Slate Magazine

Slate V: Reviews of: The Road, Ninja Assassin, and Old Dogs

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:37:23 -0800

In this week's Summary Judgment, Mark Jordan Legan sums up what critics are saying about the big weekend movies: The Road, Ninja Assassin, and Old Dogs.

The Slatest: Thanksgiving Edition

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:19:19 PST

Chinese prime minister will go to Copenhagen; Pakistani Taliban militants settle in new districts; the first crashers in the history of modern state dinners; Lambert proves he was right about that double standard.

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The case against Thanksgiving leftover recipes.

Jill Hunter Pellettieri — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:52:51 PST

Americans everywhere are about to be inundated with turkey leftovers, and the urge to recycle those leftovers into bizarre new forms—like turkey fried rice and turkey dinner muffins—will be great, perhaps irresistible. In a 2007 article, reprinted below, Jill Hunter Pellettieri cautioned against the practice, claiming that whatever "bastardized concoction" you can cook up isn't worth the effort. Don't get fancy—just eat a turkey sandwich.

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Thanksgiving - Domestic turkey - Cooking - Home - Turkey

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Bob Dylan's Christmas album, sprinter Caster Semenya, and the new documentary Le Danse.

Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, June Thomas, and Julia Turner — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:43:25 PST

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 62 with Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, June Thomas and Julia Turner and by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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Modern Family - American Broadcasting Company - ABC - Economic - United States

How the gun lobby groped its way into the health reform debate.

Timothy Noah — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:42:23 PST

How the gun lobby groped its way into the Obamacare debate.

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Gun Control - Canada - Pro-Gun Rights - Anti-Gun Rights - Recreation

How do movie blurbs work?

Christopher Beam — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:08:17 PST

How do movie blurbs work?

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movie - Arts - Trivia - Quizzes - Previews

The New York Times Magazine delivers a journalistic cliché in its Joe Biden feature.

Jack Shafer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:10:19 PST

Shafer's first law of journalism states that no article can be created or destroyed; it can only change form.

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Joe Biden - New York Times - United States - Journalism - Society and Culture

Saving Face: A chick-lit novel written in real time. With your help.

Dahlia Lithwick — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:46:30 PST

The candles have guttered down into two puddles, and Ellie is fighting sleep as she melts deeper into Cole's lap. Marina's two girls and Sam are piled up in front of the television in the other room in various states of wakefulness. People have had so much beer and wine and dessert, they are now telling backyard chicken stories. Of which there are more than one might expect here in the 21st century.

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Wine - Beer - Chicken - Food - Television

Reviews of: The Road, Ninja Assassin, and Old Dogs

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:30:49 PST

A daily video from Slate V.

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Ninja Assassin - James McTeigue - Movies - Arts - Review

Baltimore tells crisis pregnancy centers to say they don't do abortions.

Emily Bazelon — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:10:37 PST

The Baltimore City Council went where no local government has gone before, it seems, in telling crisis pregnancy centers in the city this week that they have to put up signs saying they don't provide abortion or birth control.

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Abortion - Birth control - Reproductive health - Health - Clinics and Services

On Afghanistan, President Obama will have to answer Sen. Obama's questions.

John Dickerson — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:47:20 PST

For the last several months, President Obama has been trying to answer Sen. Obama's questions. The president's Afghanistan strategy review has been focused on the same issues Obama raised with Condoleezza Rice in January 2007, when he was on the Senate foreign relations committee and she was testifying about the troop surge in Iraq. Sen. Obama wanted to know how the president was going to force a reluctant partner to perform and when the president would say "enough is enough" if progress wasn't made.

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Afghanistan - Barack Obama - Iraq - Condoleezza Rice - Iraq War troop surge of 2007

Is The City destroying America?

Troy Patterson — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:53:04 PST

A columnist cherishes his reader mail, even the letters of complaint and especially the nastiest of these, so often genitally fixated. Where some gentle souls will send a female writer questions about her menstrual cycle or implore her to get laid, others will ask her male counterpart whether he has any testicles—or, kindly presuming that he indeed does, suggest that the writer be gelded, "preferably with a rusty knife."

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Analysis and Opinion - Columnists - National Issues - Press Complaints Commission - Arts

The NFL Network's RedZone channel reveals the future of fandom.

Robert Weintraub — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:49:08 PST

Football and Thanksgiving go together like turkey and stuffing. This year, the tryptophan may kick in early. The day's opening doubleheader—Packers-Lions followed by Raiders-Cowboys—promises to be a total snooze. Even the Broncos-Giants nightcap has lost much of its appeal with both teams having fallen into midseason swoons. As you're watching Thursday's terrible slate, just be thankful there will still be loads of football on Sunday—and you won't be captive to the Lions and the Raiders.

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NFL Network - Oakland Raiders - National Football League - Detroit Lions - Thanksgiving Classic

Nostalgia for the contact sheet.

Sarah Boxer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:53:54 PST

I miss contact sheets. I miss those grids of small photos that show you exactly what's on a roll of developed film. I miss them so much that now, when I take digital pictures, I don't delete any: I download everything from my camera to my computer to get lots of thumbnail-size images—some blurry, some not; some memorable, some not; some in series, some not. There they are, rows upon rows on my screen. A virtual contact sheet. And yet nothing like a contact sheet.

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Image - Business - Arts and Entertainment - Contact print - Graphics

China is a Communist country, but I have yet to meet an actual Communist.

Daniel Gross — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:14:51 PST

On several occasions during my 10 days in China, I've been told that there are 70 million members of the Chinese Communist Party. And yet it's nearly impossible to find an orthodox Marxist in Beijing. When you stand in Tiananmen Square and look toward the Forbidden City, you see a huge portrait of Mao flanked by slogans. The slogans used to say things like "Long Live Marxism-Leninism." Today, they're simply nationalistic: "Long Live the People's Republic of China!"

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Tiananmen Square - People's Republic of China - Communist Party of China - Marxism - Mao Zedong

What is on the other side of Siberia? The Jewish Autonomous Region.

Masha Gessen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:51:02 PST

BIROBIDZHAN, Russia—The first time I logged on to the official Web site of the Jewish Autonomous Region, its home page featured an article called "Twenty Facts About the Jewish Face." I later realized that it was fed to the JAR site at random via a link from a Moscow-based Jewish-book site, but the article's appearance seemed fated, for it spoke to the basic question raised by the JAR: What is a Jew? A Jew is his face, said the article, which was lighthearted for the most part, written by a Jewish woman for a Jewish readership. A Jew is eyes wide open in eternal surprise, large ears tuned to the sounds of the world, and a large nose, which evaded functional explanation and as a result took up points 3 through 5 in this 20-item list. The last fact stated simply that the human habit of determining another's tribe by his face is hard-wired—which, to a Russian reader, was very much a "fact about the Jewish face."

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Russia - Siberia - Moscow - Jewish Autonomous Oblast - Jew

The Road reviewed.

Dana Stevens — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:12:25 PST

The Man and The Boy went down the road. Down it in the book as in the film, the film kilning up out of the book and making it visible. Expanse of wreck and slag after the worst has come. Not in words now but pictures. Can you do it? Tell the story that can't be told. Yet tell it you must. The Boy and Man on the road, nameless in the long-dead world. Their cart and tarp and tins of food sole bulwark against the growing cold. Stark tale of human love against the gray scrim of ruin. When the time comes, can you film it?

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Human - Movies - Arts - Film - Filmmaking

Why do we eat turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Michelle Tsai — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:07:47 PST

Turkey is a mainstay of the Thanksgiving dinner. But it's not necessarily the best-tasting beast around, nor the cheapest. So how did turkey come to monopolize the holiday? In a 2007 article reprinted below, Michelle Tsai explained.

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Thanksgiving - Thanksgiving dinner - Christmas - Holidays - Cooking

God told my boyfriend to stop having sex with me.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:05:29 PST

Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)

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Slate - Dear Prudence - Sexuality - Web Design and Development - Advice

Facebook plotting an IPO?

Bernhard Warner — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:03:53 PST

A summary of what's in the major publications.

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Stop comparing Sarah Palin's approval ratings with Barack Obama's.

Christopher Beam — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:25:38 PST

According to the latest poll numbers, Sarah Palin is nearly as popular as Barack Obama. Or maybe it's that Barack Obama is nearly as unpopular as Sarah Palin. At least that's how some commentators see it: As the Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm noted Monday, "Sarah Palin's poll numbers are strengthening. And President Obama's are sliding." In Tuesday's Washington Post, former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd wrote that "Palin's favorability numbers are a mirror image of those of Obama."

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Barack Obama - Sarah Palin - Washington Post - United States - United States Presidential approval rating

Why Obama supporters ought to count their blessings.

Bruce Reed — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:33:11 PST

By the time President Obama landed back on American soil last Thursday, politicians on Capitol Hill were beginning to show the effects of a week without adult supervision. Two Republican members of the Joint Economic Committee greeted Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner by demanding his resignation – the same outlandish demand that Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio had made on MSNBC the day before. The House Finance Committee overwhelmingly passed a Fed-bashing amendment sponsored by strange bedfellows, Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Alan Grayson. The Congressional Black Caucus temporarily tabled one of the administration's top priorities, financial regulatory reform, to demand action on another top priority, jobs.

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Ron Paul - Congressional Black Caucus - Alan Grayson - Republican - Democratic

How can you tell whether someone was asleep when he committed murder?

Tom Bartlett — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:32:42 PST

British prosecutors withdrew charges last week against Brian Thomas, a 59-year-old retired steelworker from Wales who strangled his wife to death as she slept in their camper van. Thomas claimed he was also asleep during the attack and imagined he was fighting off an intruder. Sleep experts believed him. How did they know he was telling the truth?They watched him sleep, for starters. To determine whether someone suffers from a sleep-arousal disorder, or parasomnia, researchers often videotape the person in an attempt to record a mid-slumber episode. They also use a polysomnograph, which monitors several bodily functions, including breathing, eye movements, and brain-wave patterns. It's thought that homicidal somnambulism—killing someone while you're asleep—is related to night terrors. Both usually occur in the first two hours after someone has nodded off, during deep, slow-wave sleep. Dreams and nightmares, which are far more common than night terrors, occur during the lighter, REM stage of sleep—when people tend to be silent and immobile. It's a distinction lost on British tabloids, which dubbed Thomas "Dream Killer Dad."Actually observing someone sleepwalking or experiencing night terrors in a laboratory is somewhat rare. Often, the episodes are brought on by a confluence of factors, like stress and sleep deprivation. Which is why one researcher argues for depriving the accused of sleep for 36 hours to see whether this triggers the behavior. But even if you do manage to get someone to sleepwalk in a laboratory, that doesn't prove that the person is potentially violent. To do that, researchers say, you need to provoke the sleepwalker during an episode—by touching him, for example, to see whether this prompts an aggressive response. That can be risky for all involved.Thomas' story made sense, given what is known about sleep violence and night terrors. He was under stress just before going to bed. Several young men—British newspapers called them "boy racers"—had been driving their cars recklessly near where Thomas and his wife had parked their van. He says that when he was strangling his wife, he imagined he was defending her from the boy racers. The strangulation happened soon after they went to sleep. Finally, Thomas had a lifelong history of sleepwalking. The evidence isn't always so compelling. In 1997, an Arizona engineer, Scott Falater, stabbed his wife 44 times before holding her head underwater in the family's swimming pool. He, too, claimed to have been asleep during the attack, and at least one sleep researcher who testified at the trial believed it was possible. Other experts, however, questioned whether his behavior, which included putting on gloves before pushing his wife into the pool, was too sophisticated for a sleepwalker. The jury didn't buy the defense's claim, and Falater is currently serving a life sentence. Similar questions were raised in the case of Kenneth Parks, an unemployed Canadian man who got up in the night, drove to his in-laws' house, and viciously attacked them with a tire iron. In that case, though, sleep experts and the jury believed that he really was asleep during the episode. His story was turned into the TV movie The Sleepwalker Killing, starring Hillary Swank as Parks' wife. Those who attempt to fake a sleepwalking defense sometimes get tripped up by recalling too many details about the murder. Normally, somnambulistic killers are confused and can't remember what happened. This was true of the deeply distraught Thomas, who told police, "I love her. What have I done? She's my world."

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Rapid eye movement sleep - Sleep disorder - Sleepwalking - Brian Thomas - Health

C'mon, you can do better than a gift card.

Tim Harford — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:49:34 PST

It's Thanksgiving—which means it's just about time to start planning your Christmas shopping. At least some of your loved ones are no doubt maddeningly difficult to shop for, and many of us turn to what seems to be the perfect solution: the gift card. Not so fast, says Tim Harford in a 2007 article. Economically (and sentimentally) speaking, gift cards just don't make sense. The article is reprinted below.

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Thanksgiving - Christmas - Holidays - Children and Youth - Kids and Teens

The Time Scalia Got It Wrong

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:18:09 PST

A daily video from Slate V.

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Business - Time - Business Services - Supplies and Equipment - Video

Green beans have no place on a Thanksgiving menu.

Juliet Lapidos — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:13:13 PST

On Thanksgiving, vegetarians like me should politely deflect questions about why we don't eat turkey and instead exaggerate our pleasure when meatless sides come around. Like travelers to exotic foreign lands, we should feel grateful for whatever's strictly edible and put any higher-order choosiness on hold. So it's with shame—and some trepidation over my future treatment by Thanksgiving hosts—that I make the following request: Please stop serving green beans! They may be a holiday staple, but there's no place for them on the menu. No matter your talents, they wind up limp or waxy-tough. At best, they take on the flavor of whatever seasoning you happen to select.

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Thanksgiving - Vegetarianism - Green bean - Holidays - Cooking

Did Franklin D. Roosevelt actually die from cancer?

Barron H. Lerner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:20:19 PST

Is it conceivable that Franklin D. Roosevelt's doctors knew he had widespread cancer in 1944 and still let him run for his fourth term as president? New research makes this astounding argument—and claims that the physician who supposedly told the truth about Roosevelt's death in 1970 was in fact continuing the deception he had helped create.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt - United States - Cancer - History - Physician

Would Roald Dahl have liked Wes Anderson's adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox?

James Parker — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:17:27 PST

"I could feel him smiling," said Felicity Dahl, widow of the great Roald, of her experience of viewing Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox. "I was thinking, he'd love this." Well, she would know, I suppose. But what am I to do then with my conviction that her late husband would have loathed this? That Wes Anderson, with his glockenspiels and drolleries and minutely faceted interiors, has travestied the raucous spirit of Dahl? And that the ideal Fantastic Mr. Fox movie would be a work of slapdash animation, soundtrack by Mötorhead, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait? I'll just have to sit on it, I suppose.

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fantastic mr fox - Wes Anderson - Roald Dahl - Animation - Film

Joan Biskupic's American Original.

Emily Bazelon — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:00:44 PST

In Joan Biskupic's new biography of Antonin Scalia, American Original, the justice wears a wreath of superlatives. He is the most quoted member of the Supreme Court and the one scholars write about most. He is the justice who writes the most concurrences—separate opinions that accept the holding of a majority opinion but usually part company with its reasoning. He is also the justice who prompts the most laughter at oral argument, according to two bona fide studies. Court observers pick Scalia as the most talkative. He disagrees with that one. They would probably call him the most argumentative. And he'd disagree with that, too.

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Antonin Scalia - Supreme Court of the United States - Supreme Court - Oral argument - United States

What's the best vegetarian turkey? (Hint: It's not Tofurky.)

Juliet Lapidos — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:33:29 PST

On Thanksgiving Day, vegetarians generally stick to the side dishes. But it needn't be so. Last year, Juliet Lapidos decided to find the best faux turkey on the market. She sampled four types of veggie turkey so that you don't have to. The article is reprinted below.

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Thanksgiving - Vegetarianism - Holidays - Turkey - Home

What kind of Thanksgiving turkey is best for the environment?

Brendan I. Koerner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:05:35 PST

If you're like the vast majority of Americans, you're looking forward to gorging yourself on turkey this Thursday. But what if you're an eco-minded poultry lover—what kind of bird should you serve? Two years ago, the Green Lantern tackled this very dilemma. The article is reprinted below.

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Thanksgiving - United States - Poultry - Holidays - Home

"Funeral"

Rosanna Warren — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:53:44 PST

Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Rosanna Warren read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes..

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iTunes - Slate - Rosanna Warren - Arts - Multimedia

Netbooks, e-book readers, and other Black Friday bargains to avoid.

Farhad Manjoo — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:02:16 PST

Black Friday is a treacherous time. Lured in by the promise of fantastic bargains, you flock to local big-box retailers, facing the threat of injury or even death to grab unbelievably cheap "doorbuster" gizmos. Even if you manage to get through the day-after-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza without physical harm, there's a good chance you'll suffer financial damage if you don't plan ahead.

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Black Friday - Thanksgiving - Holidays - Big-box store - Children and Youth

No one wants America to be the sole global superpower, but no one wants to share the load.

Anne Applebaum — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:39:22 PST

Like comets hurtling at one another from opposite ends of outer space, two different phenomena in different parts of the world soared into public awareness last week. Separately, they might not have had cosmic importance. Put together, however, they could prove to be an interesting sign of things to come.

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Outer space - Comet - United States - Solar System - School Time

The Senate wants to put a "botax" on plastic surgery. That's a bad idea.

Christopher Beam — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:06:34 PST

If Americans were concerned about Congress getting its grubby hands on their Medicare, wait till it touches their breast implants. Among the ways the Senate health care bill pays for itself is a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery like tummy tucks, face lifts, hair plugs, collagen injections, and any other nonrequired procedures—a proposal known as the "Botax."

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Surgery - Plastic surgery - United States - Breast implant - Health care

A Slate contest: Can you write like Sarah Palin?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:45:19 PST

What is the single worst sentence in Sarah Palin's Going Rogue? According to Slate's Going Rogue index, it comes on Page 102: "As the soles of my shoes hit the soft ground, I pushed past the tall cottonwood trees in a euphoric cadence, and meandered through willow branches that the moose munched on." Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times didn't have to read past the first paragraph for her nomination, which is actually a sentence fragment: "I breathed in an autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with rugged splashes of the Last Frontier."

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Sarah Palin - United States - New York Times - Michiko Kakutani - Alaska

A day in the life of a refugee.

Brian Palmer — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:35:28 PST

Sri Lanka announced Sunday that it would release more than 130,000 people, mostly ethnic Tamils, who have been detained in camps since the country's civil war ended six months ago. What have the Tamils been doing all day, every day, for six months?

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Sri Lanka - Refugee - Civil war - Tamil people - Asia

To win in Afghanistan, our military must cooperate with local militias.

Fred Kaplan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:14:31 PST

Though it doesn't claim as much, Dexter Filkins' article in Sunday's New York Times, headlined "Afghan Militias Battle Taliban with Aid of U.S.," may offer a clue to where President Barack Obama's strategic review of the war is going.

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Afghanistan - Barack Obama - Taliban - New York Times - War in Afghanistan

Slate's sports podcast Hang Up and Listen for the week of Nov. 23, 2009.

Stefan Fatsis, Josh Levin, and Mike Pesca — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:40:57 PST

Listen to "Hang Up and Listen" with Stefan Fatsis, Josh Levin, and Mike Pesca by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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Podcast - Slate - Mike Pesca - Recreation - Directories

The Congressional Budget Office changes its mind about the House health reform bill's cost.

Timothy Noah — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:57:03 PST

On Nov. 20, when all eyes were on the Senate in anticipation of its vote to proceed with debate on health reform, a significant development in the House went largely unnoticed: The 10-year price tag for its bill dropped by $29 billion.

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Congressional Budget Office - House - United States Senate - Healthcare reform - Senate

Dear Prudence answers readers' questions live at Washingtonpost.com.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:33:18 PST

Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is on Washingtonpost.com weekly to chat with readers about their romantic, family, financial, and workplace problems. A transcript of this week's chat is below. (Read Prudie's Slate columns here.)

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Dear Prudence - Emily Yoffe - Slate - Washington Post - Washingtonpost.com

Dear Prudence: Go Ask Your Own Doctor!

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:00:31 PST

A daily video from Slate V.

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Dear Prudence - Slate - Business - Natural Stone - Materials and Supplies

The new AIG report reveals how Geithner—and U.S. taxpayers—were fleeced by Wall Street banks.

Eliot Spitzer — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:57:07 PST

The issue has been festering for months: Why were AIG's counterparties—including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS—paid 100 cents on the dollar when the feds rescued the insurance giant, helping raising the cost of the bailout to nearly $200 billion? A new report issued by Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky now reveals that government officials, notably then-New York Fed President and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, grievously damaged the nation and capitulated to the very banks they should have been supervising.

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Goldman Sachs - United States - Federal Reserve Bank of New York - Wall Street - American International Group

The best vehicles for pumpkin.

Sara Dickerman — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:43:25 PST

This fall, there is no other ingredient working it quite as hard as pumpkin. With little concern for overexposure, it makes appearances everywhere, from cocktails to dessert. Thanksgiving, of course, kicks off a few weeks when normally tempered appetites turn to splurges; and food professionals are eager to use pumpkin's nostalgic charms to drum up holiday overindulgence, adding it to everything from ravioli to brewskis. By the end of November, pumpkin's been so overhyped, it's practically a Kardashian.

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Thanksgiving - Cooking - Home - Holidays - Fruit and Vegetable

The "war on terrorism" didn't cause the Fort Hood shootings.

Christopher Hitchens — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:37:33 PST

It's both amusing and educational to observe a consensus when it suddenly starts to give way at all points without yielding an inch. A couple of weeks ago, the consoling view was that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a man more to be pitied than feared, a full-blown officer in the U.S. armed forces who was too shaken up by the stories of returned veterans to be able to function properly, and a physician too stressed-out to bear in mind that there was such a thing as a Hippocratic oath. Why, even the FBI had interpreted his e-mails to Anwar al-Awlaki as quite "consistent with research being conducted by Maj. Hasan in his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center."

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Fort Hood - Walter Reed Army Medical Center - United States armed forces - Federal Bureau of Investigation - United States

How do farmers produce so many turkeys for Thanksgiving?

Nina Shen Rastogi — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:51:20 PST

Clearly, there's a lot of demand for turkeys on Thanksgiving. What's less obvious is how turkey suppliers meet such massive, single-day demand for their not-usually-that-popular product. In 2008, the "Explainer" probed the world of turkey economics, discovering how farmers cope with the holiday. The article is reprinted below.

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Thanksgiving - Holidays - Cooking - Children and Youth - Home

The latest updates from Barack Obama's Facebook news feed.

Christopher Beam and Chris Wilson — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:33:38 PST

Health care, Sarah Palin, and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's iTunes playlist.

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Barack Obama - Facebook - United States - ITunes - Government

A dam tour. Plus a bonus question: Why doesn't China have chocolate bars?

Daniel Gross — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:25:29 PST

China may be taking baby steps to develop a consumer-based economy, but it's pretty clear that business of the nation is still business. The needs and comfort of individuals are routinely suborned to economic development. Much of China's commercial infrastructure—airports, bridges, shipping terminals, office buildings—is state of the art. But the intercity roads are for trucks and buses, not for passenger cars. The airports are designed to accommodate globe-trotting business travelers, not a mass market of local tourists. And while they may be lovely, the green waters of the Yangtze River—and the stunning amounts of concrete that have been poured into them—are intensely commercial.

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China - Yangtze River - Business - Economic development - Tourism

Does watching football lead to domestic violence?

Ray Fisman — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:42:26 PST

Later this week, families across the country will sit down for their annual turkey dinner. In many households, this will be followed immediately by another Thanksgiving tradition: switching on the TV to watch grown men bash one another to near-unconsciousness on the football field.

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Domestic violence - Television - Women - People - Violence and Abuse

Sen. Blanche Lincoln's Web site can't make up its mind about the public option.

Timothy Noah — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:29:24 PST

"Health care reform must build upon what works and improve inefficiencies. Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals of a public plan."

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Blanche Lincoln - Health care - Health insurance - United States - Insurance

Gail Collins's When Everything Changed.

Katha Pollitt — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:03:25 PST

Do you have a daughter who thinks feminists are dowdy man-haters who don't shave their legs? A single friend who blames the women's movement for her lack of a husband or children—or a married one who thinks it's Gloria Steinem's fault that she has to earn a living? I'm guessing that, unlike me, you don't know any radical feminist activists from the l970s who feel they've made virtually no difference in American women's lives—but you may well know women like a writer acquaintance of mine who confessed, a few years ago, that she'd rather not fly in a plane with a female pilot.

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Gloria Steinem - Feminism - United States - Gail Collins - People

How to amend, and not amend, the Senate health reform bill.

Timothy Noah — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:00:12 PST

Health care reform limped to the Senate floor on a party-line vote, 60-39, after Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska gave their reluctant consent. (Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, who opposes the bill, was not present.) Statistically, the Congressional Research Service has found that 97.6 percent of all Senate bills that cleared this procedural hurdle during the past 10 years eventually won final Senate passage (though some would surely argue that unique circumstances make health reform an excellent candidate to become one of the 2.4 percent of all Senate bills that do not). Senate Democrats now risk finding themselves in the position of a dog that, after chasing a car, finally overtakes it. When the Senate returns from a Thanksgiving recess, it will be to reform health care in the United States. Er, how?

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United States - Ben Nelson - Senate - Blanche Lincoln - Democratic

Judge David Hamilton and the fight over God's secular title.

Dahlia Lithwick — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:38:42 PST

Pop quiz: Which of the following names represents a nonsectarian, universal deity? Allah, Dios, Gott, Dieu, Elohim, Gud, or Jesus?

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Jesus - Christianity - Religion and Spirituality - David Hamilton - God

Made in China—and sold there, too.

Daniel Gross — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:18:15 PST

These are grim times for American executives. The public is angry, and consumers are holding on to every nickel. It's hard to escape the sense that the economic future may be less comfortable than the past. But not all American managers are gloomy. "Optimism is higher than it was last year," says Brenda Lei Foster, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. A survey of its 370 members found that more than 90 percent are optimistic about the next five years. The reason: Instead of simply shipping goods made in China back to the United States, "companies here [are] focusing on the Chinese domestic market."

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China - Shanghai - United States - Asia - Chamber of commerce

Why Sarah Palin is unlikely to be the future of the Republican Party.

John Dickerson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:44:24 PST

The future of the Republican Party will be shaped by a governor—but it's not likely to be Sarah Palin. The twin poles of the Republican Party were on display this week. One was at a Republican Governors Association meeting in Texas. The other was on the airwaves across the country as Palin methodically went rogue.

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Republican - Sarah Palin - United States - Texas - Country music

What to drink on Thanksgiving: Napa cabernet.

Mike Steinberger — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:18:18 PST

Cabernet sauvignon—and particularly the cabernet produced in California's Napa Valley—is the signature American wine. When a Napa cab, the 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, beat out some leading French wines in the Judgment of Paris, it heralded the coming-of-age of American viticulture and gave the phrase Napa cabernet international cachet. Nowadays, however, that phrase is more apt to elicit snickers than praise; in the minds of many consumers, it has become synonymous with overwrought, overhyped, and overpriced wines. Indeed, scorning Napa cabernets is almost as fashionable as dumping on California chardonnays. Plenty of Napa cabs deserve the derision, but even as the valley suffers through a richly deserved reversal of fortune, there are still producers turning out honest, delicious wines that demonstrate why people got excited about the valley in the first place. And if you are currently in the market for something homegrown and fowl-friendly to drink on Thanksgiving, these attitude-free Napa cabs will make fine choices.

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Wine - Napa Cellars - Cabernet Sauvignon - Stag's Leap Wine Cellars - California Cellars

How to score chicks on the Disney Channel.

Troy Patterson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:38:51 PST

The Suite Life on Deck (Disney Channel, Fridays at 8:30 p.m. ET) is a follow-up to The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, itself a kiddie sitcom about identical-twin boys kicking it Eloise-style at a Boston hotel. Last week, the sequel ranked as the No. 4 show on cable and No. 1 overall among children ages 6 to 11. Should children actually be watching The Suite Life? This columnist does not pretend to offer parental guidance and, as far as he knows, does not have any 6-year-old kids. But there's an outside chance that he'd prefer to plop his imaginary, rhetorical-device-type offspring in front of Law & Order during the time slot in question. Zack and Cody Martin, played by heartthrob monozygotes Dylan and Cole Sprouse, are high-school students now in their second season of spending a semester at sea on a luxury liner. Cody, who is bright and occasionally overbearing, spends week after week nursing an innocent crush on a hayseed shipmate. Zack, an unimpressive student, devotes his mental energies to pulling pranks and trying to score chicks, or whatever the TV-G-rated equivalent of scoring chicks is. The Suite Life is of course mild in its sexual content, offering double entendres-once-removed and gentle references to oiling up bikini models and such. How did the protagonists' rock-star father meet their lounge-singer mother? It is strongly implied that she threw her underwear on stage, or so Dad claims. It takes a little effort to get one's own panties in a bunch over a kids show employing material like that, but it's a snap to feel unqualified disgust for the way the show giggles at Zack's crass predations. In one episode, a new passenger turns his head, but he's turned off by her baggage, her literal baggage. The luggage locks are a bad sign. "That means she's suspicious and cautious," he says. "I'm looking for naive and vulnerable." Cue the laugh track. Elsewhere, he describes part of his philosophy of life to a pal: "There is nothing—nothing—better in this world than an unhappy hot girl." In watching eight episodes of the show, I haven't seen Zack achieve any romantic success, but nor have I seen him receive any proper sanction. Thus do I eagerly await Walt Disney's presentation of a feature-film spinoff titled Zack & Cody's Rockin' Roofie Frat Party.As if to mitigate the noxiousness of this material, the show gives us a naive-but-tough female lead in Cody's love interest, a winsome yokel named Bailey Pickett who has come to the high seas from Kettlecorn, Kansas. Bailey is all the more appealing for being presented in contrast with her roommate, a high-heeled hotel heiress drawn as a caricature of Paris Hilton, as if Paris weren't already a caricature of herself. The show intends to mock the fictional ditz, London Tipton, for her compulsive shopping and repulsive frivolity, and indeed it does. Still, there is something a trifle depressing in the way Suite Life milks her money and glamour for all the cutesiness they're worth. This is the kind of show that takes a nonjudgmental attitude toward marrying for money. Don't get me started on the ship's mincing black chaperone, Mr. Moseby, emasculated in his Bermuda shorts. He gets one of the series' least-age-appropriate laugh lines: During a shipboard beauty pageant—arranged by Zack for the purpose of scoring chicks—one young lady comes out for the talent competition wearing an Abe Lincoln beard and stovepipe hat and proceeds to skip rope while reciting the Gettysburg Address. Annoyed by the quality of the performance, Moseby despairs, "Where's John Wilkes Booth when you need him?"But what I find most bothersome about The Suite Life on Deck—more troubling, even, than the way it forces me to align myself with horrible uptight PC scolds—is its infatuation with showbiz itself. As noted, Zack and Cody are the children of professional musicians. Another shipmate is a former professional singer. (His stage name—give the show some credit for wit—was Li'l Little.) London hosts a Web series, titled Yay Me!, which actually exists on the Disney Channel's site. Of course, TV would be nowhere without the backstage doings of Monkees and Partridges, of Liz Lemon and Desi Arnaz and all the rest. But really. In common with such other Disney fare as Jonas, Hannah Montana, and Sonny With a Chance—and also iCarly, the big Nickelodeon show of the moment—Suite Life can see no further than the camera. Right now, a startling volume of tween culture is devoted, directly or indirectly, to puttin' on a show in the manner of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. It seems important to remember that things didn't work out too well for Judy in the long run.

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Suite Life of Zack & Cody - Disney Channel - John Wilkes Booth - Hannah Montana - Cody Martin

The Political Gabfest for Nov. 20, 2009.

Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:14:31 PST

Become a fan of the Political Gabfest on Facebook. We post to the Facebook page throughout the week, so keep the conversation going by joining us there. Listen to the Gabfest for Nov. 20 by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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Facebook - Social Networking - Online Communities - United States - Government

Stupid drug story of the week: NBC's Today show discovers huffing.

Jack Shafer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:53:37 PST

In the annals of stupid drug reporting, a special commendation must be reserved for NBC's Today show, which on Nov. 19 aired (video) one the stupidest drug stories in broadcast news. The program, which specializes in terrorizing mothers with sensationalist stories, discovered that today's kids are "huffing" inhalants from hair spray and air duster cans.

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Today - NBC - Television - Broadcasting - Arts

Slate writers and editors debate the ramifications of new cancer-screening guidelines.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:51:57 PST

This week, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that most women begin regular mammograms starting at age 50 instead of 40. Days later, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists revised its guidelines on cervical cancer screening: Now it suggests women receive their first Pap smears later than previously recommended and, depending on certain risk factors, get them less frequently. The move to reduce unnecessary screening has some critics of health care reform suggesting that America is moving headlong toward rationing care. In a Facebook note today, Sarah Palin wrote, "We need to carefully watch this debate as it coincides with Capitol Hill's debate and determine whether we are witnessing the early stages of that rationed care before the Senate bill is rushed through as well." After chief political correspondent John Dickerson sent Palin's note around, Slate staffers began debating what, exactly, rationing is; the value of screening; and the relationship between patients and the medical community. An edited transcript of the discussion is below.

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Cancer - United States - U.S. Preventive Services Task Force - Cervical cancer - American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

What it will cost you to deny health insurance to illegal immigrants.

Timothy Noah — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:50:09 PST

In his Sept. 9 speech to Congress on health care, when President Obama said, "The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shot back: "You lie!" What Obama meant was that health care reform would not extend government subsidies to illegal aliens to purchase health insurance. What Wilson meant was that health care reform would nonetheless allow illegal immigrants who were uninsured to purchase unsubsidized health insurance through the exchanges that reform would create. Indeed, to whatever extent the government could track down uninsured illegal immigrants through the tax system, it would compel them to buy health insurance. This was unacceptable to Wilson and other conservatives—not because they felt illegal immigrants should be left in peace, but because they felt illegal immigrants should be excluded entirely from whatever superstructure would be created by health care reform.

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Joe Wilson - United States Congress - Health insurance - Barack Obama - Insurance

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleansreviewed.

Dana Stevens — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:47:11 PST

This review only needs to consist of six words: Werner Herzog. Nicolas Cage. Bad Lieutenant. Not every one of those elements (with the possible exception of Herzog's name) is enough to sell a movie on its own, but the combination? Most definitely. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Edward R. Pressman Films) isn't really a remake of Bad Lieutenant, Abel Ferrara's 1992 exploration of a crooked cop's journey through the depths of spiritual debasement. It's more like a dream one might have after watching the original Bad Lieutenant, doing three lines of cocaine, staying up all night, and collapsing on some none-too-clean sheets in a seedy New Orleans motel. The main thing the two films share is a fascination with abjection—these aren't just bad lieutenants, they're baaaad lieutenants. It's a fascination so extreme and so systematic that it exists at the permeable border between high drama and low comedy.

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BadLieutenant - AbelFerrara - New Orleans - Nicolas Cage - Werner Herzog

Reviews of: Twilight: New Moon, The Blind Side, and Planet 51

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:30:44 PST

A daily video from Slate V.

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New Moon - Solar System - Earth - Astronomy - Planets

Bidenisms: A collection of the vice president's gaffes and head-slappers.

Jeremy Stahl — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:07:16 PST

The vice president did not produce any new Bidenisms this week, but we've dug one out of the archives in honor of his 67th birthday today. Please continue to send your nominations (with a link, please) to slatebidenisms@gmail.com. For more, and our stab at a definition, see "The Complete Bidenisms."

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United States - Gmail - History - Vice Presidents - Complete Bidenisms

The Blind Side reviewed.

Josh Levin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:25:24 PST

Michael Lewis' book The Blind Side tells the true story of Michael Oher, a poor black kid who gets adopted by a rich white family and transforms himself into a football star. The movie version zooms in on Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock), the woman who gave the hard-up prodigy the care and feeding that he needed to become a man and an NFL draft pick. This feels less like an artistic choice than an economic one. The Blind Side plays like filmmaking by focus group, a movie that aims to please and ends up condescending to its audience.

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Sandra Bullock - Michael Oher - Blind Side: Evolution Of A Game - Michael Lewis - Blind Side

What's the greenest way to get home for Thanksgiving?

Jacob Leibenluft — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:23:24 PST

A new report from AAA, the car association, predicts that 33.2 million Thanksgiving travelers will be driving at least 50 miles to their holiday destinations this year. Another 2.3 million are expected to fly somewhere for the weekend, and many more will be riding intercity buses and trains. Last year around this time, the Lantern looked at the carbon emissions associated with these various forms of travel. The column is reprinted below.

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Thanksgiving - Travel - holiday - American Automobile Association - AAA

What a meal of beef stomach and duck throats taught me about the new China.

Daniel Gross — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:22:46 PST

"So what's that?" I asked, gesturing at a bowl of grayish fleshy ribbons with little spikes. It was one of the many tough-to-identify animal parts cramming the Lazy Susan. Zhang Haiqing, deputy director of the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, Chongqing Municipal People's Government, mulled the question for a minute. A gracious host to a group of journalists who had traveled to Chongqing, Zhang had lived in Seattle in the 1990s. He probably intuited the squeamishness of the visiting Americans.

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China - United States - Chongqing - Seattle - Asia

What's the best way for the Twilight vampires to drink blood?

Christopher Beam — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:18:13 PST

New Moon, the second installment of the Twilight series, hits theaters today. It features a family of teenage vampires who drink animal blood and who look down on those vampires "weak" enough to prey on humans. The film raises several questions about the logistics—and aesthetics—of blood-drinking.

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Vampire - Twilight - New Moon - People - Otherkin

Retracing the path of the iconic movie on its 40th anniversary.

Keith Phipps — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:11:42 PST

Day 6 I begin the day by flying from Albuquerque, N.M., to New Orleans. It's cheating, but only a little. Warned not to film in Texas because the state had no patience for long hair, Easy Rider skipped the state, so I do, too. Renting a car at the airport, I head directly to Morganza, La., a rural community up the road from Baton Rouge where Hanson, Wyatt, and Billy try, and fail, to enjoy a meal. "You name it, I'll throw rocks at it," one local tells the town sheriff as they enter the diner. The teenage girls dining there have a different reaction. Visibly attracted to the men, they follow them outside and coo over their bikes. Easy Rider used locals as the diner patrons and Fonda recalls giving the men a single line of motivation: "We've just raped a 13-year-old white girl outside of town."

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New Mexico - San Diego - United States - New Orleans - Arizona

Corrections from the last week.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:00:07 PST

In the Nov. 17 "Prescriptions," Timothy Noah misspelled the name of Len Nichols' co-author on the paper that first proposed a "level playing field" version of the public option. It's John M. Bertko, not Berko.

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Business - United States - Timothy Noah - Connecticut - Investing

Slate Magazine

Slate V: Reviews of: The Road, Ninja Assassin, and Old Dogs

The Slatest: Thanksgiving Edition

The case against Thanksgiving leftover recipes.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Bob Dylan's Christmas album, sprinter Caster Semenya, and the new documentary Le Danse.

How the gun lobby groped its way into the health reform debate.

How do movie blurbs work?

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The New York Times Magazine delivers a journalistic cliché in its Joe Biden feature.

Saving Face: A chick-lit novel written in real time. With your help.

Reviews of: The Road, Ninja Assassin, and Old Dogs

Baltimore tells crisis pregnancy centers to say they don't do abortions.

On Afghanistan, President Obama will have to answer Sen. Obama's questions.

Is The City destroying America?

The NFL Network's RedZone channel reveals the future of fandom.

Nostalgia for the contact sheet.

China is a Communist country, but I have yet to meet an actual Communist.

What is on the other side of Siberia? The Jewish Autonomous Region.

The Road reviewed.

Why do we eat turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas?

God told my boyfriend to stop having sex with me.

Facebook plotting an IPO?

Stop comparing Sarah Palin's approval ratings with Barack Obama's.

Why Obama supporters ought to count their blessings.

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How can you tell whether someone was asleep when he committed murder?

C'mon, you can do better than a gift card.

The Time Scalia Got It Wrong

Green beans have no place on a Thanksgiving menu.

Did Franklin D. Roosevelt actually die from cancer?

Would Roald Dahl have liked Wes Anderson's adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox?

Joan Biskupic's American Original.

What's the best vegetarian turkey? (Hint: It's not Tofurky.)

What kind of Thanksgiving turkey is best for the environment?

"Funeral"

Netbooks, e-book readers, and other Black Friday bargains to avoid.

No one wants America to be the sole global superpower, but no one wants to share the load.

The Senate wants to put a "botax" on plastic surgery. That's a bad idea.

A Slate contest: Can you write like Sarah Palin?

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A day in the life of a refugee.

To win in Afghanistan, our military must cooperate with local militias.

Slate's sports podcast Hang Up and Listen for the week of Nov. 23, 2009.

The Congressional Budget Office changes its mind about the House health reform bill's cost.

Dear Prudence answers readers' questions live at Washingtonpost.com.

Dear Prudence: Go Ask Your Own Doctor!

The new AIG report reveals how Geithner—and U.S. taxpayers—were fleeced by Wall Street banks.

The best vehicles for pumpkin.

The "war on terrorism" didn't cause the Fort Hood shootings.

How do farmers produce so many turkeys for Thanksgiving?

The latest updates from Barack Obama's Facebook news feed.

A dam tour. Plus a bonus question: Why doesn't China have chocolate bars?

Does watching football lead to domestic violence?

Sen. Blanche Lincoln's Web site can't make up its mind about the public option.

Gail Collins's When Everything Changed.

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How to amend, and not amend, the Senate health reform bill.

Judge David Hamilton and the fight over God's secular title.

Made in China—and sold there, too.

Why Sarah Palin is unlikely to be the future of the Republican Party.

What to drink on Thanksgiving: Napa cabernet.

How to score chicks on the Disney Channel.

The Political Gabfest for Nov. 20, 2009.

Stupid drug story of the week: NBC's Today show discovers huffing.

Slate writers and editors debate the ramifications of new cancer-screening guidelines.

What it will cost you to deny health insurance to illegal immigrants.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleansreviewed.

Reviews of: Twilight: New Moon, The Blind Side, and Planet 51

Bidenisms: A collection of the vice president's gaffes and head-slappers.

The Blind Side reviewed.

What's the greenest way to get home for Thanksgiving?

Advertisement:

What a meal of beef stomach and duck throats taught me about the new China.

What's the best way for the Twilight vampires to drink blood?

Retracing the path of the iconic movie on its 40th anniversary.

Corrections from the last week.