herding the cat at six weeks old

These Cardigan Welsh Corgi puppies made my night.
Herding the cat at six weeks old

you gotta love ricochet

I've got puppy fever something fierce right now.

Ricochet is an 8-week-old puppy well on her way to being an amazing service dog.
YouTube - Training: ""

Via Sandra

pismo beach

While on our recent road trip up the California coast, we stopped in Pismo Beach to eat. When I asked Leo what he wanted for lunch, he requested a bucket of carrots on ice. We settled (if you can call it that) for some amazing clam chowder.

Here's what Leo thought of when I asked if he'd heard of Pismo Beach, complete with something about a left turn at Albuhkoikey and a right turn at La Jol-la.

a guide to the french

Having been called an imbecile by a French-born teacher (in the U.S.) and experienced some of these other quirks first-hand, I still must conclude that there's nothing better than living in Paris.

A Guide to the French. Handle With Care.
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: March 23, 2008
PARIS — “Every man has two countries, his own and France,” says a character in a play by the 19th- century poet and playwright Henri de Bornier. In five and a half years living in Paris as an American correspondent, I have tried to make the country my own, knowing that I never will completely fit in, but always will be fascinated. So as I finish my stint as Paris bureau chief and move on to a new beat here, it seems a good moment to offer eight lessons learned.

1: Look in the Rear-View Mirror

To begin to understand France, you have to look back. The French are obsessed with history. Part of this feeling is a genuine affinity for the past, part a desire to cling to lost glory, part an insecurity that comes with a tepid economy and the struggle to integrate a growing Arab and African population.

Marie-Antoinette regularly makes the covers of magazines. So does Napoleon Bonaparte.

No anniversary is too minor to celebrate. In my time here, France has marked the 20th anniversary of France’s sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior, the 200th anniversary of the high school baccalaureate diploma, the 60th anniversary of the bikini and the 100th anniversary of the brassiere.

For the 100th anniversary of her birth in January, Simone de Beauvoir was celebrated with half a dozen biographies, a DVD series, a three-day scholarly symposium and a cover of the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur with a nude photo of her from the back.


2: An Interview Is Sometimes Not an Interview

Their love of history doesn’t mean the French always render it accurately. It has long been common practice for journalists in France to allow their interview subjects to edit their words. “Read and corrected,” the system is called.

I once took part in an interview with Jacques Chirac, when he was president, in which he said it would not be all that dangerous for Iran to have a nuclear weapon or two. That certainly was not French policy. So the official Élysée Palace transcript left out the line and replaced it with this: “I do not see what type of scenario could justify Iran’s recourse to an atomic bomb.”

The practice of doctoring the transcript has continued under President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Last month, the president lost his temper when a bystander refused to shake his hand at the annual agricultural fair. (A polite translation of what he said would be, “Get lost, you stupid jerk!”) The incident, captured on video, was seen by millions on the Internet.

According to the daily Le Parisien the next day, Mr. Sarkozy later expressed regret in an interview, saying, “It would have been better if I had not responded to him.” But the paper’s editor soon confessed that the words of regret were “never uttered.” They had been edited into the transcript by the Élysée Palace.

3: The Customer Is Always Wrong

It is hard for French merchants to admit they are wrong, and seemingly impossible for them to apologize. Instead, the trick is to somehow get the offended party to feel the mistake was his or her own. I’m convinced the practice was learned in the strict French educational system, in which teachers are allowed to tell pupils they are “zeros” in front of the entire class.

A doctor I know told me he once bought a coat at a small men’s boutique only to discover that it had a rip in the fabric. When he tried to return it, the shopkeeper gave him the address of a tailor who could repair it — for a large fee. They argued, and the doctor reminded the shopkeeper of the French saying, “The customer is king.”

“Sir,” the shopkeeper replied, “We no longer have a king in France.”

4: Make Friends With a Good Butcher

With food as important as it is here, one of the most important men in your life should be your butcher. Mine, Monsieur Yvon, is more than a cutter of meat. He is a playful spirit in a rather sober neighborhood — and the exception to the customer-is-always-wrong rule.

In his tiny shop on the Rue de Varenne, between the Luxembourg Gardens and Les Invalides in the Seventh Arrondissement, Monsieur Yvon has donned a necklace of his homemade sausages to get a conversation going. At Christmas, he and his team of butchers put on elves’ hats with blinking lights. He offers passers-by free charcuterie and glasses of Beaujolais nouveau every fall. He is so deeply trusted that when avian flu struck France, his poultry sales went up, not down.

Monsieur Yvon has cooked my Thanksgiving turkey when it was too big for my oven and taught me how to make the perfect pot-au-feu. I have watched him lovingly choose just the right pair of center-cut lamb chops for an elderly client. Were they to be cooked today or tomorrow? Grilled or sautéed?

Even when he bears bad news, his explanations are delicious. Once I ordered a 16-pound turkey and got an 11-pound bird instead.

“It was the fault of the foxes,” he said gravely.

“The foxes?” I asked.

“Yes, the foxes.” It seemed that the electric fence surrounding the turkey pen had shorted out and the foxes had had a field day.

“They only ate the big turkeys,” he explained.

5: Kiss, but Be Careful Whom You Hug

The French need no excuse to kiss. The first time I was kissed by a Frenchman was on July 20, 1969, the day a man landed on the moon. I was a student with a backpack, arriving at the Gare de Lyon. The newspaper seller kissed me on both cheeks because I was an American.

The ritual double “bisou” — the two-cheek kiss — takes some getting used to. There is nothing sexy about it, but it can be awkward, especially for my adolescent daughters when they are required to kiss strange men.

Mr. Chirac never seemed to relish the formal, jerky air kisses. He is more of a hand-kisser. He knows how to cradle a woman’s hand in his, raise the hand to chest level, bend over to meet it halfway and savor its feel and scent.

Mr. Sarkozy is unpredictable. When he’s in a bad mood, he might offer a curt “Bonjour” and a cold handshake. With those he likes, he gets really close and hugs. They sometimes hug back, as did Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, during a visit this month to the Élysée. But the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has made it clear through her aides that she is not a hugger and needs her space.

6: Don’t Wear Jogging Clothes to Buy a Pound of Butter

Rules govern even the smallest activities. I was making chocolate chip cookies one Saturday afternoon and ran out of butter. Dusted with flour, still in my morning jogging clothes, I dashed out to the convenience store up the street. The problem was that it is not just any street. It’s the Rue du Bac, one of the most chic places to see and be seen on Saturdays. I heard my name called and turned to face a senior Foreign Ministry official, dressed in pressed jeans and a soft-as-butter leather jacket, wearing an amused look, and carrying a small Nespresso shopping bag.

We went to a corner cafe for a drink. The Swedish ambassador and his wife stopped as they were riding by on their bikes. Both were in tailored tweed blazers, slim pants and loafers. Then Robert M. Kimmitt, the deputy treasury secretary, walked by.

He and my foreign ministry friend joked that my style didn’t match the setting. I made the point that it was my neighborhood and I could dress however I wanted. But as my French women friends told me afterward, jogging clothes (shoes included) are to be removed as soon as one’s exercise is over.

7: Feeling Sexy Is a State of Mind, or: Buy Good Lingerie

In her close-fitting sweaters and pants and tailored leather jackets, Eliane Victor is both stylish and alluring. The retired author and journalist is in her late 80s.

For French women, being sexy has nothing to do with age and everything to do with attitude. Arielle Dombasle, the actress and cabaret singer married to the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, dared to expose her breasts on the cover of Paris Match and took off her clothes in a song-and-dance revue at Crazy Horse in Paris. Some people feel she tries too hard. But give the lady some credit. She’s turning 50 and has a Barbie-doll body.

A 600-page sociological study of sexuality in France released this month concluded that 9 out of 10 women over 50 are sexually active. The sexiest French women seem naturally skilled in the art of moving, smiling and flirting.

Chic French women prefer to peel and polish rather than paint their faces. Too much makeup, they say, makes a woman seem older, or worse, “vulgaire.” “The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion,” Yves Saint Laurent once said. “But cosmetics are easier to buy.”

French women spend close to 20 percent of their clothing budgets on lingerie. But you also have to know how to wear it. When the Galeries Lafayette department store inaugurated its 28,000-square-foot lingerie shop in 2003, it offered free half-hour lessons by professional striptease artists.

8: When It Comes to Politesse, There Is No End to the Lessons

Never use the word “toilette” when asking a host for directions to the powder room; try to avoid going there at all. Never say “Bon appétit” at the start of a meal. Don’t talk loudly. Never discuss your religion or your money at dinner. Eat hamburgers, pizza, foie gras and sorbet with a fork. Always say “bonjour” to the bus driver, and to fellow passengers on elevators. “Pas mal” doesn’t necessarily mean “Not bad.” It can mean “Great!”

risotto milanese

We made this recently. The flavor of the parmesan intensified wonderfully when we had the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Risotto Milanese
This classic Italian dish is traditionally served with veal shanks, though it would also make a fine side for braised short ribs, roasted and grilled fish, or beef tenderloin.

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
2 (14-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
3 tablespoons finely chopped prosciutto (about 1 ounce)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup Arborio rice or other short-grain rice
1/3 cup white wine
1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Combine saffron and broth in a small saucepan; bring to a simmer (do not boil). Keep warm over low heat.
2. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallots, prosciutto, and garlic to pan; sauté 2 minutes or until shallots are tender. Add rice; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in wine; cook 2 minutes or until liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly.
3. Add broth mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly until each portion of broth is absorbed before adding the next (about 25 minutes total). Remove from heat; stir in cheese and pepper. Serve immediately.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: about 3/4 cup)

Nutritional Information: CALORIES 152(25% from fat); FAT 4.2g (sat 2.4g,mono 1.3g,poly 0.3g); PROTEIN 7.4g; CHOLESTEROL 14mg; CALCIUM 75mg; SODIUM 524mg; FIBER 1.2g; IRON 0.9mg; CARBOHYDRATE 20.5g

David Bonom , Cooking Light, SEPTEMBER 2007

quotable

The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.
-Yves Saint Laurent

test your awareness

I counted correctly. But that's really beside the point.

Via Haffner

it matters how you finish

A week ago, I said goodbye to Steven.

Try as I might, I couldn't find joy or celebrate his death while at his homegoing. (As a man of faith, his funeral was no somber affair. Instead, it was a time of singing and celebration.) It was my first funeral, and unlike anything I expected or have ever experienced.

I heard remembrances from friends and family, and laughed and cried at the vignettes shared. One, about Steven's love of music and the first time he took his son Craig to an Earth, Wind and Fire show, had me smiling. Another, about a remark Steven made to his pastor when he was near the end and had a lucid, pain-free moment where he uttered one word -- "tremendous" -- repeatedly, left me hopeful. A final one -- about how Steven always ended his conversations this year with the words "I love you and I appreciate you" -- reminded me to always ensure that my loved ones know how I feel about them.

But one remembrance epitomized why I have such respect for Steven: it spoke of his grace and his strength in the attitude he chose to very end. Our friend Sandra read her beautiful eulogy and said the words that all of us needed to hear, but didn't have language to express.

For Stevie C. who asked me to speak at his homegoing celebration:

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

My brother Steven would want me to share that thought with you this morning. He would want me to remind you that despite our tears and sorrow, we have good reason to celebrate today.

We can celebrate because Steven is home. His long night of suffering is over. And our long night of watching him suffer is over. The body that failed him has died. But Steven himself is more alive than we. And we will see him again. This is the great hope that sustained our brother Steven. This is the great assurance we share as people of faith.

Some will dismiss our belief in things we cannot humanly perceive as quaint, naive, even delusional. But how then will they explain the courage, the perseverance, the unfailing sweetness of spirit that Steven displayed throughout a long and grueling illness he knew would ultimately take his life? What we have witnessed over this past year, in both Steven’s and Craig’s responses to inconceivable hardship, has been nothing short of supernatural. I asked Steven once how he did it, and he said, “In the middle of the storm, in the middle of the typhoon, you just close your eyes and say, thank you.”

We have a saying in our family: It matters how you finish. And what we mean by that is, it really doesn’t matter what you accomplish or accumulate in this life, how high you rise in society or business or government, none of that matters if you throw it all away in the end. And conversely, it doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make along the way if you learn and grow beyond them. Because in the end what matters isn’t what we’ve done, but who we’ve been. What matters is the content of our character.

When I think of Steven, I will think of a man no more perfect than any of us, but a man of character and commitment, an extraordinary father and a wonderful friend. I will think of a man of faith, who died as he lived, counting every day a blessing and every blessing a reason for thanksgiving. When I think of my brother Steven, I will think of a man who finished well.

As his casket left the church, I sobbed again when I glimpsed the "get well" banner that Geraghty and Lori made for him last year when he was in the hospital receiving chemo. After leaving the sanctuary, I reached for colleagues and friends who were also grieving, and trying to get to the emotional place where they could celebrate his death as more than just the end of his suffering. But when I left the church, I just wasn't in that space yet.

Over the next week, I had two unexpected moments that got me there. The first came when I turned on the TV in our hotel room in Solvang to do a homework assignment for a Comm class. Although I'd finished the assignment, I lingered on that channel for a few minutes longer before getting dressed to go to dinner. I had to sit down when Earth, Wind and Fire opened the Nobel laureate concert. Two hours later, I was already sitting down when the second moment came with Leo's one-word summary of an exquisite meal we enjoyed at the Ballard Inn: "tremendous."

Both moments left me slack-jawed and incredulous, because I am not a person who believes in god or fate or messages from beyond. What I'm left with is a profound feeling of peace and a heart that is grateful for having shared a few moments with a man who finished well.

coming to an end

Tomorrow is my last day at my current job. I've been blessed with smart, kind, creative colleagues and am sad at the thought of leaving, because things just aren't the same once you've moved on.

I was ruminating on that when I stepped into the elevator this morning. In three short seconds, I was stressing out in earnest about how I was going to get everything done and remain sane through a week that includes handing off my project to a consultant, packing up my office, two midterms, an hour-long (as-yet unwritten) presentation at an annual professional meeting on Friday, and getting myself ready to go out of town for a week. Then I got news that put everything else into perspective -- our colleague Steven lost his battle with cancer this weekend.

As I read the obituary that his good friend Sandra wrote, I learned new things about a man for whom I already had a great deal of respect. Seeing the words on the page early this morning made his death seem real from a purely cerebral perspective. When I re-read the piece tonight and saw the photo of him with his college-age son, I finally processed the news emotionally and the tears began to fall.

I'm glad that he is no longer in pain. I'm glad that he had 10 months to tell his son and others how much he loved them. I'm glad that all of us had 10 months to tell him that we loved him.

It's not the details of how Steven lived that amaze me. It's the attitude he chose to have through the very end that inspires me. Every day was a gift for Steven. But 54 years was a cruelly short amount of time for him to be a blessing to others.

attire for the thinking woman

I hate the trampy-is-trendy look because I think it's ho-rrific.

Working on a college campus means that I get an eyeful of the latest in women's undergarment fashion on a daily basis. I see the color, outline, and (often) the detailing on the thong, panty, or g-string du jour ... I'm a complete stranger and these girls have all of their wares out on display. It makes me very uncomfortable -- not because I'm a prude, but because I wonder if they're even thinking about what it is that they're literally buying into.

I'm also not a fan of the color pink (the infantilization of women -- especially by women -- pisses me off), and I've hated the Victoria's Secret "PINK" line (and Juicy Couture) since, well forever. It's not just that butts are used as billboards by teens and twenty-somethings, it's that PINK is slang for vagina. Say it with me, people: va-gi-na. That just doesn't have the same marketing ring now, does it?

Attire for the thinking woman
Aaryn Belfer
March 1st, 2008

Every time I see a thirteen year old girl clunking through an airport or a mall in Ugg boots and a matching velour tracksuit with the word PINK embroidered across her tender young buttocks in collegiate-style lettering, I can’t help but think there is something distastefully wrong with the message. So, I had a good guffaw-coffee-through-the-nose-hole moment today when I read that the CEO of Victoria’s Secret feels that her company has “gotten off our heritage” (wha…?…the woman needs to look up the definition of the word) by becoming “too sexy.”

The company, according to her, needs a return to their intended ideal of ultra-feminine and I have to agree, since there are a lot of things more feminine than women (of all ages) browsing the aisles of Costco, clad in Victoria’s Secret PUSSY PINK line? When I see that young girl obliviously advertising her vagina across her backside as she boards a Southwest flight to Scottsdale, smacking her bubble gum, holding her In Style magazine and squeezing the oversized teddy bear tucked under her arm, I don’t instantly associate her with ultra-feminine. Of course, it could be that the Uggs cancel out the feminine quota of the tush lettering.

In aiming for the über-femme, I think the CEO should take a more direct approach; a more educational, empowering, PSA sort of angle. I suggest she go straight-up blatant on the consumer with her ass-messages and begin offering a line with choices like LABIA, MONS, PUBIS, VULVA and CLITORIS. Maybe that’s too clinical for some, but I’d wear those pants long before I ever shook my milkshake with a euphemism for my lady bits plastered on it. Because those other words? Those words are ultra-feminine.

quotable

"The loneliest alone is feeling alone when you’re paired ... forever is a blip when you’re content and an eternity when you’re trapped, and even the best marriage will run the gamut."
-Aaryn Belfer

condom advertising in the age of aids

I was researching humorous condom ads for my international comm class last week and was appalled by how hard it is to advertise condoms worldwide. It's odd to think that condom advertising is banned in so many countries (et tu, China? With the one child policy?) Setting aside the the fact that they're so common they're a commodity product in China, it's time to wake up, because a worldwide epidemic rages on.

Anyhow, here are a few of the better ones.
Zazoo (Belgium): I still think this is the best ad ever for birth control


Hansaplast (France)


Truth (Kenya)


Tulipan (Argentina)


Tulipan (Argentina)


Skin (Argentina)


Condom PSA (Sweden)


Trojan evolve (banned in the USA)

genetic link to being left-handed

Leo's hoping to select for this gene.

Gene for left-handedness is found
July 31, 2007
Scientists have discovered the first gene which appears to increase the odds of being left-handed.

The Oxford University-led team believe carrying the gene may also slightly raise the risk of developing psychotic mental illness such as schizophrenia.

The gene, LRRTM1, appears to play a key role in controlling which parts of the brain take control of specific functions, such as speech and emotion.

The study appears in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

The brain is set up in an asymmetrical way.

In right-handed people the left side of the brain usually controls speech and language, and the right side controls emotions.

However, in left-handed people the opposite is often true, and the researchers believe the LRRTM1 gene is responsible for this flip.

They also believe people with the LRRTM1 gene may have a raised risk of schizophrenia, a condition often linked to unusual balances of brain function.

Further research

Lead researcher Dr Clyde Francks, from Oxford University's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, said the next step would be to probe the impact on the development of the brain further.


No-one really understands what causes schizophrenia yet
Jane Harris
Rethink

He said: "We hope this study's findings will help us understand the development of asymmetry in the brain.

"Asymmetry is a fundamental feature of the human brain that is disrupted in many psychiatric conditions."

However, Dr Francks said left-handed people should not be worried by the links between handedness and schizophrenia.

He said: "There are many factors which make individuals more likely to develop schizophrenia and the vast majority of left-handers will never develop a problem.

"We don't yet know the precise role of this gene."

About 10% of people are left-handed.

Differences

There is evidence to suggest there are some significant differences between left and right-handed people.

Australian research published last year found left-handed people can think quicker when carrying out tasks such as playing computer games or playing sport.

And French researchers concluded that being left-handed could be an advantage in hand-to-hand combat.

However, being left-handed has also been linked to a greater risk of some diseases, and to having an accident.

Dr Fred Kavalier, a consultant geneticist at London's Guy's Hospital, said: "I don't think left-handed people should be alarmed.

"Undoubtedly there are many, many other factors that contribute to schizophrenia. This may be a tiny little element in the big jigsaw."

'Devastating condition'

Marjorie Wallace, of the mental health charity SANE, said scientists working in its research centre in Oxford were also looking at the link between brain asymmetry and schizophrenia.

She said: "We desperately need research into the origins of psychosis to better understand why some people are more vulnerable than others.

"Then the treatment could be more targeted and carry the potential to prevent this devastating condition which affects one in 100 people worldwide."

Jane Harris, of the mental health charity Rethink, said: "No-one really understands what causes schizophrenia yet.

"It is probably a combination of factors, including genetics, problems in childbirth, viral infections, drug use, poverty and urbanisation."

mix tape, anyone?

Setting aside the fact that there's no flow on this list ... and the more painful inclusions (Barney and Meow Mix, I'm talking about you), this really bothers me.

The Torture Playlist
By Justine Sharrock
February 22, 2008
Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, "prolong capture shock," disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.
Via Jerry

"thank you for being mine"

I've written before about my friend (and former roommate) Nancy's current battle with breast cancer. Her attitude never fails to inspire and amaze me and to put everything into perspective.

Having walked in her shoes a few years back, I have an inkling of the emotional rollercoaster that she's on. I'm so glad to see her coming to a positive end with her treatment and very pleased to see that her husband Ryan has been right there with her throughout the ride.

I would never recommend anyone get cancer, but there are many good moments to balance out the bad. My family and husband and friends are amazing. I was walking home from dinner with Ryan and Mom the other night, and he had his arm around my shoulder. I got all teary and said, "thank you for being mine." He, of course, started cracking jokes and just made me laugh. I'm very lucky to be loved by him. He does things like paint my incisions with scarguard without flinching and rubs my head affectionately.

white people also enjoy being critical, but not necessarily in a constructive way

Our friend Holly told us about this interview on NPR and the crazy hate mail Stuff White People Like is getting.

Talk of the Nation, February 26, 2008 · What do expensive sandwiches, co-ed sports, public radio and recycling have in common? According to blogger Christian Lander, they all fall under the category of "Stuff White People Like."

Just over a month old, the controversial and provocative blog has almost 4 million hits. Lander says he started the blog as pure satire and was surprised to see it take off as quickly as it did.

Critics charge that the list is racist, stereotypical, and conflates race with economic status. But Lander maintains that the blog is in the spirit of good, provocative fun: "Irony" is #50 on the list, "Having Black Friends" is #14, and Lander — who says almost everything he does is listed — plans to add "Self-Importance" soon.

For the record, this all-white (racially), half-hispanic (ethnically) woman is a fan of the site. And plans to have multilingual children. (She also loves NPR, travelling, irony, dogs, kitchen gadgets, knowing what's best for poor people, being the only white person around, diversity, recyling, the Sunday New York Times, Netflix, The Daily Show, David Sedaris, wine, having two last names, film festivals, farmer's markets, organic food, tea, non-profit organizations, yoga, etc.)

#78 Multilingual Children « Stuff White People Like
All white people want their children to speak another language. There are no exceptions. They dream about the children drifting in between French and English sentences as they bustle about the kitchen while they read the New York Times and listen to Jazz.

As white people age, they start to feel more and more angry with their parents for raising them in a monolingual home. At some point in their lives, most white people attempt to learn a second language and are generally unable to get past ordering in a restaurant or over-pronouncing a few key words. This failure is not attributed to their lack of effort, but rather their parents who didn’t teach them a new language during their formative years.

White people believe that if they had been given French language instruction when they were younger, their lives would have turned out very differently. Instead of living in the US, they would be living and working abroad for the United Nations or some other organization with a headquarters in Switzerland or The Hague.

Generally, white people prefer their children to speak French. Advanced white people will actually spend outrageous amounts of money to send their children to a Lycee or Ecole Francaise. But the vast majority will abandon their dreams when they realize that need a second mortgage so their child can have a better study abroad experience in France.

Languages such as German, Spanish, Swedish, or Italian are also acceptable, but are considered to be poor substitutes (especially Spanish). At the time of writing, it is still considered expert-level white person behavior to have white children speaking Asian and African languages.

There is only one way to use this information to your advantage: speaking another language means that white people are more likely to want to have children with you. It is seen as a cheaper alternative to language schools.

french toast 101

My friend Kara posted this on her blog recently. I love her quick wit and composure in these types of situations.

So You Think You Know French Toast Sticks?
I work for a company that sells hamburgers. Granted, I work in the training and development department at the corporate headquarters, but even so part of my onboarding process is to work three days in one of our restaurants. That's a pretty cool idea, except when it's not.

Today was my third of three days, and since I spent 6 years working in Food Service at Six Flags Great Adventure, the manager let me run the front area while she did orders in the back office. At lunch time this conversation went down:

Drive-Thru Guy: Kara, the guest wants to speak to you.
Me: Okay. Hi ma'am, how may I help you?
Psycho Lady (driving a BMW SUV): Your employee is treating me very rudely and not giving me what I want. I'm the customer and customers are always right.

Me: I'm sorry for that. What can I do to make this right? How can I help you?
PLDBMWSUV: I want a bag of French Toast sticks with my order.
Me to Drive-Thru Guy: Let's get these for her...
PLDBMWSUV: Don't talk to him! You're only to talk to me right now! Erase him from the conversation!
Me: Ma'am, I'm trying to help you here. I want you to be happy. So you would like another order of French Toast sticks.
PLDBMWSUV: No, I want a bag of them!
Me: Okay. I can sell you an order of them.
PLDBMWSUV: Could you be any ruder to me? I said I want a bag of them, so you should give me a bag of them!

And this is where it gets golden:

PLDBMWSUV: Are you educated enough to understand what F-R-E-N-C-H TOAST STICKS are?
Me: I have a masters degree, so I'm pretty sure I understand what French Toast sticks are.

Am I educated enough to discuss in intricacies of lightly sugared crispy pieces of battered bread? Seriously?

I finally asked her if she wanted two or four sticks, to which she replied, "Two." We made them for her, and when we walked outside to give them to her she'd vanished.

After 32 years on this Earth, many of which contained some time in some type of customer-oriented positions (Bath & Body Works, bartending at a pub in England, Six Flags, etc.), I now have an addendum to "The Customer is Always Right:"

Yes, the customer is always right; but being right does NOT give you the right to be a bully or belligerent to employees.

"Educated enough!" To understand effing French Toast sticks! Dear God...

wsd

How I get things done:

WSD
"Write Shit Down'. A popular method of organization. Works equally well in one's personal or professional life.

Dude, you don't need ritalin. Just use the WSD method - trust me, you won't forget things anymore and you'll actually get them done!"
Via Urban Dictionary

one world, different networks

The Who's Who of Social Networks Around the Globe Compiler from Wired.com
The French newspaper Le Monde has posted an interesting look at social network usage around the world. As you can see from the graphic above (click the image above for a larger version) MySpace dominates the U.S. and Australia, while Facebook holds the lead in Great Britain and Canada. And contrary to what you might think, Google's Orkut isn't as also-ran as some like to paint it — the site is popular in both Brazil and India.
Also worth noting is that, while interest in sites like LiveJournal and Friendster have waned in the U.S., both have found strong followings overseas — Russia and South Asia respectively.
French users remain obsessed with Skyblog, a social network and blogging platform that has long dominated the online space in France.
Via Neatorama, image from Le Monde

corporate myopia + employee naiveté = ?

Note to self:

1. Double-check employee handbook for anything related to writing, media outlets, and/or blogging at new gig.
2. Ask new boss about company policy regarding blogging. (Get answers in writing.)
3. Realize that doing all of the above may or may not matter if company policy changes in the future.

Deus Ex Malcontent: Say What You Will (Requiem for a TV News Career)
Maybe this was always the way it had to be.
When I was 19, I broke into the offices of WVUM -- the radio station at the University of Miami -- live, during an installment of my weekly radio show. I raided a file cabinet and my crew and I proceeded to read the minutes of that week's executive board meeting on the air, paying special attention to a recurring topic of conversation among my apparently exasperated supervisors -- a series of incidents which, collectively, were referred to as "The Chez Situation."

The board as a whole was less-than-pleased with, for example, my insistence on jokingly pointing out to my audience the fact that WVUM's faculty adviser seemed to be waging and winning a valiant war against sobriety, and as such deserved congratulations all-around. There was also my insinuation that one of the station's sponsors, a club which had just opened on South Beach, would likely be closed in two weeks then renamed and reopened two weeks later. (In fact, it took about a month to close.)

I regularly ignored the program director's God-awful musical "suggestions," choosing instead to play whatever I felt like hearing.

I ridiculed the University's decision to replace the garbage cans on campus with new, attractive, and extraordinarily expensive stone receptacles immediately after making an announcement that tuition for the coming year would be skyrocketing.

I poked fun at the frat boys.

I advocated mischievous insurrection.

I occasionally threw out a few low-level swear words on-air.

I was kind of a punk kid, and I admit it.

Yet, despite the all of this, I remained on the air simply because even though my superiors may have been irritated by the fallout from my juvenile antics, they usually found the antics themselves eminently entertaining. I was good at what I did; I had a voice and I wasn't the least bit afraid to use it, consequences be damned -- or not considered at all. Being exactly who I was, for whatever reason, seemed to be more important to me than any other consideration.

When I got into television, I did my best to bury my inner-revolutionary. For 16 years I've been a successful producer and manager of TV news, cranking out creative, occasionally daring content on good days and solid, no-frills material on the days in between. I've won several awards and for the most part can say that I'm proud of what I've done in the business, particularly since I never intended to get into it in the first place; by the time college was over, I was playing steadily in a band and fully believed sleeping on floors and subsisting on beer and Taco Bell to be an entirely noble endeavor. I wound up working at WSVN in Miami only after the band imploded, taking my dreams of rock n' roll glory with it. Since those earliest days, I've come to understand that the libertine, pirate ship mentality I found so seductive during my time in a rock band is pretty much a staple of most newsrooms, particularly at the local level. What's more, it's accompanied by a slightly better paycheck (although often only slightly).

Over the past several years though, something has changed. Drastically. And I'm not sure whether it's me, or television news, or both.

With the exception of the period immediately following 9/11, which saw the best characteristics of television journalism shocked back into focus and the passion of even the most jaded and cynical of its practitioners return like a shot of adrenaline to the heart, the profession I once loved and felt honored to be a part of has lost its way.

I say this with the knowledge of implied complicity: I continued to draw a salary from stations at the local level and national networks long after I had noticed an unsettling trend in which real news was being regularly abandoned in favor of, well, crap. I may not have drank the Kool-aid, but I did take the money. I may have been uncomfortable with a lot of what I was putting on the air, but I was comfortable in the life that it provided me. I just figured, screw it, most people don't like their jobs; shut up and do what you're told, or at least try to. Besides, I told myself, what the hell else do you know how to do?

That attitude began to change in April of 2006 -- when I found out that I had a tumor the size of a pinball inside my head.

I was working for CNN at the time, a job I had been proud to accept three years earlier as CNN was in my mind the gold-standard of television journalism. I readily admit that it was Time-Warner's medical plan that provided me the best care possible for the removal of the tumor and during my subsequent recovery, but following my operation, what had been clawing at my insides for years finally began to come to the surface. TV news wasn't the least bit fulfilling anymore, and I either needed to get out of it once and for all or find an outlet for my nascent iconoclastic tendencies.

So I started a blog.

I did it mostly to pass the time, hone my writing skills, resurrect my voice a little, and keep my mind sharp following the surgery. As is the case with many online journals, not a soul other than myself and a few close friends and family were even aware of what I was doing, much less read my stuff regularly. I thought nothing of returning to work at the end of my medical leave while continuing to write online. Really, who the hell knew who I was? Who cared what I had to say?

As it would turn out, over time, more than a few people.

My admittedly worthless opinions on pop culture, politics, the media and my personal past were quickly linked by sites like Fark, Gawker and Pajiba and I found my readership growing exponentially. During this time, I still didn't consider telling my superiors at CNN what I was doing on the side, simply because, having never been provided with an employee handbook, I hadn't seen a pertinent rule and never signed any agreement stipulating that I wouldn't write on my own time. I hadn't divulged my place of work and wasn't writing about what went on at the office. The views expressed on my blog, Deus Ex Malcontent, were mine and mine alone. I represented no one but myself, and I didn't make a dime doing it.

For 20 months after starting DXM, I continued to work as a producer on American Morning, one of many charged with putting together the show. During that time, I received consistently favorable reviews (while in Atlanta I was told that I was well on my way to becoming an executive producer) and, more importantly, neither my credibility nor objectivity was ever called into question. Like anyone who considers him or herself a respectable news professional, whatever my personal opinions were, they were checked at the door when I walked into work. Having grown up in a household in which the highest ideals of journalism were never more than a conversation away -- my father was an old-school investigative reporter -- I knew full well that you couldn't avoid having opinions and viewpoints, but you never let them get in the way of your journalistic responsibility

As far as CNN knew, I was a valued employee, albeit one with almost no say in the day-to-day editorial decisions on American Morning. This held true even as I began contributing columns to the Huffington Post, giving my writing more exposure than ever before.

Then, last Monday afternoon, I got a call from my boss, Ed Litvak.

Ed, seeming to channel Bill Lumburgh from Office Space, informed me of that which I was already very well aware: that my name was "attached to some, uh, 'opinionated' blog posts" circulating around the internet. I casually admitted as much and was then informed of something I didn't know: that I could be fired outright for this offense. 24 hours later, I was. During my final conversation with Ed Litvak and a representative from HR, they hammered home a single line in the CNN employee handbook which states that any writing done for a "non-CNN outlet" must be run through the network's standards and practices department. They asked if I had seen this decree. As a matter of fact I had, but only about a month previously, when I stumbled across a copy of that handbook on someone's desk and thumbed through it. I let them know exactly what I had thought when I read the rule, namely that it was staggeringly vague and couldn't possibly apply to something as innocuous as a blog. (I didn't realize until later that CNN had canned a 29-year-old intern for having the temerity to write about her work experiences -- her positive work experiences -- in a password-protected online journal a year earlier.) I told both my boss and HR representative that a network which prides itself on being so internet savvy -- or promotes itself as such, ad nauseam -- should probably specify blogging and online networking restrictions in its handbook. I said that they can't possibly expect CNN employees, en masse, to not engage in something as popular and timely as blogging if they don't make themselves perfectly clear.

My HR rep's response: "Well, as far as we know, you're the only CNN employee who's blogging under his own name."

It took self-control I didn't know I had to keep from laughing, considering that I could name five people off the top of my head who blogged without hiding their identities.

Uh-huh, as far as you know.

When I asked, just out of curiosity, who came across my blog and/or the columns in the Huffington Post, the woman from HR answered, "We have people within the company whose job is specifically to research this kind of thing in regard to employees."

Jesus, we have a Gestapo?

A few minutes later, I was off the phone and out of a job. No severance. No warning (which would've been a much smarter proposition for CNN as it would've put the ball effectively in my court and forced me to decide between my job or the blog). No nothing. Just, go away.

Right before I hung up, I asked for the "official grounds" for my dismissal, figuring the information might be important later. At first they repeated the line about not writing anything outside of CNN without permission, but HR then made a surprising comment: "It's also, you know, the nature of what you've been writing."

And right there I knew that CNN's concern wasn't so much that I had been writing as what I'd been writing. Whether a respected and loyal CNN producer of four years, like myself, could've gotten off with a warning had I chosen to write about, say, my favorite pasta sauce recipes, who knows. I'm dead sure though that my superiors never concerned themselves with my ability or inability to remain objective at work, given my strong opinions; they worried only about an appearance of bias (specifically, a liberal bias), and apparently they worried about it more than any potential fallout from firing a popular blogger with an audience that was already large and was sure to grow much larger when news of his firing put him in the national spotlight.

It's probably right about now that I should make something perfectly clear: I'm not naive -- I always understood that CNN, like any big company, might be apt to fire whoever it damn well pleases so long as the law remains intact at the end of the day.

Should they have fired me though?

Probably not, and only arrogant myopia would make them think otherwise.

As soon as the official word came down, I picked up the phone and called a friend of mine named Jacki Schechner. CNN junkies will recognize her as a former internet reporter for the network, one who pulled double-duty on American Morning and The Situation Room -- that is until the day she was taken out into the figurative woods without any warning and given the Old Yeller treatment. CNN's willingness to fire someone like Jacki tells you everything you need to know about how backward the network's thinking is when it comes to new media. It pays more lip-service to bloggers and their internet realm than any other mainstream media outlet, but in the end that's really all it is -- lip-service. Jacki was not only popular in internet circles, she had forged personal relationships with most of the big names in the blogosphere and knew her stuff inside and out. Inevitably though, CNN -- particularly American Morning -- chose to wear down and ultimately piss away this asset in favor of an on-air acquisition that fell right in line with the tried-and-true "TV" sententia: Veronica De La Cruz. The network never considered for a minute that new media might behave differently than television -- that the regular rules might not apply.

And that's the problem.

As far as CNN (and to be fair, the mainstream TV press in general) believes, it still sits comfortably at the top of the food chain, unthreatened by any possibility of a major paradigm shift being brought to bear by a horde of little people with laptops and opinions. Although the big networks recognize the need to appeal to bloggers, they don't fear them -- and that means that they don't respect them. Corporate-think dictates that the mainstream television press as a monstrous multi-headed hydra is the ultimate news authority and therefore is in possession of the one and only hotline to the ghosts of Murrow and Sevareid. Sure those bloggers are entertaining, but in the end they're really just insects who either feed off the carcasses of news items vetted through various networks or, when they do break stories, want nothing more than to see themselves granted an audience by the kingmakers on television.

This, of course, is horseshit.

During my last couple of years as a television news producer, I watched the networks try to recover from a six year failure to bring truth to power (the political party in power being irrelevant incidentally; the job of the press is to maintain an adversarial relationship with the government at all times) and what's worse, to pretend that they had a backbone all along. I watched my bosses literally stand in the middle of the newsroom and ask, "What can we do to not lead with Iraq?" -- the reason being that Iraq, although an important story, wasn't always a surefire ratings draw. I was asked to complete self-evaluations which pressed me to describe the ways in which I'd "increased shareholder value." (For the record, if you're a rank-and-file member of a newsroom, you should never under any circumstances even hear the word "shareholders," let alone be reminded that you're beholden to them.) I watched the media in general do anything within reason to scare the hell out of the American public -- to convince people that they were about to be infected by the bird flu, poisoned by the food supply, or eaten by sharks. I marveled at our elevation of the death of Anna Nicole Smith to near-mythic status and our willingness to let the airwaves be taken hostage by every permutation of opportunistic degenerate from a crying judge to a Hollywood hanger-on with an emo haircut. I watched qualified, passionate people worked nearly to death while mindless talking heads were coddled. I listened to Lou Dobbs play the loud-mouthed fascist demagogue, Nancy Grace fake ratings-baiting indignation, and Glenn Beck essentially do nightly stand-up -- and that's not even taking into account the 24/7 Vaudeville act over at Fox News. I watched The Daily Show laugh not at our mistakes but at our intentional absurdity.

I mentioned calling Jacki Schechner -- so what did she tell me?

"Think about how frustrated and disillusioned most of the American Morning staff is."

Not simply frustrated and disillusioned, but outright miserable.

And then she reminded me that in the past year-and-a-half, nearly 20 mid to high-level people have left American Morning; many of them quit with no other job to go to -- they just wanted out of the business. That speaks goddamned volumes, not simply about the show but about the state of the entire profession.

CNN fired me, and did it without even a thought to the power that I might wield as an average person with a brain, a computer, and an audience. The mainstream media doesn't believe that new media can embarrass them, hurt them or generally hold them accountable in any way, and they've never been more wrong.

I'm suddenly in a position to do all three, and I know now that this is what I've been working toward the last few years of my career.

Awhile back I was watching a great documentary on the birth of the punk scene, it closed with former Black Flag frontman and current TV host Henry Rollins saying these words: "All it takes is one person to stand up and say 'fuck this.'"

I truly hope so, because I'm finally doing just that.

And I should've done it a long time ago.
Via DDTB

have passport, will travel

I gave my boss three week's notice last Tuesday. My last day with my current company is March 11.

After that, I have a speaking gig and want to get outta dodge for a bit.

Leo and I are up for suggestions. We like history, good ethnic food, beautiful sights, and drinks that come with umbrellas in them. We're considering Tulum and Chichén Itzá. Let me know if you've got other ideas.

poor kermie

Via Jane

breathe easy

This is very cool, but I doubt that the machine is as comforting as the dogs that do the same thing.

Lasers Detect Disease in Patient Breath
Eric Bland, Discovery News
Feb. 22, 2008 -- Diagnosing life threatening diseases could soon be as easy as breathing.

Researchers at the National Institute for Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado are now using lasers to detect specific chemical compounds in the breath of patients with cancer, asthma and diabetes.

The technique, once perfected and commercialized, could save patients and insurance companies thousands of dollars and make disease diagnosis and monitoring faster and more efficient.

"We hope that the technology will develop to be a very useful tool for preventive medicine," said Jun Ye, a study author and a physics professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "It can provide an early warning system to potential patients."

The researchers use a technology known as an optical frequency comb. When a person breathes into a small chamber the scientists bombard the exhaled air with lasers of different wavelengths (making up the "comb"). Different sized laser beams excite specific compounds, which then emit different colors of light. These colors are read by another machine.

In a much simplified version of the technique, the researchers simply look and see what color the breath is after interacting with the comb and then diagnose a condition based on the color.

The laser test, described in the Feb. 18 online edition of Optics Express, is sensitive enough to detect a few molecules out of several billion.

Scientists have known for years that certain diseases and conditions cause minute changes to a person's breath. Diseases cause physiologic changes inside the body, creating new chemical compounds that can either change the chemical composition of the air exiting the lungs, or add new chemicals that aren't found in healthy lungs.

Asthma patients will often exhale carbonyl sulfide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen peroxide and nitric oxide all together. Diabetics often have sweet smelling breath, the result of an inability to process certain sugars.

Even kidney failure and liver disease can change a person's breath at the molecular level. Figuring out the specific biochemical reactions that changes a person's breath is a hot topic of research, notes Ye.

"This is a new kind of non-invasive and shockingly inexpensive assay technique," said John Hall, a retired physics professor whose work with lasers earned him a 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics.

While the device is still being developed, Hall, who was not involved in the work, expects that a commercial version of the device would fit inside an average suitcase and cost between $30,000-50,000.

For his own interest, Hall had the researchers use the device to test his own breath for the presence of nitrate, which can indicate renal failure.

"I was terribly pleased to learn that I don't have it," he said.

drink it?

I love olive oil as much as the next person. And I'm hoping to be around for a good, long time. But I'd sooner drink cat pee daily than live to be 120.

A daily glass of olive oil keeps the doctor away
Posted Feb 22nd 2008 10:03AM by Marisa McClellan
Mariam Amash, a woman living in an Israeli village, recently astounded officials when she filed for a new identity card, declaring an age of 120 years old. She says she was born in 1888, when the Turks still ran the holy land. Her secret to long life? Walk regularly and drink a glass of olive oil every day. Al Dente did the math and figured out that she has consumed at least 43,800 glasses--roughly 2,737 gallons of olive oil.

Studies have found that the monounsaturated oils in olive oil not only help reduce blood cholesterol, it also "cause less production of the bile acids in the digestive tract that promote colon cancer development." Additionally, it is less likely to generate free radicals in the body than other fats, it strengthens the anti-inflammatory effects of omega-3 fats and blocks the activation carcinogens. With all the olive oil she's consumed over the years, it's no wonder she's lived such a long life.

white balsamic vinaigrette

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup white balsamic vinaigrette
1 TBSP honey
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp granulated garlic (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a bottle and shake.

chicken saltimbocca done right

We made this for dinner a few weeks ago, along with a spinach salad in white balsamic vinaigrette and herbed basmati rice.

Buy cutlets that are approximately 5 to 6 inches long. If the tip is too thin, trim back 1 to 2 inches to make the cutlet of uniform thickness. If cutlets are unavailable, you can make your own with four (8-ounce) boneless, skinless breasts. Although whole sage leaves make a beautiful presentation, they are optional and can be left out of step 3. Make sure to buy prosciutto that is thinly sliced, not shaved; also avoid slices that are too thick, as they won’t stick to the chicken.

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
Ground black pepper
8 thin boneless, skinless chicken breast cutlets (about 2 pounds), trimmed of ragged edges as necessary
1 TBSP minced fresh sage leaves
8 large whole leaves (optional)
8 thin slices of prosciutto, cut into 5- to 6-inch-long pieces to match cutlets (about 3 ounces)
4 TBSP olive oil
1 ¾ cups dry vermouth or white wine
2 tsp lemon juice
4 TBSP unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces and chilled
1 TBSP minced fresh parsley leaves
Table salt

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Place flour in shallow dish.
2. Pat cutlets dry with paper towels. Pepper the chicken breasts, then dredge in flour, shaking off any excess. Lay cutlets flat and sprinkle evenly with minced sage. Place 1 prosciutto slice on top of each cutlet, pressing lightly to adhere; set aside.
3. Heat 2 TBSP oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until beginning to shimmer. Add sage leaves (if using) and cook until leaves begin to change color and are fragrant, about 15 to 20 seconds. Using slotted spoon, remove sage to paper towel-lined plate; reserve. Add half of cutlets to pan, prosciutto side down, and cook until light brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip and cook on other side until light golden brown, about 2 minutes more. Transfer to wire rack set on rimmed baking sheet and keep warm in oven. Repeat with remaining 2 TBSP oil and cutlets, then transfer to oven to keep warm while preparing sauce.
4. Pour off excess fat from skillet. Stir in vermouth, scraping up any browned bits, and simmer until reduced to about ⅓ cup, about 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in lemon juice. Turn heat to low and whisk in butter, 1 TBSP at a time. Off heat, stir in parsley and season with salt and pepper. Remove chicken from oven and place on platter. Spoon sauce over cutlets before serving.

Yield: 4 servings
Source: Cook’s Illustrated, March-April 2008

quotable

"When people show you who they are, believe them."
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Ann Johnson, April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri, is an American poet, memoirist, actress and an important figure in the American Civil Rights Movement. Angelou is known for her series of six autobiographies, starting with "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," (1969)which was nominated for a National Book Award and called her magnum opus. Her volume of poetry, "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die" (1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

dance with me

You could say that I have dance on the brain lately.

Ever since Leo surprised me with dance lessons for Valentine's Day, I've (mentally) been on cloud nine, despite the state of my right hand after my recent wrist surgery. Everywhere I look, I see dance; everything I hear seems to be about dance. Enter Nouvelle Vague ...

They covered an old 80s favorite of mine, "Dance with Me" by Lords of the New Church, a song that always got me on the dance floor back in my goth nightclub days. While looking for the original song's video (I'd never seen it), I ran across this video of Nouvelle Vague's cover. It cleverly and seamlessly overlays footage from the dance scene in Goddard's "Bande a Part." True to form, Nouvelle Vague has taken something completely different (in this case, a rocking dance scene from French new wave cinema) and changed the feeling completely. I think it works beautifully.

nouvelle vague "dance with me" video



Original scene from "Bande a Part."

HPV and boys

Gardasil is the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. It's approved for use in girls and boys in Mexico, Australia, and the EU. (But not in the U.S.)

Of course it's controversial in this country -- if this were a vaccine to prevent breast, prostate, colon ... or any other cancer, I suspect that this would be a no-brainer to most parents. But because cervical cancer is the consequence of sex ... and affects women only ... it's not as important to most parents. (This, despite the fact that HPV can cause penile, anal, and certain types of head and neck cancers.)

Vaccinating Boys for Girls’ Sake?
By JAN HOFFMAN
February 24, 2008
HOW cool are those Gardasil Girls? Riding horses, flinging softballs, bashing away on drum sets: on the television commercials, they are pugnacious and utterly winning. They want to be “One Less,” they chant — one less victim of cervical cancer. Get vaccinated with Gardasil, they urge their sisters. Protect yourselves against the human papillomavirus, or H.P.V., which causes cervical cancer.

But someone’s missing from this grrlpower tableau.

Ah, that would be Gardasil Boy.

Gardasil Girl’s cancer-related virus? Sexually transmitted. She almost certainly got it from him.

So far, Gardasil is approved just for girls. They can be vaccinated when they are as young as 9, although it’s recommended for 11- and 12-year-olds, before they are sexually active.

As the commercials show, the pitch to Gardasil Girl’s parents doesn’t need to address sex: it’s about protecting their daughter from a cancer.

By 2009, the vaccine could be approved for boys as well. Although Gardasil also protects against genital warts, which are not life-threatening, the primary reason to extend approval to boys would be to slow the rates of cervical cancer. Public health folks charmlessly call this “herd immunity.”

Will parents of sons consent to a three-shot regimen that has been marketed as benefiting girls? How do you pitch that to Gardasil Boy’s parents?

Think altruism. Responsibility. Chivalry, even? Oh, and yes: some explicit details about genital warts and sexual transmission.

Madeline Cattell, an interior design consultant in Beverly, Mass., and the mother of two boys, ages 8 and 12, never paid much attention to Gardasil, assuming it was a gender-specific vaccine for a gender-specific disease. She was surprised that her boys might be offered it one day.

“You don’t want to say it’s just the girls’ problem,” Mrs. Cattell said hesitantly. “But my sons won’t contract cervical cancer. And genital warts are treatable. I’m very skeptical. What risks will I expose them to?”

Gardasil got off to a rocky start. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006, for girls and young women, ages 9 to 26, it came under attack for its high cost. Conservative groups feared it would encourage promiscuity. But buoyed by recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Merck has distributed 13 million doses in the United States alone; insurance picked up much of the tab. In 2007, worldwide sales of Gardasil brought in $1.5 billion.

Gardasil protects against four types of H.P.V. Two have been found in 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. The other two types account for 90 percent of genital warts, which affect both men and women. Immunization gives protection for five years.

Sometime this year, Merck will submit data to the F.D.A. seeking approval to give Gardasil to boys. In Australia, Mexico and countries in the European Union, the vaccine is approved for boys.

“We have a very clear benefit that we offer to men,” said Dr. Richard M. Haupt, Merck’s executive director of clinical research, referring to the warts, “even if they don’t feel they need to have an altruistic reason to get the vaccine.”

Of course, many parents will automatically dismiss Gardasil. They view Big Pharma in general and new vaccines in particular with suspicion. Barbara Goodstein, a Manhattan insurance executive, who has a daughter, 10, and a son, 12, plans to refuse the vaccine for both. “I wouldn’t give children that young a shot without multiple generations of research,” she said.

A competing vaccine, developed by GlaxoSmithKline to protect females between the ages of 10 and 55, is being reviewed by the F.D.A. The company is studying its vaccine, Cervarix, in boys as well as girls in Finland. Cervarix does not protect against genital warts. Boys are being included in the trial to see whether vaccinating them will help eradicate cervical cancer.

That’s good enough for some mothers. “If there was a vaccine I could take that would get rid of prostate cancer, why wouldn’t I?” said Lisa Lippman, a Manhattan real estate broker with three sons. “If there was a vaccine that sons could get that would get rid of breast cancer, most parents wouldn’t hesitate. But cervical cancer is the ‘sex cancer.’ ”

A few reports show that American parents generally favor the Big Idea that Gardasil be made available to both boys and girls. But few surveys discern whether parents would consider the vaccine specifically for their own sons. In 2003, Dr. Elyse Olshen Kharbanda interviewed Boston-area parents.

“They didn’t see it as having much benefit for their sons,” said Dr. Kharbanda, now an adolescent specialist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. “It was smart of Merck to get people excited about it for the girls, but now they’re stuck with that perception.”

Cervical cancer, which kills a quarter-million women a year worldwide, has long been a subject of urgent research. In the United States, about 3,700 women die from it each year; screenings like Pap smears have greatly lowered mortality rates here. But H.P.V. also causes a host of precancerous conditions: a study put the annual cost of cervical H.P.V.-related disease at $2.25 billion to $4.6 billion.

H.P.V. is the most common sexually transmitted infection. There are estimates of six million new infections in the United States each year. Yet, of more than 100 types of H.P.V., only a handful may result in disease. Most people who are infected have no symptoms and can transmit it unknowingly.

At least a half-million Americans each year develop genital warts, which can reoccur. But is Gardasil’s protection against warts enough for parents of sons?

“It’s not life-threatening, but it’s very stressful,” said Susan L. Rosenthal, a specialist in adolescent psychology at the University of Texas at Galveston and an adviser to Merck. “Genital warts are a really yucky disease and they make you feel bad about an important, sensitive body part. Psychologically, it’s not an insignificant infection.”

Baruch Fischhoff, a professor of decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon, thinks that older boys may see a mix of benefits in Gardasil. “Being able to say to a girl, casually, that you had the shots, boys might think, ‘If I can slip that into the conversation, it makes me less of a risk and seem like more of a humanitarian,’ ” Dr. Fischhoff said. “So the self-interested and altruistic motives could actually support each other.”

Some doctors even envisioned college kids, gay and straight, insisting partners get vaccinated.

Down the road, the vaccine may have other benefits. H.P.V. also causes anal and penile cancers, which are relatively rare, and some head and neck cancers.

The burden of explaining genital warts to fifth-grade boys and their parents, as well as spelling out how boys could give girls a virus that could lead to cancer, will largely fall on pediatricians.

Dr. Evelyn Hurvitz, a pediatrician in Tonawanda, N.Y., is beginning to map out those Gardasil discussions. “If you have an 11-year-old boy in your office,” she mused, “the last thing he’s thinking about is having sex with a girl. He’s still thinking about getting past talking to a girl.”

Tough sell.

“Then you have the parent of a 15-year-old boy who might be sexually active,” Dr. Hurvitz continued. “And so I would say, ‘This is a disease he could give to a loved one.’ And then I’ll hear, ‘But our son isn’t sexually active.’ And he’ll be squirming. So I’ll say, ‘Maybe not, but eventually he will be.’ ”

Dr. Hurvitz wishes that Gardasil had been available for boys and girls from the outset: “It would have been easier to get across the idea that this is a vaccine to prevent transmission of H.P.V.,” she said.

A few prescient pediatricians are already laying a foundation. The other day, during Cathy Anderson’s 11-year-old son’s annual check-up, the pediatrician mentioned that Gardasil might become available for boys.

“He talked about taking responsibility for controlling a communicable disease,” said Mrs. Anderson, a stay-at-home mother in West Lafayette, Ind. “My first reaction was: ‘Well, that makes sense.’ Then I told my son he wouldn’t have to worry about the disease, because he wouldn’t be having sex until he’d been married for a long time.”

a day in the life of joe republican...

As a tree-hugging, godless, commie, environmentalist wacko, elitist, America-hating, wine-drinking, cheese-eating, big-government- and girly-man-loving, fancy-pants liberal American in this country, I love this.

Joe gets up and fills his coffee pot with water. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

Joe takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance -- now Joe gets it too.

He prepares breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He takes the subway which saves him considerable money in parking and gas because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation.

He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to join the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker's compensation or an unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Joe's bank deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers.

Joe has a Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and a below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe drives a car which is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He visits his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

His father lives on Social Security and a pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe listens to a conservative radio talk show. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
Via Healy