Stuff to Read (4/8/10): porn stars, condoms, oysters, and health care

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm fairly busy with other things this morning, but let me alert you to a few interesting articles over at Slate:

-- "That's a Wrap: The case for bringing condoms to adult films," by Kent Sepkowitz. I'm not sure the porn industry should be regulated like this, but I suppose it's important to humanize porn stars a bit, not merely to maintain them in our fantasies. And the reality is that people do learn a lot from porn and might benefit from seeing the "talent" wrapped up.

-- "Consider the Oyster: Why even strict vegans should feel comfortable eating oysters by the boatload," by Christopher Cox. Cox is a vegan. Personally, I describe myself as a flexitarian, insofar as I'm not an absolutist when it comes to food (even though I generally don't eat pork and red meat). And I love oysters, preferably raw and naked, preferably from Prince Edward Island. But while I eat them anyway, it's good to know that even a firm vegan can make such a strong case: oyster farming doesn't harm the environment, there's no real risk of overfarming, and oysters don't have central nervous systems.

-- "Unchanged Minds: A majority of Americans still believe the uninsured are doing just fine," by Timothy Noah. A majority of Americans, it seems, are, to put it nicely, deeply ignorant -- and, to put it less nicely, appallingly stupid. It's not really much of a majority, when you delve through the survey questions into the numbers, but there is still a great deal of insensitivity among the public, again to put it nicely.