For me there is no greater touchstone of summer than a mountain of local corn on display, and I find myself drawn to it no matter my retail mission. Invariably, I join other shoppers in the ritual where each of us acts as though we alone know what it takes to choose the most succulent ears.
Read full article >>A longtime friend and I were on the phone. Before I even finished my sentence, I sensed how she would react when I told her I would be putting pineapple and plantains on the grill.
I could practically hear her eyes roll.
Read full article >>Men are Pygs.
That’s at least one potential take-away from “Ruby Sparks,” an adroit, modestly inventive take on the Pygmalion myth from the actress Zoe Kazan. Kazan wrote the screenplay for this alternately fizzy and cerebral romantic comedy in which she also stars. That “Ruby Sparks” just happens to offer a showcase for some bravura acting on her part — particularly in one show-stopping sequence late in the proceedings — only proves that Kazan is as cognizant of the limited roles for women in Hollywood as she is willing to take matters into her own considerably watchable hands.
Read full article >>Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a rare conglomeration of connective-tissue disorders. Symptoms include migraines, easily bruised skin, resistance to anesthetics and, most markedly, hyper-flexible joints that bend in ways bordering on the grotesque. I know all of this because I have become convinced — in the obsessive, giddy way of hypochondriacs — that I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I have become convinced of this because I have just finished reading “The Violinist’s Thumb.”
Read full article >>It seems like a bizarre question to ask. Why would voters punish Obama for a severe drought across the United States? The president can be plausibly blamed for lots of things, but a hot, parched summer seems like a bit of a stretch. (Even if climate change is contributing to the current drought, the Obama administration has at least taken a few steps to rein in U.S. carbon emissions, after all.)
Read full article >>MOSCOW — The anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who is being investigated for his role in a demonstration in May that turned violent, tweeted this week that he was being followed by four unmarked police cars, instead of the usual two. Ten people, he wrote, were riding in them.
Read full article >>TOKYO — Japan posted its biggest first-half trade deficit on record, according to government figures released Wednesday, highlighting the economic consequences as this nuclear-averse country imports fossil fuels to meet its energy needs.
Read full article >>The skies over Somalia have become so congested with drones that the unmanned aircraft pose a danger to air traffic and potentially violate a long-standing arms embargo against the war-torn country, according to United Nations officials.
Read full article >>LONDON — With a red-white-and-blue tint in her braids and red-white-and-blue lacquer on her fingernails, Venus Williams was a portrait in national pride Tuesday at Olympic Park.
No American has won more Olympic tennis gold than the 32-year-old Williams. And none spoke more eloquently about the spirit of the Games just hours after a jet-lagged U.S. Olympic tennis team landed at Heathrow Airport.
Read full article >>NEW YORK —Gio Gonzalez had not given the Washington Nationals reason to worry before Tuesday night, but he had been veering toward that direction. They never doubted their left-handed, ever-smiling all-star, but Gonzalez had fallen off the pace that made him an early-season Cy Young candidate. His relative slide culminated last week, when he allowed the New York Mets six runs in less than four innings.
Read full article >>USA Swimming has requested an emergency disciplinary hearing against prominent Washington area swimming coach Rick Curl for allegedly engaging in a sexual relationship with a teen swimmer and then paying her and her parents to keep quiet as part of a settlement.
Read full article >>A morning mix of entertainment headlines . . .
The cover story of the new Us Weekly drops a “Twilight”-related bombshell: Kristen Stewart allegedly cheated on boyfriend Robert Pattinson with her “Snow White and the Huntsman” director Rupert Sanders. Sanders is married and has two children. Us says it has photos of the two kissing last week. A source told People that Stewart is “devastated,” adding “She wasn’t having an affair with Rupert. It was just a fleeting moment that shouldn’t have happened.” Reps for Stewart and Sanders have not weighed in yet. (Us Weekly; People)
Read full article >>The e-mail was startling — and thrilling. Chef Scott Drewno wanted to learn about preserving, and the guy behind those Asian-fusion duck bao buns and exquisite dumplings at The Source wanted to learn about it from — gulp! — me.
Read full article >>We’ve got a campaign slogan for James Windle: “Speak softly and carry a really big stick.”
The former federal bureaucrat is running for Congress in his home state of Washington. In a campaign Web video, Windle introduces himself to voters — and shows off by jogging in the mountains with a huge cedar log on his shoulder.
Read full article >>The Food and Drug Administration’s parent agency told a government contractor that 80,000 pages of confidential employee communications that the company posted on the Internet contained no sensitive or personally identifiable information, documents show.
Read full article >>The Government Accountability Office recently added to the body of work on the disparity of pay between federal and private-sector employees with its own report.
However, the report contained contradictary findings to some other studies on how pay compared between the sectors, as the strategy for determining pay differences were measured differently by the research organizations.
Read full article >>History is littered with odd couples: Oscar and Felix, Anna Nicole Smith and that old guy, etc. Add to that list Native Americans and . . . Turkey?
That unlikely pairing was the star of a perplexing bill that failed on the House floor Monday night. The measure would have made it easier for American Indian tribes to do business with Turkey.
Read full article >>“Ironically, Mitt Romney knows better than anyone that business can’t always do it alone. When Bain & Company was on the verge of bankruptcy Romney himself negotiated a $10 million bailout with the FDIC.”
Read full article >>This evening, one of the more influential national polls, from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, will release its latest findings. If it reports some of the same weakness for Obama as the recent New York Times-CBS News poll did, we can conclude the race has shifted in Romney's favor.
Read full article >>Until this week, Russians blissfully chomped away on their two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame-seed bun as if it were part of their birthright. The McDonald’s restaurants here always seem to be overflowing with young and old, Beeg Mak and Koka-Kola blissfully in hand. You could say they were lovin’ it.
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