My buddy Ellen Painter Dollar introduced me to Catherine Newman, whose writing I just love. She’s hilariously funny and irreverent, and she writes about family and food and justice and she’s Jewish and has the same birthday as my son and she laughs and snorts about the ridiculousness of online writing and commenting with the self-assurance and humor I hope to have someday. Plus, she writes for Brain, Child, a magazine I looove, wrote a book that made me laugh... Read more
Way out here on the beautiful East End of Long Island, restaurants are pricey. Today only, there’s a great deal in town: $18 for a fish & chips dinner that includes sides and dessert at St. Agnes’ RC Church in Greenport. At Noah’s, a fish & chips costs $24. At O’Malley’s, it’s $19.95. At Claudio’s, you can’t get anything seafoodish for under $25–and that’s before tax & tip. This is a deal, folks. A deal. Let me tell you what,... Read more
Nine years, three degrees, three states, three countries, two continents, two children and one cat later, I still say, Where you go, I will go. Including to Broadway! To see Death of a Salesman! With Philip Seymour Hoffman! {Thank you!!!} Read more
{In response to some discussion on the Trayvon Martin case, I’m happy to welcome Tim Fall (who’s a a judge) back to the blog to talk about due process.} I have the only job Jesus ever explicitly prohibited: “Judge not.” (Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37.) Yet every day I put on a black robe (I call it my black muumuu) and sit on the bench judging. It’s a living. Of course, Jesus isn’t talking about judging as a profession, or exercising... Read more
{fair warning: mild artistic nudity} Only one of the other posts in this series hasn’t focused on a toy (The Evolution of Morton Salt & Coca-Cola), but it’s interesting to me for a few reasons: 1. The woman on the White Rock beverages label is from an actual work of (originally non-commercial) art: Psyche at Nature’s Mirror by Paul Thumann. White Rock purchased the rights to the painting and has used it–and variations on it–as part of their logo for... Read more
Some weeks ago the New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote a piece praising the hardened, noir heros (like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon) who were “moral realists,” who “assume[d] that everybody is dappled with virtue and vice, especially himself,” apparently in contrast to young enthusiastic activists who are “bursting with enthusiasm for some social entrepreneurship project: making a cheap water-purification system, starting a company that will empower Rwandan women by selling their crafts in boutiques around the world.”... Read more
Last year, the New York Times ran a little story about the effectiveness of a “small fix”: safe birth kits. From the article: “…when babies are delivered in unsanitary conditions without proper care, terrible things can happen to an otherwise healthy child. Each year, close to one million newborns die from infections, according to the World Health Organization. For this reason, the United Nations Population Fund and numerous aid organizations are distributing so-called safe birth kits in the developing world.... Read more
You know how Parisians have a reputation for being nasty, especially to tourists? Maybe it’s partly because tourists are nasty. I hate to admit, I can really, really identify with American-disdaining Parisians. I, myself, struggle with being an American-disdaining Greenporter. My town has, in the last decade or so, become a destination for vacationers and day-trippers. There’s a bus that runs between here and New York City, and something like 30% of the homes in this town are 2nd homes–vacation... Read more
So I’m back to regularly bringing Saturday night dinners to Mrs. S. at the nursing home. While I long ago gave up on cooking for her from Fannie Farmer (Ms. Fannie’s recipes being a bit too unreliable for my taste), I do try to cook foods that are familiar to Mrs. S., who also enjoys occasional take out from Brick Oven Pizza (who around here doesn’t?) and random mid-week visits with coffee and donuts from Blue Duck Bakery (again, who... Read more
Julia Bluhm, a 14 year old from Maine created a petition asking Seventeen magazine to commit to running one unaltered–“real”–photo spread in each issue. She brought a copy of the magazine to school, where, at lunch, she showed it to people and asked them to sign if they agreed. She has gathered over 45,000 signatures. Julia told the New York Times: “I look at the girls, and a lot of them, like, they don’t have freckles, or moles, anywhere on... Read more
Rachel Marie Stone
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