"We know that the citizens of East Albany [Georgia] have complained about drugs and prostitution. This is just the tip of the iceberg in what we are going to start doing in that neighborhood. We have heard the citizen's complaints, and they have not fallen on deaf ears."

A young Chinese woman was left partially deaf following a passionate kiss from her boyfriend. "While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution," wrote the China Daily.

Bruce Cohen also urges everyone to "proceed with caution" when it comes to reacting to Prop 8, chiefly when it comes to boycotts and finger-pointing.

We still often hear that same-sex marriage would destroy traditional marriage, but now the claim is not so much that actual marriages would be harmed; rather, it's that the dictionary would have to be changed.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of our private slang, and we're only two people. Multiply our sample by all the groups, large and small, who improvise with the English language for their own convenience and pleasure, and you see the problem.

"Spinach isn't poison," said Daniel Sumner, an agricultural economist. "Yes, there has been a problem. But there are outbreaks in hamburgers that make the news, and we haven't quit eating hamburgers."

Just as surely as the SUV will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end. “Who said people had to eat meat three times a day?” asked Mr. Pollan.

To my mind, the lesson of the Donner party is not so much about what they did or did not consume as it is about our appetite for such dramas.

But minor drama is the lifeblood of suburbs.

It's not so much that these are bad movies -- well, they are -- it's that they are the kind of movies that have helped turn vampires from scary, miserable, creatures of the night into S&M enthusiasts who sit around in their mansions all day long.

I mean, at the end of the day, is this a great language — or what? I mean, it's a language to die for.

We reminisced as we ate, each new mouthful sending us deeper into our memories.

The Homesick Restaurant

Virtually no one was baking brownies when the wall came down, and now they're everywhere.

Never has one generation spent so much of its children's wealth in such a short period of time with so little to show for it.

Sometimes more is less.

When times are tough, there is no better form of escapism than a night at a gentlemen's club.

Cynicism will lead you to the truth. Or vice versa.

You only die once.

"The market is sleeping," he said.

"That could be problematic strategically for the United States."

Take heart: cave dwelling is making a comeback.

Jerome Groopman:

“There are now a growing number of reports of cases of infections caused by gram-negative organisms for which no adequate therapeutic options exist,” Giske and his colleagues wrote. “This return to the preantibiotic era has become a reality in many parts of the world.”

A recent assessment of progress in the field, from UCLA, concluded, “FDA approval of new antibacterial agents decreased by 56 per cent over the past 20 years (1998-2002 vs. 1983-1987),” noting that, in the researchers’ projection of future development only six of the five hundred and six drugs currently being developed were new antibacterial agents. Drug companies are looking for blockbuster therapies that must be taken daily for decades, drugs like Lipitor, for high cholesterol, or Zyprexa, for psychiatric disorders, used by millions of people and generating many billions of dollars each year. Antibiotics are used to treat infections, and are therefore prescribed only for days or weeks. (The exception is the use of antibiotics in livestock, which is both a profit-driver and a potential cause of antibiotic resistance.)

From the archive:

What, at bottom, is a toilet?

Eating meat, something I have always enjoyed doing, has become problematic in recent years. Though beef consumption spiked upward during the flush 90's, the longer-term trend is down, and many people will tell you they no longer eat the stuff. Inevitably they'll bring up mad-cow disease (and the accompanying revelation that industrial agriculture has transformed these ruminants into carnivores -- indeed, into cannibals). They might mention their concerns about E. coli contamination or antibiotics in the feed.

The urbanization of the world's livestock is a fairly recent historical development, so it makes a certain sense that cow towns like Poky Feeders would recall human cities several centuries ago. As in 14th-century London, the metropolitan digestion remains vividly on display: the foodstuffs coming in, the waste streaming out. Similarly, there is the crowding together of recent arrivals from who knows where, combined with a lack of modern sanitation. This combination has always been a recipe for disease; the only reason contemporary animal cities aren't as plague-ridden as their medieval counterparts is a single historical anomaly: the modern antibiotic.

Forgetting, or willed ignorance, is the preferred strategy of many beef eaters, a strategy abetted by the industry.

In all his speeches, John McCain urges ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

Superbugs

Calvin Trillin wrote this article for last year's Food Issue of the New Yorker. It's an amazing article, triple-gold-star -- but it's not available online. Anyone preparing for a trip to Singapore is obligated to obtain and read a copy of this article.

Writer admits that he loves street food above all other types and speculates that his sense of taste is at full strength only when he is standing up. Discusses the popularity of street food in Singapore. Even establishments called coffee shops are essentially mini hawker centers. It has become possible to eat in Singapore for days at a time without ever entering a conventional restaurant.

(Be advised that the abstracts provided here are not excerpts from the article.)

Singapore Journal: Three Chopsticks

“They told us to go to bed,” said Kylie Overmeier, 12, “and I said I want to just live it up.”

DJ Booths, Wii and Other Cool Stuff

David Sedaris writes about smoking.

It was odd. I’d always heard how clean Canada was, how peaceful, but perhaps people had been talking about a different part, the middle, maybe, or those rocky islands off the eastern coast. Here it was just one creepy drunk after another. The ones who were passed out I didn’t mind so much, but those on their way to passing out—those who could still totter and flail their arms—made me fear for my life.

Take this guy who approached me after I left the store, this guy with a long black braid. It wasn’t the gentle, ropy kind you’d have if you played the flute but something more akin to a bullwhip: a prison braid, I told myself. A month earlier, I might have simply cowered, but now I put a cigarette in my mouth—the way you might if you were about to be executed. This man was going to rob me, then lash me with his braid and set me on fire—but no. “Give me one of those,” he said, and he pointed to the pack I was holding. I handed him a Viceroy, and when he thanked me I smiled and thanked him back.

It was, I later thought, as if I’d been carrying a bouquet and he’d asked me for a single daisy. He loved flowers, I loved flowers, and wasn’t it beautiful that our mutual appreciation could transcend our various differences, and somehow bring us together?

Once you start, you can't stop. Until you're "finished."

Letting Go

Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

If so, do you tell this person he is "too serious," or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?

If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands—and that you aren't caring for him properly.

From the follow-up:

One of the greatest compliments I have ever given anyone I dated is that being with him was like being alone.

Caring for Your Introvert