Simonton Says

Justice for rape survivors? Look at the Kobe Bryant case

The dropping of rape charges against NBA player Kobe Bryant last week is being portrayed as an agreement that makes both sides happy.

ABC News called it a win-win situation. I think not.

The fact is, the deck was stacked against that young woman from the beginning.

Bryant benefits, of course, because he’s no longer being prosecuted for rape. He’s made a statement that he’s sorry, and, by the way, he thought the sex was consensual

It's 2004: Do you know where your children are?

“American children need to be caned more,” an African man recently told my husband.

Wade and I were amused. Would we cane our children? No. But then, we’re 21st century American parents.

I’ve thought about the caning opinion, however, – especially when I read the AJC article Do you know where your kids are? -- because it pounds home the vast differences in childrearing among cultures.

Visiting Celo, fleeing the bureaucracy

I catch glimpses of Camp Celo through the children. They describe it to me.

There’s the South Toe River, sloshing over rocks, coming through the Black Mountains and the Blue Ridge. That’s where they swim.

There’s Anna, 15, in her barn boots feeding the chickens. Or working in the garden, which supplies much of the camp food and which is planted in fanciful curving rows.

Chewing the fat: Handwringing about obesity

Is obesity a disease? I don’t think so.

The rhetoric around obesity got more frenzied last week after the Department of Health and Human Services announced it was changing the language in its Medicare policy. The policy now considers obesity to be an illness.

To its great credit, the department made the change in order to allow Medicare to cover some weight loss treatments. That’s a good thing, because obesity-related diseases need to be prevented. However, it has succeeded in muddying the waters in a vast linguistic swamp.

Books at the beach: A laundry list

We slipped away from the egg-yolk hotel on a hot, bright morning last week. We found a little condo at Crescent Beach near St. Augustine. Finally, relaxation at the beach could begin again. And I remembered what I had meant to tell you.

My mother used to entertain my father at the dinner table by reading out loud certain portions of my grandmother’s letters. My grandmother wrote weekly. In her letters, she never failed to list each item of clothing she had hand-washed that day. My father never failed to find this litany of teddies and slips amusing.

In the spirit of my grandmother, herewith is a laundry list of sorts, not of clothing, but of beach reading. It may not include the long, lazy novels recommended by newspaper feature writers, but it’s idiosyncratic enough for me.