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Speaking of the silly, I think the fact that this story from today—about the popularity of candy shops during a recession—is the most e-mailed article at the New York Times Web site says more about public appetites for absurdist, sometimes funny, mostly groan-inducing trend stories during a recession than it does about candy’s allure in times of trouble. I, recessionista, myself bought some sweets recently—but not because pink Peeps make me remember the days when the Dow topped 11,000, but because it’s almost Easter, and man is that stuff on sale. (Also, just as a nod to an actual policy discussion: Corn syrup, subsidized, even/especially in a recession, is still cheap.) Back to the media criticism: Perhaps consumers are trying to escape by eating more junk food—but they're certainly reading more of the equivalent, too.
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On the occasion of daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful's 22nd anniversary (the little-recognized molybdenum anniversary) Entertainment Weekly has a slide show counting up super-couple Ridge and Brooke's many jaunts down the aisle. It's not necessary to know who Ridge and Brooke are to enjoy this list, since it perfectly encapsulates soaps' semi-heroic insistence on remaining absurd with or without prior knowledge of BRidge. Since 1990, the two have been the bride or groom in 19 weddings. For some of these weddings they married each other. For some they married each other's relatives. Some were completed, some were interrupted (by presumed dead wives and other inconveniences), and some took place on beaches. Ridge was shirtless for one, unless a lei counts as a top. All but the most recent (which took place in January 2009) have ended, usually in a divorce. (Sometimes you get married because you think you're carrying one guy's baby, but then it turns out to be his brother's, OK?)
Soaps are the television that time forgot. While the networks and, especially, basic and premium cable are churning out better and better shows, soap operas remain fundamentally the same. There have been some technological advances—Guiding Light shoots digitally now—but the plots are still overdramatic and ridiculous—a dead girl's doppelgänger just showed up on General Hospital. (Please don't ask me how I know this.) The form is hemorrhaging viewers because younger audiences just aren’t interested. I have a hard time imagining what soaps would have to do to attract new viewers in large numbers (not pretending marriage No. 12 is perfect and going to last forever and ever might be a start) and so suspect they won't be on daytime TV indefinitely. Laugh while you can.
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The Observer has an admiring piece on Eliot Spitzer's phoenix-like public image "resurrection." First came the Slate column. This week, there's a Newsweek byline, an interview, and a Nation nomination for treasury secretary. "[H]e says what he thinks!" Slate editor David Plotz crows. "[I]t's back-to-square-one time, and Mr. Spitzer seems to be bringing all of his Sisyphean strength to bear on the project," the Observer admires. "At rare moments, I’ll do my best to add to the public conversation," Spitzer demurs. What struck me as interesting was less this latest installment of a fallen politician's return from a sex scandal (yawn) but the contrast with the media's portrayal of his wife, Silda. The March issue of Vogue makes it more than clear how we're expected to see Mrs. Spitzer a year later: as a victim. "The survivor," the headline slapped next to her reads. I guess, in the end, it's all pretty typical. The public's initial stance of scorn at Spitzer's sexual transgression was just that—a show, designed by a public that wishes to perceive itself as above the very behaviors that its members partake in regularly. Meanwhile, Silda gets stuck in the victim rut, where America will keep her, if it has its way. If we had to perceive her any other way, we'd have to ask ourselves if we would do the same thing that she did—and, if we did so, if we were right in doing so.
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Hah, Jessica, thank you for posting that Meghan-McCain-as-goth-Betty-Boop TV clip. The thing I find the weirdest about McCain is that even as she flaunts her next-gen cred (telling Larry King she likes it when Republicans in their 40s and 50s bash her and encouraging the GOP to get with the 21st-century program), she's fashioning a personal image for herself that's oddly retro: the cute, bubbly, vintage-fashion-dudded (she's got a bit of a Felicity Shagwell look going) girl who can barely add and is all-over sweetly clueless about book-smart things. It's kind of political pundit meets I Dream of Jeannie.
Am I too harsh? It's funny how this whole persona was a lot more charming when it represented McCain's rebellion from being just another rigid, scripted, all-too-professional-and-poised candidate's child, like in this from-the-trail blog post I still remember from last summer:
On our way home we met a police officer whose last name was “McNutt.” It reminded me of "McLovin" in the movie, “Superbad.” It still makes me laugh!
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Emily and Torie, my grasp of the regulatory issues is imperfect, but it’s my understanding that a drug company would have to apply for over-the-counter status through the FDA. (I've never heard a single plausible medical justification for keeping birth control prescription-only.) There are various reasons why drug companies would not want to attempt this; the most obvious being that pharmaceutical companies can charge much higher prices for prescription drugs covered by insurance. Companies would also see resistance from gynecologists, who rely on their prescription powers to keep women coming back for annual appointments.
Torie, I understand your concern about insurance refusing to pay for OTC drugs, but it seems to me that your logic applies to every single drug that has gone over-the-counter, from Prilosec to Nicoderm. Keeping birth control prescription-only actually raises the cost for the poorest women—those without insurance who must pay retail at that the pharmacy counter and pay out of pocket for the doctor’s appointment required to get the prescription. When drugs go OTC the price plummets, so the cost to the consumer without insurance falls. Here's a blurb from a 2006 survey by the Pharmacy Access Partnership, a group that advocates for wider emergency contraception access:
Women said convenience, simplicity and affordability were their highest considerations when choosing their current contraceptive. Fifty-four percent of women also chose their method because it did not require a prescription. African-Americans (65%) were more likely to choose a method because it did not need a prescription, compared to Caucasians (51%) and Latinas (54%). Importantly, 20% of women said the cost of a visit to the doctor was an obstacle in obtaining a prescription contraceptive. Overall, 28% of women have had problems with obtaining a prescription for contraception, filling the prescription or getting to their supplies when they needed them. Women who had fewer resources to manage an unintended pregnancy (uninsured women, single women and younger women) were more likely to have experienced problems with obtaining a prescription for contraception.
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I, too, applaud the move to make Plan B available over the counter for 17-year-olds, but, Kerry, I have to raise one problem that could accompany making hormonal birth control OTC: insurance. Many insurance plans don't cover OTC medication, unless it's a special program intended to keep costs down, like providing an incentive for people to use a specific OTC heartburn medication instead of an expensive prescription drug that's not more effective. Insurance companies like the checks and balances of going through a doctor and a pharmacist before shelling out. Yaz, which you mention, costs about $60 per month retail, I believe, depending on the store, the state, etc. Planned Parenthood and other resources might step in to help, but those of us who already have high copays on birth control would feel the hit if we had to start paying full price. Considering the battles waged over getting insurance companies to pay for birth control, I can't imagine that many plans would be willing to alter their OTC policies to cover the an over-the-counter pill.
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Kerry, interesting point about making regular birth-control available without a prescription. I wonder what the medical reasons for classifying it as a prescription drug are—do you know?
In the meantime, I'm relishing Monday's Plan B decision as a rare fact-based inquiry and denouncement, by a federal judge, of the kind of monkeying around with science that we've long heard pervaded Bush agencies. Federal judges don't interfere with the decisions of federal agencies unless those decisions really, really have no legitimate basis—in legal-ese, they have to be deemed "arbitrary and capricious." This is what Judge Edward Korman concluded in his ruling kicking the Food and Drug Administration for its denial of access to Plan B (the morning-after pill that prevents pregnancy) to girls who are 17 as opposed to women 18 and older.
Because of the FDA's stubborn insistence on its arbitrary age-based distinction, the Plan B pill, which is not a prescription drug, had to be stocked behind the pharmacy counter rather than out on the shelves. And 17-year-olds, of course, weren't allowed to buy it at all. I hear you, Rachael, in wondering whether feminism is broad enough to include women who are pro-life. But making birth control harder to get is a whole different ball game to me. I understand that Plan B falls into a tricky in-between zone because it's post-sex, but I'd like to think we could draw the line on the side that helps the girls and women who want to take it. I only wish Judge Korman's ruling had come earlier, when it would have forced the Bush FDA to get its act together.
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Back during the ridiculous brouhaha over access to the morning-after pill, regulators compromised by making the pill available without a prescription only to women of 18 years of age or older. A federal judge, noting that this restriction is arbitrary and without medical justification, has ordered the FDA to review the policy and make Plan B available to 17-year-olds in 30 days. I imagine that the policy will change pretty quickly; you know things are looking up when the Washington Post has to go to Concerned Women for America to find some quotable pushback.
All of which allows me to climb astride an old hobby horse: Regular old birth control ought to be available without a prescription. Hormonal birth control meets all of the FDA requirements for over-the-counter access; Plan B, after all, is just a mega-dose of the pill. We've all heard stories of women being denied birth control by squeamish doctors and pharmacists; there is no reason such women shouldn't be able to grab stacks of Yaz off the shelf at Walgreens. The aggregate burden of all those pointless doctor's appointments and hourlong pharmacy waits is surely massive.
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Hanna: I was at a "cowgirl" bachelorette party in Texas this weekend, and everyone was talking about Michelle's gardening look. "Heels????" one asked, incredulously. "To hoe?" (Texas is the capital of stylish outdoor clothing: Cowboy boots and hats look good on everyone, but they're also practical.) She looked silly, I agree, but I'm with Dahlia: Let's give Michelle a break. She's gotta wear something.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure you're right the White House garden is just another instance of bourgeois locavorism. Apparently, many Americans hit by the recession are planning vegetable gardens, or so this piece reported. It noted "double-digit" growth in the number of vegetable gardens and reported that many seed catalogs "have run out of seeds for basic vegetables such as onions, tomatoes and peppers." Who knows, of course, whether those seeds will ever be planted.
I like the White House garden. And, in my eyes, it's not just another way of touting the so-called superiority of organic food you can buy at places like Whole Foods, aka Whole Paycheck. Yuppie fetishizaton of organic food, by the by, has led to real, and dangerous, confusion of "healthy" food with "organic"—or expensive—food, according to this New York Times piece. By contrast, the garden underscores the fact that vegetables and fruit are healthy, wholesome, and available (in season) to many. Democracy at work!
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Looks like Meghan McCain is here to stay as a Republican pundit: She has a column out today in the Daily Beast, interviewing Bobby Jindal's wife, Supriya, and she was on Larry King last night talking about her party. It also looks like she's not doing anything to dispel those accusations of ditziness, as Meghan's interview of Supriya was one softball after another. First, Meghan discovers that Supriya excels at Sudoku Samurai and says in response, "Oh my gosh those are so hard! I can barely add! You do those for fun?" Then, Meghan proceeds to ask Supriya a series of questions about her early dates with Bobby, and in the intro she describes Supriya as a positive role model within the Republican Party. Couldn't Meghan have found a single positive Republican role model who was actually elected to office?
Anyway, here's a clip of McCain on Larry King last night, talking about the Republican Party's lack of leadership and her support for gay marriage while wearing a giant hair bow.