Note to the Cambridge Police: if you’re looking to avoid embarrassing publicity on the subject of racial profiling, do not arrest prominent African American Harvard racial-relations professors for attempting to get into their own houses.  This Thursday, Cambridge, Massachusetts, police arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, apparently for forcing the front door of his own home in broad daylight with the help of his chauffeur after the front door stuck.  (Gates apparently had already opened the back door with his key.)  According to the Washington Post, police said they received a report of two black men in backpacks breaking into the house from a neighbor. (Gates was wearing a blazer and leather shoes, and the “break-in” occurred shortly before 1 pm.)  Despite the fact that Gates apparently showed them both his driver’s license and his Harvard ID, they arrested Gates as soon as he stepped out onto the porch and hauled him away, causing a descent of other Harvard professors on the police station.  (Quite a mental image, isn’t it?)

Short of arresting Cornel West on his doorstep or trying to tackle the president, it’s hard to imagine a poorer choice of a black man to arrest from an embarrassment standpoint.  While I obviously don’t know how upset Gates became while trying to explain himself and get the first police officer’s name and badge number, it’s difficult to imagine how they could have felt very threatened by Gates in his own home, as he’s not a physically imposing man.  Gates is now saying that his experience has inspired him to make his next project a study of racial profiling in America.  The Cambridge police had better hope they don’t have any more embarrassing incidents before then!

I’m a big fan of children’s classics — my library of hardcover favorites (the Chronicles of Narnia, the Oz books) is one of my prize possessions.  One of my all-around favorites for any genre, however, is Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and its sequel “Through the Looking Glass.”  (I have to admit, “Through the Looking Glass” is my favorite of the two, but they’re both terrific books.)  Some children’s books get too shallow when you reach adulthood, but there is so much packed into the Alice books that I really never get tired of them. I strongly recommend The Annotated Alice for anyone interested in the little in-jokes and popular references buried in the books (and there are a lot) — Charles Dodgson was a don of mathematics at Oxford, and there’s a lot more in the books than appears at first glance.

Fans of Tim Burton may already be aware that the quirky cinematic visionary is busy at work on a live-action movie version of “Alice in Wonderland,” with Burton regular Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.  Late last month, Disney released concept art shots for the movie, and they are spectacular.  Really, is anyone suprised?  I’m not always a Tim Burton fan (“Edward Scissorhands” left me cold), but no one does inventive fantasy worlds better.

Purists should know that Burton is clearly taking a great many liberties with the plot; the cast list includes Anne Hathaway as the White Queen and Christopher Lee as the Jabberwock, both characters from “Through the Looking Glass” rather than “Alice in Wonderland.” Helena Bonham Carter is listed as the Red Queen, also a character from “Through the Looking Glass,” but looks suspiciously like she’s intended to be the Queen of Hearts from “Alice in Wonderland” in the concept art.  That said, though, this movie is clearly going to be eye candy of the highest order, and you can be damn sure I’ll be at the front of the line when it comes out.  The movie also includes some fantastic back-up talent, including Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar and Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat.

The rest of Burton’s pretties after the jump!

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After searching for three years, NASA finally admitted yesterday that the original video of the first moon landing was not lost, but TAPED OVER so that the videotapes could be reused.  (Budget constraints, you know.)  Apparently 45 tapes of Apollo 11 footage met this fate, presumably years and years ago.

It’s hard to know exactly what to say about this except ARE YOU KIDDING?  Hey, I realize how these things happen.  I taped over my copy of the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series finale.  Of course, it’d be hard to argue that the TNG series finale was one of the most important moments in the history of the 20th century to anyone but a hard-core trekkie, much though I like Q.  And my tape wasn’t exactly the original footage.  But still, I get the urge to reuse tapes when you run out.  It happens.

Despite the fact that NASA apparently didn’t think to preserve arguably the most important footage in its possession, it’s being rescued — the same way I was rescued from my unfortunate TNG episode.  Secondary tapes from around the world have been scrounged and are being restored by Hollywood film restorers; some of the footage has already been released.  So we’ll see those small steps again, but I hate to imagine what the conspiracy theorists are going to have to say about it.

On the other hand, doesn’t that just serve NASA right?

Gorgeous Ted Baker at Bluefly -- too bad it's not his size.

So, I mentioned last month that despite my talking big in March about being the most conspicuously single Femme, I recently started dating someone.  (Amusingly enough, a friend of The Ex’s, and a guy who I’ve known for years and whose Hidden Talents I have mentioned in previous posts.)  One of the most entertaining parts about dating a new guy?  Dressing him up after your own tastes, of course!  Assuming he’s cooperative, there is a special kind of fun in ignoring his actual wardrobe and putting him in exactly the outfit in which you think he will look the hottest.  This is particularly true if you have been admiring said guy’s looks for several years but have not previously been in a position to do anything about it.  Now that we’ve been dating for a couple of months, I figure this is all fair game.

Despite the fact that I’ve known The Man With The Hidden Talents for years, what I didn’t know is that he has a previously hidden talent for hoarding plaid.  He has a truly impressive collection of button shirts, long and short sleeved, in a rainbow array of plaids.  I don’t really have a problem with that — there’s nothing wrong with plaid in concept.  It’s in execution that it becomes problematic.  Anyone with eyes can hardly have failed to notice there are some really horrifying plaids out there.  I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to exercise my fashion talents/treat him like a giant doll and play dress up.  He needs a few more shirts that are not plaid, for choice green.  (He also has several shirts that snap rather than button, but I’ve decided to leave that alone.  I was initially unconvinced by the snap thing, but I am willing to admit I’ve been converted to the point that I suspect he is slightly sorry for having convinced me.  Snap shirts do in fact provide good entertainment value.  Particularly in public.)  And hey, I have time on my hands!

After the jump, my quest for good men’s fashion… which turned out to be a little harder than I expected it to be.

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Okay, I know I’m too young to be this persnickety about popular entertainment and the world in general, but, well, the world is too full of idiotic things to ignore.  As you may have gathered, I’m not a big watcher of reality TV.  Regular episodes of “What Not To Wear” and occasional forays into “Top Design” are about as trashy as it gets for me.  It’s several things, really.  The people on most reality shows are deliberately selected to be not-too-bright and actively obnoxious, so much so that after a while, I start worrying that the dumb is going to rub off.  There isn’t a chance in hell I’d choose to spend time with most of these people in real life, so why would I want to bring them into my living room?  And at least in scripted television there’s a chance that someone will say something clever or do something interesting.  If I want people living normal life… I have my own life for that.

So, I am obviously not the target audience for this series, but still: HOW is there a whole series entitled “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant”?  I can understand how this could be an amusing or interesting special.  But a whole series?  What is this contributing to the world?  I realize that, dumb as it sounds, there are in fact situations in which it’s possible for women who are not total idiots to not realize that they are pregnant.  Women who are carrying extra weight, have irregular cycles, have other medical issues, etc.  I get that, although I do still wonder how you get to the point of being in labor before you figure it out.  I find it impossible to imagine how more than an hour of this could possibly be education, though, and a whole series?  I can’t see how they could avoid running through a trillion women who make the same dumb decisions ignoring their symptoms, and what does anyone get out of that except an opportunity to make fun?  Come on, people.

McQ by Alexander McQueen

I know, this is a pitifully small picture of this gorgeous coat, but it was the only postable picture I could find.  I’m not normally much of a girl for pink (difficult color for me at best), but the ombre effect combining the bright pink with a deep, luxurious charcoal?  Gorgeous.  So gorgeous I can even feel faintly covetous of a coat in the middle of July.  Yet another reason I love Alexander McQueen.

So, has anyone noticed the recent change to our basic cable lineup?  Rest in peace, Sci-Fi Channel, I enjoyed you while you lasted.  I know, I’m a chick.  I’m not supposed to watch sci-fi on TV.  But the fact is, I have gotten more hours of mileage out of the former Sci-Fi Channel than I care to admit.  As of yesterday, the Sci-Fi Channel changed its name in an attempt to both shake the geeky image of science fiction and free itself up to pursue programming that goes farther afield from sci-fi and fantasy.  I’m a little dubious about the value of freeing the network up to bring their programming back to the mainstream stuff that every other network (how many hundreds are there now?) is already doing, but I can understand the desire to do some PR for the image of the sci fi viewer as teenaged, geeky, and male.  (I’ll note that it’s an increasingly inaccurate image of science fiction readers and viewers to the extent that it was ever accurate in the first place, but that’s a whole different discussion.)

My problem is this: is “SyFy” supposed to seem cooler?  This is possibly the stupidest network name I have ever seen. It sounds and looks even more idiotic than the National Geographic Channel calling itself Nat Geo.  I think I actually even like “Spike” better as a network name, and Spike is, well, lacking in nuance to say the least. In this article from TV Week, the president of the former Sci-Fi Channel had this to say about their decision to change to SyFy:

When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it… It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.

Seriously? They feel cooler by changing the name to conform with text message spelling?  (Number 536 on my list of signs of the apocalypse…)  Am I supposed to LOL at this point? Dear God, people.  I don’t normally feel self-conscious about watching sci-fi on television, but it’s hard not to see that quote as just pitiful — he sounds like the confused middle-aged dad trying to seem cool with the kids.

The name change was timed to coincide with the premier of the new “SyFy” original series “Warehouse 13″ yesterday.  While I haven’t seen it, the reviews I’ve seen of Warehouse 13 have been uniformly terrible and have said that it is derivative of… pretty much everything from Raiders of the Lost Ark to X-Files in the most obvious possible way.  I’ll note that the reviews for their real science fiction series like “Stargate SG-1″ and “Battlestar Galactica” were generally very good.  Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Another of my favorite things about summer?  Iced tea, natch. I don’t know what it is, but the second the temperature passes 80 degrees, downing iced tea by the gallon starts seeming like the best idea ever. Of course, the ideal way to enjoy iced tea is to either make a batch of sun tea on your porch and have it while sitting out on said porch admiring the weather, or have a freshly brewed glass brought to you with a slice of lemon at some sidewalk cafe where you can snack and watch the world going by.  Sometimes, though, that’s just not an option, and what you have available is your corner bodega on the way to the Barnes & Noble or a last minute pedicure.

These are the times when I wish I was in Asia, where you can step into the Circle K or 7-Eleven (no, really) and find iced tea in virtually every form imaginable: black plain, black with lemon, black with honey, black with milk, green, green with honey, green with lemon, chysanthemum, jasmine…  and the incidence of overwhelming syrupiness was much lower than it is here. I, quite frankly, can’t stand 90% of all Snapple.  Yes, I gather it’s “the best stuff on Earth,” but it is waaay too sugary for me to find it refreshing on a hot day.  If it has copious quantities of ice, I can handle it, but straight out of the bottle, their peach iced tea, for example, is 90 calories of sugar per 8 ounces (see also, not anything like the whole bottle).   If I’m hot and thirsty and need to grab a bottle at the local deli, that’s just not going to do it.  (It is, I might add, nearly as much sugar as Coke.)

Thankfully, in recent years the stores have branched out enormously in the area of iced tea, and we’re no longer stuck with the traditional syrupy iced tea with lemon of years past. So, here are a few of my favorite genuinely refreshing iced teas.
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You may recall that I posted my remorse about wasting food and grocery money a couple of weeks ago, and expressed a desire to cut down, be more thoughtful in what I buy and make.  I thought as a follow-up, that I would write an article addressing some of the challenges inherent in efficient cooking for one, since that’s one of my major problems.  Useful, right?

This is not going to be that article.  Why?  Well, because I spent a whole bunch of time this weekend looking for good guidance on the subject of cooking for one person, and frankly, all I managed to do was make myself testy.  I’d love to find some great guidance that’d let me cook my lunch and dinner on a regular basis without wasting food or making myself sick eating the same thing over and over.  I am starting to wonder, though, if that kind of guidance exists.

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The National Aqarium on Baltimore's inner harbor.

Need a summer activity that’ll keep you off the beach long enough for your sunburn from this weekend’s barbecues to fade? This is the perfect time of year to visit the aquarium. Don’t ask me why this strikes me as a summer activity; while most aquaria admittedly have at least one or two open areas somewhere, the vast majority of their exhibits are in pleasantly climate-controlled indoor spaces that’d be just as nice during January.  Never mind that. It doesn’t matter why this is a summer activity to me.  It just is.  And tell the truth — as the weather heats up, doesn’t spending some time indoors surrounded by thousands of gallons of water sound pretty nice?

While admittedly the New York Aquarium is not one of the country’s most impressive aquaria (although the walruses are worth the admission price all by themselves), New Yorkers need not despair; great aquaria are only a road trip away. And for our friends down the mid-Atlantic? The National Aquarium in Baltimore makes Baltimore worth the trip all by itself.  (Although you shouldn’t miss the opportunity for a good crabcake while you’re in town.  My love for sea life is, um, many-faceted.)

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