we climbed to the top of one hill for the view, sat looking out as if we might actually see whales, and watched some hawks circle & scream. Oh, and we finally saw a banana slug. One doing its sluggy thing on some dog poo. We decided not to take a picture of that one.

Returned to the tide pools, which this time had attracted some harbor seals. They weren't doing much, although one did snap at a low-flying seagull.

On the way home, we stopped at Target to buy Cranium (yay!). And we got majorly waylaid in Target's after-Christmas sale.

Anyways: back at home, we made pizza for dinner. This was more intensive than it sounds, since we started from scratch. We made our own dough (Andrew closely monitored the condition of the dough: very concerned that I was going to "overwork" it), topped it, and were pleasantly surprised with the creation.

1st: Drove to Berkeley for R & J's annual New Year's brunch. We stayed longer than we planned, but the time flew by: lots of people to talk to, and many adorable little kids. After gathering advice, we promptly got lost in San Rafael (beautiful church against the hill in the afternoon sun), but made it to the Marin Headlands in time for Andrew to take (yet more) pictures of the sunset. Enjoyed walking along the beach, and driving further up for the view. And we finally figured out where you can get the best view of the Golden Gate. Then, we explored Sausalito -- I wanted French fries at first, but ended up deciding on visiting the candy store. Yum. We were then going to head straight home, but Andrew cleverly took us on a driving tour of SF.

2nd: Last day with the car, so we ran errands: more grocery shopping & a very large bag of potting soil for my little tree. Repotting the tree was an adventure: we moved it with a shopping car that mysteriously appeared by my building over break, and scooped out soil with a measuring cup (since I don't exactly having gardening tools lying around).

3rd: Went onto campus early, and later relaxed at home... watched Medium, made Indian food with the pretty good Korma sauce from Trader Joe's.

4th: Some work, some Andronico's sale shopping (annual soup sale: Amy's organic chunky tomato bisque & medium chili = most perfect foods to be found in a can), and some TV (new OC).

5th: We had planned on a trip into the city, but decided to put it off till Sunday to get an earlier start and take advantage of free Muni service. So instead, we finished watching The Smartest Guys in the Room (awesome: Enron is the case study for the problems with American capitalism & unquestioning trust in the virtue of the "free market," not to mention terribly telling in its connections with the Bush administration), found the classroom where I'll be teaching next week, biked to Menlo Park to check out Nak's market (woohoo Yakisoba noodles & dried shitake mushrooms & cheap nori!) and to buy more coffee. After, Andrew helped me learn how to scan documents in as PDFs & manipulate them in Adobe. Slowly learning the ropes.

Tonight we did the sushi thing (well, Andrew did the sushi thing, and I partook of it), & I just made creme brulee.