Pardon the interruption in service...

One of the hardest things about blogging solo is that there's nobody else to fill in when you're busy! I'm currently working on an article, among other things, but I'll have more posts and photos up within the next couple of days. Promise.

QOTD: Cooking Classes

I know when I went off to college I barely knew how to cook, and even now I would not call myself a pro. Apparently I'm not alone; celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has approached the British government to ask them to offer cooking classes to low-income people because he believes many U.K. citizens' inability to cook will cause them to eat less healthy meals during the economic downturn.

According to the Washington Post, Oliver argued that, for the first time, many families in the U.K. cannot cook well and are likely to rely on take-out for their daily meals. He also suggested that people with less money to spare are not likely to try new recipes that might be more nutritious.

While the chef was worried about the nutritional quality of the food people were eating, if he's right this inability to cook may also contribute to an individual’s or families’ financial difficulties.

After the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge last year, Washington Post Lean Plate Columnist Sally Squires wrote about how to shop in order to stretch food money. She also mentioned how a local executive chef, Rick Hindle, had created several tasty, healthy meals for a dollar or less each by cooking from scratch. Not even McDonalds offers meals cheaper than his “colorful quesadillas” (60 cents per serving), but both Squire's suggestions and Hindle's recipes required cooking.

Recipes abound online, as do video clips of cooking demonstrations. Assuming younger people are the ones least likely to know how to cook and that most younger people in the U.K. and the U.S. have access to these online resources, would the addition of free cooking classes help? Or are the real issues convenience, time, and lack of interest in cooking?

If a free class on cooking inexpensive, nutritious food were available in your area, would you take one?

Bonus find: If you're looking to pinch dollars, the USDA database of recipes is searchable by the estimated price of the finished meal.

Sunset last night

I really am going to miss this view.

Women's Titanic Memorial in Southwest DC

This post is a response to Melissa’s question about the Titanic Memorial from the comments on QOTD: How to Respond to Teens Attacking Adults in SW DC. Picture by Flickr user NCinDC.

If you follow the sidewalk southeast past the last club on Water Street, SW, you will find yourself leaving the road to walk on a wide promenade between the glimmering surface of the Washington Channel and the high, curving boughs of old trees in Washington Channel Park.

Follow the quaint globe lights to the very end of the park and you will see a tall statue of a man with his arms flung wide to form a cross, a flowing stone cloth partly draped around his body. Behind his left hand the water stretches out past Hains Point to join the Anacostia and Potomac rivers as they flow together toward the ocean.

It's a quiet spot, a fitting place for a silent tribute, even though it's not the location the monument's designers had in mind.

According to the Great Lakes Titanic Society and the National Park Service, the Women's Titanic Memorial was initially erected by the Women's Titanic Memorial Association in Rock Creek Park at the end of New Hampshire Avenue on May 26, 1931 to honor the men who gave their lives on the Titanic so that women and children could escape on life boats.

Just over thirty years later, in 1966, the planners for the Kennedy Center decided on the same spot, so the Women's Titanic Monument was slipped into storage to make room. In 1968 the monument was quietly planted in its current home in Washington Channel Park, and soon few besides the locals seemed to remember it existed.

According to an old fragment of a Washington Post article, twelve years later a small group of men decided to change that. In 1978 they began an annual tradition of toasting the men who gave their lives on the Titanic every April 15th. This tradition has expanded into a full evening of events: a men-only black tie dinner by the Kennedy Center on the 14th, followed by a ceremonial walk to the memorial in full tuxedos, and culminating in a round of champagne toasts in front of the memorial at 1:30 a.m. on the 15th.

The Men's Titanic Society coordinates this quirky annual event. It has become such an ingrained tradition that the society's founder and president, Jim Silman, poo-poohed a suggestion this year to move the memorial to a more prominent position at the tip of Hains Point where J. Seward Johnson's sculpture "The Awakening" once stood.

To reach Washington Channel Park and the Women's Titanic Memorial by Metro, you can walk straight south from the Waterfront Metro on 4th Street and hang a left on P Street. However, it's a prettier walk if you take M Street to 6th Street SW and walk through Washington Channel Park, especially if you manage to come in time to watch the sunset play on the water of the Channel.

Google Map:

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Posting Delay - Titanic Memorial

UPDATE 11/15/08 10:34 p.m.: The post is now up here.

The Titanic Memorial post I promised to put up today will go up tonight tomorrow. Sorry for the delay!

QOTD: Walking Lessons and Shoes

Today’s article brought up two questions. A link on the Around Town section of NBC’s local Washington, DC news site about walking lessons led to an article in the New York Times about walking lessons... in New York City. While some local residents may be interested in taking or offering walking lessons after reading the article, it seemed a little odd to include an article about a class in New York City in a section about the DC area.

The linked article explored walking lessons in yoga classes offered by Jonathan FitzGordon at Yoga Center of Brooklyn. They sound similar to the classes by Amy Matthews at the Breathing Project referenced in an article seven months ago in New York Magazine about walking barefoot. Unlike this earlier article, the New York Times article does not mention one of the most obvious culprits for bad posture and walking-related health problems: shoes. More specifically, shoes that are known to destroy people’s bodies, such as high-heeled pumps.

I thought this was particularly interesting since the picture on NBC’s site for the article includes four women in what could be a dance studio, three of whom appear to be wearing three to four inch heels.

Would you take walking lessons to allow you to continue to wear uncomfortable shoes, or would you switch shoes first? Do you think FitzGordon didn’t mention shoes because he figured it would be easier to get New Yorkers to take lessons without having to convince them to give up their heels?

And, do you think “local” articles should always refer to things happening in and around DC, or is it okay to have one that’s actually for New York City?

QOTD: How to Respond to Teens Attacking Adults in SW DC

According to NBC (thanks DCist for the link), last week a woman was assaulted "for fun" a couple of blocks from what will be my new home. The article also mentions that teenagers jumped a police officer in front of the nearby CVS after he asked them why they were not in school. The teens stole his radio and tried to take his gun. A month ago an elderly man died after being beat up by teenagers in the same area.

While I know my current neighborhood is hardly the safest place in the world, the majority of the violence I have witnessed here involved black teenagers and young adults fighting with each other. As a white woman who is friendly but largely uninvolved in my neighbors' worlds, the worst I ever received was some benign drunken harrassment and a few young boys hitting on me. Almost all of my interactions with my neighbors here have been positive, even when I was digging into things some people would rather not talk about.

Seeing articles like this makes me wonder if the same thing will work in my new neighborhood.

I've already spent some time in Southwest. While the street I'm going to live on seems sleepy and quiet, plenty of people (including teenagers) hang out on the stoops just a few blocks over. There is also a very obvious income gap between my section of the neighborhood and theirs. On the one side, multi-story, expensive-looking rowhouses sheltered by tall, old trees and fronted by carefully maintained gardens line the streets. On the other, short, small, identical homes squat along treeless streets with waist-height chain-link fences and clothes lines in the back. My section of the neighborhood is mixed race; the other section seems to be almost all black.

The split in the neighborhood lies along 3rd Street SW, next to the commercial area that includes Safeway, the Metro, the CVS and Bank of America trailers, and the dirt pit that will become the new Waterside Mall. As the NBC article mentions, plenty of teenagers hang out in front of the stores there. I've said hello to them and laughed at their jokes, but I've never questioned them or challenged their right to be there as the police officer did.

When I move to Southwest I plan to start reporting on the area. This means, at a minimum, I will be walking around and talking to everyone I meet, getting to know who lives there, who works there, who hangs out, and what their stories are. Including the teenagers. Inevitably some people will disagree with the articles that come out of these conversations.

Years ago in Texas several of my guy friends realized that they could not stop me from going into places they saw as dangerous. Long before I took a Sociology class or wrote an article, I walked into places others labeled "The Barrio" or "that crack house" just to talk to the people who lived there. My friends' reaction, in typical Texas fashion, was to give me easily concealed weapons and teach me how to seriously injure or kill someone.

Inscription: "(Heart) for Chris with love"

I never had to use these weapons, and I stopped carrying them when I started needing to pass metal detectors to get into the libraries in DC. I also stopped carrying them because I don't want to wind up accidentally killing or crippling someone over a misunderstanding or pretty theft. To me, losing my wallet is not worth someone else's life.

On the other hand, I don't want to end up with my hands held behind my back by one teenager as another one beats me up just for walking down the street. Being able to throw the person holding me would be great in this instance, but would having a weapon like a knife, a night stick, pepper spray, or even a gun help? I don't know.

What do you think? Should I start bearing arms and really practicing martial arts again, or are my best defenses being aware, making friends, and talking my way through the situations I find myself in? Do I realistically need to worry about this more in Southwest than in Columbia Heights?

QOTD: Police Locker Homophobic Vandalism -- The Second Victim

UPDATE 11/12/08 12:00 p.m.:
Amanda Hess at The Sexist posted today about the questions raised in this blog post. She writes that she has contacted the MPD for more information about how they're handling the misogynistic aspect of this crime and promises to update "if and when I hear back from MPD."


Original post 11/11/08 2:45 p.m.:
In this article from Friday, the Washington Blade reports about an anti-gay slur scrawled across the locker of an openly gay DC police officer, Matt Mahl. One sentence of the article mentions a second person, although both the article and the police appear to be overlooking her:

Police sources familiar with the incident said the graffiti referred to Mahl as a “fag” and made lewd references to sexual acts by Mahl and a female police sergeant who is also assigned to the Third District substation.

This female sergeant was arguably also the victim of this hate crime.

A Google search turned up two other articles about the incident, one from the Washington City Paper's The Sexist blog and one from NBC. While it's somewhat understandable that the Blade focused on the gay male victim because it is a paper for the GLBT community, the two other articles covering this incident also neglected to note the second victim.

Why do you think Mahl received attention from the MPD and the media while the female sergeant was overlooked?

Found: Delicious Decorations at the Dallas Zoo

om nom nom nom

The photo walks have finally begun!

QOTD: Keepsakes

Nearly a week after the election Obama still dominates not just the news, but the news about the news. Today on Romenesko, a Poynter Institute blog, I found links to four more stories about the number of post-election day copies various newspapers sold. While I completely understand the cash-strapped newspaper industry's ecstasy at the windfall these sales represent, I wonder what will happen to these "pieces of history."

Like many Americans, I'm about to downsize. The crisp commemorative paper I stood in line for is lying on top of a pile of things I haven't sorted through yet: birthday gifts, parts from four different cameras, clothes I need to mend, and a dresser full of beads and crafting materials. In my living room I've heaped almost half of the clothes from my closet, all either too small, too big, not quite my color, or no longer remotely in style (bare midriff tank tops anyone?).

(No, I wasn't kidding.)

I still have the rest of two closets, two rooms, a bathroom, and a file cabinet to clean out by Thanksgiving. For someone who moved here with little more than three suitcases four years ago, I've managed to accumulate an impressive mass of "semi-useful" things.

While some of these items easily separate into piles of wheat (unused light bulbs) and chaff (frayed old purses), I stumbled across a box of memories last night that ground my sorting process to an instant halt. Worthless to anyone else, each cheap bauble in this colorful collection of activist buttons, old jewelry, Girl Scout pins, notes, and pictures represents something I don't ever want to give up -- even if I have no idea what I want to do with it.

The door to my new home is hardly the eye of a needle, and I'm sure all the belongings I wish to bring will fit through it when push comes to shove. Maybe. If I get rid of about half of them. But instead of thinking about that, I can't help picturing the new things I want to get, like a big enough frame to allow the triumphant gray paper portrait of Victorious Obama and Family to hang out on the wall next to my boyfriend's Magna Carta of King John... It would be so sad to fold it into yet another box tucked away in the closet, waiting for something unknown.

I'm sure my minimalist boyfriend is laughing as he reads this, but he, too, has his treasured collection of books and random large cooking implements. Everyone has something, right?

If you got a paper on Nov. 5, what are you planning on doing with it? What other things do you keep? And does anyone have any clue where to find a frame that will fit an unfolded newspaper???

Question of the Day: The Role of the Next First Lady

The first in a new series analyzing questions raised by various articles. Photo by Flickr user Barack Obama.

Every so often I come across an article that begs one or more larger questions that the author doesn’t mention. Today in this article in the Washington Post, staff writer Robin Givhan dissected Michelle Obama’s choice of a dress for her husband’s Nov. 4 speech and used the occasion to define what Obama’s role will be as First Lady:

...the eye lingers on Michelle Obama. As the next first lady, she will have no prescribed duties and responsibilities. Instead, she will step into the role of national symbol. She can support a cause and address certain issues. But the essence of a first lady's job is to cheerlead by her presence or to admonish by her absence. She is not required to look especially powerful or intellectual. She is our public face of graciousness, sophistication and nurture.

And, of course, we'd like her to look pretty.

....The White House will have to solve the big problems, but it also must champion American culture, from literature to music to cuisine. The first lady is uniquely suited to celebrate its fashion industry. She is more substantial than a starlet and more pragmatic than a socialite. And with her proven attention to aesthetics -- and a few less cardigans -- her photographs can deliver an articulate and powerful message.

Laying aside the idea that a future First Lady would make a good impression by wearing a sleeveless, low-cut black dress without some sort of a cover-up on a cold November Chicago night (see the photos), this article imposes some hefty cultural dictates on the proper place of a president’s wife.

While Michelle Obama dresses fashionably, she is also an attorney with an impressive resume in public service and academia. She graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School and mentored our future president at Sidley Austin when he was just a summer associate. After Sidley Austin she worked in City Hall; became the founding executive director for Public Allies, a nonprofit AmeriCorps program; worked as an associate dean at the University of Chicago; and went on to become a vice president of the University of Chicago Medical Center. On the campaign trail she has shown herself to be a powerful force, a spitfire who can rally a crowd of supporters as easily as she charms them. Charles Ogletree, a former professor for both Michelle and Barack Obama, stated on election night that he had thought Michelle would be the one to run for office instead of her husband.

Michelle Obama is no meek former librarian or flashy former Debutante of the Year.

While the roles of women outside the White House have changed over the last several decades, in some ways it seems that the role of the First Lady inside has remained as steady as the marble exterior. The “public face of graciousness, sophistication and nurture” could also be called the personification of 1950s upper-class femininity, a very “traditional” role of a wife supporting her husband and family.

Senator Hillary Clinton bucked these expectations and eventually ran for president partly on her political experience as First Lady, but her successor Laura Bush seemed to slip quietly back into the conventional mold of gracious hostess and charity dinner-speaker. Some of their disparity in roles is certainly due to their own personalities and ambitions. Some of it is also probably due to the expectations of their spouses, their political teams, their supporters, the press, and the general public.

Have our expectations changed after Clinton’s “eighteen million cracks” in the glass ceiling? Do you think the majority of U.S. citizens still want our female “national symbol” to primarily be the hostess of the White House, a cultural touchstone and visual figurehead with no political agenda or power of her own? If not, what do we want Michelle Obama to be?

What do you want her to be?

Please leave your responses in the comments.