Category Archives: articles

On Getting Dirty

Posted on by
Reply

Playing outside was one of my absolute favorite things. At the first hint of warm weather, I’d be out in the backyard, digging up the plants (weeds, mostly)  that were already starting to grow. Warm sunshine on my back and cold, frozen ground at my feet. It was always so disappointing to realize that since it’s Colorado, we weren’t out of snow-season yet.

Even now, on the warm days in March that signal a hint of spring, I run outside barefoot to feel the grass against my toes. I still forget that the ground hasn’t completely thawed, so I’m often left with cold, muddy feet. Happy feet.

Even though we never we able to get our mud pools to hold water (who’d have thought?), they were good for something after all!

By the way, I’m totally letting my kids get dirty. (We’ll see how I feel about that when I’m trying to get all the grass stains out of their clothes and keep the mud out of my house. But for now, it sounds wonderful.)

Why Getting Grimy As A Child Can Make For A Healthier Life

by NANCY SHUTE

04:53 pm

March 23, 2012

Maybe the kids would be healthier if Mom skipped this sometimes.

EnlargeiStockphoto.com [side note: stock photos are sooo creepy, but it must be so fun to try and imagine all of the stock photos that people will need.]
Maybe the kids would be healthier if Mom skipped this sometimes.

We’ve known for a while that people who grow up on farms are less likely to have ailments related to the immune system than people who grow up in cities. Those include asthma, allergies, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis.

Exposure to germs as a kid seems to be helpful, while living in an environment that’s squeaky clean seems to pose risks for some illnesses. Still, nobody knew precisely why. But now some scientists say they think they’ve figured out the details of the “hygiene hypothesis.”

They found that microbes in the gut keep a rare part of the immune system reined in. No microbes, and the immune cells go crazy in the lungs and intestines, increasing the risk of asthma and colitis. Add in the microbes, and cells in question, invariant natural killer T cells, retreat.

The discovery was one of those lovely “aha” moments in science. Or as says Richard Blumberg, the chief of gastroenterology at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital in Boston, and co-author of the study says: “We made the serendipitous observation that these cells were dramatically enriched in the lung and colon in mice that lacked any microbes.”

These are mice raised in totally germ-free environments in the lab. What really piqued the scientists’ interest was that the immune response in the super-clean mouse innards looked very similar to what happens in diseases like asthma.

But they were still missing the connection with exposure to bacteria in early childhood. So Blumberg and his colleagues took pregnant germ-free mice and exposed them to microbes the day before they gave birth. The baby mice had fewer iNKT cells in their guts, even after they grew up.

The researchers also found that genetically altered mice without the iNKT cells don’t get colitis, even if they were raised in a germ-free environment.

It’s unclear which microbes help regulate the immune cells, according to Dennis Kasper, director of the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s, and a co-author of the study, which was published online in Science. Figuring that out is very important, he says. “You can’t just put any piece of dirt into a baby and direct the control of the immune system,” he says.

He thinks there are a very few special molecules in the 500 to 1,000 species in the intestine that control the immune cells, but it’s going to take a lot more work to figure that out.

Of course, this study was done in mice, but it gets at some fundamental questions that would be impossible ask in humans. No germ-free cages for us.

And their findings square with 20 years of epidemiological research showing that exposure to microbes and parasites in childhood reduces the risk of autoimmune disease.

There’s evidence that children who are given antibiotics early in life are more likely to have immune-based problems like asthma and food allergies. There’s even someevidence that women might have more autoimmune diseases than men because they’re kept cleaner than boys as children.

These disorders are more common in developed countries, and in people who move from the developing world into tidier lands.

So parents may someday emulate the germy mouse world, rather than a scrubbed and sterile environment, to ensure the health of their offspring.

Source: NPR 

On Cute Stuff Because It’s Friday

Posted on by
Reply

The bosses are both back today, which means that everything that’s been going crazy this week is even crazier now as we settle down, recap, and regroup for next week.

Whew.

But in the meantime, I saw this article and thought of my mom, who’s a special education teacher. She works with deaf kids (who should consider themselves lucky because they can’t hear her scary “teacher voice”), and she’s pretty awesome at sign language.

Wait, she’s probably mastered “teacher voice” in ASL, too.

(She denies that she has a teacher voice. It’s just like the sock fight that we’ve been having for about 23 years. We’re never going to see eye to eye on either of them. Just so we’re clear, I’m not the one stealing socks. I don’t wear socks. Notice that Mike is usually pretty silent during these debates…)

Click here for the link to the story. It’s adorable. A kid signs “I’m proud of you” at Obama and he signs back “Thank you.” Awwww, our President is awesome!

[side note: when I sent mom the links to the “Dirty Sign Language” videos on YouTube, she was not nearly as amused as I was.] [P.S. to the side note: Grandma, don’t click on that link. Thanks.]

On Black Babies Who Grow Up to Become Black People

Posted on by
Reply

I know a white woman with a black daughter.

I babysat the daughter when she was just a baby. There was a terrible incident with a sweet potato and a microwave and smoke. The baby cried when I put her on the porch so that she would be out of harm’s way while I dealt with smoke detectors and disposed of the blackened mass in the microwave. (Talk about a moment of sheer panic!) The baby cried. I soothed her tears, read her stories, and distracted her. She smiled. By the end of that warm summer evening, with all the windows open to air out the rancid smell of burnt potato, that beautiful baby was laughing. Oh my god, her laugh. I’ll never forget it. It’s loud and clear, the epitome of pure joy. It bounces off the walls and fills your soul with the kind of happiness that you couldn’t ever buy. She lights up when she laughs. She’s clever and quick; she loves to dance around, loves to read, loves to play. I’ll never forget the sight of her in her footed pajamas jumping around, playing hide and seek with me. She giggled when I popped up, then I hid again, and reappeared. Her face cracked. The laugh spilled out into the coming night. My heart overflowed.

The woman adopted the baby and brought her home and loved (loves) her, just like my parents did with me.

But that baby is black.

It’s the first thing that many people comment on. I know, because I’ve read her mother’s posts. I’ve heard the annoyance, felt the pain. The comments don’t just come from white people, either. That mother is attempting to do the best she can for that beautiful child. To her, diversity is important. They have all sorts of friends who come in all sorts of colors. They do colorful things, eat colorful foods, live a colorful life. And no, I’m not just talking about racial diversity. I’m talking about life. They lead a beautiful, charming life.

So who cares?

Well, this mother cares. Knowing that her daughter is exposed to everything is important to her. She wants to educate her and show her the world. All of it.

And apparently, a lot of people care enough to comment. Even if they don’t think they’re doing it. They say critical things. They ask rude questions.

The baby will grow up. The baby will become a young woman. She will go to college. She will become an adult. She may even have children of her own someday. She’ll have the support that she needs; she’ll have all the love in the world behind her. She’ll face challenges, of course, as all babies who grow up do, but she’ll also have to learn a lot about race and our country. She’ll some day face adversity. She might even face hatred.

That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?

And while we all sit there and talk about how we have such diverse friend groups, and how it’s such a shame that racism exists, we’re not doing enough. We can do better. That doesn’t just go for white people either. Everybody needs to be better. Everybody CAN be better. It just takes a step or three in the right direction and pretty soon you’re on a better path.

No one should ever have to face the prospect of explaining racial inequality to their child.

We’re not afraid of black babies. (You all know that I’m such a huge fan of babies anyway, but oh my god, they’re ALL so cute!) No one is afraid of toddlers, or children. Those babies grow into gangly adolescents, with long arms and silly haircuts. Those babies listen to music that you’d most likely consider noise. They struggle to find their place in the world. They dream and laugh and love. They learn, they grow, they get jobs. They go to concerts. They go out to eat. They watch tv. They are exactly like all the rest of the young adults in the world.

But once those children start to grow up, start to become adults, people start to get a little nervous. They edge away on the bus; they hold their bags a little tighter; they look at their feet instead of making eye contact.

Do you do that, even unconsciously? If you do, you might want to reexamine your approach. Because when someone does that, they’re doing the worst thing that can ever happen to a child, an adolescent, or a young adult. When they do that, they’re invalidating everything that that child/adolescent/young adult/adult knows. They’re sending them the message that they’re afraid. Of them. They’re sending the message that they assume the worst. From them. They’re sending a message. That message says, “You’re not equal. You’re not okay. You’ll never be good enough.”

You don’t want to send those messages, do you? Of course not. You’re a good person. But good is relative. Be a better person. I hate to quote the Marines here, but “be all that you can be.” (That is the Marines, right?)

I promised myself I wouldn’t dive into a sociological rant, and I’m doing my best not to. Black doesn’t just have negative social implications. There are negative employment, economic, educational implications. We must stop this. We must fight to change the way we view color in our society, in our world. We must act. That doesn’t mean you have to join a diversity club or march around Civic Center Park on a Sunday with a giant sign. All you have to do is start implementing small changes in your own life. Trust me, they’ll ripple out around you like you’d tossed a stone into water. Everyone’s ripples can create giant waves of change. (So what if that’s a lame metaphor?)

The next time you get nervous on a bus, or in line at the grocery store, or wherever, think about this: the person you’re not looking at was once a baby. That person has a mother and a father. That person has family, maybe brothers and sisters. That person has hopes, and dreams, and inside jokes with people. That person has a beautiful smile. By humanizing the person you’re edging away from, you might be able to open channels of communication, create the possibility of love in your heart. Start thinking of them as a dynamic human being. Smile. Ask them how their day is going. You might be pleasantly surprised by their response.

When I was sixteen, I started working at a local Dairy Queen. As we were about to close for the night, our cleaning guy Melvin would come in. Melvin was a middle-aged man with a raspy voice and rough hands. He had a wife and a ten-year old daughter who was at the top of her fourth-grade class (I know because I double-checked – and sometimes helped out with – her homework). Melvin and I would sit on the concrete sidewalk outside the store for a while after we closed. He’d always pull this beat-up orange cushion out of his van and sit on it, while lecturing me about my own sitting habits. He told me that if I continued sitting on the ground with no cushion, I’d get hemorrhoids. (For the record, he was wrong.) He taught me a lot about love. When I was seventeen, and in love with a boy who was never going to love me back, he watched my heart break and told me that I deserved better. I loved Melvin. I was always happy to see his headlights pull into the parking lot. I felt safer when he was there. (I was robbed at gunpoint when I was seventeen. The robber was white.) He had a beautiful laugh; he told wonderful (if entirely inappropriate) jokes; he was the best cleaner we ever had. After he left, we couldn’t replace him. No one was the same. Melvin died a while ago, of lung cancer. He was a black man. But more than that, he was a wonderful man.

Let me tell you this – your life will be a sad and lonely place if you don’t let people in. It’s not about what they look like or what they do, it’s about who they are. Everyone has something to give you, something to share with you, something to teach you.

Everybody was a baby once. Everybody has loved, lost, and learned. Everyone has stories to share and jokes to tell. Everyone is dynamic in their own way.

Speaking of babies, here’s the story that inspired this: A black baby who grew up to be a young man, is now dead because someone is an idiot. 17-year old Trayvon Martin lived in a gated community in Florida with his dad and brother. During the NBA All-Star game in February, he went to buy some skittles and an iced tea. On his way home, the neighborhood watch guy – one George Zimmerman – followed him, questioned him, and ultimately, shot and killed him. Trayvon had nothing wrong. Following his murder, Zimmerman wasn’t arrested. He’s been receiving death threats. He says that he killed Trayvon because he looked “suspicious.” Yep. That terrible word.

I’ve been loosely following this story, but I think that this post says so much: (The post was written by a white blogger.)

White People, You Will Never Look Suspicious Like Trayvon Martin

Posted March 19, 2012 by Michael Skolnik

I will never look suspicious to you. Even if I have a black hoodie, a pair of jeans and white sneakers on…in fact, that is what I wore yesterday…I still will never look suspicious. No matter how much the hoodie covers my face or how baggie my jeans are, I will never look out of place to you.  I will never watch a taxi cab pass me by to pick someone else up. I will never witness someone clutch their purse tightly against their body as they walk by me.  I won’t have to worry about a police car following me for two miles, so they can “run my plates.”  I will never have to pay before I eat. And I certainly will never get “stopped and frisked.”  I will never look suspicious to you, because of one thing and one thing only.  The color of my skin.  I am white.

I was born white.  It was the card I was dealt.  No choice in the matter.  Just the card handed out by the dealer. I have lived my whole life privileged. Privileged to be born without a glass ceiling. Privileged to grow up in the richest country in the world.  Privileged to never look suspicious.  I have no guilt for the color of my skin or the privilege that I have.  Remember, it was just the next card that came out of the deck.  But, I have choices.  I got choices on how I play the hand I was dealt.  I got a lot of options.  The ball is in my court.

So, today I decided to hit the ball.  Making a choice.  A choice to stand up for Trayvon Martin. 17 years old. black. innocent. murdered with a bag of skittles and a bottle of ice tea in his hands. “Suspicious.” that is what the guy who killed him said he looked like cause he had on a black hoodie, a pair of jeans and white sneakers.  But, remember I had on that same outfit yesterday.  And yes my Air Force Ones were “brand-new” clean.  After all, I was raised in hip-hop…part of our dress code.  I digress.  Back to Trayvon and the gated community in Sanford, Florida, where he was visiting his father.

I got a lot of emails about Trayvon.  I have read a lot of articles.  I have seen a lot of television segments.  The message is consistent.  Most of the commentators, writers, op-ed pages agree.  Something went wrong.  Trayvon was murdered.  Racially profiled. Race. America’s elephant that never seems to leave the room. But, the part that doesn’t sit well with me is that all of the messengers of this message are all black too.  I mean, it was only two weeks ago when almost every white person I knew was tweeting about stopping a brutal African warlord from killing more innocent children.  And they even took thirty minutes out of their busy schedules to watch a movie about dude.  They bought t-shirts.  Some bracelets. Even tweeted at Rihanna to take a stance.  But, a 17 year old American kid is followed and then ultimately killed by a neighborhood vigilante who happens to be carrying a semi-automatic weapon and my white friends are quiet.  Eerily quiet. Not even a trending topic for the young man.

We’ve heard the 911 calls. We seen the 13 year old witness.  We’ve read the letter from the alleged killer’s father.  We listened to the anger of the family’s attorney.  We’ve felt the pain of Trayvon’s mother.  For heaven’s sake, for 24 hours he was a deceased John Doe at the hospital because even the police couldn’t believe that maybe he LIVES in the community.   There are still some facts to figure out. There are still some questions to be answered.  But, let’s be clear.  Let’s be very, very clear. Before the neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, started following him against the better judgement of the 911 dispatcher.  Before any altercation.  Before any self-defense claim.  Before Travyon’s cries for help were heard on the 911 tapes.  Before the bullet hit him dead in the chest.  Before all of this.  He was suspicious.  He was suspicious. suspicious. And you know, like I know, it wasn’t because of the hoodie or the jeans or the sneakers.  Cause I had on that same outfit yesterday and no one called 911 saying I was just wandering around their neighborhood.  It was because of one thing and one thing only.  Trayvon is black.

So I’ve made the choice today to tell my white friends that the rights I take for granted are only valid if I fight to give those same rights to others.  The taxi cab. The purse. The meal. The police car. The police. These are all things I’ve taken for granted.

So, I fight for Trayvon Martin.  I fight for Amadou Diallo.  I fight for Rodney King.  I fight for every young black man who looks “suspicious” to someone who thinks they have the right to take away their freedom to walk through their own neighborhood.  I fight against my own stereotypes and my own suspicions. I fight for people whose ancestors built this country, literally, and who are still treated like second class citizens.  Being quiet is not an option, for we have been too quiet for too long.

-Michael Skolnik

Michael Skolnik is the Editor-In-Chief of GlobalGrind.com and the political director to Russell Simmons. Prior to this, Michael was an award-winning filmmaker. Follow him on twitter @MichaelSkolnik

Read more: http://globalgrind.com/node/828497#ixzz1phB5TcWR

On Gay. On Suicide. On Bullying.

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been awhile, I know. Work keeps getting in the way of the rest of my life.

But alas, I’ve got something to say that’s important enough for me to give up some time to say it.

Jacob posted a link to a Rolling Stone article on my Facebook wall. (I think we still get a subscription to the magazine, but I hadn’t read it, so this goes to show that I’m out of touch with everything.)

It was about bullying and gay teens. While I think the article has some serious flaws (look at me, being all critical), I do think that it raises some serious questions about problems with having policies specifically related to homosexuality in our public schools.

But more than that, I (never thought I’d say this) partially agree with one of the anti-gay groups when they say, “…much of society seems not to be looking closely and openly at all possible causes of the tragedies.” Granted, they did precede that by saying “Because homosexual activists have hijacked and exploited teen suicides for their moral and political utility…” so that still makes them really insensitive and downright hateful.

We do need to really examine these tragedies. Being a child, an adolescent, a young adult: it all really sucks. I had such a rough time because of bullying in grade school – I remember crying and begging to go a new school. I withdrew quite a bit in high school but came out of it just fine. Bullying isn’t just about gay kids. Bullying is about anything, everything. Kids are really cruel. And it blows, for everyone involved. People carry those emotional scars with them long after the bullying has ended.

So let’s talk about parenting, because that’s where those little seeds of hatred get planted, nourished, and encouraged to grow. These parents hold certain political ideologies, certain religious beliefs, and live by an individual moral code. It stands to reason that their children will as well, having grown up hearing their parents espouse their beliefs, complaining about taxes, etc. That’s not the problem. The problem is when parents fail to explain to their children that there are other (equal) ways of thinking. I respect your beliefs; I respect your rights; I cannot respect your hatred, no matter where it comes from. We’re all guilty of putting a blanket over the “other” and forgetting that those people all believe those things because it gives them strength, hope, faith, solace, comfort, joy.

But at what point does my right to believe in whatever I want stop? At the point at which it infringes on someone else’s right to believe in whatever they want. This is why schoolyards are going to remain a political battleground.

They say that knowledge is power and it’s true. I don’t know why we’re against teaching our kids anything. At one point in the Rolling Stone article, a woman named Barb Anderson is quoted as saying, “Open your eyes, people. What if a 15-year-old is seduced into homosexual behavior and then contracts AIDS?” I wasn’t aware that we’re still under the impression that only the gays get AIDS. Yes, 61% of new HIV infections are found in “men who have sex with men” or MSM, according to the CDC. (I always read MSM as metro-sexual men, so that’s problematic for my brain.) But 23% of all new infections are in women. And the race most affected? Black men.
How many people know this? How many people can pull this out of their heads? Not knowing breeds fear and fear breeds the sad situations we’re seeing today. Fear breeds death, hatred, bigotry, disgust, anger. Fear does not bring about positive change, cooperation, or community.

I just don’t know why we’re not teaching our children everything that we can teach them. Creationism, evolution, reincarnation – we should be teaching it all. French, algebra, history, banned books: learn it all! I’m much more comfortable arguing with someone who’s chosen to believe what they believe than I am arguing with someone who’s had their beliefs molded and shaped for them. Schools should be a place of academic achievement, not fear. Teachers report being afraid to address the bullying situations that may be based on perceived or real homosexuality because they don’t want to lose their jobs. So these kids are left alone and helpless to cope with bullying that they don’t understand and can’t control.

Youth is a very fragile time. Even though these people are quickly growing into young adults, they’re not there yet. They need to be taught. Educated. Supported. Mental health issues among teenagers are increasing. Depression, suicide, eating disorders and behaviors are becoming increasingly more and more common.

The US lacks the mental health resources to treat the growing number of kids displaying symptoms. The social stigma surrounding mental health prevents a lot of progress and instead, causes much more harm to our society than a progressive dialogue would. (I’m not known for my avoidance of issues, but I’ve been avoiding talking about my own ADHD diagnosis and treatment for fear of negative repercussions.) We medicate, medicate, medicate. I don’t agree that that’s a great solution to any problem, mental health related or not. But it is too bad there’s no medication to make insensitive, insecure teens blind to differences.

But that’s exactly it: these teens (both the ones doing the bullying and the ones being bullied) are insecure. They’re trying to establish their own identities while being assaulted by their own hormones on a daily basis. They’re trying to figure out where they fit in the world, and they’re using anything they can for guidance. Instead of knowing that their bullying might stem from their attempts to appear more masculine, they think that this bullying makes them more powerful, respected, admired. It doesn’t. It makes them weaker than they’d be if they approached these in-school social situations more logically. But they don’t know that, because no one has ever explained all of that to them. Let’s start teaching sociology in the fourth grade and see how far that gets us. If kids could understand more about what they’re feeling and experiencing, they’re far more likely to make the mature choices not to engage in behaviors. But instead, they’re left to fend for themselves, trying to make sense of everything without appearing weak. Newsflash: we’re all weak. We all need help, support, and guidance.

Feel-good seminars and classroom discussions aren’t going to help either. The message that these kids are getting is that being gay is all butt-sex and glitter. While that’s simply not true, they don’t have any real-life context for understanding homosexuality. In reality, being gay is just like being straight. Couples wear ugly sweaters and make dinner and fight about who’s going to take out the trash. Short-shorts aren’t the norm. But how are these kids going to understand that when we won’t talk about it, teach it, or protect the gay kids from being attacked? Oh wait, there’s always TV. (That’ll help.) Our examples are terrible representations of what gay is.

Gay. Bullying. Suicide. They go hand in hand and they exist separately. In order to get to the bottom of this to stop our kids from killing themselves or driving others to kill themselves, we need to take a long, hard look at the messages that we’re sending to them.

If I ever catch my kid(s) bullying, or engaging in any behavior that I find predatory, disrespectful, or downright offensive, there will be hell to pay. The parents of the kids who say things like, “You’re a fag and you deserve to die,” should be held accountable for the actions of their children. This is a really good example of when it’s okay to ask “What would Jesus do?” Your religions, whatever they may be, do not say that it’s okay to hurt other people. They do not say that it’s okay for you to taunt, tease, punish, and terrorize your peers.

Instead of fighting about what we can’t teach, let’s just teach it all. Let’s teach everything and let our kids learn to think for themselves. Let’s expose them to everything we can expose them to. Let’s make them cultured, intelligent, young people who have adventured, and failed, and come to understand the ways that the world works.

Let’s fight to end teen suicides. Let’s fight to end bullying. But more than that, we need to fight to give our kids the coping skills to handle these things when they do happen. We need to address these issues openly, so that when a kid thinks about committing suicide, they are able to reach out to someone who can help them. So that when a kid thinks about putting another kid down just so he/she can feel better about him/herself, that kid will think twice.

I know that it gets better, but they don’t. It’s up to us to guide them all through.

On Wine, subtly

Posted on by
Reply

I’m a huge fan of wine. More than that, I’m a huge fan of affordable wine. There are plenty of delicious Malbecs for under $20, so both my bank account and myself can remain happy. Ha, but sometimes you do get what you pay for. I’m looking at you, $4.99 bottle of Gato Negro.

The article below serves to validate my frugality when it comes to purchasing wine:

Most Of Us Just Can’t Taste The Nuances In High-Priced Wines

02:56 am

March 6, 2012

EnlargeiStockphoto.com
Research suggests that most of us don’t or can’t taste the subtleties of fine wines.

Have you ever splurged on a highly rated bottle of Burgundy or pinot noir, only to wonder whether a $10 or $15 bottle of red would have been just as good? The answer may depend on your biology.

A new study by researchers at Penn State finds that when it comes to appreciating the subtleties of wine, experts can taste things many of us can’t. “What we found is that the fundamental taste ability of an expert is different,” says John Hayes of Penn State.

So what explains this? Part of it has to do with training and experience. But our ability to identify nuances in wine is also influenced by physiology in our mouths and brains.

“We evaluated hundreds of wine drinkers,” says Hayes, by having them sample/taste a chemical that measures their reaction to bitter tastes. He found that wine experts — people such as wine writers, winemakers and wine retailers — were about 40 percent more sensitive to the bitterness than casual consumers of wine. They have a more acute sense of taste.

Hayes says his findings fit with prior research on so-calledsupertasters — people who are more sensitive to the sweetness of sugar, the sting of chili peppers and the saltiness of chips.

The experts I reached out to are not convinced that “biology” is as deterministic as the research may suggest. “There may be some people who are gifted tasters,” Dave McIntyre, who writes about wine for The Washington Post, wrote to me in an email. “But I think it’s mostly experience.”

He says he’s taken the time and made the effort to taste many, many wines. “If you taste enough Cabernet Sauvignon you’ll learn to tell it from Merlot,” MacIntyre says. And over time, if you pay attention, he says he thinks most people will heighten their ability to detect nuances.

But for those of us who are not inclined to invest a lot of time in wine-tasting, should we pay attention to those wine reviewers’ ratings and scores?

A 90-point rating may tell us that an expert thinks the wine is a good choice. And the higher the point rating, the higher the price point. But what if the critics’ palates are not in sync with ours?

“Wine shopping can be confusing and overwhelming,” Katherine Cole, a wine writer in Portland, wrote to us. She says to some extent, the point ratings can help us narrow our choices. When you spot a bottle in your price range, and you see one of those “shelf talkers” (the term she uses to describe those little tabs affixed to store shelves) that tout a 90-point rating (on a 100-point scale), it can make the decision easier. “Oh, Wine & Spiritsmagazine likes this wine, so it must be good.”

Experts all seem to acknowledge that there’s quite a bit of subjectivity involved in reviewing wine. “Every critic has his or her own taste,” Cole says, “so the same wine might garner wildly differing scores from a variety of critics.”

All of this leads me to the conclusion, that yes, I’ll try to use experience as my teacher. But I’m not going to be ashamed by my affordable favorites. I may not have the most experienced of wine palates, but I’ve found plenty of pleasant $10-$15 Syrahs and Malbecs — two of my favorites — and I’m sticking with them!

Tags: food science, flavor science, wine

On “Nine you’re fine, ten you’re mine”

Posted on by
Reply

I love the idea of photo radar. Love it.

I have no idea where my insurance card or proof of registration are. Glove compartment? Probably, but getting to them will take hours of digging through papers and probably freaking out, then trying not to cry while the cop is standing there, or worse, making you wait anxiously by the side of the road while he or she goes to check all your stuff.

(Flashback to high school, when I got pulled over for having a headlight out and then made the police officer hold the contents of my glove compartment while I dug out all of the insurance paperwork for the last couple of years. It was bad. Thankfully, he was very understanding. He let me go after I used the “Date of Next Service” tag in my windshield to prove that I had an oil change appointment the next day and would be able to get the light fixed. Then we joked about crossing double yellow lines. But as I drove away, my heart was pounding. I’ve never been good at confrontation, particularly with authority figures. Eek!)

Photo radar is the best of everything: the city gets money, you don’t have to deal with the police, and the ticket is ZERO POINTS! Your insurance won’t go up! You just send the city a check and you’re on your merry way.

Why is anyone upset about this? This is amazing.

If I’m speeding (which I usually am), I have no problem getting caught by photo radar and sending in a check. As long as my insurances goes up and my license points are preserved, we’re all winning.

For the record, I haven’t gotten a ticket since my senior year of high school. (Knock on wood.)

Murphy: Denver’s photo traffic enforcement on the radar

POSTED:   03/05/2012 01:00:00 AM MST
UPDATED:   03/05/2012 10:30:29 AM MST

By Chuck Murphy
Denver Post Columnist

Photo enforcement agent Katie Salas sits in the specially equipped van and monitors traffic on East 17th Avenue and Cook Street recently. In less than 90 minutes, Salas cited 56 violators — people who were going above 40 mph in the 30-mph-zone.. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

The first thing you notice when you spend some time with the photo-radar-enforcement van is that every driver is speeding.

Well, maybe not every driver. Because the second thing you notice is that older (or more experienced, if you prefer) drivers save everyone trapped behind them a lot of money.

On this day last week, photo-enforcement agent Katie Salas has parked her specially modified van on Denver’s East 17th Avenue at Cook Street.

Now, you may think that locations such as this — a four-lane commuter route, near a high school, and across the street from a park — are chosen because they will produce the most revenue for the city. Not so, said Ted Porras, supervisor of Denver’s “photo enforcement unit.”

“We’re restricted to three areas: safety zones (like park boundaries), school zones and residential zones with posted speed limits of no more than 35 mph,” Porras explained. “Believe me, if we enforced along Colorado Boulevard, we would see more.”

Hard to imagine, because we are about to see plenty. But first, there are a lot of rules to follow in the photo-radar-enforcement- van business.

It must be parked in such a way that the radar can shoot across the traffic lanes, and so the operator will be able to clearly see every car the radar clocks as a violator.

Next, the big blue “PHOTO RADAR IN USE AHEAD” sign must be posted facing the drivers who are about to get cited. Denver requires it to be at least 325 feet from the van. Salas and Porras will mark off more than 500 feet for this “enforcement” activity because they want to make sure drivers are notified in plenty of time to see the 30-mph speed limit and know that the van is ahead. Their benevolence has nothing to do with the presence of a newspaper columnist. Of this I am certain.

Now, the system must be checked and calibrated. Salas must get her paperwork together to note the body type of every vehicle captured on camera as a violator.

Agent Salas sits in the photo-radar van Wednesday. The radar issues a citation only if a driver is going more than 10 mph above the posted speed limit. Drivers are alerted of the photo-radar use by a sign placed at least 325 feet from the van. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)
The system is then set to trigger at 40 mph, 10 above the posted speed limit, and, after more than 20 minutes of preparation, we are ready.
“Now, we wait,” Salas said. Not for long we don’t.

Beep. Flash. Beep. Flash. Beep. Flash. In the space of three minutes, five cars have broken the 40-mph barrier, and nearly every car that passed was going faster than 30. A total of 46 will earn $40 Penalty Assessment Notices before an hour is up. Everyone, including bus drivers, cops, firefighters and the sheriff’s deputy who flew past this day, gets their photo taken and a notice of violation in the mail. If fishing were this easy, it would be boring and it would probably be illegal anyway.

Lots of people think this should be.

Denver’s auditor said police should be forced to prove photo traffic enforcement has a safety benefit, or it should be closed as nothing more than a “cash grab.” (Denver collected more than $2 million in the last fiscal year from the combined red-light/radar programs). The legislature briefly considered a bill banning the cameras, but it has beenset aside for now. Some argue that you don’t have to pay when the notice arrives in the mail — technically true, but if you ignore it they will just send someone out to serve you personally, andit will cost you at least $25 moreunless you can get it dismissed. (Yup, you get to pay for the privilege of being personally served.)

So photo radar enforcement is with us for at least another year, and there are a couple of things you should probably know.

Flashing your headlights, swerving or hiding behind other traffic does not work. Neither does a middle-finger salute (Salas gets a lot of those). Your best bet is to hit the brakes. You might just slow down in time, and that’s OK with Salas.

“That’s what we’re here for,” she said.

There is indeed a person inside the van, and she is not Satan.

Salas is the mom of a school-age son, and, while she takes no particular pleasure in helping catch speeders, she harbors no guilt either.

“We enforce around elementary schools a lot, and I feel pretty good about that,” she said.

So, next time you see the big blue sign, please slow down. It will save you money, and if the van is there, there may be kids, parkgoers or construction workers nearby too. Maybe even give the photo-enforcement agent a nice wave.

Use all your fingers.

Read more:Murphy: Denver’s photo traffic enforcement on the radar – The Denver Post  source: http://www.denverpost.com/murphy/ci_20102377#ixzz1oGeTGd87

On Cupcakes on a Plane

Posted on by
1

This article reminds me of my own attempt to classify a certain foodstuff as a solid, rather than a gel.

For the record, I totally disagree with the author of this article. Considering the fact that I accidentally got a 20oz bottle of water (filled approximately a third of the way full) through airport security last week, I’d argue that they’ve got more important things to do than catch ladies with cupcakes. You know, things like actually follow the spirit of these regulations rather than the letter and see how that fares for them. Nit-picking about frosting isn’t going to help until we’ve set a precedent. I am going to need signs with pictures showing me that I cannot bring Jell-O, or frosting, or hair gel, or whipped cream, or mousse. I want those juxtaposed right up next to the axes, knives, handguns, and scissors.

(Advice to the lady: open the jar. Lick all frosting. Close jar and continue with your screening process. Eat cupcake sans frosting in future.)

10/2012 @ 3:36PM |2,753 views

Cakes On A Plane: Cupcakegate And You

Photo Courtesy of Consumertraveler.com

By now you’ve heard of the Incident of the Confiscated Cupcake. It seems that one Rebecca Hains, of Peabody, Mass., was returning home from Las Vegas last month, when Transportation Security Administration agents confiscated her cupcake on the grounds of excessive frosting, which the TSA classifies as a gel.

On the one hand, dude, it’s a cupcake! On the other hand, the incident raises questions about both airport security and the American diet.

The diet first. Call me a curmudgeon, but despite the trend sweeping the nation from Boston to Beverly Hills, I firmly believe that a cupcake should never be more frosting than cake. Go back to the old-school cupcake-to-frosting ratio, and I’m convinced that the percentage of obese Americanswould decline from 33.8% to, oh, say, 33.75% (hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?). Plus, too much frosting is just gross. If this requires TSA enforcement, then I’m all for it.

Seriously, though: although regular readers know that I don’t have much sympathy for ham-fisted TSA tactics, this time I come down on the side of the folks in blue.

Turns out that this was no ordinary cupcake. It was in a glass jar. Who the heck carries a cupcake in a glass jar? And TSA rules on glass jars containing gels are clear: no larger than three ounces, packed together with your other gels and liquids in a clear, quart-size plastic bag. Ms. Hains’s cupcake, no matter how darling, violated these rules. If the cupcake needed to be in a jar, she could have put it in her checked luggage. If she needed a dessert in a jar to eat on the plane, how about honey-roasted walnuts?

“When you think about it,” writes TSA blogger and erstwhile security officer Bob Burns, “do you think an explosive would be concealed in an ominous item that would draw attention, or something as simple as a cute cupcake jar?” Makes sense to me. Read the rest of his post here.

Bottom line: if you need to take cakes on a plane, how about just carrying them in the box they came in?

source: Forbes

I don’t know about you, but cupcakes in a jar sound amazing to me.

I have been on a weird kick lately where I’ve been trying to fully embrace the adulthood that’s threatening to overwhelm me (you should see what I bought off of Amazon.com today – six boxes of tea, a novel, and two seriously motivational career woman books….I’m rolling my eyes at myself right now. I have not yet subscribed to Amazon Prime, so some remnants of my youth remain.)

But this means research. I’ve been reading cooking blogs. I’ve been reading design blogs. I’m hoping that in ten years (or, more realistically, thirty to forty), when I can finally afford a house/condo, Future Me have some sense of structure, order, etc. I think this means fashion, so I guess I’d better work on dressing myself before I work on dressing my house. (I realized last night that Kevin hasn’t seen me wearing makeup in days. It might even be weeks. I’ve fallen into a rut, mostly.)

But….cupcakes in a jar remind me of cheesecake in a jar, which is going to be my first project once I get all settled back into my apartment (with Carlos, of course!)

This must happen this weekend. The moving, not the cheesecake making. Baby steps.

Virtual Picnic- Cheesecake in a Jar

by JAMIE on APRIL 22, 2011 

(snagged the pictures and the recipe from My Baking Addiction, which I am totally addicted to!)

Post image for Virtual Picnic- Cheesecake in a Jar(photos from My Baking Addiction)

Cheesecake in a Jar

YIELD: 4-6 servings depending on size of jars used

INGREDIENTS:

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
zest of one lemon
2 packages cream cheese, 8 oz each; room temperature
2 large eggs; room temperature
¼ cup heavy cream
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup fresh berries

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

3. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with your paddle attachment, combine the sugar and lemon zest and mix until the sugar is moistened and fragrant. Add in the cream cheese and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream and vanilla and mix until smooth.

4. Pour batter into canning jars until about ¾ of the way full. Place jars into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the sides of the jars.

5. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, the edges will appear to be set, but the center will still have a little jiggle to it.

6. Carefully remove the cheesecake jars from the water bath and place on a cooling rack to cool completely. Once the cheesecakes are completely cooled, place them into the refrigerator for at least 5 hours. Top will fresh berries and serve.

NOTES:

– For glossy berries, simply add 1 tablespoon of hot water to ¼ cup apricot preserves. Blend until combined and thinned out. Place the berries in a bowl and gently brush and toss the berries with the apricot and water mixture.
– If you are not a fan of lemon, simply omit the zest.
– If you are missing the graham cracker crust, serve with graham sticks.
– The jars pictured above are Weck (7.4 ounce) Tulip Jars.

On Dr. Seuss, excitedly

Posted on by
Reply

I love Dr. Seuss. So insightful. So relevant. So beautiful, creative, strange, and wondrous. When I went away to college, I got “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” as a present. And I loved it. When I’m babysitting, I’m always excited when the kids bring over Dr. Seuss books to read at night. (Although, at about 9 pm, my ability to smoothly read over the rhymes is replaced by lots of yawning and mispronunciation.)

I grabbed this article from a website called “Sources of Insight” that I’d never seen before today.

Lessons Learned from Dr. Seuss

23 FEBRUARY 2010 25 COMMENTS

Lessons Learned from Dr. Seuss

“Kid, you’ll move mountains!  Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!” –Dr. Seuss

When I was a kid, Dr. Seuss was a constant source of inspiration for me.  His stories filled my head with endless possibilities.

Between Great Day for Up and The Cat in the Hat, I was pretty much prepared for making the most of any day.  I think his real masterpiece though was Oh! the Places You’ll Go!   This is the book that convinced me I could move mountains and that life is what you make of it.

21 Lessons Learned from Dr. Seuss
There are so many great lessons from Dr. Seuss.  Each of his book is such a treasure trove of ideas and actions for a better life.  What I did here is boil down a set of 21 lessons that highlight his key themes across his works and quotes:

  1. Be a thinker of great things.  Dr. Seuss teaches us, “Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!”
  2. Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.  Sometimes you just don’t know what you’ve got until after it’s gone.  In Bartholomew and the Ooblek, King Didd got what he wished for, but the sticky Ooblek goo was worse than the fog, snow, sunshine, and rain that it replaced.  The King quickly wanted his old weather back and he learned to appreciate it.
  3. Be your best you.   In the words of Dr. Seuss, “There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”  Make the most of what you’ve got.   In Yertle the Turtle, we see “feather envy” and it’s a gentle reminder to be careful what you wish for and appreciate what you’ve got.
  4. Bend your world in wonderful ways.  Nobody bends it like the Cat in the Hat.   From the metaphors you use, to the thinks that you think, you can shape your world that’s right in front of you.
  5. Don’t put yourself in a box.  You’re only limited by your own imagination.   The Cat in the Hat teaches us how to let our imaginations run wild.
  6. Don’t waste your time worrying who’s better than who.  In Yertle the Turtle, Dr. Seuss teaches us that “You have better things to do than argue who’s better than who.”
  7. Dream it and do it.  You can move mountains when you put your mind to it.  Direct your life like a blockbuster and make things happen.
  8. Edutainment wins over boring and ho-hum.  With whacky words, wondrous worlds, and fantastical characters, Dr. Seuss taught us the edutainment is how you change a child’s life.  Reading is only boring if you make it so.
  9. Kindle your curiosity.  Keep your mind open and your eyes peeled.  Stay curious and follow your growth.
  10. Life happens in moments at a time.  Don’t miss out on life by tuning out the little things along the way.
  11. Own your fun.   There’s more to do than play in the rain.  When you’re bored, you’re boring.   The Cat in the Hat teaches us to be the maker of our own fun.  Make each day your own special blend of whatever it is that best floats your boat.
  12. Play at your day.  You can play at your day, in every way.
  13. Persistence pays off.  Be relentless in your pursuit of things.  In Green Eggs and Ham, it was through persistence that Sam-I-Am finally got the unnamed character to try the green eggs and ham.  In real life, Dr. Seuss’s first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press.
  14. Treat people fairly and squarely.  In The Sneetches and Other Stories, Dr. Seuss shows us that we can’t judge people by their lot in life or whether they have a star on their belly.  In Yertle the Turtle, it’s a reminder not to climb over people on your way to the top, because they’re same people you’ll see on your way back down.
  15. Try it … you just might like it.  In Green Eggs and Ham, when the unnamed character was surprised to find out that he actually likes green eggs and ham once he tried them.  You just never know until you try.
  16. Saying you’re sorry can help make things right.   In Bartholomew and the Oobleck, when the king finally said the magic words, “I’m sorry,” and “it’s all my fault,” he helped make things right again.
  17. See the bright side of things.  It’s a great day for up, when you can see the sunny side of things.  Sure sometimes you’ll have to work at it, but positivity is a skill.  Do it daily.
  18. Setbacks happen.  Deal with them and move on.   Make trouble think twice about messing with you.
  19. Some people are much more unlucky than you.  When you’re down in the dumps and things get real bad, remind yourself that somewhere, somehow, someway … somebody is much “more unlucky than you.”
  20. Success is a journey and we all have our own paths.  Make your journey count.  Don’t let fear stop you.  Don’t let conventional wisdom stop you.  Lead the life you want to live, and when there’s no path, make one.
  21. Your voice counts.  In Horton Hears a Who, Dr. Seuss shows us how one little voice can tip the scale … after all, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Top 10 Dr. Seuss Quotes 
51J I 6 4IL__SL160_Dr. Seuss has so many quotable quotes, from enjoying your day to being more you.  He has such a way with words.  Even when he reminds us of something we already know, he has a way of saying it that makes an old song sound new.  Here is a sprinkling of some of my favorite quotes:

  1. Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
  2. Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.
  3. Only you can control your future.
  4. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.
  5. The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
  6. Today is gone. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.
  7. Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.
  8. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
  9. You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.
  10. You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

It’s inspirational gold.  There is nobody youer than you, and the more that you learn the more places you’ll go.  Bravo.

Dr. Seuss Quotes
51fcyIF5j0L__SL160_If you’re not familiar with Dr. Seuss’s quotes, then you’re in for a treat.  It’s easy to read his words, and he’s a master of saying a lot with so little.

A nice simple way to leverage his quotes is to pick one or two of your favorites.  Sometimes the right quote is just what we need to hear and it can be the perfect catalyst that we need in our life.  Enjoy!

Aloneness

  • All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot.
  • I’m afraid sometimes you’ll play lonely games too, games you can’t win because you’ll play against you.
  • You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.

Be Yourself

  • If you’d never been born, then you might be an Isn’t! An Isn’t has no fun at all. No, he disn’t.
  • You are you. Now, isn’t that pleasant?
  • You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.

Everybody Deserves a Shot

  • A person’s a person, no matter how small.
  • I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.

Fun

  • Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.
  • From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.
  • I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
  • If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good.
  • It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how.
  • We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.

General

  • Be awesome! Be a book nut!
  • Christmas doesn’t come from a store, maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more …
  • I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like them Sam I am.
  • I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. Because an elephant’s faithful, 100 percent.
  • I’m glad we had the times together just to laugh and sing a song, seems like we just got started and then before you know it, the times we had together were gone.
  • Oh, the things you can find if you don’t stay behind!
  • Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
  • So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act.
  • They say I’m old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!
  • Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.

Life Happens

  • I’m sorry to say so but, sadly it’s true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you.
  • Things may happen and often do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

Make Things Happen

  • I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!
  • There’s no limit to how much you’ll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go.
  • Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.
  • Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

Positivity

  • And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!
  • If you keep your eyes open enough, oh the stuff you will learn. Oh the most wonderful stuff.
  • It’s opener, out there, in the wide, open air.
  • Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re really quite lucky.
  • You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.

Thinking

  • Think and wonder, wonder and think.
  • Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!

On Single Moms

Posted on by
Reply

Kevin’s working late, so I’m stuck on the couch, trying to stay awake until he gets home. (hint: it’s not going to happen. I’m going to be dead to the world when he gets in. this week has been so exhausting!) I’ve been trying to get a chance to sit down and write a proper blog entry, but I just don’t think it’s going to happen until I’m at the airport on Friday. So hopefully you’ll get something good in time for the weekend. Unless, of course, you don’t.

Regardless, I came across this article tonight. I was at the bodega near my house the other night when I heard a reporter on the news talking about the rise in single motherhood (particularly for women who have had “some college” but don’t have degrees). I didn’t get a chance to finish listening, and haven’t even thought about looking it up since, so I was pleased to stumble upon it.

I don’t know that I necessarily like the conclusions that the author draws in the article – that this rise in single motherhood is a good thing based on a number of factors, but I do like that he points out:

“But what women of all social classes share is what one friend of mine, a single mom, calls the “if/then” attitude towards marriage. As she puts it, “If I meet the right guy, then I’d like to get married. But if I don’t meet the right guy, then that’s okay too. I’m not going to get married out of desperation.”…That insistence on doing marriage right –- or not doing it all –- transcends class.”

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately wondering about this marriage business. I, for some odd reason, still hold marriage as an eventuality, a pre-determined part of my life. I expect that I’ll be married, but I definitely agree that I’d much rather remain single forever than settling for the wrong dude. (My rant about marriage can wait for another day…) It’s curious to watch how the average age of first marriage seems to be constantly increasing (as a result of many factors, of course), yet so many people get married right out of college. I get that you might have found “the one”, but I’m also inclined to believe that those behaviors are more socially driven than they are romantic.

But what scares me more than the thought that I might have married whoever I was dating at 21 is the fact that we’re glorifying this rise in out-of-wedlock births. Granted, I dig that freedom. I also dig that I’m not constantly pressured about how I’m not married yet. Women who want to have babies but don’t have a husband are having babies every day. But they’re educated; they’re employed; they’re stable (say whatever you want, but those things do help. a lot). Working multiple jobs and relying on family members to watch your child does not sound like the kind of thing that leads to fulfillment without undue stress. It sounds like we’re perpetuating all of the downfalls of the “decline of the family” that the conservatives are so worried about. I wouldn’t mind being a single mother (some day far into the future), but I certainly wouldn’t embrace that at this point in my life. I’m in no way economically stable enough to want to be responsible for a kid.

I also think that they’ve focused in on the masculinity aspect of this, yet they’ve simultaneously entirely ignored men and their involvement in all of this out of wedlock birthing. (Even though the author brings the lack of men up in the article, I don’t think he could have adequately addressed the male component in the space allowed.) They’re also looking in the wrong places. They’re not looking at why these women are more likely to give birth out of wedlock than their more educated peers. They’re not looking at the economic impact that these pregnancies are having on the mothers, or the long-term effects. To be honest, they’re completely ignoring a lot of really terrible things in order to praise the fact that women aren’t willing to settle.

That’s great. No one wants to settle. But I think we’re letting men off the hook here by talking about how these women are strong enough to do this on their own, and the example given of one woman whose boyfriend couldn’t even buy his own cigarettes is really disgusting. Like you’d date something like that? And even worse, let it impregnate you and then just leave it to bear no financial or emotional responsibility as you raise a child because the guy you were dating wasn’t responsible enough? Bullshit.

I worry that we still don’t have enough support systems in place. We need to be sure that these women are going to be able to get jobs that will keep both them and their children healthy, educated, employed, cared for. We may not have marriage as an institution anymore, but we might need to really get behind the “it takes a village” mentality, especially as we start to embrace and adapt to our modern relationships and communities.

I’m not entirely sure that was the most coherent argument I’ve ever made. But then again, it’s late. Whatever.

Point of the whole thing? It’s not the sanctity of the family structure that I’m worried about. Single parents do a damn good job every single day. Parenting isn’t about how poor you are, how educated you are, etc. But I don’t know that this rise in births to single mothers who have some college is a positive thing, especially not based on the reasoning below:

The Increase in Single Moms Is Actually a Good Thing

BY HUGO SCHWYZER

FEB 22, 2012 5:40 PM

For the first time in American history, more than half of new mothers under the age of 30 are unmarried. The news has led to stark warnings from social conservatives about the supposedly disastrous consequences of illegitimacy –- and to renewed discussion about whether marriage remains relevant today. In the rush to pass judgment on these unwed mothers, one question is almost never asked: how many of these young single moms would actually like to be married?

Writing in the Times on Saturday, Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise focused heavily on the harm to children that this new trend portends. The women they interview are exhausted, often leaving their children in the care of relatives while they go off to work multiple jobs. The article cites experts who lament single motherhood, warning that children born outside of wedlock face greater social and economic obstacles than their peers born into traditional nuclear families. Bizarrely, DeParle and Tavernise don’t even bother interviewing any fathers, an odd journalistic decision given the subject of the story. The implication of that deliberate oversight is that we already know all we need to know about why these guys won’t marry the mothers of their children. That not only shortchanges the men, it allows an even more dangerous assumption to linger: that if only these absent dads were just a little bit more physically and emotionally available, the single moms would marry them in a heartbeat. Uh-huh.

Like many of the articles that touch on contemporary American manhood, the Times piece can’t decide where the blame for male fecklessness lies. DeParle and Tavernise trot out the usual culprits: the much-oversold “mancession” (“men are worth less than they used to be”, the article laments) and the tendency, familiar to fans of Judd Apatow movies, for American men of all social classes to turn puberty into a quarter-century project. The Times interviews Amber Strader, a 27 year-old single mom, whose “boyfriend was so dependent that she had to buy his cigarettes. Marrying him never entered her mind. ‘It was like living with another kid,’ she said.”

So how much of this growing phenomenon of single motherhood is about male unreliability, and how much is about changing social mores that make marriage less relevant? I spoke with the noted sociologist of masculinity, Michael Kimmel, who said that the rising percentage of unwed moms was “over-interpreted.” Kimmel notes that in Scandinavia (where there is no equivalent to the American narrative of male haplessness) the majority of mothers in all social classes are unmarried. “They don’t need to get married because they have adequate health coverage, education, and retirement benefits.” The answer to the manufactured problem of “illegitimacy” is, says Kimmel, “better access to birth control and abortion.” Michael Kaufman, (who co-authored The Guy’s Guide to Feminism with Kimmel) concurs that this isn’t about masculinity at all, but about “the moral panic that is the conservative heart of the anti-sex agenda.”

Kimmel makes the important distinction between single mothers needing to get married andwanting to be wed “someday.” That qualification is often missing from these discussions, but it’s at the heart of Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage. Poverty isn’t the primary problem, authors Kathyrn Edin and Maria Kefalas say, noting that “now there are few differences between the poor and the affluent in attitudes and values towards marriage.” However inadequate the American social safety net is compared to the Scandinavian model, it’s sufficient (barely) to ensure that very few women feel compelled to get married for economic reasons.

Single moms, write Edin and Kefalas, see motherhood as a “promise they can keep.” They are certain of their capacity to love a child. They are more cautious about committing to marry the fathers of their children (or other men), not only because of their keen awareness of divorce statistics but because they don’t see any reason to settle for less than a truly excellent relationship. Seen in that light, the rise in unwed motherhood and the declining marriage rate are cause for rejoicing. Despite Lori Gottlieb’s famous plea, fewer women than ever are willing to settle for merely “good enough.” It’s not that men are less economically viable than they were in the past — it’s that even poor women want more from a marriage than a lifetime union with a good provider. Rising rates of illegitimacy, in other words, may signify that more and more women can afford to be choosy. That’s a good thing.

A woman with a bachelor’s or higher degree is statistically far more likely to wait until after marriage to have her first child; the rise in unwed motherhood is driven primarily by women who haven’t finished college. But what women of all social classes share is what one friend of mine, a single mom, calls the “if/then” attitude towards marriage. As she puts it, “If I meet the right guy, then I’d like to get married. But if I don’t meet the right guy, then that’s okay too. I’m not going to get married out of desperation.” That jives with what Edin and Kefalas heard from many of the women they interviewed. That insistence on doing marriage right –- or not doing it all –- transcends class.

There’s another “if/then” dynamic at play in this debate over single motherhood. As the authors of Promises I Can Keep write, if — and it’s a huge “if” — society wants to encourage more women to get hitched before having children, “then the only course for those who want to promote marriage is to try improving the quality of male partners in the pool.”

Men don’t need to be “improved” because they’ve gotten demonstrably worse; rather, the standards for what makes a man marriage material have grown exponentially higher, even in the eyes of young moms struggling to stay above the poverty line. In that light, rising rates of single motherhood reflect undeniable progress for women.