in

That liberal, feminist columnist Maureen Dowd has the top spot again on the NY Times' most emailed list. The attraction to her column, titled "An Ideal Husband," can only mean that women feel they are missing something in the opposite sex, or are perhaps interested to know if something's missing.

Dowd doesn't actually write much of anything new in this column. Instead, she just runs quotes from Father Pat Connor, a 79-year-old Catholic priest who has given the lecture "Whom Not to Marry" for the past 40 years. Some excerpts:

  • "Never marry a man who has no friends. This usually means that he will be incapable of the intimacy that marriage demands..."
  • "Steer clear of someone whose life you can run, who never makes demands counter to yours. It’s good to have a doormat in the home, but not if it’s your husband."
  • "Does he have a sense of humor? That covers a multitude of sins..."

Considering the qualifications presented by Connor, I don't think there's such a shortage of men women should want to snag (Case in point: Me), but rather women need help identifying these men (Read: Smart dating). Unfortunately, they won't find much more guidance from the column.

That's the typical hook for any article (Read: catalogs, US Weekly, Maureen Dowd advice columns, etc.) targeting women: Show women what they want (clothes, body, men), but never how to attain. Got to keep up readership, right?

in

GOD BLESS AMERICA!
I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July.

I went out to the one and only Mike Chaffee(!)'s waterfront home on Mercer Island for the evening. He threw a one hell of a party, complete with BBQ, fire pit, Rock Band and ice luge.

Screw bars. I need to go to house parties way more often.

Update: More pictures here.

in

Happy Birthday, America! In your honor, I present food porn:
canon july08 001
I give you seared salmon cakes (thank you, Trader Giotto) drizzled with olive oil over dollops of pesto, accompanied by a small mountain of strawberries and peaches. There's lunch!

in

I read an absolutely fascinating cover story from Sunday's print edition of The New York Times Magazine called, "No babies?"

You don't have to read the entire article (It's a long one) to get the gist: Europe's birthrate is in drastic decline and the implications this trend are severe.

Author Russell Shorto throws some numbers out early in the article to illustrate how low the birthrate is:

  • Birthrates in Southern and Eastern Europe have dropped below 1.3. At this rate, a country's population will cut in half in 45 years.
  • In 1960, Europe represented 12.5 percent of the world's population. Today it is 7.2 percent, and if current trends continue, by 2050 only 5 percent of the world will be European.
  • In Germany, birth-to-death ratios result in an annual population loss of 100,000.

Sounds like I need to get over to Italy and start making babies ASAP. I'll jump on getting my dual citizenship to make it legit.