A Few Links on SCOTUS + Dobbs
Plus the history of 'Heat' diner scene and other stuff.
Dear Friends,
Happy Friday Saturday and welcome back to The Crunchwrap. This was meant to go out yesterday as usual, but events (or “events” or “😱”) made it seem sillier than usual.
Anyhow, enjoy to the extent that you can and thanks as always for stopping by.
First Crunch
I’m gonna forgo the normal journal entry here and just share a few pieces I thought were clarifying about yesterday’s SCOTUS decision on abortion.
From Jia Tolentino on the future:
Both abortion and miscarriage currently occur more than a million times each year in America, and the two events are often clinically indistinguishable. Because of this, prohibition states will have a profoundly invasive interest in differentiating between them. Some have already laid the groundwork for establishing government databases of pregnant women likely to seek abortions. Last year, Arkansas passed a law called the Every Mom Matters Act, which requires women considering abortion to call a state hotline and requires abortion providers to register all patients in a database with a unique I.D. Since then, six other states have implemented or proposed similar laws. The hotlines are provided by crisis pregnancy centers: typically Christian organizations, many of which masquerade as abortion clinics, provide no health care, and passionately counsel women against abortion. Crisis pregnancy centers are already three times as numerous as abortion clinics in the U.S., and, unlike hospitals, they are not required to protect the privacy of those who come to them. For years, conservative states have been redirecting money, often from funds earmarked for poor women and children, toward these organizations. The data that crisis pregnancy centers are capable of collecting—names, locations, family details, sexual and medical histories, non-diagnostic ultrasound images—can now be deployed against those who seek their help.
And from Friend of the Crunch Irin Carmon on the minority dissent:
A judicial dissent is by definition a loser’s game, and there are only three losers left to speak on today’s Supreme Court as six justices eviscerate reproductive freedom for millions of Americans. That doesn’t mean a dissent is meaningless.
When the majority opinion authoritatively tells us not to believe what is happening in front of our own eyes (or what will happen next as a result of its decision), when it sets terms that erase the impact on actual people’s lives — it helps to have something in black and white that says to the public, You are not crazy. This is what the 66-page dissent by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan does.
And the AP’s round-up of news and implications from around the country and the WHO’s condemnation from Geneva:
“Roe has never been enough, but in states like West Virginia, it was the only thing protecting abortion access,” said Katie Quinonez, executive director of Women’s Health Center of West Virginia.
She says West Virginians will be forced to travel hundreds or thousands of miles away from home to access health care and that marginalized communities will be hurt the most.
Video Break
Earlier this week, Bilge Ebiri did a long study of the infamous diner scene in the 1995 movie Heat, which men of my age and relative frattiness are required to tell you is high art. (Y’know the scene: The one where detective/Friend of the Crunch Al Pacino and criminal/nominal antivaxxer Robert de Niro have coffee?)
What I didn’t know about this CLASSIC movie is that it had an ignominious previous life as a bad TV movie called L.A. Takedown, a project that also involved Heat director Michael Mann. In his excellent piece, Ebiri uses the bad TV movie version of the diner scene as a way to exhibit the (obvious) brilliance of the film version:
Snack of the Week: Turkey Miso Meatballs
These meatballs are hoisted almost directly from a very simple Times recipe. I used a pound of ground turkey (which is what I had on hand) rather than the ground chicken and it was DELISH, folks. And easy.
Preheat the oven to 425.
Mix your protein with a handful of crushed crackers or breadcrumbs, three tablespoons of miso paste, 1/4 cup of whole milk, a few minced garlic cloves and some minced ginger, some chopped green onions, and a few grinds of salt and pepper.
Use wet hands to form them into golf-sized meatballs and put ‘em on parchment paper on a baking sheet. 15 minutes in the oven.
Eat them over rice/noodles or with your hands and alone in your shame. Or do what one commenter recommended and I also loved: Place them in lettuce cups atop a 50/50 mix of mayo and gochujang.
Nu, What Else?
Doug Mack on the role of hot dogs in American diplomacy is the snack you want it to be.
I’m about 75 percent of the way through Pachinko on AppleTV+ and if you want some glossy, prestige television which, by definition, is extremely sad, this is the show for you. A real beautiful drag.
Phil Klay on the evolution of guns in American life is full of fascinating historical bits and takes a smart, oblique journalistic approach to terrible recent events.
Reader, I chortled! “Big Cafe has been ripping off the American workforce for far too long, and I will no longer be ashamed to admit that the humble living room absolutely wipes the floor with the accursed sidewalk table. How is this even a debate?”
Okay, bye!
Love,
Adam