Dead magazines I miss

The other day I said in my Facebook status that I missed George, and several FB friends commented with other great defunct magazines. Below is my homage to magazines discontinued in the past decade that I've subscribed to, have fond childhood memories of, remind me of good times or that I simply enjoyed reading.


Click on each name for its respective Wikipedia (or other info) page, and let me know in the comments if I missed any good titles!

Bon Appétit	Domino
Gourmet	Honey
Jane	Mademoiselle
McCall’s	Mode
More	PC Magazine
Radar	SI for Women
Sports & Fitness	Vibe
Weekly World News	WomenSport

Health care and the soul

What does my father's recent heart attack and a New York Times interactive have in common? Little, except that they both have me thinking about health care at the moment, framed in the context of morality.

First, dad. Mom drove him to Medical Center of Arlington a week and a half ago after pain struck him in the chest, the first time it had ever done so. The entire week of his stay, my family and I were dumbfounded at the cardiac doctors' coarseness, unprofessionalism, unavailability, lack of communication skills and patronization. My mother has spent time in [other] hospitals for surgeries and procedures, and her doctors had always been professional and sympathetic. The reason for dad's stay was inherently bad enough, but watching doctors treat our elderly father in such a harsh, uncaring manner all week (when they got around to seeing him at all) doubled our stress.

A sample of the interactive's topics

My sister and I couldn't help but wonder if his treatment had to do with the fact dad is a Medicare patient. We could have been wrong. We have no proof. But hospitals and doctors are reimbursed for only a fraction of their trouble when caring for Medicare patients, and we agreed it at least was a possibility. Toward the end of his stay, we were trying to get dad an appointment with his primary care physician. He'd had a Dr. Brandy Robinson (no relation) chosen as his PCP for quite some time, but he hadn't gone to see her yet. I called to make an appointment — and they wouldn't see him because they're not taking any new Medicare patients. I was reminded of a story I recently read about more and more doctors not taking Medicare patients because the government simply can't keep up with doctors' costs. I thought to myself, The profit motive of health care is rotting its soul.

Then today I clicked around through NYTimes.com's fabulous Health Care Conversations interactive. You click a specific health care topic (i.e. Medicare and the Elderly, Illegal Immigrants) to get to a conversation-starter question, then you include your comments on the question. I chose the health care topic Moral and Spiritual Considerations and scrolled through the comments (click here or play around with the embed, above). Timothy Shaw, M.D., of Madison, Wisconsin, did the best job of describing the connection I feel between my Christian faith and collective health care for all:

Our healthcare system is unjust because patients are discriminated against based on their ability to pay. Even though they attended public tax-payer funded medical and dental schools, some doctors and dentists will not see Medicaid patients or those without health insurance.

Our healthcare system is unjust because doctors and hospitals charge different patients different prices for the same service based on their insurance or employer. A patient without insurance may pay 70% more for the same operation or medical treatment as someone with insurance. If one would go to a gas station and be told that you have to pay $3.40 per gallon of gas but that your neighbor has to only pay $2.00 per gallon because of who you work for – there would be "civil" war.

Our healthcare system is unjust because it pits the doctor's fiduciary and moral obligation to the patient, against the fiscal obligation to the health insurer with whom the doctor has a contract. For example, in the mid 1980's, 32 states passed consumer protection laws, in the form of "drive-by delivery" laws to protect mothers and newborns from being discharged from the hospital by their doctors too soon.

Much of the medical research in our country is supported with public tax money through the National Institute of Health grants. Additionally, public tax money supports the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Library of Medicine; institutions which also supports private for-profit medical/insurance corporations. Although many of the discoveries of medicine were not the work of the American medical/insurance industry, past medical discoveries are used to create profit for our private medical/insurance system. For example, when the Austrian pathologist Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Peace Prize for his 1901 discovery of the ABO blood groups which made blood transfusions safe, saving billions of lives, he gave his discovery to humanity, not a patent lawyer.

Our hospitals were built by the hard work of all citizens. In the late 1800's Catholic nuns from St. Louis hitched their horses to wagons and rode into the Northwest Territory armed with a mission statement from God and founded our first hospitals. They built these hospitals for all citizens, not just the patients with "good" insurance. Our healthcare system is unjust for the reason that people without health insurance or those who can't get health insurance just as likely had fathers and grandfathers who laid on the sands of Normandy and Iwo Jima, and who themselves or their sons and daughters are serving in the Armed Forces today.

Our health system is unjust because of huge profit taking. Health insurance executives don't worry about going bankrupt from getting sick. Forbes reports that two Healthcare Insurance Corporation CEO's made $121 million and $77 million respectively in the last five years. While the medical / health insurance and pharmaceutical industries make billions in private profits, our citizens are lining up at a county fair in western Kentucky, in neglected health, with their teeth rotting from their heads, just to be cared for at a free medical/dental clinic set up in animal stalls in a barn.

I've often wondered why educated people and our leaders cannot see the injustice of our healthcare system. In a historical context however, it is inconceivable to think that the man who wrote "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", as he looked out his window he could see his slaves working in his fields.

To right the injustices perpetrated by the British against his countrymen, Thomas Jefferson would write the words which lent justification and strength to his fellow patriots to fight the world's most powerful army and navy. However, Jefferson's quill had not the power to convince his countrymen to right an injustice perpetrated by themselves against another people. This would be a conflagration for another time, another generation.

Let us encourage our congresswomen and men to have the moral courage to pass legislation long overdue, to create equality in health care. They should establish a national healthcare insurance plan as a civil right of American citizenship.

Some say that we don't want a Canadian or British style healthcare system. I say let's make America's healthcare system look like the United States space program compared to Britain's or Canada's! Ours would soar like an eagle!

Thomas Jefferson's last words in the Declaration of Independence now ring out as a living document for us today. "And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

My dad isn't so poor that he's having to get care in an animal stall. But like those Western Kentuckians and insurance company CEOs, he's worked hard and paid his taxes. Expectedly, there will be a disparity in the houses they live in and the cars they drive. But as a Christian, I can't view one of their bodies as less valuable than the others. I value my soul too much.

About the "Women are Unhappy" study

I really appreciated this study (more on it here) when it came out, which essentially states that women are generally unhappier since the women's movement of the '70s (findings exception: black women).

Then I was bewildered by the response to it, most of which drew that women are unhappy because of the strides in equality we've made. Total Alice in Wonderland conclusion. A post by Judy Warner on New York Times' Domestic Disturbance blog explains the real reasons. A pull-out summary if you're not in the mood to read the whole thing, but I encourage you to read it-read it and decide what you think (a mixture others' quotes she uses in the post and her own):

"The opening up, diversifying and expanding of women’s sphere of existence may have given them more things to potentially be unhappy about ..."

"The wage gap persists, particularly for mothers, who now earn 73 cents for every man’s dollar. Our workforce and education system is still sex-segregated, operating along generations-old stereotypes that steer most women into low-paid, low-status, low-security professions. Women pay more for health insurance than men, have more extensive health needs than men, and suffer unique forms of discrimination in their coverage. (Women may be denied coverage because they had a Caesarean delivery or were victims of domestic violence — both 'preexisting conditions.') Regardless of the number of hours they work, they continue to do far more caretaking and housekeeping work at home than do their husbands. And discrimination against mothers (but not fathers) in the workplace is all but ubiquitous."

"Entering the world of men may very well have raised the bar of expectations ... greater equality may have led more women to compare their outcomes to those of the men around them. In turn, women might find their relative position lower than when their reference group included only women. ... In other words: if you expect less for yourself, you’re easier to please."

"In public opinion surveys, women consistently rank their own inequality, at work and at home, among their most urgent concerns. ... If the women’s movement raised women’s expectations faster than society was able to meet them, they would be more likely to be disappointed by their actual experienced lives."

In other words, June Cleaver wasn't happy because she got to cook and clean. She was happy because she succeeded within that limited sphere.

On a happier note: "The happiest marriages ... are those in which a couple shares egalitarian values. Men in today's world who have gone with the flow of changing roles and mores ... are healthier, closer to their wives and children, happier and … having more sex."

Try this in your morning coffee

The weather here in Texas has been overcast and downright mild, making me excited about the change of season. One of my favorite ways to celebrate the change? Peppermint coffee.

When the weather is cooler, I'm able to find peppermint-flavored coffee beans at the store, or I'll drink peppermint-flavored mochas at Starbucks when I have to. In warmer weather (read: most of the year), the combination is hard to find. Then I thought, What if that useless bottle of peppermint extract I have in the cabinet would work?

It does! Just put a couple of drops right into your brew, and there you have it folks. A yummy, steamy juxtaposition of hot and cool, right in your morning cup.

Find peppermint extract at the grocery store on the baking aisle, alongside the vanilla extract and other flavors.

Jimmy Carter is the man

No rocking chair for this senior citizen. Love this man. When most ex-presidents reach his age (especially of the defeated, one-term variety), they're not hauling their passion for peace and human rights around the globe to his particular intensity.

For me personally, it's heartening to see a powerful, fellow Christian taking stances on sexism, racism and the death penalty because his relationship with Christ compels him to, even though it won't boost his stock in the evangelical Christian world.

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As detailed in the video above, Pres. Carter is not content to pretend the South doesn't have the problems with which it's still plagued — it's an elder's job to chastise the younger generations' errant ways, is it not? He doesn't neglect the duty. He points out what most of us already know but are too timid and in denial to admit. The South is still mired in latent racism. Anyone who a) lives in Texas/the South, and b) doesn't operate in a state of willful blindness knows this.

You know when you're in Wal-Mart, and there's a toddler in the same aisle who's pitching a wild-eyed fit, but all the mom does is silently detach or, to the most, lamely request, "Now, now, Breanna; please try to be quiet for mommy"? That's not Jimmy Carter. But he's not the opposite, either — we've already seen how much change the take-no-prisoners cowboy routine actually affects. It's his sound, gentle, yet unapologetic rebuke of the world's pink elephants that makes him such a national treasure.

The man is 84 years old. 84. Still sharp as a blade, crazily articulate, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, AND he's a deacon and life-long Baptist Sunday school teacher. (Totally irrelevant trivia: He's Elvis Presley's fifth cousin and is related to Motown founder Barry Gordy, Jr. on his mom's side.) And let's talk about this man's IQ. He's one of the top five most intelligent U.S. presidents, just below John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, and just above the smart likes of Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. For perspective, George W. Bush's IQ, based on his highest score, is in the bottom two, just above Grant. Just sayin'.

He's thought to be one of only two U.S. presidents (along with Nixon) who's been faithful to his wife (I think that came from the book White House Confidential; let me know if I'm wrong). He's simply one of the most respectable statesmen this country has.

Yet he continually endures insults of "irrelevant," even though he's made it his life's purpose to do nothing but work on the most relevant issues of our time. Instead of his detractors attempting to reach his intellectual plane and form legit counters to his views, you're likely to hear that "Jimmy Carter's officially senile!" from too many of them. He's constantly chided to quietly fade into the past like a good, elderly ex-president should.

Well, not this grandpa.

I hope to be half as fearless and active when I reach his age.

Viva las old folks who refuse to diminish!!

Jimmy Carter primer:
• Jimmy Carter topic page on NYT
• Losing my religion for equality: Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God
• An ex-president like no other: Jimmy Carter, the passionate feminist
• Carter sees racism in Wilson outburst
• The Carter Center
• His wiki page
• An Amazon list of his books

Year One: Marriage

Yesterday Brian and I marked one year of marriage. I have many things to learn yet, but I've gathered a few gems along the way.

• Men are better at housekeeping than women give them credit for.
• The storied "honeymoon phase" is fiction. The whole first six months, if not the whole year, is an extended adjustment period. I went through plenty of negative but necessary emotions: fear, grief over the loss my former self as I knew her, anger, confusion. It was all part of transforming from a single individual to a married team member.
• The change that I didn't expect to have such an impact: sleeping in the same bed with another person every night. It seems so insignificant. But after 32 years of sleeping alone, it was quite a shock to my mind and body.
• It's frighteningly easy to forgo all social life in lieu of just slumming it at home with your spouse in front of the TV.
• Getting married does not, in fact, cause a supernatural mind meld that seamlessly merges your two sets of ideas, hopes, tastes and values. Intellectually, I knew this. But in my subconscious, where all the world's subtle suggestions about what women should expect from life are buried, I felt we would automatically snap to the same page beginning Aug. 23, 2008. Not so.
• It's cliche because it's true: If both spouses don't actively participate in frequent, open, honest communication, the marriage is either doomed for misery or for failure.
  

And that's why I'm glad Brian is willing more than any man on earth to work against the grain of his sex: he tries his blessed best to communicate, and he does the dishes. While we still battle the realness of marriage from time to time, these two qualities let me know everything's going to be all right.

Love you, babe.

Dallas restaurants, please don't listen to the new restaurant critic

The Dallas Morning News' restaurant critic, Leslie Brenner, has been here all of six months. And she's got our dining scene all figured out.

She came from L.A., and I agree with parts of her assessment about how Dallas can become a better restaurant city, like using more local produce and offering more fruit desserts alongside all the chocolate. She says a few nice things about our scene and starts off by ticking off the main Dallas hoods — "Uptown, downtown, Oak Lawn, the Arts District, the Park Cities, Bishop Arts District" — to show that she knows us, complimenting our "vibrancy" because we eat out for lunch.

I am not a critic and I am not a foodie. But I laughed while I read this column, because it screams, "Why isn't Dallas doing things the way I'm used to?" It's all the funnier because it's written by a fresh-from-the-airport transplant from L.A. Her big gripe, that our chefs and restaurateurs are giving Dallasites what they want.

Counter: Dallas restaurateurs, do not listen to her; please continue giving me what I want: good food, not high art. I will simply stop visiting you if this changes.

I want to believe she only means that we should look to other cities to emulate how they've carved out a reputation for themselves. But the column reads like she's suggesting we actually de-Dallas ourselves. I don't know why in the world we'd want to do that.

Leslie sounds like a bad American tourist in a foreign city, wondering why everyone's doing things differently and upsetting her comfort cart. I've never heard a critic come out and say quite as straight as she does that a city should, essentially, study other large cities' restaurants and copy them. That wouldn't make us better; that would make us lame.

She seems to be experiencing a bit of lost-in-translation culture confusion. She says servers at sushi restaurants here are confused when she wants to order directly from the chef. Perhaps they're confused because that's not a thing here. The chef wouldn't have conveyed to your server which fish is good? Maybe that's customary in sushi restaurants elsewhere, but from a local's perspective, it's seems like a big waste of everyone's time. We can be pretty pretentious here, but I can't imagine my boring question of "What fish is good today?" as being so important that I would need to drag the chef away from his or her work of conjuring up the exciting, New York-flavored dishes you admonish them to provide us, when I could simply ask my waiter.

She also gets offended when she's left food on her plate and the server doesn't ask her what's up with that. Maybe I can lend a regional lesson here as well. Sure, some servers will subtly inquire, but generally they don't ask why you've left food on your plate because it's none of their business. Maybe you became full before finishing, maybe you're trying to lose weight, maybe you get gas if you consume too much wheat flour, maybe the portions are simply too large to prudently complete. Consider it regional manners that they're not asking. We tend to be a little more independent here, so if a meal is that bad, don't be a wallflower about it. Leslie does remind us that diners have a responsibility to say something if the food isn't working for them, but she says this right after boo-hooing that servers don't do the asking. She advises servers, "Pay attention to what diners are silently telling you." Honey, we don't silently tell anyone anything. Restaurateurs know this.

She also says our chefs should travel (could she be more condescending. Why does she assume they don't travel? Because we're in Texas and Texans don't travel?) and that creme brulee is so 1994 (if we enjoy a dessert and it works, we're not going to care if it's from 1884 or 3004).

My gripe about the Dallas dining (and nightlife) scene is that it wants to be L.A. and New York so badly. It takes itself a little too seriously and behaves like a wealthy yet self-conscious teenager at NorthPark, constantly wondering who's looking at her and trying too hard. Dallas needs to do Dallas and stop trying so desperately to be somewhere else. It's not charming and erodes regional identity. Let's explore (the so 1980s) Southwestern cuisine further. Let's make ourselves known for the Dallas flavor we blend with other styles, too, like vegan, Asian, Brazilian, Italian.

When my mother made spaghetti and other pasta growing up, the sauce contained ground hamburger meat and jalapenos with a side of garlic Texas toast and salad with Ranch dressing. Borrow from a region's ratatouille, and the people will love you. Borrowing too heavily from another region only further prevents Dallas from forming a unique identity outside of that dang-blasted TV show we're known for. Being innovative means exploring regional spins on established cuisines. I imagine that travelers visiting with us would like to experience how Dallas does Korean, not how another city does Korean.

Along with regional spins, I'm down with classic, authentic flavors of French, Italian, etc., and I'm not going to fault a restaurant that doesn't get freaky with the tapas and paella. When I eat Spanish, that's what I want.

But mostly you're going to find me at very North Texas eateries, like El Ranchito, Manny's Tex-Mex, Joe T.'s and Spiral Diner. They give me what I want, which is a mix of comfort and new experiences.