DoubleX
June 12, 2009

"Pixar's making a movie about a girl! The animation company announced its schedule through 2012 and not one, but two of their films will feature females. Harping on Pixar for not having made a movie with a female heroine sooner, especially when I'm still high on Up! (just as Meghan is), feels a little like ragging on Jackson Pollack for not painting straight lines. Still, it’s exciting news.

The first film, Newt, out in 2011, imagines "What happens when the last remaining male and female blue-footed newts on the planet are forced together by science to save the species, and they can’t stand each other?" This sounds like the animated version of It Happened One Night (plus a few action sequences), so, you know, sign me up. The second film, The Bear and The Bow, will be even more girlcentric, telling the tale of "the impetuous, tangle-haired Merida, [who] though a daughter of royalty, would prefer to make her mark as a great archer." It’s also set to come out 2011 and will be voiced by Reese Witherspoon."

"It's safe to say the best is yet to come for the new national spelling champion. She's only just become a teenager. She'll probably keep her competitive juices flowing by entering the International Brain Bee, the perfect contest for an aspiring neurosurgeon.

"But I don't think anything can replace spelling," Kavya Shivashankar said. "Spelling has been such a big part of my life."

On her fourth and final try, the Kansas girl who flashed a sweet smile with every word won the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night, outlasting 10 other finalists to take home more than $40,000 in cash and prizes and, of course, the huge champion's trophy.

"The competitiveness is in her, but she doesn't show that," said her father, Mirle Shivashankar. "She still has that smile. That's her quality."

Kavya became the seventh Indian-American in 11 years to claim the title, including back-to-back winners who want to be neurosurgeons. Her role model is the one who started the run: 1999 winner Nupur Lala, who was featured in the documentary "Spellbound" and is now a research assistant in the brain and cognitive sciences lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kavya, from Olathe, Kan., was an obvious favorite, having finished 10th, eighth and fourth in her three previous appearances. Her winning word was the proper adjective "Laodicean," which means lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics. As with all her words, Kavya wrote the letters in the palm of her hand with her finger as she called them out."

The Daily Beast
May 28, 2009

"Millions of Americans will tune to ABC tonight to witness the coronation of a new National Spelling Bee champion. The attraction is undeniable. We're biologically drawn to children doing the extraordinary because 1) they're not supposed to and 2) they look so darn cute doing it. When those kids are performing feats of linguistic jujitsu that would amaze Steven Pinker, so much the better.

But watching the Bee should be a guilty pleasure. The obvious complaint is that it's irresponsible to make children do lexicographic party tricks on live, prime-time, broadcast television. And it probably is, in the same way that airing the Little League World Series can also be hazardous to children's health. "Adolescent sports aren't meant to be entertainment for adults," Boston sports psychologist Richard Ginsburg says in my friend Mark Hyman's new book, Until It Hurts, about America’s unhealthy obsession with youth sports.

Nowhere is that performance more naked than at the Bee in Washington, D.C. The 293 competitors have to stand on a stage in the ballroom of a fancy hotel, in front of a large audience, at a microphone, before a table of adult judges, with television cameras rolling and reporters recording their screw-ups. All face the possibility of national airtime. Wednesday's preliminary rounds were streamed on ESPN360.com and this morning's semifinal rounds went live on ESPN starting at 10 a.m. Eastern."

Newsweek
May 27, 2009

"This story has been brought to you by the letter S and the numbers 15 and 40. (Or, as the Count might say in his adorable Transylvanian accent, "fivteen and forrrty--HA, HA, HA!") The S, as anyone who has ever watched television can deduce by now, stands for Sesame Street. The 40 is almost as easy: this year marks the 40th anniversary of sunny days, friendly neighbors and the fuzzy creatures who live on that street where the air is sweet. If you haven't watched recently with your children or grandchildren, you'll be relieved to know that impending middle age hasn't wrinkled Sesame Street all that much. Big Bird still waddles, Cookie Monster still goes on his sugar binges and Ernie still wakes up Bert at all hours with questions (none of them, mercifully, about the nature of their relationship). In a world where cultural touchstones are dropping faster than the Mets in September--sorry, Guiding Light fans--the endurance of Sesame Street is nothing short of a miracle.

Which brings us to that second number of the day: 15. That, shockingly, is where Nielsen says Sesame Street ranks among the top children's shows on the air. Some months, it does even worse. Ask a preschooler who her favorite TV character is, and chances are she'll say Dora, Curious George or, heaven help us, SpongeBob. We know it doesn't seem nice to point out that the granddaddy of children's television is regularly beaten up by a girl who talks to her backpack, but these are desperate times. The Children's Television Workshop (now called Sesame Workshop) produces only 26 episodes a year now, down from a high of 130. The workshop itself recently announced it was laying off 20 percent of its staff as the recession continues to take a toll on nonprofit arts organizations. But Sesame Street is no ordinary nonprofit. It is, arguably, the most important children's program in the history of television. No show has affected the way we think about education, parenting, childhood development and cultural diversity, both in the United States and abroad, more than Big Bird and friends. You might even say that Sesame Street changed the world, one letter at a time. Don't believe us? Then let's imagine where we'd be if Sesame Street never existed."

The Daily Beast
May 8, 2009

"Less than 18 months ago, Sasha Lessin and Janet Kira Lessin gathered before their friends near their home in Maui, and proclaimed their love for one another. Nothing unusual about that--Sasha, 68, and Janet, 55--were legally married in 2000. Rather, this public commitment ceremony was designed to also bind them to Shivaya, their new 60-something "husband." Says Sasha: "I want to walk down the street hand in hand in hand in hand and live together openly and proclaim our relationship. But also to have all those survivor and visitation rights and tax breaks and everything like that."

Maine this week became the fifth state, and the fourth in New England, to legalize gay marriage, provoking yet another national debate about same-sex unions. The Lessins' advocacy group, the Maui-based World Polyamory Association, is pushing for the next frontier of less-traditional codified relationships. This community has even come up with a name for what the rest of the world generally would call a committed threesome: the "triad.""

Slate
April 23, 2009

"Indigenous to the Americas, the puma or panther or mountain lion--Puma concolor--is further known as the catamount, the mountain screamer, the night crier, the sneak cat, the swamp devil, the purple feather, and the ghost walker. In Canada, as in other, more interesting places, they skip the colloquialisms and go for cougar, and therefrom oozes the word in its slang sense. Dictionary editor Jesse Sheidlower cites anecdotal evidence establishing that cougar--meaning a woman of a certain age who pursues men of a tender age--was in currency in British Columbia and Alberta by the early 1990s. Etymologists have yet to confirm the delightful tale that the NHL's Vancouver Canucks originated the term to reference a mature subset of puck bunnies.

In nature, cougars are a highly adaptable species found in every American habitat. In civilization, the situation is much the same. Who knows how many women have embraced this term of disparagement (or at least diminishment) like Cubists and queers before them?"

Time
April 22, 2009

"Yourtango.com, a self-described "community for love, sex, dating and relationship advice," has created an instructional video called "Facebook Manners and You." Styled after one of those frighteningly cheery '50s educational films, the video's instructions for proper behavior on the "electric friendship generator" is funny in a hits-close-to-home way."

Newsweek
April 20, 2009

"Growing up, my literary heroines were those who, like me, struggled to be good: Jo from "Little Women," Harriet the spy, Laura Ingalls and Pippi Longstocking. A strong-willed (and loud) child, I craved examples of unruly knuckleheads tethered to a loving family that encouraged us to be our best selves despite our natural inclinations. Precocious but naive, I thought of myself as an ugly duckling--misunderstood in my youth but destined for a beauty and stature completely impossible for my loved ones to comprehend. I shudder to think what a monster I would have become in the modern child-rearing era. Gorged on a diet of grade inflation, constant praise and materialistic entitlement, I probably would have succumbed to a life of heedless self- indulgence.          

Perhaps, one day, we will say that the recession saved us from a parenting ethos that churns out ego-addled spoiled brats. And though it is too soon to tell if our economic free fall will cure America of its sense of economic privilege, it has made it much harder to get the money together to give our kids six-figure sweet-16 parties and plastic surgery for graduation presents, all in the name of "self esteem."

Time
April 14, 2009

"Forget the widely unloved redesign. Facebook has committed a greater offense. According to a new study by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and her co-author Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University, college students who use the 200 million⿿member social network have significantly lower grade-point averages (GPAs) than those who do not.

The study, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association on April 16, surveyed 219 undergraduate and graduate students and found that the GPAs of Facebook users typically ranged a full grade lower than those of nonusers -- 3.0 to 3.5 for users versus 3.5 to 4.0 for their non-networking peers. It also found that 79% of Facebook members did not believe there was any link between their GPA and their networking habits.

Los Angeles Times
April 13, 2009

"Remember when Miley Cyrus told Ryan Seacrest on the Oscars red carpet in February 2008 that she hopes "to continue to do films and one day I'll be here with my own movie"? After three years of Miley Cyrus starring in the Disney TV series, the surprising success of "Hannah Montana: The Movie" at the box office this weekend may mean we should take her dreams seriously.

"Disney's second film based on its mega-hit TV-and-music franchise opened to $34 million, surpassing estimates of most Hollywood insiders who had pegged it to open in the $20-million range," reports the Los Angeles Times. Miley Cyrus' previous feature-film release, "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour," released in early 2008, grossed $70 million worldwide ($65 million in the U.S.)."