As I read through the 100-odd answers I got from readers about what they’ve refused to give up in the recession, I was struck by the different ways people characterize what they want least to sacrifice. Sometimes, correspondents presented their cherished purchase as an entirely personal weakness—an indulgence, small or large, that alleviates the pain of loss of income or employment. While some clung to certain expenses because they saw consumption of a particular good or service as vital to their own identity, other readers framed their must-haves as investments in themselves or in their children. Judging by this people seem to be clinging in the greatest numbers to good food (20), pets (18), Internet and cable TV (13), education (11), and travel (10). And less often, but tellingly, readers are hanging on to things like staying home with their kids or throwing their own wedding.[more …]

Guy Trebay—who is a good enough journalist to know better—proclaims in the Aug. 13 New York Times Thursday Styles section that a potbelly is the summer of 2009’s hip signifier—the new “trucker cap and wallet chain” for New York hipsters (”It’s Hip To Be Round”).[more …]

Season 3 Preview: In praise of the gluttonous, lecherous, over-entitled Roger Sterling.[more …]

1) “Cost of Living: Sarah Palin is afraid Obamacare will put a price on human life. But we already do,” by Christopher Beam. Whether they’re based in fact or not, Sarah Palin’s ominous warnings about “death panels” have Americans scared of the specter of the government assigning value to people’s lives. But insurance companies put a price on human life all the time. And for an example of government doing the same, we need only look across the pond.[more …]

Black Americans live shorter lives and have poorer health outcomes when compared with whites. Health researchers, depending on their political persuasion, explain this disparity in one of two ways, neither of which is very constructive.[more …]

Our last day. We decided to eat brunch at the clubhouse before driving back to the airport. And just to prove that life is a circle and everything is connected, when we walked into the clubhouse, I saw a guy who looked awfully familiar. He was wearing a T-shirt that read “Ojibwe Veteran’s Powwow, Red Lake, 2005.” I looked hard, and I said, “Rocky, is that you?” It was. Rocky Cook. From Red Lake Reservation, just up the road from me. He was with his wife, Lorena, also from Red Lake. They have both known my parents since the 1960s, both knew my siblings. I had gone to high school and graduated with their daughter Holly. I wasn’t totally surprised: I knew that Holly had married Mark Macarro, the Pechanga chairman. I knew also that Holly was expecting a baby, so it must have come.[more …]

When a federal judge ordered 17 Chinese Uighurs, detained at Guantanamo Bay, released into the United States last October, he took to its logical conclusion the judiciary’s increasingly bold effort to supervise the president and Congress. Justifying his ruling in the face of Congress’ exclusive constitutional power over when, which, and how foreign nationals may enter the United States, Judge Ricardo Urbina reasoned that “our system of checks and balances is designed to preserve the fundamental right of liberty.” He saw his order as necessary to that end. But if he’s right, then the judiciary itself is the unchecked branch of government. And while judges have expanded their power before in our history, never have the claims to supremacy of some of them been so extreme.[more …]

In an Aug. 13 “Science” column, Dave Goldberg mispelled Joe Polchinski’s name and did not distinguish between his past and current university affiliations.[more …]

The Washington Post leads, and the Wall Street Journal goes high, with news that Europe’s two largest economies have surprisingly escaped from the recession, raising hopes that the worldwide downturn may be on its final legs. Germany and France both reported modest recoveries that put them ahead of other industrialized economies, including the United States and the United Kingdom. The New York Times leads with news that researchers may have opened a new strategy to treat cancer by identifying drugs that can kill cancer stem cells. Many believe that cancerous stem cells, which are very resistant to treatment and can constantly renew themselves, cause tumors to grow back after chemotherapy. Now this latest research has found there are certain drugs that can attack the cancer stem cells without harming ordinary cells.[more …]

In these days of pseudo-celebrity and rampant vapidity, of self-objectification and professional narcissism, of commodified sex and degraded love on every channel—in these days of what a friend terms the death of culture—it is healthy every now and then to cry uncle, sit back, and appreciate the mindless pleasures that the apocalypse has to offer. In such a spirit of giggling capitulation do I recommend Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami (E!, Sundays at 10 p.m. ET), a reality show about frivolity, sorority, and the bikini bottoms of South Beach.The heroines are Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian. It is common to say that people like Kourtney and Khloé are “famous for being famous.” False! They are primarily famous for being the sisters of Kim Kardashian, the callipygian model-actress and sex-tape starlet. However, Kourtney and Khloé have stayed famous by simply being famous, and that is its own achievement. The three girls’ shared aesthetic mingles red-carpet sultry and hip-hop vampy. Somehow one feels that a Kardashian is most in her element wearing white jeans under a black light in a VIP room. They’re confident enough never to let good taste stand in the way of making a big impression. They co-own a boutique called Dash, which sells boring dresses at a number of different price points. Its Web site also sells spring water: “Inside, there is a picture of your favorite Dash sisters imprinted on the bottle!” $8.The premise or pretense of Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami involves the two opening a second boutique in North America’s most refined and subdued metropolitan area. “Single sisters in Miami,” one says to the camera. “We’re in party city,” says the other, as if completing the pitch. The girls blur together whenever they’re explicitly promoting themselves, which is about half the time, but it’s otherwise pretty easy to keep Kourtney and Khloé straight. Kourtney, slighter and softer, is the nondiva, merely a darling piglet among camera hogs. Khloé is the drama queen. Her other gig in Miami is hosting a late-night radio show. Given her vivid shamelessness and her keen reluctance to shut up, she promises to be a hit. The central conflict in Sunday’s episode concerns a visit that sister Kim is making to Miami to promote the store. Initially, Khloé is cheesed off that Kim that is not making like a team player. “Kim is busy working on her personal brand,” she says, rolling her eyes with her whole body, clearly disgruntled that her own brand is still in gestation. We have to wait a scene or two to see the van that Khloé’s radio station has tricked out to promote her show. In its rendering of her face, she’s got footwide eyelashes that look like they’ve been slathered in pine tar and a finger up to her pout. The Khloé brand is steamy, so steamy as to suffocate.Tensions between Kim and Khloé come to a head at a prelaunch meeting with the boutique’s Miami publicists. Khloé, unable to bear it that Kim’s appearance at the launch party is good PR, behaves with tremendous petulance. Kim, unwilling to be the target of such crankiness, calls Khloé stupid. Kourtney, trying to find a way to act as a mediator, fidgets with her phone, a BlackBerry that sets off her manicure nicely. The producers, wanting us to believe it possible that Kim might actually skip town before the party, present a scene in which Kim Kardashian packs her luggage to go back to California. For my money, a scene depicting an attractive, empty celebrity packing her bags is what reality TV is all about. Watch her folding the T-shirts with care, then sling the four-figure Louboutin boots on top. Glamour, banality, voyeurism, excess. It’s all rather purple, a lovely lurid sunset.[more …]