-
sponsorship
KJ, I too was thrilled to read that Time had declared an end to overparenting. But the story proved the opposite, with many earnest and unintentionally hilarious examples of supposedly mellow parents. If you truly wanted to stop overparenting you would just cancel the Suzuki lessons, call off the therapist, stop spying on the playground, and watch Sponge Bob, right? But this new class of parents praised by Time are joining a movement ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
A stolen cache of e-mails from climate scientists reveals a disturbing pattern of possible manipulation and destruction of data, as well as plans to destroy the careers of warming skeptics. Since 10 years of flat temperatures show the climate models are poor at prediction, this seems like a good time to question the science before we further remake the world's economies to save us from melting ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
Sad news out of Ohio: Funeral services will be held tomorrow for Stefanie Spielman, who died late last week at age 42 after a very long—and very public—struggle with breast cancer. Spielman might have been among the millions of women who face breast cancer quietly and privately if not for the gesture her husband, Chris, made upon her first diagnosis, at age 30 ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
Emily B,
I agree with you that it’s really unfortunate that the conclusion that
we don’t need to routinely do mammograms until 50, instead of aparking
a national, rational discussion about the advisability of “screening
and prevention,” has become the harbinger that we’re all going to live
under British health care rationing. The debate over whether we benefit
from searching for early cancers is not new, and no wonder the public
is so confused. This is like the “no fat” to “no carbs” pendulum swings
on official diet recommendation ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
I've been trying to understand the flap this week over the recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Task Force—a group ill-prepared to handle the controversy—to
delay routine mammograms to age 50 for most women. And now, in a truly
terrible coincidence of timing, we have a second round of commotion
over the advice of the American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists to push pap smears to screen for cervical cancer back to age 21 ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
A post from DoubleX Staff:
I know what they say, that holidays are occasions to revisit family
stress. Many a great novel and movie has been built on this premise.
And in general, I would say it's true. The Jewish holidays are all
about starving and yelling. Vacations involve too much childcare. But
for me, Thanksgiving is the blissful exception. Maybe it's because I
really like my in-laws. Maybe it's because turkey has a soporific
effect. Or maybe it's because my mother-in-law bakes dozens of pies, at
a ratio that works out to be about one per person. Who could complain
about that? ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
A post from DoubleX writer KJ Dell'Antonia:
Time magazine's "Can These Parents Be Saved?" story
offers a glorious rundown of the rampant possibilities for
overparenting that have become available in recent years. From kid
leashes ("Kinderkords") to fears about kindergarden
"pencil-holding-deficiency," the opportunities for parental
self-congratulation are plentiful—almost anyone can think "I may have
hovered once in a while, but I was never that bad" ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
sponsorship
placeAd2(commercialNode,'120x90',false,'')
A post from DoubleX writer Kerry Howley:
Yoga is a meditative practice sometimes thought to help liberate the
soul from all worldly suffering. The Olympics are a tribalistic
sporting event in which nation states battle to produce impressive
feats of human athleticism. Bikram Choudhury—a man who teaches yoga in
a speedo and a diamond-studded Rolex, guards his trademarked pose
sequences like a Rottweiler on meth, and likes to compare his balls to “atom bombs”—says its high time to combine the two. “This,” Bikram’s wife tells the New York Times, “is our dream" ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
Oprah Winfrey is going to announce today that she will be leaving her eponymous talk show in 2011. The New York Times believes Winfrey is resigning from network TV in order to focus on the cable network she's working on, called OWN, which will feature shows from all of her favorite cronies, like Dr. Oz, Rachael Ray, and Dr. Phil. While this might be the case, I think another reason Oprah is hanging up the mic is because she has destroyed the core of what made her so popular in the first place: She's no longer relatable ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
A post from DoubleX writer Lauren Bans:
Last week the Wall Street Journal interviewed basically every good living writer and asked them to share tips on sitting down and penning a book. The only clear lesson to emerge from the piece (titled "How To Write A Great Book") is that there is no set step-by-step instructional for writing a great book. That, and writing is hard so famous authors invent their own eccentric tactics to deal with the inevitable torture that is writer’s block ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
Make no mistake, my main response to Sarah Palin's book is teeth-gnashing,
because 1) she lies and never admits it. And her death-penalty lie
mattered. And 2) she never acknowledges her debt to feminism ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
A guest post from Cindy Pearson, the executive director of the National Women's Health Network:
Mammography screening just doesn’t work very well in women before menopause, as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has now recognized.
Everyone hoped that it would. But in 1993, it became clear from
well-done studies that our hopes hadn’t panned out, and screening just
didn’t work well for women in their 40s (or at all, for even younger
women). The fact that most women didn’t know this, and instead received
a falsely optimistic message about the life-saving benefits of
once-a-year mammography screening, was incredibly frustrating. More background here.
At the National Women’s Health Network, we’re glad that the
federally appointed task force has told the truth about what studies
have found. Now women have a better chance of getting an honest
assessment about the value of a heavily promoted technology.
Information is always a good thing ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
We keep hearing from proponents of health care reform that government rationing of health care is a “canard.”
We don’t have health care reform yet, but with the new recommendations
from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that women shouldn’t get
mammograms until the age of 50, and then only every two years, it feels
like we’re getting the rationing.
The Los Angeles Times writes
that “[i]nsurance companies and Medicare administrators … said they
they would continue to pay for the procedure -- although it is not
clear how long they can resist the panel's influence.” The LAT adds that the panel’s recommendations are “generally followed” by insurers and Medicare ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
A post from DoubleX writer KJ Dell'Antonia:
Politico.com reports
that days after husband Mark Sanford admitted to having an affair,
Jenny Sanford filed an application to trademark her name for use in
"product merchandising to be sold at online retail store featuring
clothing, mugs and other household items; stickers, decals, notepads.’”
Herein, a few ideas that should sell out fast. OK, we get that this kind of thing is probably exactly what Jenny
Sanford is trying to prevent. But here are a few items we'd like to see
in our scorned-wife-fantasy-revenge-scenario of the still- (but
presumably soon-to-be-former) Mrs. Sanford's store (that would be
VindictiveBitch.com):
The "My husband went to Argentina and all I got was this damn divorce?" mug ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
Emily Y., Emily B., Hanna, and Jessica: You’re all so on point with your observations of Sarah Palin. Like Emily Y., I would like to see her go away, but not before I add my voice to the chorus of why I believe she is a fraud.
I watched Palin on Oprah yesterday afternoon. I wanted to
hear what she had to say, since I have no intention of reading, let
alone buying, her book. There are enough published excerpts of Going Rogue that I’ve already gotten my fill ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
-
sponsorship
Emily, Hanna, Jess, Rachael, if Sarah Palin were Sam Palin, would
anyone still be interested in her? Dan Quayle was a good-looking,
young, conservative, politician who, in his roll-out as a
vice-presidential candidate, impressed everyone as being a dope who was
in over his head. After his vice presidency, he blessedly slipped from
public life. Palin has shown that she doesn't think a mastery of—or
even much of a familiarity with—the issues of the day is a requirement
for highest office. I hope her political future will be Quayle-like
oblivion ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
After some deliberation, we have decided to fold DoubleX back into Slate.
The site will now become its own section, with our XX Factor blog,
articles, and special projects already in the works. Our aim is to
create a more intimate version of the community we have built, with
many of the same voices and passions ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
A post from DoubleX writer Amanda Marcotte:
If you're interested in reading a refreshing burst of honesty today, you could do worse than Aaron Traister's piece
about the different reactions he received from people when he told them
he was expecting a son and when he told them, a couple years later,
that he was expecting a daughter. Americans tend to think we're above
the prejudices that drive people in China and India to use
sex-selective abortion, but as Traister's piece shows, we're far from
the angels we'd like to pretend we are. ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
Emily, I think Palin means this as one of her folksy nuggets of wisdom,
and you are supposed to chuckle as you imagine her mediating toddler
disputes over frozen moose pops. And of course it's not that. But you
have to admit that this is a thoroughly radical and maybe even weirdly
feminist notion, particularly coming from a conservative woman. ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
-
sponsorship
I would really like to drive a stake in the heart of the argument,
repeated once again by Sarah Palin in her book, that “there’s no better
training ground for politics than motherhood." At first glance, it’s
oh-so unobjectionable. But in Palin's hands, the demands of motherhood
aren’t a form of preparation that complements other kinds, like
learning about the rest of the globe before you run for vice-president.
Nope, the motherhood version of the can-do ethic makes it OK to have a
know-nothing ethic as well. Hell, if you've got enough mommy moxie you
can celebrate your lack of intellectual know-how. And you can spit on
feminism every step of the way. ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?