“An editorial on Friday about the Supreme Court’s review of a California law barring the sale or rental of violent video games to minors incorrectly described the content of three games. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Postal 2, and Duke Nukem 3D graphically depict many repellent acts. They do not depict rape.”
 — What happens when people defend the right of unpleasant speech who have still never walked a mile in Tommy Vercetti’s shoes. Still, a counterpoint: “Wait, does getting your money back from a hooker by beating her up count as rape?”

There’s lots of nice things about gathering on Thanksgiving for a big meal with family. We love our families. And in many ways, Thanksgiving is one of the more enjoyable holidays of the year. But, of course, it can present its difficulties. Here are ten things not to talk about during Thanksgiving dinner. Let’s all just try to get through this, okay?

1) Turkey
It’s unfortunate, since this will be the main course at most American Thanksgiving dinners. But mentioning the word can all too easily remind people of the country of the same name, and then nudge the conversation dangerously close to the issue of the Armenian genocide during the first World War. And if you ask, say, a cousin’s Turkish wife about how this sensitive subject is taught in Turkish schools (because she is a teacher, in Turkey, and had actually just been talking about the issue of teaching controversial episodes in Turkish history, and you actually thought that the Armenia thing was what she was talking about) you may be glared at by your cousin and told, “Well now that’s a cheery subject!” Apparently there are other controversial episodes in Turkish history and she was talking about those.

2) Pilgrims
Much too close to the hot-button political issue of immigration. Better just to pretend that no people have ever moved from one country to another country. At least for this one holiday, let’s pretend that. For the sake of the meal.

3) Native Americans
People choose different paths in life. Even family members who love each other very much. Some people move to California and get into yoga and spirituality and alternative healing practices, while others opt to stay in New York and remain bitter and complaining about everything all the time. Some people may want to read a ten-minute Native American prayer of thanks to our mother earth for the bounty she has bestowed upon us as a reminder of our duty to protect the environment. Before food is served. Do not huff loudly half way through. Do not say the words “new age.” Do make sure there’s a full bottle of wine nearby.

4) Real estate/home address
Just don’t.

5) Music
Because people have different opinions about things. Someone at the table may be a professional musician, and wonder aloud why the musical artist Prince inspires such love and devotion from his fans since, this person might say, “his singing is always off key!” Due to your own feelings about Prince, which run counter to those just expressed, and the consumption of many glasses of wine during the recitation of a Native American prayer, you may blurt out an answer to the posed question by stating, enthusiastically, that Prince is simply the “baddest motherfucker in the world.” There may be be children at the table, ages twelve, nine, four. An aunt may tell your wife, who she’s sitting next to, that, “That’s not okay.”

6) How’s the job hunt going?
Pass the potatoes, please?

7) The weather
An innocent question, posed to break an uncomfortable silence. “Have you noticed it’s a little warmer this year than it used to be?” BOOM! Now you’re in a heated debate about the divisive issue of climate change and whether or not all these evil scientists are making up all these flim-flam “studies” just to line their fat-cat scientist pockets. Not to mention the activist judges. They must have something to do with this, too, right?

8) Books
You haven’t read enough of them. You don’t understand the few that you’ve read.

9) Football
What, and risk getting into the controversial issue of helmet-to-helmet hits, the inherent violence of the game, the concussions, or, God forbid, Brett Favre’s penis? Nope. Not this year. Simply sit and watch in silence.

10) Dessert
I can not lie! Each and every one of these pies, cakes, cookies and crumbles that all the different relatives have contributed is equally delicious!

But here’s the recipe for my sister’s apple cake. (It’s the bomb.)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. gound allspice
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 beaten eggs
1 tbs. vanilla
3 cups chopped, peeled apples (she uses Granny Smith)
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted in 350° oven for 5–10 minutes (watch them to make sure they don’t burn)
2 tsp. shredded lemon peel
sifted powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and lightly flour a round bundt pan (the doughnut shaped one), set pan aside. Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, all-spice, and 1/4 tsp. salt. Set aside.

2. In a mixing bowl combine sugars, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add dry mixture and beat on low just till combined. Fold in apples, half the pecans, and lemon peel. Pour batter into prepared pan. Put rest of pecans on top.

3. Bake in 350 oven about 1 hour (maybe 5–10 minutes more) until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool on rack for three hours. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Adapted by Deborah Bry from Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book.

Illustration by Susie Cagle.

Today in things that will be completely dismissed because we are bound and determined to let everything fall apart: “The troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere closest to the Earth, is warming and this warming is broadly consistent with both theoretical expectations and climate models, according to a new scientific study that reviews the history of understanding of temperature changes and their causes in this key atmospheric layer…. The paper documents how, since the development of the very first climate models in the early 1960s, the troposphere has been projected to warm along with the Earth’s surface because of the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This expectation has not significantly changed even with major advances in climate models and is in accord with our basic physical understanding of atmospheric processes.”

“Is there a provision for acquiring new territories?”
“Interestingly, no. And this famously worried Thomas Jefferson circa 1800 when the French government offered him something like a third of North America at a fire-sale price — what would eventually be called the Louisiana Purchase. Actually, it’s a great moment, because Jefferson — who tended to be very strict in his constitutional interpretation — even went so far as to draft a constitutional amendment empowering him to acquire new territories for the nation. But then he gets cold feet and sticks the draft in a drawer. About that time, he writes a fantastic letter to a friend about all this, and he says, basically, ‘Well, you know, the less said about the constitutional difficulties here the better.’ Which is pretty much contrary to everything he ever said about the Constitution. Oops. That can happen when you become President.”
 — If you enjoy this interview with Christina Duffy Burnett on the subject of U.S. territories, islands and odd places, then you’ll really enjoy this unrelated interview with Cătălin Avramescu, author of An Intellectual History of Cannibalism!

The travelling bed bug epidemic has now made its way to Paris, which will undoubtedly lead to any number of right-wing blogs making lame jokes about Paris surrendering. Anyway, hopefully they will pick up some culture while they’re over there.

This Gorillaz song is not so much for me. (I miss “Clint Eastwood,” from back in 2001. Very different!) But the video, an undersea adventure like a Jacques Cousteau movie (or, more recently, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) is definitely right up my alley. Look out rising UK singer-songwriter hailing from Manchester Daley! Sharks!

Here’s Daley singing his own song, “Rainy Day,” for the BBC.

Kind of going for a Mick Hucknall thing, huh?

“The easiest way to get someone to bend the rules is by approaching them one-on-one. For instance, instead of going into a place and being like, ‘Where are the bathrooooms!’ (haha, but also definitely do that), go up to someone who looks like they might be sympathetic to you and, very calmly — the key is always to be calm, and not to make anyone think you’re weird or panicked in any way, even though you likely ARE panicked a little bit, or are, in fact, EXTREMELY panicked — ask, ‘Do you by any chance have a public restroom?’ (I like to believe the dignity of ‘by any chance’ and ‘restroom’ help offset the inner scream of ‘OMG I’m literally going to ____ my pants!’) This turns the issue into a more human, person-to-person situation, rather than just a ‘these-are-the-rules, tough-luck’ situation.”
 — These incredibly servicey insider bathroom tips are totally going to change the way you pee.

Congratulations, Dallas Morning News, you won the Internet.

The other day an old friend popped up on me via instant messenger. We had lost touch in the way that you do, and hadn’t talked in years. We spent an hour or so chatting and catching up — She lives out west now! She has an adorable daughter! Work is good! Etc. — and then went back to doing whatever we were doing before, which in my case was searching for bear videos and wondering how long it was going to be before I could take a drink without feeling kind of shifty about it.

Anyway, here’s the thing: when I was remembering the conversation several hours later, something very strange happened. Well, not “strange,” exactly, because it’s something that has been occurring to me more frequently of late, and I’m not sure what it means. In my recollection of the chat, my friend and I were in a completely different physical space altogether. I mean, I was at my desk the entire time when we were “speaking,” but in my mind the whole thing took place somewhere else, somewhere amorphous and unconnected to any physical location.

I don’t know if I’m explaining this clearly enough, but I seem to be experiencing some sort of disassociation with the terrestrial when I think about these conversations. If I talk to someone on the phone, when I think back on it a few hours afterward I can see myself pacing around the room, head cocked against my shoulder. With an IM chat — depending on who I’m talking to or what the subject is — my sensory perceptions place me in a different, utterly ethereal zone. (The effect is even more pronounced if the conversation occurs with those to whom I speak less frequently or know to be “far away.”)

This is not obviously something completely exclusive to the Internet. We’ve all had the experience of stepping out of a car and suddenly realizing, “Wait, I just drove all the way home and have no memory of doing it.” But there’s a very different feeling to this one; it’s almost as if my brain is creating my own avatar and putting it in a space which lacks the constraints of time or much physical detail. I’m mentally talking to someone else in a vague and undefined area while I am physically “talking” to someone through a screen and keyboard.

There are all sorts of discussions about whether or not the Internet is “rewiring” our brains. I’m pretty sure there’s at least something to the idea — God knows it’s a struggle for me to read printed text in a linear fashion anymore without jumping to the laptop to investigate related information — but this IM phenomenon is throwing me a bit. Is this happening to everyone, or is it just another sign of my impending mental disintegration? Because I could totally see a case for that argument too.

Photo by Tyler Nienhouse, from Flickr.

“Lots of food-loving New Yorkers now take the L train to Brooklyn these days for some of New York’s best new restaurants and markets.”
 — Every time Jessica Seinfeld writes, it’s magic!