December 2012
Ever the contrarians, Slate magazine’s Katy Waldman comes out against grapefruit.
Happy holidays, and brace yourself for the season’s worst tradition! I speak not of the crass commercialization of Christmas, nor of the unconscionable deceit of hyping children up for Santa’s visit. No, I speak of the annual bombardment of grapefruit.
Choire Sicha’s response is perfect:
It’s a perfectly reasonable Monday morning, people are going about their business, and blammo, Slate comes and makes a huge filthy mess of it with their bizarre ramblings about grapefruit. It’s just not right.
See also: #slatepitches
The caption:
A dog runs through the path lined by faithful as they wait for the the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in Guanajuato, Mexico, on March 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)
I do too. You might like (or hate) this article by Jen Doll.
Is Edith Windsor, a New Yorker who sued to be treated as a surviving spouse. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to hear United States v. Windsor, No. 12-307, which challenges a part of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996.
Roger Cohen dials the crotchety up to 11.
It is tempting to call this unctuous ooze of status updates and vacation snaps seeping across Facebook and Twitter and the rest information overload. But that would be to debase the word “information.”
Now I was determined to get through 2012 without doing a peevish column, not wishing to appear cantankerous or curmudgeonly, determined to be sunny and youthful as the times demand, but everyone has a tipping point. Mine occurred when I came across this tweet from Claire:
“Have such a volcanically deep zit laying roots in my chin that it feels like someone hit me with a right cross.”
Good to know, Claire.
Cohen has a semi-valid point here (tho I think a professional op-ed writer is the WORST person to make it). But to be fair to Claire, that’s pretty funny.
What’s less funny is the self-important smugness that follows in the comments to Cohen’s article.
Hello.
— Lionel Richie (@Lioneltext) December 5, 2012
David Quammen:
It’s not quite the largest tree on Earth. It’s the second largest. Recent research by scientist Steve Sillett of Humboldt State University and his colleagues has confirmed that the President ranks number two among all big trees that have ever been measured.