I love macaroni and cheese. It may be my favorite food. There’s just something about it that is so comforting. Usually I just whip up a box of Kraft (heresy, I know), but tonight I decided to make homemade mac and cheese. I used Sheila Lukins’ recipe from her book Ten. The recipe is pictured below. It came out really well, and there is enough left over to last me a week. I will definitely be making this one again, although next time I think I will try different types of cheese – maybe goat or manchego.
It turns out that the Federal District Court Judge who will be deciding the Prop 8 case, Judge Vaughn Walker, is gay. Unfortunately I worry that if he decides that Prop 8 is in fact unconstitutional, conservatives will be quick to blame it on his sexuality – suggesting that he’s biased. The fact that his sexuality is even making news headlines worries me, especially because there are people questioning whether he can be impartial in deciding this case. (Walker, as it turns out, is fairly conservative as politics go – his decisions have angered the gay community in the past.) I wish this didn’t have to be an issue, but it reminds me that people who are part of any kind of majority, be it sexual, racial, or gender, always forget that they too have a sexual orientation, a race, and a gender. Just because you are a straight, white male does not mean that you are free from bias. Unfortunately, however, if a straight judge was deciding this case we would not see article after article questioning whether he be able to remain unbiased. We do not question whether he will decide in favor of the Prop 8 supporters because he is straight. We assume that being straight (or white, or male) is the neutral center, and we don’t look any deeper. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that when the decision comes out, the media will focus on the legal reasoning and not Judge Walker’s sexuality.
Perhaps it is worthless to blog about the inherent sexism in commercials, but when I’m actually watching the commercials, it just becomes so much more apparent. This year the commercials seem to be all about men and what it means to be a man.I was shocked to see a Dove commercial, a company who I’m usually impressed by, put out a commercial celebrating some kind of inherent masculinity.
The Dodge Charger commercial proved once again that women like to deprive men of their masculinity, and they need gadgets and cars to regain it:
Men also seem to have a venue to get their aggression out on women, by, what else, tackling them:
Of course there was the Focus on the Family – Tim Tebow commercial, which has received tons of attention already. The message here, if you’re irresponsible and get pregnant, then you may as well do the right thing and keep the baby.
The majority of these commercials seem to suggest that American men are in trouble – their masculinity is being threatened, mainly by women, and they need to get it back in any way possible. I worry what these commercials mean for women. Will we see more depictions of aggression toward women in the media? Will women be even more demonized than they already are? It’s sad that these stereotypical images of what a man should be continue to persist, and that we haven’t moved beyond it at all.
It turns out that the Federal District Court Judge who will be deciding the Prop 8 case, 
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