Internal Monologue

We have proof : The Obamas attended a private memorial service for Madelyn Dunham , who lived in a modest apartment here and died of cancer at age 86 two days before the presidential election. The service was held at the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, a two-story house converted into a place of worship. The service was closed to the media.

Some people might be creeped out by this : Babysitting robots, once the province of speculative fiction, are on the market. They make conversation, recognize faces and keep track of kids. They're not a replacement for TV or games, but for personal care — and some researchers worry that kids will be harmed. "If you leave a small child in front of the TV, you have to keep popping in to make sure they're OK. But these are so safe that people will eventually leave their children in the care of robots," said Noel Sharkey , a University of Sheffield roboticist. But I welcome it. Here's a dirty little parenting secret that isn't a secret to anyone who actually does the work of parenting: a lot of the work of childcare is dull, tedious, and unfulfilling. And dull, tedious, and unfulfilling work is exactly what robots are for. Our current practice of using exploitable immigrant labor instead of robots rests on a foundation of economic systemic inequality, and I don&

Amanda Marcotte has an interesting thought I hadn't considered before: I can safely say that I think Santa is for adults, and specifically for making universal the pleasure of lying to children because they’ll believe anything you say. Not all of us are skilled bullshitters who can come up with cockamamie stories on the fly, like Calvin’s dad, or my dad, who told us that Parmesan cheese was made up from ground-up dirty sweat socks. Santa democratizes the process of exploiting child credulity so that any adult, no matter how unimaginative, can participate. She concludes: None of this is to say that I strenuously object to Santa. I’m not a parent, and it’s not my place to say one way or another if you choose to engage in what is a relatively harmless tradition. But I do think that I’d like the whole thing a lot more if people quit spinning self-serving tales about how Santa is there for the kiddies. I realize that parental sadism is not P.C., and so in order to engage in it, pa

The " Please Don't Divorce... " picture project from the Courage Campaign. If we had been this direct and unashamed in the anti-Prop 8 campaign, it might not have passed. Instead, all the anti-Prop 8 ads acted like they were ashamed to talk about same sex people loving each other. But that's the whole point. You don't get to vote on someone's marriage. Especially if it already exists. Alas, some think otherwise : Infamous prosecutor Ken Starr has filed a legal brief -- on behalf of the "Yes on 8" campaign -- to nullify the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California between May and November of 2008. It's time to put a face to Ken Starr's shameful legal proceedings. To put a face to the 18,000 couples facing forcible divorce. To put a face to marriage equality. Because, gay or straight, YOU are the face of the Marriage Equality Movement. I'm going to give Courage Campaign a small donation . This is something I want to be on the r

I don't normally link to The Weekly Standard , it being way off the cliff in terms of its right-wing politics. But this portrait of ruined Detroit is extremely moving: Wilcox drives me all over the city, pointing out missed urban-planning opportunities and eyesores. He takes me downtown to what the locals call "Skyscraper Graveyard," where the clock seems to have stopped in the Art Deco period and high-rise after high-rise sits empty. He points out the landmark Book Tower, a 38-story building finished in 1926, which he says is now vacant except for Bookies Tavern on the first floor. Wilcox's lawyer told him he'd been "the last tenant there. He had to downsize. People are too broke to sue people. He's now switching to bankruptcy law to try to save his house." I come to think of Wilcox as the curator of a museum that's been overturned and looted. The prize of his collection, or what could have been his collection, is the detailed production note