"We have of course gotten used to mommy bloggers embarrassing their children..."

"... saying which child they like best or how much they drink while stuck at home doing art projects."

Louis C.K. regularly embarrasses his kids and surely one day they will get their revenge. These are humiliations that might require a kid to get therapy later, but they are not on the same order as what [Liza] Long did. They are unlikely, for example, to prevent the kids from getting a job. So far the children’s rights movement has focused on protecting children from neglect and abuse, but maybe it’s time to add a subcategory protecting them from libel, by their own parents.

That's Hanna Rosin, writing about the "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother" blogger, whom we talked about here.

"To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture."

"And to a surprising degree, it is women — not men — who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future."

Writes Hanna Rosin, looking at what women have lost and gained in the sexual revolution.

The come-on line everyone's talking about, from last Sunday's episode of the new HBO show "Girls."

Hanna Rosin sets up the discussion at Slate:

I don’t quite know what to make of Booth Jonathan’s come-on: “I want you to know, the first time I fuck you, I might scare you a little, because I’m a man, and I know how to do things.” Marnie was touched by it, obviously...

Marnie is the character whose actual boyfriend is so sensitive to her needs she finds him boring and hopeless. "Girls" is like the new "Sex and the City," and Marnie's the closest thing to Miranda — the main character's best friend, the confidante.

The ladies over at Slate go on and on about this line, e.g.:

[L.V.] Anderson: As that scene and others showed, this was the episode I thought Allison Williams' acting chops proved really not up to the task of playing Marnie. She can do annoyed and bitchy just fine, and we've seen that (and almost only that) in the first and second episode. But between the crying scene (when Hannah tells her she has HPV) and the masturbation scene, Williams in this episode was in over her head. I have never seen such bad fake crying in my life, and the bathroom masturbation is the least realistic scene in this show so far. Could I imagine Marnie going home and masturbating later that night? Sure. Can I imagine her SO INFLAMED with lust that she had to alleviate her sexual urges as soon as possible? Not for a second. What did you guys make of that scene?...

Dana Stevens: Not to get too personal, but do any of you know any woman, however hot and bothered by the manly charms of Jorma Taccone, who would masturbate standing up in an art-gallery bathroom while wearing pantyhose?

Allison Williams is the daughter of TV newsman Brian Williams, and what he feels is:

It’s kvelling, pride. It’s incredibly great. Her co-creator and I have known always that she was going to be an actress. So it’s fantastic.

You’re fine with the awkward sex scenes?

Unmitigated joy.

We've been watching this show, by the way. It's actually quite different from "Sex and the City" in that the sex lives of these girls — called "girls," obviously, to highlight their immaturity — is not glamorized. It's actually so sad it conflicts with the humor. One of the 4 girls is a virgin. (She's the Charlotte analogue.) She's our favorite character, played by Zosia Mamet, who is David Mamet's daughter. (I don't know what's with the famous dads angle, but Mamet is a fine comedienne and Williams is... as noted above.)

"I’ve always given books to friends and family for Christmas presents... books are the only gifts in the world that anybody would ever want to receive."

So says poet and novelist Jay Parini, one of the respondents to the NYT questions "What is the best book you have ever received as a gift? What are your favorite books to give to friends?" Parini recommends... oh, who cares? I like Jane Smiley's response:

I learned not to give books as gifts the year I turned 13 and very carefully and with much forethought went to the book section at Stix, Baer and Fuller, in Brentwood, Mo., and purchased a copy of “Six Crises,” by Richard Nixon, for my mother. My mother had been a newspaperwoman for many years, was politically vocal, and definitely was a Republican. When I placed the package under the tree, I was extremely proud of myself.

When she unwrapped it, she turned it over in her hands with a bemused look, and she was only minimally grateful. I noticed that when it got put on a bookshelf, the bookshelf was in my room. I doubt that she ever opened it.

Have I ever received a book? No one would dare. A reader's tastes are peculiar....

Therefore: The gift certificate is a giver's best friend...

Dare I recommend an Amazon gift certificate? Anyway, I told you 2 years ago: Don't give books! I said it back in '09...

"If geezers like me have lots of tests and treatments... there isn’t going to be enough money to spend on the other end. This health-care mess isn’t going to be fixed if we aren’t ready to get out of the way."

Said Hanna Rosin's "new hero."

IN THE COMMENTS: Martha said: "Death Panel of one."

"Men, [Susan] Orlean says, 'are a lot better at putting blinkers on' and focusing on their work."

"[Elizabeth] Gilbert does not have kids but she agrees. Men, she adds, are also 'more entitled to suffer for their work' and let their wife and kids get neglected. Gilbert adds that her form of suffering involves compulsively taking care of 'anyone who comes within' her orbit. 'Do you think Philip Roth ever set aside his novel so he could change the sheets in the guest bedroom for the third time that week?' she asks."

***

If it ever seems that men are greater than women, you must look harder — harder — until you can perceive that women are greater than men.

"I would like [blank] to become more self-aware."

Who would you like to become more self-aware?
	Hanna Rosin
	Hanna Rosin's cat
	Maureen Tkacik
	Sarah Palin
pollcode.com free polls

It's the Bloggingheads Nobel Prizapalooza.

Ha ha ha ha. And you thought I had done enough with my all-Nobel-Prize-all-the-time blog theme of the day.



Enjoy!!!!

It's the new Bloggingheads — with me and Hanna Rosin.

Topics:

The cleverness of Obama’s Notre Dame speech
Ann: Obama will be the same as Bush on torture
Explaining Cheney’s growing popularity
The politicization of the Supreme Court as a good thing
“American Idol”: Did the Christians gang up against the gay guy?
Why women are still unhappy

Here's the link to the bhTV page, where you can see some links to the things we discuss, an apology for what you'll see are some technical glitches, and the comments on that site — which will almost surely be people hating on me.

You'll also find the context for the out-of-context "breasts, breast, breasts" clip from back here.

"Who would want to feed a baby a 'formula'?"

(a+b)² = a² + 2ab + b². Here. Suck on that.