attention, baby: we have you surrounded

I had three due dates. I say "had" because all have elapsed and I still haven't gone into active labor.

The first due date was July 10 (based on my last menstrual period).
The second was July 12 (measurement #1 on an early ultrasound).
The third was July 14 (measurement #2 on an ultrasound taken the same day). We embraced the third due date for a few reasons:

1. It was the latest of the three dates, and given that this is our first child (and that first babies are usually a few days late), this was the most "realistic" of the three dates.
2. It was Bastille Day -- a phenomenal due date for a francophile like me.
3. It was safely after the World Cup finals would be over -- a phenomenal date for a rabid soccer fan like Leo. (Remember, Uruguay qualified for the Cup for the first time in a long time. Although there were high hopes, at the beginning of the competition, Leo reminded me that it was statistically unlikely that Uruguay would make it to the end of the tournament, but did clarify that given the choice between watching Uruguay play in the final or watching me in the agony of labor, he knew where he'd rather be. Then Forlán and la Celeste did what the pundits considered impossible -- they kept advancing, until the heartbreaking deflected goal in the final seconds of the third place game on July 10.)
   

It's now well past all three dates. My contractions never got rhythmic or really strong (they have pretty much stopped at this point), my water hasn't broken, there has yet to be a bloody show because my cervix is still not fully effaced, and our little boy appears to be hunkering down and waiting for an eviction notice ... thus Leo's Facebook status this weekend:

Attention baby: we have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up. Don't try to be a hero.

After attempting to trigger labor in all of the non-medical ways possible, I've made my peace with the fact that I won't be meeting my passenger until at least Tuesday, when I'll be induced. I suppose it's just the first of many reminders that parenting means letting go of the illusion of control, timelines, and predictable outcomes. It also means being excited about the adventure, no matter how the process unfolds.

modern love: mom/ not mom/ aunt

I have a few friends who are walking the path to parenthood via donors and surrogacy. I hope their outcomes are as wonderful as this one.

Mom/Not Mom/Aunt
By JERRY MAHONEY
July 16, 2010

AFTER five loving, fulfilling years with my boyfriend, Drew, I suddenly found myself online, looking to meet a woman.

I spent hours poring over profiles, bios and stats, looking at poorly lighted digital pictures and videos of awkward faces uttering tightly rehearsed self-promotional pitches. I narrowed the flash mob of candidates to six. Then I summoned Drew for his approval.

Together we had a decision to make. One of the strangers on this Web site could end up contributing half of our child’s DNA.

“Big nose, bad hair, gross skin, ugh — those eyebrows.” Drew sped down the list and blackballed them all.

I fought for a few: “But she has a 4.0 at veterinary school, and this one teaches autistic kids to tap dance!”

Drew was unmoved.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. As a writer, I’m drawn to characters with intriguing quirks and heart-tugging back stories. But for Drew, who spent 12 years overseeing reality programming for MTV, this was proving to be just another casting session, albeit for the significant supporting role of egg donor.

We’d been instructed by our surrogacy agency not to use the “m-word.” “This child will have two fathers,” the staff member scolded. “He or she will have an egg donor and a surrogate, but no mother!”

Whatever you call these young women, there’s no shortage of them. For all those who are desperate to stop gay couples from adopting, there are others who are eager to help us down a more complex path to parenthood.

And for the most part, they are merely girls — some as young as 19, still in their awkward phases. You click on a face and up pops a video in which an acne-cheeked college sophomore talks about her poli-sci major, her love of soccer and “One Tree Hill” and, eyes wide with optimism, about the corporation she’ll be running in five years. A few write in texting shorthand: “Would luv 2 help u.” Drew and I are nearly twice as old as some of them. If we’d been straight and careless, we might have had a daughter their age by now.

Drew and I found each other via similar means, an online dating site. We used the kind of systemized vetting that, these days, takes the place of destiny. Drew screened out guys who liked house music or who mixed up “your” and “you’re.” I vetoed anyone who in place of a head shot uploaded a crotch shot.

Choosing a biological relative for our unborn fetus wasn’t going to be as simple. There were so many more variables and bigger questions to ponder. Most candidates requested the standard $8,000 fee, but some negotiated their own rates. If she was blond, athletic and Harvard-educated, she thought she was worth 30 grand.

Everybody wants their children to have the best, but this process threatened to bankrupt us even without all the premium options.

Besides, who knew what that money would really buy? If we picked someone with an astronomical price tag, couldn’t we be saddling our child with the greed gene? And how would we explain it to him? “Your egg donor was top of the line, son. We got you, and she got a Porsche.” Or, “We wanted you to be taller, but anything over 5-foot-9 was out of our price range.”

For us, two men who struggle over which Netflix movie to watch, this decision could stretch on long after our biological clocks had run out.

That’s when Susie called.

“You know you can have my eggs if you want them, right?” she said.

It was that swift, that casual, as if we were talking about borrowing her hair dryer or Ani DiFranco CD’s, rather than a part of her womanhood. But with that simple statement, it got even more complicated. Susie was everything an egg donor should be: kind, beautiful, smart, a gifted artist and, at 28, practically at the peak of her fertility.

She was also Drew’s little sister.

Despite being nine years apart in age and on opposite sides of the country, Susie and Drew couldn’t be closer or more alike. They talk on the phone nearly every day, make the same facial expressions, laugh at the same dirty jokes, have the same mercurial temper. Drew was constantly trying to persuade Susie to move to Los Angeles, where we live. He offered to lease an apartment for her, find her a job, do whatever it took to have her close by. With Susie’s offer, I knew generosity was yet another trait they shared.

All along Drew and I had wondered whose sperm we would use. With Susie, the matter was settled: I would be the biological father. Yet for the first time, Drew and I were also able to imagine what it would be like to have a child who had genetic roots in both family trees.

What would she look like? How would he act? How would our respective features merge into one warbling little miracle? We’d grown up when coming out meant putting an end to dreams of fatherhood. Now we were giddy with the possibilities of reproduction that most straight couples take for granted.

But what exactly would Susie be sacrificing?

She was young and unattached. She wanted her own children but wasn’t ready. So was she prepared for someone else to have her child? And how would she explain this particular brand of baggage to a potential husband someday? Most of all, would she be satisfied always being Aunt Susie to this child and never, you know, the m-word?

Drew and I had doubts, but Susie considered it a done deal. This was her brother, and if he needed eggs, damn it, he was going to take hers. She was exactly as stubborn as Drew would’ve been if he were offering and she were the one in need.

She didn’t flinch when the doctor explained the pain and inconvenience she would endure before her eggs were extracted: months of genetic tests, weeks of self-administered hormone injections and the resultant mood swings. Most troubling of all, she’d need so much time off for trips to California that she could risk losing her job. To all of this, she shrugged and asked only one question: “When do we start?”

When the day of the extraction finally came, the hard part was supposed to be over. With the right dose of medication, most women Susie’s age produce dozens of healthy eggs. But for reasons the doctor couldn’t explain, Susie produced only five. Of those, two failed to fertilize.

The outlook was bad for us, devastating for Susie.

The physician spoke about her fertility the way Al Gore describes the polar ice caps: Time is running out, and it may already be too late. He warned that if our surrogate couldn’t become pregnant with Susie’s eggs, it was unlikely Susie ever would, either.

We all agreed the only option was to implant the three embryos and begin an excruciating wait. If this didn’t work, Drew and I would return to the Web sites full of strangers, if we even had the strength to try again. And we didn’t want to think about what that would mean for Susie.

TEN days later, we were visiting Drew’s family in upstate New York. It was two days before Christmas, and we all were trying our best to talk about anything but babies. My cellphone rang, and a hush fell over the room. The nurse on the other end didn’t stall.

“Jerry!” she squealed. “I have some exciting news.” A cascade of cheers drowned out the rest of the call, and Susie, Drew and I shared a tight hug that seemed to last for hours.

A few weeks later, we joined our surrogate for her first ultrasound, where an even bigger surprise awaited. From the grainy soup on the sonogram monitor, two peanut shapes emerged. Drew and I were going to be the fathers of twins.

Our son and daughter are now 10 months old, and when I look at them I see traces of each of us. My nose, Susie’s eyes, Drew’s chin. They’re just starting to invent a secret language to communicate with each other. If we hear one baby cry, it’s a safe bet that the other just stole her pacifier or hit him with a stuffed monkey. But then, when no one’s looking, sometimes they’ll reach out and hold each other’s hands.

Susie gets to witness it all, because her frequent phone calls with Drew have become video chats with our whole family. And as I watch Drew proudly showing off our children for her, I realize the gift Susie has given us is much more valuable than just a genetic link to our offspring. It’s a brother and sister — tiny, perfect and gradually building a special bond all their own.

Jerry Mahoney, a writer, lives in Los Angeles.

cribs vs. beds: parenthood's all-out war

Over the years, I've learned that everyone has an opinion on everything ... myself included. If I'm passionate about something, I'm likely to speak up. And parenting is no exception.

Being 39 weeks pregnant, I'm very much on the receiving end of a lot of questions and advice -- about the birth (from "wait, you're using a midwife, but you're going to a hospital?" to "for the first one, there's no need for heroics ... get an epidural!" to "having a scheduled C-section was the best decision I ever made"), circumcision (from "why would you even consider something so barbaric and unnecessary?" to "you know, my nephew wasn't circumcised and now they have to put steroid cream on his penis every day because his foreskin isn't stretching properly as he grows and it's horribly painful for him"), and vaccines (from "you're not getting the MMR shot, are you?" to "please tell me you're not one of those crackpots who thinks vaccines cause autism!"). Depending on my relationship with the person making the comment, I either ask questions or change the topic immediately.

Leo and I haven't made up our minds on everything about parenting, but we do read a lot, listen a lot, and ask lots of questions. We've opted to take the same approach to parenting as we are with the birth -- focusing on being prepared (understanding all the options), confident (within reason), and flexible (who knows what will happen when it's actually 'go' time?) -- because that's the best way for us to deal with the unknown. In some ways, I think we're pretty much free agents on most things, taking a moderate approach when possible, and ordering 'a la carte,' rather than choosing everything on the pre-defined menus. This article neatly gets at the quandaries and passions of parenting, and left me laughing to boot...

Cribs vs. Beds: Parenthood's all-out war
When it comes to raising a kid, two gangs dominate, and they agree on only one thing: You're doing it wrong
By Peter Birkenhead
Friday, Jul 2, 2010 14:01 ET

A wise woman once said it takes a village to raise a child, and as a new father I have found this to be true.

But lately I have also found the village to be dominated by two gangs of extremely, frighteningly organized parents, whom my wife and I spend a lot of time trying to avoid. Members of these gangs are lurking in every Pain Quotidian and farmers' market in Los Angeles, fighting tooth-and-nail turf wars over the best way for kids to be born, eat, learn and especially sleep, which is how the gangs came by their now notorious names in our house: the Cribs and the Beds.

The Cribs, as you probably know, believe in "crying it out," "walking it off," and midcentury modern furniture. The Beds, of course, believe in co-sleeping, home birthing and placenta soup. Both groups believe that I, as a new parent, am a dangerous idiot, and they are not at all shy about letting me know that.

So I'm writing this to take a stand, to ask for your help in taking our village back, and in not getting the stink-eye at parties.

After only eight months of fatherhood I've learned a lot about the gangs. I've learned to recognize the Cribs' distinctive attire (if I see a pair of orange Crocs coming my way, I just cross the street). I've come to know the Beds' brutal hazing rituals (which they refer to as "Bikram yoga"). I've learned each gang's colorful parenting patois.

But the main thing that distinguishes the gangs from each other is their philosophies. Fundamentally, the Cribs and Beds disagree about how kids should sleep. The first member of the Cribs I ever met explained to me, over a steamy quadruple espresso, that they believe a child will grow up to be calm, secure and independent as long as — over the sound of his own terrified howling and the screech of a white-noise machine turned up to 11 — he can't hear his parents grinding their teeth with worry over following the same sleep-training regimen all their friends do.

The Beds, on the other hand, believe that independence is something a family does, together, in bed. According to a conversation I overheard at this year's Topanga Canyon Soy Cheese and Hemp Festival, the Beds feel that nothing can match the sense of security a child feels when she cuddles with her mom, dad, sister, brother, stepsister and ferret, safe in the knowledge that they'll all be with her through the night. Every minute. Of every night. While her brother farts on her knee. Family Bed parents feel that co-sleeping will engender a sense for the child, later in life, that she can face anything, as long as a much older man with gray back hair and bad breath holds her tight while she does.

The gangs speak their own languages when it comes to things like sleep training, and it's important to learn to decipher them. For instance, our friend Marsha recently asked me whether our daughter was "sleeping through the night yet," which in gang-speak means, "How are things on the Island of Misfit Parents?" I tried but failed to change the subject, and when I described the ambivalent, improvised approach Jenny and I take, I was met with the inevitable phrase, "Whatever works for you!" which means, "Have fun visiting her in juvie!"

The Cribs and Beds are mostly in agreement, however, about the notorious peanut dilemma. My wife and I love peanut butter. The first thing I did when she told me it was time to go to the hospital to have the baby was make two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for her to have later. I put them in our special "Go Bag" with the earplugs, lip balm, Rebozo support slings and thought, "Did I just release evil peanut dust into the air? Is this the last PB&J we'll eat for 18 years?" Many children, of course, have an allergy to peanuts, which doctors now believe is probably caused by an early exposure to peanut butter, and which can be prevented … by an early exposure to peanut butter. I understand this might be confusing, but don't worry — it's not your fault — it's peanut butter's fault for being mind-alteringly scrumptious. Both the Cribs and the Beds believe in the current scientific consensus that we must stay vigilant against peanut butter, by feeding it to our children early, but never. It's a fairly safe subject to bring up, and good for fooling the gang-bangers into thinking you might be one of them.

And some Cribs and Beds are finding common ground on other issues. For instance, when Jenny was pregnant, and before we knew the sex of the baby, I, as a Jewish soon-to-be father, started to feel the pull of a 2,000-year tradition and considered circumcising my possible son. I mentioned this fact at a rumble ("baby shower"), where I learned that I was just as likely to be called a barbarian by a mom with seven holes punched in her ear and a line of credit at the pediatric homeopath's as I was by the father of a 6-year-old figure skater. I also learned that the idea of not circumcising my son could get me accused of breaking a sacred covenant … by a twice-divorced Hollywood agent. I have to admit that, at that moment, it felt very tempting to join one of the gangs. To at least know where I stood, even if I had no idea what I thought. Maybe effective child rearing was really all about navigating life's daily obstacles with the comforting, quiet sense of smugness that only parent-gang membership could provide. But I fought that impulse. I reminded myself that I have my own brand of arrogance, thank you very much. If there's one thing a lifelong, fence-sitting commitment-phobe is good at, it's not choosing sides.

But sometimes conflict is unavoidable, and it's not pretty. The home-birthing wars could flare up again any minute now, and this time Ricki "On the Business of Being Born" Lake could make a full-fledged comeback. So, if you're not in a gang, it's very important to keep your wits about you. Soon after our daughter was born, we met a person who taught us the word "lactivist" is a real thing that exists. She said it in public, and she wasn't laughing, so I guess she was more likely to be a member of the Beds than the Cribs. But she lacked any of the usual identifying accessories, such as the Bolivian slings that many members of the Beds use to carry their babies, or the actual Bolivians that the Cribs prefer, so I couldn't be sure. Jenny had had a tough time getting our daughter to nurse properly for the first few weeks after she was born. After a very frustrating talk with the lactivist, Jenny asked her if it would ruin everything if she supplemented the baby's feeding with a bottle once in a while, and through an ice-cold smile, without hesitation, the lactivist said, "It would." As far as I'm concerned, the tears that popped out of Jenny's eyes at that moment were a consequence of our first brush with gang violence.

Passions run very high on these subjects. The Beds feel that in defending something like home birth, they're defending something primal and sacred, that they're on the side of Mother Nature herself. The Cribs feel they're on the side of modernity, of rational thinking, science and safety. When I hear them talk about it, I actually think both sides make a good case. But then, when I think about it a little more, I wonder about their sanity. Did I mention that I'm an ambivalent type? I wonder if maybe investing so much emotion in these issues isn't misplacing it a little. Couldn't they use all that righteous indignation for fixing the education system?

But see now, as I write that, I wonder why I'm being so hard on the gangs. Having a kid was an overwhelming experience. All of a sudden I was confronted with this fragile, chaotic, mortal life that I was responsible for. And then there was the baby! Seeing my own humanity clearly was one thing, but seeing my daughter's was all things, all at once, forever. Living, breathing, surprising chaos right there in my mortal hands. It was enough to make me fear that chaos a little bit. To want to hang on, maybe a bit too tight.

When Jenny and I were in the hospital, we never ate one of those PB&J sandwiches. Her contractions never once settled in to the regular pattern we were told would mark the onset of labor. We never used anything in the "Go Bag," or any of the special labor positions we'd learned and practiced in birthing class. But I'm glad we learned them. I'm glad we planned and made promises and came up with lots of rules for ourselves, because it helped focus our minds. It eased our worries, made us feel like this was doable. Made us feel like a family. Real gang members say that's how they think of their gangs — as surrogate families. Not many of us live in the same house with our uncles or grandmothers anymore. These days our friends are our families. So maybe what the home birthers and crib lovers are defending isn't merely about practices but about love and companionship. How these things help us find the sweet spot between chaos and order. Maybe people are just trying to find their footing on ever-shifting sands. Maybe we should all cut each a little slack.

Except for the people wearing orange Crocs, of course. You guys need to buy some real shoes.

Peter Birkenhead is the author of the memoir "Gonville."

separation

"separation"
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color. - W. S. Merwin, William Stanley Merwin (New York City, September 30, 1927) is the seventeenth United States Poet Laureate and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (in both 1971 and 2009).

five-spice spareribs with hoisin-honey glaze

These phenomenally tasty ribs are pretty easy to make. Serve with rice salad with sugar snap peas and mint.

Ingredients:
6 lbs pork spareribs (2 racks)
1 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 cup honey
3 tablespoons dry sherry
2 tablespoons finely grated peeled fresh ginger
4 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Season ribs generously with salt and pepper, roast on rimmed baking sheet until tender, about 1-hour.
3. Meanwhile, combine and simmer the next 7 ingredients in a small saucepan until reduced to 2 cups, about 20 minutes.
4. Brush sauce onto ribs and roast until well glazed, about 20 minutes.
5. Cut into individual ribs and serve with remaining sauce. Sprinkle with chopped green onions.
   

Adapted from Bon Appétit, June 2005

rice salad with sugar snap peas, mint, and lime

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups rice
2 cups water
2 cups sugar snap peas
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup chopped green onions
3 TBSP olive oil
2 TBSP fresh lime juice
1 TBSP pureed fresh ginger
1 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Boil water and 1 tsp salt. Stir in rice, reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes, fluff with fork and cool completely in a large bowl.
2. Steam peas for 4 minutes. Add to cooled rice.
3. Mix remaining ingredients and pour dressing over peas and rice.
   

Yield: 6 servings

Adapted from Bon Appétit, June 2005

lemon bars

I made these lemon bars last week and they were a hit. I modified the recipe, using half all-purpose flour and half cake flour. I made the thinner lemon layer and think that I will go for the thick one next time around.

Lemon Bars
Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

These are bold and tart lemon bars, ones I feel are best in smaller doses than Ina Garten suggests. I’ve made a few changes to the recipe–increased the salt in the crust, reduced the sugar in the lemon filling and an encouragement to grease your pan, as mine were all but cemented into their non-stick pan. For those of you who like the 1:1 crust to lemon layer ratio, use the second option.

For the crust:
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For the full-size lemon layer:
6 extra-large eggs at room temperature
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

[Or] for a thinner lemon layer:

4 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest (3 to 4 lemons)
2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2/3 cup flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet.

For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and, with the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into the greased baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. Chill.

Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

For the lemon layer, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes (less if you are using the thinner topping), or about five minutes beyond the point where the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.

Cut into triangles and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

i don't: the case against marriage

Having been down the aisle once (and divorced a few years later), I don't feel the emotional need to go there again. To be sure, my relationship with Leo is completely different than my relationship with my ex-husband. Part of it is because I am different, and part of it is because ours is an infinitely more compatible and egalitarian partnership than any other I've experienced.

The financial element also screams for us to remain unmarried. Until I know the outcome of my short sale (and have a few years to put it behind me), it is much better to not share a credit score or to have our finances legally enmeshed.

I'm not completely ruling marriage out (someday). But I don't see us getting married any time soon. And that's not about fear of commitment. (Deliberately planning our pregnancies and raising a child together are not for the commitment-phobic.) Anyhow, this article neatly summarizes many of the reasons why we've chosen not to marry at this point.

'I Don't': The case against marriage.
by Jessica Bennett and Jesse Ellison
June 11, 2010

Every year around this time, the envelopes begin to arrive. Embossed curlicues on thick-stock, cream-colored paper ask for “the pleasure of our company” at “the union of,” “the celebration of,” or “the wedding of.” With every spring, our sighs get a little deeper as we anticipate another summer of rote ceremony, cocktail hour, and, finally, awkward dancing. Sure, some weddings are fun, but too often they’re a formulaic, overpriced, fraught rite of passage, marking entry into an institution that sociologists describe as “broken.”

Once upon a time, marriage made sense. It was how women ensured their financial security, got the fathers of their children to stick around, and gained access to a host of legal rights. But 40 years after the feminist movement established our rights in the workplace, a generation after the divorce rate peaked, and a decade after Sex and the City made singledom chic, marriage is—from a legal and practical standpoint, anyway—no longer necessary. The two of us are educated, young, urban professionals, committed to our careers, friendships, and, yes, our relationships. But we know that legally tying down those unions won’t make or break them. Women now constitute a majority of the workforce; we’re more educated, less religious, and living longer, with vacuum cleaners and washing machines to make domestic life easier. We’re also the breadwinners (or co-breadwinners) in two thirds of American families. In 2010, we know most spousal rights can be easily established outside of the law, and that Americans are cohabiting, happily, in record numbers. We have our own health care and 401(k)s and no longer need a marriage license to visit our partners in the hospital. For many of us, marriage doesn’t even mean a tax break.

The numbers are familiar but staggering: Americans have the highest divorce rate in the Western world; as many as 60 percent of men and half of women will have sex with somebody other than their spouse during their marriage. Maybe it’s a testament to American crass consumerism, but despite those odds, we still manage to idealize the ceremony itself, to the tune of $72 billion a year. Weddings are the subject of at least a dozen reality shows; a Google search for “bridezilla” turns up half a million hits; and there are four different bridal Barbies. Fifty years ago we had Grace Kelly, resplendent and demure in her high-necked lace gown. Today it’s Britney Spears in a custom-embroidered Juicy Couture tracksuit (and separated within a year, to nobody’s surprise). So when conservatives argue that same-sex couples are going to “destroy” the “sanctity” of marriage, we wonder, wait, didn’t we already do that? “Social science tells us fundamentally that this system is not working,” says Curtis Bergstrand, a sociologist at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky., who has written on marriage. Having donned our share of bridesmaid’s dresses, and toasted dozens of nuptials, we’ll take reason over romance. Happily ever after doesn’t have to include “I do.”

Before we get into specifics, a caveat: check with us again in five years. We’re in our late 20s and early 30s, right around the time when biological clocks start ticking and whispers of “Why don’t you just settle down?” get louder. (We’re looking at you, Lori Gottlieb.) So just as NEWSWEEK will never live down its (false) prediction that 40-year-old single women were more likely to be “killed by a terrorist” than to marry, we permit you, friends and readers, to mock us at our own weddings (should they happen). Current data may not yet identify our feelings as a so-called trend, but they certainly show we’re on to something: the percentage of married Americans has dropped each decade since the 1950s, and the number of unmarried-but-cohabiting partners has risen 1,000 percent over the last 40 years. At 28 for men and 26 for women, the median age at which Americans are marrying is at its highest point ever—and even higher among our cohort of urban and educated. Turns out that waiting is a good idea: for every year we put off marriage, our chances of divorce go down.

Which brings us to this question: if you’re going to wait, why do it at all? Like a fifth of young Americans, we identify as secular. We know that having children out of wedlock lost its stigma a long time ago: in 2008, 41 percent of births were to unmarried mothers, more than ever before, according to a Pew study. (Older, educated mothers make up the fastest-growing percentage of those births.) And the idea that we’d “save ourselves” for marriage? Please. As one 28-year-old man told the author of a new book on marriage: “If I had to be married to have sex, I would probably be married, as would every guy I know.” Even the legal argument for tying the knot is easily debunked. Thanks largely to the efforts of same-sex-marriage advocates, heterosexual couples have more unmarried rights to partnership now than ever. And for the rights we don’t have—well, “if you have enough money,” says Jennifer Pizer, a senior attorney at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, “you can pay lawyers to litigate just about anything.” To put the icing on the cake, it often pays to stay single: federal law favors unmarried taxpayers in almost every case—only those whose incomes are wildly unequal get a real tax break—and under President Obama’s new health plan, low-earning single people get better subsidies to buy insurance. As Diana Furchtgott-Roth, writing for the Hudson Institute, put it, “Goodbye, marriage.” As of 2013, “unwed Americans may find it even more advantageous—financially, anyway—to stay single.”

To tell you what you already know, the American family is in the throes of change. Gone are the days of the nuclear nest; in its wake is a motley mix of single parents, same-sex couples, and, yes, unmarried monogamists. Anthropologist Helen Fisher, who studies the nature of love, might say that’s a symptom of our biology: she believes humans aren’t meant to be together forever, but in short-term, monogamous relationships of three or four years. For us, it’s not that we reject monogamy altogether—indeed, one of us is going on six years with a partner—but that the idea of marriage has become so tainted, and simultaneously so idealized, that we’re hesitant to engage in it. Boomers may have been the first children of divorce, but ours is a generation for whom multiple households were the norm. We grew up shepherded between bedrooms, minivans, and dinner tables, with stepparents, half-siblings, and highly complicated holiday schedules. You can imagine, then—amid incessant high-profile adultery scandals—that we’d be somewhat cynical about the institution. (Till death do us part, really?) “The question,” says Andrew Cherlin, the author of The Marriage-Go-Round, “is not why fewer people are getting married, but why are so many still getting married?”

The feminist argument against marriage has long been that it forces women to conform—as Gloria Steinem once put it, marriage is an arrangement “for one and a half people.” No woman we know would date a man who’d force her into the kitchen—and even Steinem eventually got hitched—but we’d be fools to think we’ve completely shed the roles associated with “husband” and “wife.” Men’s contributions to housework and child rearing may have doubled since the 1960s, yet even among dual-earning couples, women still do about two thirds of the housework. (One study even claims that the simple act of getting married creates seven hours more housework for women each week.) In the workplace, meanwhile, women who use their partner’s name are regarded as less intelligent, less competent, less ambitious, and thus less likely to be hired. We may date the most modern men in the world, but we’ve heard enough complaints to worry: if we tie the knot, does life suddenly become a maze of TV dinners, shoes up on the coffee table, and dirty dishes? “The bottom line is that men, not women, are much happier when they’re married,” says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina who studies marriage and family.

Since the early 1900s, the driving force behind marriage, along with procreation, was that women couldn’t land well-paying jobs: we relied on our husbands to survive. As recently as 1967, two thirds of female college students (versus 5 percent of men) said they would marry somebody they didn’t love if he met their other criteria—primarily, the ability to support them financially. But today, we no longer need to “marry up”: women are more educated (we make up nearly 60 percent of college graduates) and better compensated (urban women in their 20s actually outearn their male peers). We are also the so-called entitled generation, brought up with lofty expectations of an egalitarian adulthood; told by helicopter parents and the media, from the moment we exited the womb, that we could be “whatever we wanted”—with infinite opportunities to accomplish those dreams. So you can imagine how, 25 years down the line, committing to another person—for life—would be nerve-racking. (How do you know you’ve found “the one” if you haven’t vetted all the options?) “We’ve entered the age of last-minute tickets to Moscow, test-tube children, cross-continental cubicles and encouraged paternity leaves,” write the authors of The Choice Effect, about love in an age of too many options. The result, they say, is “a generation that loves choice and hates choosing.”

Which means that when we do tie the knot, we do it for love. Young people today don’t want their parents’ marriage, says Tara Parker-Pope, the author of For Better—they want all-encompassing, head-over-heels fulfillment: a best friend, a business partner, somebody to share sex, love, and chores. In other words, a “soulmate”—which is what 94 percent of singles in their 20s describe what they look for in a partner. Yet the idea of a “soulmate” is still a pretty new concept in our romantic history—and one that’s hard to maintain. Measurements of brain activity have shown that 20 years into marriage, 90 percent of couples have lost the passion they originally felt. And while couples who marry for love are less “in love” with each passing year, one study found that those in arranged marriages grow steadily more in love as the years progress—because their expectations, say researchers, are a whole lot lower.

So while little girls may still dream of Prince Charming, they’ll be more likely to keep him if they don’t expect too much. Research shows that the more education and financial independence a woman has—in other words, the more success she has outside the home—the more likely she is to stay married. (In states where fewer wives have paid jobs, for example, divorce rates tend to be higher.) But when these egalitarian, independent couples decide not to marry at all, they lose none of that stability. Just take a look at couples in Europe: they’re happier, less religious, and more likely to believe that marriage is an outdated institution, and their divorce rate is a fraction of our own. Not being married may make it slightly easier to walk away—at least legally—but if you’ve gone to the lengths to establish a life together, is it really all that different? Studies show that never-married couples with the intention of forever are just as likely to stay together as married ones. And for all the talk of marriage being good for families, a study of the Scandinavian countries—where a majority of children are born out of wedlock—found that kids actually spend more time with their parents than American children do. Work and living habits surely factor into that reality, but the point is this: what’s good for children is stability. The decline of marriage “doesn’t have to spell catastrophe,” says Stephanie Coontz, the author of Marriage, a History. “We can make marriages better and make nonmarriages work as well.”

It may counter what we grew up thinking, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. With our life expectancy in the high 70s, the idea that we’re meant to be together forever is less realistic. As Hannah Seligson, the author of A Little Bit Married, puts it, there’s a "new weight to the words ‘I do.’ " Healthy partnerships are possible, for sure—but the permanence of marriage seems naive, almost arrogant. "Committing to one person forever is a long time," says Helen Fisher. “I wonder how many people really think about that.” If you’re anything like us, you’ll have plenty of time to do just that—while you’re sitting in the pews, at other people’s weddings.

Jessica Bennett and Jesse Ellison blog frequently on women's issues at The Equality Myth. You can find Bennett on the Web or on Twitter; Ellison can be reached via her Tumblr.

i came to sell you this chick magnet of a couch

Today, Leo and I decided to tackle a biggie on the "to-do-before-the-baby-arrives" list: finding a bigger couch for our new house. Naturally, we checked out Craigslist, Yelp, and a few other online resources to adjust our price expectations, see what was out there, and come to a decision.

Although we didn't purchase this gentleman's "seven foot black leather scream of manliness," we did find just what we wanted. The nice part is that we bought it two blocks away, at a mom and pop mattress/ furniture store where I bought a bed frame 10+ yeas ago. Having said that, I still want to share what has to be one of the funniest ads for used furniture I've ever encountered. Enjoy.

I came to sell you this chick magnet of a couch. - $150 (Mira Mesa 92126)
Date: 2010-06-20, 1:34PM PDT
Reply to: sale-nugvs-1801870182@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

This thing is a seven foot black leather scream of manliness. That's right bitches.

The only way it could be any more freakin' hardcore is if it had Harley Davidson incised in the leather.
A rare black narwhal gave it's life to provide the perfect baby soft buttery leather it wraps you in.

This big bastard shakes off beer spills and ugly chicks like the smartest horse any cowboy ever rode.
And after a long night of doing blow off the butts of the hookers lounging across its arms, it's a comfy dream to pass out on.
Sleep in it's leathery goodness, and you will wake up with a game controller in one hand, and a bacon sandwich in the other.

Perfect for guests. Just pull out the bed for them, and they will never want to sleep on it again. If Torquemada designed a bed this would be it.
It's like you ripped its skeleton out, then tried to organize the bones into something comfortable to sleep on. Maybe with six inches of air mattress.
So if you actually want your guest to stay another night, leave this thing folded up into it's optimum comfy configuration.

Don't even think about getting this couch if you're married. Your wife will take one look at it and know it's hottie attraction powers instantly.
And it will end up sitting in the garage, hidden from her insane jealousy until you move, and she insists you sell it.

Really. I know. Wayne -

Black. Leather. Sleeper. Sofa. Couch. Conversion.
You came here because you were looking for one or more of the above words.

* Location: Mira Mesa 92126
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

image 1801870182-0 image 1801870182-1

PostingID: 1801870182

bison and red wine shepherd's pie

We've made this a few times and love the way the smoky bacon, cheesy potatoes, hearty bison, and tasty vegetables come together. Since we're prepping for the birth of our little boy, we opted to make this as one of the items to put in our deep freezer this weekend. It will keep well and is sure to satisfy when autumn hits and neither of us has the time or energy to cook.

Ingredients

Filling:
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon Hungarian sweet paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 lbs pounds ground bison
1/3 lb rindless slab bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices
2 tablespoons (or more) olive oil (we omit this and just cook the bison in the bacon grease)
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup peeled chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup peas
1/2 cup corn
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cups dry red wine (such as Syrah)
1 cup low-salt chicken broth
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage

Mashed-potato crust:
5 lbs russet potatoes, peeled, quartered
3/4 cup whole milk
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg, beaten to blend

Garnish:
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (we've also used sharp cheddar and English cheddar with caramelized onions)


Preparation
For filling:
Whisk first 4 ingredients in large bowl. Add bison; toss. Heat large pot over medium heat. Add bacon; cook until crisp. Transfer to paper towels. Add 2 tablespoons oil to (or simply use bacon drippings already in) pot; increase heat to medium-high. Working in batches, cook bison until browned. Return to same bowl. Add chopped onion, carrot, celery, and garlic to pot; cover and cook until vegetables soften, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add wine; bring to boil, scraping up any browned bits. Add broth, tomatoes, bay leaves, thyme, sage, reserved bacon, and bison. Reduce heat to low. Cover; simmer until bison is tender, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Add peas and corn, remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper, if needed.

For mashed-potato crust:
Cook potatoes in large pot of boiling lightly salted water until tender, 18 to 20 minutes. Drain. Return potatoes to pot; add milk and butter, 1 teaspoon coarse salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and mash until smooth and slightly cooled, about 2 minutes. Whisk in egg.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Spoon bison filling into two 3-quart (13x9x2-inch) baking dishes. Spoon mashed potatoes over; smooth top to cover completely.

For garnish:
Beat egg and 1 tablespoon water to blend. Brush over potatoes, then sprinkle cheese all over.

Bake pie until top is browned and filling is heated through, 30 to 40 minutes (50 to 60 minutes if chilled). Let rest 10 minutes.

DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Alternatively, make the filling ahead of time and freeze it. Then make the potatoes the day of, assemble, and bake.

Adapted from Bison and Red Wine Shepherd's Pie by Bruce Aidells, Bon Appétit February 2010

quotable

"God defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transforms me to a piece of cheese." - William Shakespeare

like, awesome

Speak with Conviction, by Taylor Mali

Via Aaryn Belfer

an open letter to conservatives

Ouch.

An open letter to conservatives
March 22, 2010, 3:16PM

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you're going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you'll have to start by draining this swamp:

Hypocrisy

You can't flip out -- and threaten impeachment - when Dems use a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that's centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.

You can't vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it's done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against, is especially ugly) -- 114 of you (at last count) did just that -- and it's even worse when you secretly beg for more.

You can't fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.

You can't call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.

Are they "unlawful enemy combatants" or are they "prisoners of war" at Gitmo? You can't have it both ways.

You can't carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.

You can't refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn't meet with you.

You can't rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.

You can't rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.

You can't be for immigration reform, then against it .

You can't enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.

You can't flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent about white presidents doing the same. Bush. Ford.

You can't complain that the president hasn't closed Gitmo yet when you've campaigned to keep Gitmo open.

You can't flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn't even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed leaders of countries that are not on "kissing terms" with the US.

You can't complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt -- the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)

You can't attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn't issue any condemnation). *Obama administration did the day of the event.

You can't throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when -- in fact -- only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.

You can't condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his.

You can't mount a boycott against singers who say they're ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he's ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.

You can't cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it's too short.

You can't support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.

You can't demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.

You can't praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it "treasonous" under a Dem president.

You can't propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.

You can't be both pro-choice and anti-choice.

You can't damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you've paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.

You can't condemn criticizing the president when US troops are in harms way, then attack the president when US troops are in harms way , the only difference being the president's party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).

You can't be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.

You can't vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of 'open debate'.

If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it's 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you're taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God's stand, too.

When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can't send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).

You can't criticize Dems for not doing something you didn't do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.

You can't decry "name calling" when you've been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.

You can't spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare

You can't praise the Congressional Budget Office when it's analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it's unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don't.

You can't vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don't. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.

You can't call a reconciliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.

You can't spend taxpayer money on ads against spending taxpayer money.

You can't condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the mandates were your idea.

You can't demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don't.

You can't whine that it's unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party's former leader admits you've been doing it for decades.

You can't portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.

You can't complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you've routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain -- threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented -- and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.

You can't question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn't object when your own Republican president appointed them.

You can't preach and try to legislate "Family Values" when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer's wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheating on your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coerce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife's mother;

Hyperbole

You really need to disassociate with those among you who:

• assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million "isn't a lot of money";
• say that "Comrade" Obama is a "Bolshevik" who is "taking cues from Lenin";
• ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;
• liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and "this Muslim guy" that "offed his wife's head" or call then "un-American";
• say Obama "wants his plan to fail...so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy";
• equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;
• smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;
• say that the president wants to "annihilate us";
• compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot the attack on 9/11,or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators (update: it's also not Armageddon);
• equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with "what the Nazis did";
• call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, an unconscionable abuse of power, a violation of the presidential oath or "the end of representative government";
• shout "baby killer" at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing -- cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);
• prove your machismo by claiming your going to "crash a party" to which you're officially invited;
• claim that Obama is pushing America's "submission to Shariah";
• question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;
• claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;
• call a majority vote the "tyranny of the minority," even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority -- it's democracy, not tyranny;
• call the president's support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect "treasonous" (especially when you supported the same thing when the president shared your party);
• call the Pope the anti-Christ;
• assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;
• accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers or of being drunk and suicidal;
• equate family planning with eugenics or Nazism;
• accuse the president of changing the missile defense program's logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;
• accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists; terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and
• advocate a traitorous act like secession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we're clear: sedition is a bad thing).

History

If you're going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they're NOT synonymous!)

You can't cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you've decided you don't like his ideas.

You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word "terrorism" or say we're at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.

If you're going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.

You can't just pretend historical events didn't happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn't make it better.)

You can't say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from "socialist utopia"; health care reform is not "reparations"; nor does health care reform create "death panels".

Hatred

You have to condemn those among you who:

• call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot;
• elected leaders who say "I'm a proud racist";
• state that America has been built by white people;
• say that poor people are poor because they're rotten people, call them "parasitic garbage" or say they shouldn't be allowed to vote;
• call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don't like their politics ( re - pea -ted - ly );
• assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
• mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son's politics;
• declare that those who disagree with you are shown by that disagreement to be not just "Marxist radicals" but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
• joke about blindness;
• advocate euthanizing the wife of your political opponent;
• taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases -- especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;
• equate gay love with bestiality -- involving horses or dogs or turtles or ducks -- or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;
• casually assume that only white males look "like a real American";
• assert presidential power to authorize torture, torture a child by having his testicles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;
• attack children whose mothers have died;
• call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they've said or done something that would even smell like racism -- same for invoking racially charged "dog whistle" words (repeatedly);
• condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;
• complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americans because of their race;
• blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;
• celebrate violence , joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, "fun" political violence, hints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence or actual violence (and, really, suggesting anal rape with a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale); and
• incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a "bloody battle" with the president of the United States.

Oh, and I'm not alone: One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.

So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we'll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.

(Anticipating your initial response: No there is nothing that even comes close to this level of wingnuttery on the American Left.)

Written by Russell King

Update: removed the mouth kissing reference and tried to clean up spelling

Another update: It seems we've talked about this so much that we've clogged up the "Intertubes." I've created an open thread where the discussion can continue as you see fit.

english hothouse cucumbers and descending testicles

Like many pregnant women, I subscribe to several websites that provide weekly/ daily emails about fetal development. Today's "Your pregnancy: 26 weeks" from babycenter.com gave me the giggles.

Read the last two sentences, where the writer cleverly mentions the fact that my unborn son's testicles are now descending and that he is the length of an English hothouse cucumber (14 inches from head to toe).

See the big picture

How your baby's growing:

The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. He may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. He's inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of his lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when he's born and takes that first gulp of air. And he's continuing to put on baby fat. He now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel. If you're having a boy, his testicles are beginning to descend into his scrotum — a trip that will take about two to three days.

See what your baby looks like this week.

cardamom and orange blossom water rice pudding

This variation on the traditional Persian version (which uses rose water) pairs the delicate flavor of orange blossoms with the seductive flavor of green cardamom.

Orange blossom water is available at Middle Eastern food markets.

Ingredients:
1 cup rice (we used sticky rice)
4 cups milk
2 cups water
2/3 cup sugar
3 TBSP orange blossom water
2 green cardamom pods, seeds only - ground

Preparation:

1. Bring rice, milk, and water to a boil in a large heavy saucepan, then reduce heat.
   
2. Simmer for two hours, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Most of the liquid will be absorbed, but the texture should be slightly soupy.
3. Stir in the sugar, the orange blossom water, and cardamom.
4. Cook, stirring, for another five minutes. Transfer to a serving dish and let cool to room temperature.

Adapted from Under the High Chair: Cardamom and Rose Water Rice Pudding

aren't dogs supposed to warn you about earthquakes?

Ruby just stared at me from the couch as I grabbed my wallet, cell phone, the hard drives, and her leash after the violent shaking had been going on long enough that I thought we should get outside.

She was completely nonplussed during the 7.2 Baja quake -- and the multiple subsequent 3.9-5.1 aftershocks (centered within 60 miles of us) we've had in the past hour.

wouldn't it be nice, angeleyes?

For the past few weeks, I've been experimenting with the baby's response to music. I strap on my iPod and some portable speakers, hit shuffle, and wait for kicks and movement. My iPod's got all sorts of genres, and music in about 8 languages on it. The only trend I've picked out (so far) is that he responds to female voices/ voices in higher registers and pop songs.

This is particularly interesting, because he also gets quite active when he hears Leo's deep voice at bedtime. Although he hears the voice and kicks more, he invariably gets super-still the second Leo puts his hand on my belly ... another data point that makes me think he's got his father's contrarian temperament.

Anyhow, here are this week's winners on the music/ activity front:

The Beach Boys, "Wouldn't It Be Nice?"


ABBA, "Angeleyes"

kumquat oat muffins

These aren't super-sweet, but they are a nice wholegrain oat breakfast muffin. If you like them sweeter, add 1/4 cup extra brown sugar.

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup kumquat preserves (or 1 cup kumquats, halved & deseeded, then pulsed in food processor with 1/2 cup sugar)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 TBSP canola oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 TBSP vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup instant rolled oats
1 TBSP baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 TBSP cinnamon

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Mix dry ingredients.
3. Mix wet ingredients.
4. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold until just moistened.
5. Pour into greased muffin molds
6. Bake at 400F 10-15 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Adapted from Wholegrain Kumquat Muffins.

pork saltimbocca with polenta

What goes better with pork than pork? We made this tonight, substituting gruyere for the original recipe's fontina. It was awesome.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 1 stuffed chop, about 4 teaspoons sauce, and 1/2 cup polenta)

Pork:
6 (4-ounce) boneless center-cut loin pork chops, trimmed
6 very thin slices prosciutto (about 2 ounces)
6 large fresh sage leaves
1/3 cup (about 1 1/2 ounces) shredded gruyere cheese
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh sage

Polenta:
2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup instant polenta
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Butterfly the pork chops or pound them to 1/4-inch thickness using a meat mallet.
   
2. Arrange 1 prosciutto slice inside each chop; top with 1 sage leaf and about 1 tablespoon cheese. Fold chops in half to sandwich filling, and secure with wooden picks.
   
3. Sprinkle both sides of chops with pepper and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Place flour in a shallow dish; dredge stuffed chops in flour.
4. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chops; cook 3-5 minutes on each side or until done. Remove from pan; cover and keep warm.
5. Add wine to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits; cook until reduced to 1/4 cup (about 2 minutes). Add 1 cup broth; bring to a boil. Cook until reduced to 1/2 cup (about 5 minutes). Stir in 1 tablespoon sage. Reduce heat to medium.
6. Return chops to pan; cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, turning once.
7. Prepare polenta: bring milk and 1 can broth to a boil. Gradually stir in polenta and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 2 minutes.
8. Serve polenta immediately with chops and sauce.
   

CALORIES 404 (30% from fat); FAT 13.3g (sat 5.3g,mono 6g,poly 1g); IRON 1.6mg; CHOLESTEROL 85mg; CALCIUM 172mg; CARBOHYDRATE 30.8g; SODIUM 733mg; PROTEIN 34.9g; FIBER 2.8g

Adapted from Pork Saltimbocca with Polenta, Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 2003