As part of NEWSWEEK's Good Hair Week, senior writer Allison Samuels discussed Zahara Jolie-Pitt and the politics of natural hair and interracial adoptions. Her article, which implored the Jolie-Pitt parents to pay more attention to Zahara's hair, and its follow-up were much discussed at NEWSWEEK and on the Internet. We invited three bloggers to offer their own opinion on the topic. -KD

I once wrote about my natural hair:

My hair is nappy. It is coarse and thick. It grows in pencil-size spirals and tiny crinkles. My hair grows out, not down. It springs from my head like a corona. My hair is like wool. You can't run your fingers through it, nor a comb. It is impenetrable. My hair is rebellious. It resists being smoothed into a neat bun or ponytail. It puffs. Strands escape; they won't be tamed. My hair is nappy. And I love it.

I may love my hair. But common wisdom, even among people with hair just like mine, is that my hair isn't "good," at least as it naturally grows from my head. It needs to be tamed, preferably by straightening, but at the very least, especially in young children, hair like mine should be restrained somehow--in plaits or cornrows or something that hides its unruly nature. It should be shiny. You should be able to run a comb through it. All this in defiance of the natural properties of most black hair.

I suspect NEWSWEEK writer Allison Samuels follows this common wisdom.

Two weeks ago she sparked furor around the Net with an article taking Angelina Jolie to task for her daughter Zahara's allegedly uncared-for tresses. In the face of considerable backlash, Samuels didn't back down. In a NEWSWEEK online exclusive this week, Samuels answers her critics.

There is a lot I could challenge in Samuels's articles, but I will confine this post to one point: Samuels seems to embrace the notion, a gift of society's Eurocentric beauty standards, that tamed hair = healthy hair, and unfettered black hair = hot mess. What's worse, she wants little Zahara to learn to embrace this thinking, too--a terrible lesson for a girl with tresses that naturally feature fuzzy parts and curls that spring akimbo.

In a society with Eurocentric beauty standards, it is natural that hair common to people of European ancestry would be the marker for beauty, professionalism, and good grooming. And it is natural, though I think not good for us, that those of minority cultures have absorbed the standards of the dominant culture and adopted beauty rituals that support those standards.

This is why so many of us have memories of sitting at our mother's or grandmothers' knees, holding our ears, and listening to sizzling grease, as our hair was tamed into a straight, shiny, combable mass and woven into multiple neat plaits. Most of us remember this bonding time fondly. But, in reality, straight, shiny, combable, and neat are NOT markers of whether black hair is cared for or not. That so many of us, including Samuels, think these descriptors are related to hair health shows how much we have absorbed the idea that hair common to people of European ancestry is the norm by which all other hair must be judged. As I type this, my ginormous twist-out is shiny, but not straight, combable, or neat, And, I promise you, my hair is very well cared for.

Yes, I know that braiding has deep roots in African culture and is an ingrained part of black American culture. My beef isn't with plaiting; my beef is with the fear of the nap--the idea that unrestrained black hair, apart from other hair, is unacceptable. To many of us with natural hair, Zahara seems to be wearing a wash-and-go. But we are taught that black women can't simply wash their hair and go. Our hair has to be "fixed," made presentable. I think this hair hatred was born and nurtured right here in Western culture where the yardstick by which we judge our hair's beauty, health, and rituals of care is invariably a white one.

There is no way of knowing whether Zahara's hair is conditioned by scanning paparazzi shots. You can't assess its softness. You can't check for split ends. You can't see breakage. What Samuels is reacting to, I think, is the fact that Zahara's hair is "wild" and unrestrained. And black women and girls are taught that this isn't okay. It isn't pretty. It isn't proper. It isn't professional. It isn't ladylike.

I'll say this--I agree with Samuels that most little, black girls would NOT be comfortable wearing their natural hair loose as Zahara does. That is, in great part, because of the unrelenting messages they get, within and without our black culture, that their hair is inherently wrong. Must Zahara adopt these feelings of self-hatred to earn her black card? I like to think, as a black woman who has wrestled and come to terms with her own hair issues, my job is to help free the girls in my life from damaging self-hatred, not encourage it as a litmus test for fitting in.

My hair is nappy. It is soft and cottony, a mass of varying textures. My hair is fun to play with. I like to pull at the spiral curls and feel them snap back into place. My hair defies the laws of gravity. It reaches energetically toward the sky. My hair is unique. In a fashion culture that genuflects to relaxed, flat-ironed tresses and stick-straight weaves, my fluffy, puffy, kinky mane stands out. It is revolutionary. My hair is natural. It is the way God made it. My hair is nappy. And it is beautiful.

Winfrey Harris blogs at What Tami Said.

As part of NEWSWEEK's Good Hair Week, senior writer Allison Samuels discussed Zahara Jolie-Pitt and the politics of natural hair and interracial adoptions. Her article, which implored the Jolie-Pitt parents to spend more attention on Zahara's hair, and its follow-up were much discussed at NEWSWEEK and on the Internet. We invited three bloggers to offer their own opinion on the topic. —KD

I don't frequent the black-gossip blogs and forums Allison Samuels linked to in her first article (especially the ones that feel comfortable giving Maya Angelou "Ho Sit Down" awards), so I have not seen recent pictures of Zahara Jolie-Pitt's hair. The lone exception is the photo that accompanies Samuels's criticism, which even she acknowledges did nothing to help her argument. As Samuels has noted, Zahara's dad, Brad Pitt, made headlines in 2006 when he told Esquire that he and Angelina Jolie used Carol's Daughter products on Zahara's hair. He even mentioned the "beautiful luster" the products gave her hair and how "nice it smelled." Clearly the Jolie-Pitts are aware that their adopted Ethiopian daughter has hair that is different in texture from their own and needs to be taken care of, so why devote an entire article on this particular child now?

Samuels asks in her rebuttal, "Hey, if Maddox can get blond highlights and a Mohawk, Zahara can at least get a quick top knot and rubber band. Is that asking too much?"  Yes, it is. While a top knot would be a matter of taste, rubber bands are damaging to curly/kinky hair like Zahara's, which can be quite delicate and prone to breakage. I happen to think her loose hair looks fine in the recent pictures I dug up after reading Samuels's article. However, I realize that there are times when kids are out and about and their hair doesn't hold up. Should Jolie and Pitt whip out a comb every time the paparazzi follow them down the street?

Some people will always think that kinky hair in its natural state looks "uncombed," no matter what is done to it. Unless it is in an array of smooth, round, socially acceptable ringlets, the sight of a woman’s natural hair can be jarring for some people. With the exception of a brief period in the 1970s, natural hair has been mostly unacceptable socially, professionally, and (if they knew what was good for them) romantically for black women. In fact, a female relative of mine who attended a historically black college in the late 1960s once told me how women with Afros got a lot of "Hello, my beautiful black sister," from men on campus, but stayed in their dorms on Saturday nights while their counterparts with straighter hair went out on dates.

It is interesting that Samuels compares herself to Chris Rock, because he is seemingly averse to any substantive criticism of his documentary, "Good Hair," especially from dreaded bloggers. Many people saw special advance screenings and expressed their views online, favorable and unfavorable, minus any unnecessary personal attacks on Rock. Others avoided "Good Hair" altogether solely based on Rock's appearances on The View and The Oprah Winfrey Show, where he checked Oprah's hair for weave tracks and cracked that she "looked like a slave" in a childhood photo. Just as Rock's questionable "Men don’t care about hair" statement on Oprah rang false to many viewers (minutes later, he recounted running his fingers through the hair of former white, Latina and Asian girlfriends), Samuels's obligatory "natural hair—Afro, dreads, etc—is fine, if it’s maintained regularly," in her first article felt tacked on because that is true for all hair textures.

It's great that Samuels has fond childhood memories of getting her hair done, but many of us weren't that lucky. I remember holding my ears, shutting my eyes, and bracing myself as a sizzling pressing comb went through my hair so it would be "done." I remember going through the day in grade school with my braided style not quite holding up and being teased for having a "bird's nest" for hair. I remember what a big deal it was for me to get my first relaxer and the reaction of people, the tacit approval, after the deed was done. As for living in a "wash-and-go world," believe it or not, some black women and girls already live there! Hair that does not look "maintained regularly" to some is indeed... maintained regularly. I don't believe that Samuels meant to "attack" Zahara, but statements like “There will come a day” when Zahara will "realize unlike her younger sister, hers is not a wash-and-go world" made the tone of the article just seem off.

Are we all really "Team Zahara?" Sadly, when it comes to her hair, I don't believe so. It is true that black girls get far more pressure about their hair than other girls, and Samuels's articles are perfect examples. However, I think the little Zaharas of the world should have the same freedom with their hair that little Shilohs have to wear men's ties. It is the message that black natural hair is automatically "uncombed" and not "maintained" that is unacceptable—not Zahara Jolie-Pitt's hair.

Gainer blogs at 55 Secret Street.

Steve Phillips (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File) 

Did Dave hit on me? No. Did he pay me enough extra attention that it was noted by another writer? Yes. Was I aware of rumors that Dave was having sexual relationships with female staffers? Yes. Was I aware that other high-level male employees were having sexual relationships with female staffers? Yes. Did these female staffers have access to information and wield power disproportionate to their job titles? Yes. Did that create a hostile work environment? Yes. Did I believe these female staffers were benefiting professionally from their personal relationships? Yes. Did that make me feel demeaned? Completely.

A group of Harvard scientists and students were poisoned in August after drinking from coffee contaminated with a chemical preservative known as sodium azide, according to an internal memorandum leaked to the Boston Herald yesterday. Seconds after sipping the coffee, all six victims felt dizzy and were rushed to a nearby hospital. The lab workers were released, but the jury’s still out on how the odorless white solid, which can be deadly, got in the single-serve coffee machine near the victims’ pathology lab. NEWSWEEK’s Johannah Cornblatt talked to Dr. Michael Greenberg, the president of the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, about the dangers of sodium azide, as well as the chemical’s atypical use as a poison. Although Greenberg considers sodium azide a strange choice for a poisoning agent, he remains “very suspicious” that the chemical ended up in the Harvard coffeemaker by accident.

How is sodium azide typically used?
It’s usually used as a preservative. It used to be used in automobile airbags. It was used in farming. It’s also used as a pest control.

What happens if sodium azide comes in contact with your skin?
It can cause burns. They’re usually not terribly bad, but it depends on how much you get on your skin, where you get it on your skin, and how long it stays on.

What about if you inhale or ingest it?
If you breathe in sodium azide or you ingest it, it can be a serious problem. If you ingest it, it will form a gas. If the person is vomiting, that gas could come out of the vomit and harm the people around them. So people in the emergency department need to be careful dealing with the body waste and vomit of anyone poisoned by sodium azide. It can cause seizures, coma, death.

How likely is death? 
It depends on the duration and the concentration. It can be a lethal chemical if you drink it. If you drink enough of it, it can kill you for sure.

What are the long-term side effects if you do survive?
It depends on how sick you become. If you have low blood pressure because of it—which can happen—you can have various other problems related to low blood pressure, like cardiac injury or brain injury.

How often is sodium azide used as a poison?
We don’t commonly come across sodium azide as a poison. Usually when we see exposures, they’re accidental instead of homicidal. I don’t think I’ve seen a homicidal use of sodium azide in my career.

Is it possible that the sodium azide ended up in that coffee maker by accident?
I suppose if it was being stored improperly in a container that looked like another container. But it’s probably not something that’s going to naturally turn up in a coffeemaker.


 

It’s the book every medical writer in the country wants to ignore. Suzanne Somers’s latest “health” tome hit the bookstores this week, and this time she's offering her advice on how to cure and prevent cancer. As if people with cancer don’t have enough problems. When the review copy arrived, we decided to give it a once-over—so you don’t have to.

The gist of Somers’s argument is that conventional cancer treatments—surgery, radiation, chemotherapy—take a destructive approach and that chemo, in particular, is overused. Long an advocate of alternative therapies, Somers argues that it makes more sense to build up the body to fight cancer than it does to tear it down through radiation and chemicals. She is particularly enamored of nutritional “cures.”

Of course, Somers has had no formal medical or scientific training, but considers herself an authority—in part because she’s survived breast cancer after choosing not to have chemotherapy, and because she’s a regular on the alternative-medicine circuit.  This book, like her others, consists mainly of transcripts of her conversations with various alternative-medicine doctors, as well as lots of details about her own experiences and prevention regimen, which she has spelled out many times before, most notably on Oprah  earlier this year. It’s noteworthy that her promotion of the book began by publicly blaming Patrick Swayze’s recent death on chemotherapy, rather than his pancreatic cancer. (She has since apologized to his family.)      

Cancer is a highly emotional topic, particularly since the war on cancer isn’t going particularly well. As my colleague Sharon Begley recently put it, “Cancer is on track to kill 565,650 people in the United States this year—more than 1,500 a day, equivalent to three jumbo jets crashing and killing everyone aboard 365 days a year.”  The fact is that  modern medicine is far from understanding everything we need to know about cancer, and the most effective treatments available often come with nasty side effects. We all wish there were more effective and less toxic options, and we need to stay open-minded about new discoveries and alternatives. Maybe some of the doctors Somers interviewed in her book will eventually prove to be on to something.

But there is a big difference between staying open-minded and tossing aside treatments that have been proven effective after rigorous testing in favor of new “natural” therapies that have undergone much flimsier scrutiny. If you’re someone who needs answers now, and want to make health decisions based on solid scientific findings rather than wishful thinking, there’s not much in Somers’s latest book to help you. The basic problem with the book, says Dr. Otis Brawley, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical officer, “is that it’s really inaccurate” when it describes the science behind current treatments  and lacks a basic understanding of the scientific method. Not all research findings are equally authoritative. Just because something sounds good doesn’t mean it works. “Some people confuse what they believe with what they know," Brawley said. 

Even if some patients are cancer-free after following a certain treatment plan, that doesn’t prove that it was the treatment that cured them, especially if no control group was used for comparison. “We’re finding that about 25 to 30 percent of some cancers stop growing at some point,” Brawley says. ”That can make some treatments look good that aren’t doing anything.” Until doctors figure out how to identify which patients have cancers that won’t progress, he said, the only option is to treat everyone.   

Somers relies heavily on patient testimonials, but any scientist knows that  talking only to those who benefited from a treatment can give less than objective results. A case in point: she lavishes praise on the research of Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, who uses a combination of enzymes, massive amounts of nutritional supplements (130 to 175 a day—yes, you read that right), a strict diet, and daily coffee enemas, which he says can cure pancreatic cancer. However, just about two months before Somers’s book was published, the Journal of Clinical Oncology  published the results of a controlled observational trial of Gonzalez’s protocol vs. chemotherapy for patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer. The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute and enrolled 55 patients who met strict clinical criteria. A year into the study, 56 percent of those using chemotherapy were still alive, compared with only 16 percent of those who chose the enzyme therapy. In other words,  those who picked chemo over the alternative treatment lived three times as long. Interestingly, the study was concluded in 2005, yet Somers doesn’t mention this in the book.

Somers also shines the spotlight on  Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski of Houston, whose controversial cancer treatments have resulted in years of battles with the FDA and the courts. Over the past 30 years, despite government investment, he has failed to provide compelling data that his expensive treatments work. More recently he expanded his research efforts into anti-wrinkle creams. (Side note: it is more than a little ironic that Somers is touting the work of Burzynski, who synthesizes peptides from human urine to create what he says is a cancer cure. In the books she’s written about hormones, Somers has expressed nothing but disdain for FDA-approved hormones synthesized from horse urine.)

Another treatment that gets the sign of approval from Somers is mistletoe extract, which is a popular treatment in Germany, and which she credits with keeping her cancer-free for years. There are some intriguing studies, but good science requires looking at all the studies, not just the ones that support your opinion. When German scientists published a review of the data on mistletoe as a cancer treatment in 2008, they found that the evidence was “weak.” Other reviews have concluded that there were quality problems with many of the studies and that more research is necessary.

Not all the recommendations Somers makes in the book raise eyebrows. She says eating healthy and exercising, reducing stress, and getting a good night's sleep may reduce the risk of cancer. That's true, but it's not news. She’s right that not every woman with stage I breast cancer needs chemo. Few doctors would argue. In fact, they have the technology to calculate the size of the likely benefit, and agree that sometimes it’s quite small.  Most doctors offer it as a choice to women who want to do everything possible to prevent cancer’s return.

“And she’s right when she says that only some leukemias, lymphomas, and testicular cancers can be cured with chemotherapy,” Brawley says. “We admit that many conventional treatments are not as beneficial as we would like. But that doesn’t dismiss evidence that screenings have reduced the death rates of breast and colon cancer, or that the lives of other patients with cancer can be saved with early treatment or that chemo prolongs lives. Even in cases of stage IV breast cancer, or lung or prostate or colon cancer, when the cancer has spread throughout the body and particularly into the bone, we can’t cure people with chemotherapy, but we can prolong life and increase their quality of life. In her book, Somers completely rejects the idea that chemotherapy has any of these benefits.”

When I interviewed Somers earlier this year, she said that she gets irritated when the media identify her as the former ditsy blonde from the TV sitcom Three’s Company. She would rather be identified as an author; after all, she’s written 18 books, most on the topics of weight loss (even though she’s admitted to Larry King that she’s used liposuction) and hormones (she recommends treatments most hormone specialists and oncologists describe as potentially risky.)

For her next book, we’d like to suggest a topic she knows very well: media manipulation. You have to love the fact that the only blurb on the back of the book (“Ms. Somers writes with the passion of the prophet”—Wall Street Journal) comes from a review trashing an earlier book. Somers’s real specialty is understanding that when a celebrity writes a controversial book, it doesn’t matter how much mainstream doctors and serious researchers attack it, or whether people’s health is put at risk. Attacks bring publicity, and publicity sells books. Here’s hoping that this time the public proves her wrong.

Wingert is a NEWSWEEK correspondent and  the coauthor of  The Menopause Book.

Who was the biggest loser after last night's decisive Game 5 of the National League Championship Series?  Not the Dodgers, who had to fly back to L.A. after losing the series to the 2008 world champion Philadelphia Phillies. Not even that guy who celebrated too much and fell off the roof of a taxi. The real loser is Chuck Todd, the Dodgers fan and NBC political correspondent who made a side bet with Philadelphia loyalist/ABC chief White House correspondent Jake Tapper. But while Todd and the Dodgers felt the sting of defeat last night, the Phils' victory may also be a victory for the women of Pakistan.

A little background: after some spirited Twitter smack-talk between Todd, Tapper, and Tapper's producer, Karen Armstrong, the two correspondents decided on a gentlemanly bet: if the Dodgers won, Tapper would grow out a goatee similar to Todd's. If the Phils won, Todd would have to shave his trademark facial hair. After agreeing on the bet, the men decided on an "opt out" clause: if the loser wasn't willing to mess with his mug (these are TV talking heads, after all), the loser would have to pay $1,000 to the charity of the winner's choice. And after lots (and lots, and lots) of goatee jokes at Todd's expense, winner Tapper is now saying he'd prefer to see the grand go to charity—a sum he plans to match.

Now, there's much to be said about how this bet (and the gleeful response it got in the media) just reinforces the insular, boys' club mentality of D.C. politics. But we love our Fightin' Phils, and love the stupid side bets baseball engenders, and are particularly pleased that Tapper is now using the interest generated from this stupid side bet to draw attention to a very worthy cause: Dr. Shershah Syed, a Pakistani ob-gyn who helps women with difficult and often life-threatening pregnancies.

The culmination of the bet—and Tapper's Twitter campaign to raise even more money for Syed—comes just as NEWSWEEK published a package on the ever-increasing violence in Pakistan, mainly coming from various arms of the Taliban. As you may recall, the Taliban is not big on women's safety, security, or dignity. The escalating tensions in Pakistan, and the increasing presence of anti-women, extremist military groups throughout the country, make it that much more important for women in the region to get compassionate and competent medical care. 

In a July column, the New York Times's Nicholas Kristof cited a U.N. statistic claiming that in Pakistan, a woman dies every 35 minutes because of problems with pregnancy and childbirth. He also illustrates some of Syed's big plans to help lower that rate:

With government support nine years ago, Dr. Shershah started a top-level maternity wing in a public hospital in Orangi, an impoverished Karachi neighborhood that by some reckonings is the largest slum in the world. The hospital now handles 6,500 deliveries a year—yes, 6,500—and accepts women from hundreds of miles away. Several years ago, a half-dead woman came from Baluchistan province—by camel.

In addition, Dr. Shershah is hitting up friends to try to build a new maternity hospital on the grounds of a former madrassa on the edge of Karachi. So far, he has built a wing to repair fistulas free of charge and to train midwives. He says that in five years or so, as the money trickles in, the hospital will be complete.

The National Health Forum, an American-based nonprofit that works to educate health workers, has set up a fund to help Dr. Syed reach his goals. It will receive whatever donations Todd, Tapper, et al. contribute. You can give, too: tax-deductible contributions can be made to Dr. Shershah Syed, c/o National Health Forum, P.O. Box 240093, St. Louis, MO 63024. Put: "Dr. Syed's project" in the subject line of the check. The phone number is 314-255-7409; e-mail is nationalhealthforum@gmail.com.

by Joan Raymond 

Credit: Mark Cunningham / MLB-Getty Images
A pink ribbon painted on the the field of Detroit's Comerica Park earlier this year.

I just redeemed a coupon from P&G for a Swiffer. For my effort, two cents will be given to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. I would have to buy 500 Swiffer wet thingies to make a $10 donation. But I needed a Swiffer anyway. And two cents is better than nothing. So why not use the coupons that were inserted into my newspaper?

Because, says Barbara Brenner, the executive director of Breast Cancer Action, a nonprofit  watchdog group headquartered in San Francisco, buying pink products has little to do with helping cure and treat breast cancer. Says Brenner: “Everyone has been guilt-tripped into buying pink things. If shopping could cure breast cancer it would be cured by now.”

Well, I wasn’t particularly “guilted,” just out of some basic necessities. And hey, two cents is two cents.

But Brenner says consumers need to strip off their pink-tinted glasses.

“Swiffers. What do they have to do with breast cancer? This is about marketing. As long as we are in a situation in which corporate America is trying to solve a problem we don’t understand, we are in trouble.”

By Claudia Kalb

(Photo by Arnaldo Magnani/Getty Images)

by Allison Samuels

A few years ago when actress Angelina Jolie announced she’d be adopting a 6-month-old girl from Africa, I had mixed emotions. I’ve always thought Jolie was one of the flyest chicks in the Hollywood game, but interracial adoptions can be a tricky thing no matter how fly you are.

I’d heard the horror stories around Hollywood about the adopted black children of white movie stars becoming incredibly confused about their backgrounds. For instance, during an interview with Oprah Winfrey a few years ago; Tom Cruise said his interracial son Conner was not a color, so the family didn’t discuss race.

Find out why after the jump. 

by Leigh Bond

OK, so you’ve never passed out in the stylist’s chair. But just because you didn't recognize yourself (we hope) among the top nine salon sinners doesn't mean you're a styling saint. There are certain bad behaviors that salon employees see over and over again. They don't always make for an outrageous story, but they're just as irritating. Make sure you're not guilty of these top 10 common sins:

1.    Using the stylist’s scissors: “Sometimes clients will just grab our scissors and think they can use them to cut tags or paper ... our scissors are very expensive because they’re well balanced,” says Elaine, a senior stylist at Roque Salon in Chicago. Using them to snip coupons ruins that balance.

2.    Mistaking a salon for day care: “We see all kinds of incidents in here where parents think we can just be babysitters ... I can’t cut hair and watch their kids too,” says Casey, a stylist at Intrigue Salon in Georgia.

3.    Assuming the parlor is pet-friendly: “I have little teacup dogs come in here and mess all the time, and the dog owners just expect the salon somehow to clean it up,” says Edwin Paul, the owner of Edwin Paul Salon in Michigan.

4.    Setting your expectations too high: “A lot of times, customers come in with a vision that exists in fantasy land ... It’s hard to be the one to tell them it’s a fantasy—it’s not them," says Valentino, the owner of Planet Hair in Florida.

5.    Not tipping: “Sometimes people come in and maybe don’t know to tip or think that they don’t have to tip. We’re still trying to figure out a nice way to handle that,” says Yuka, a stylist at KC Stylist Studio in Pasadena, Calif. As a general rule, tip your stylist 20 percent and give your shampoo attendant between $3 and $10. You don't need to tip the owner of the salon. 

6.    Being indecisive: “It’s kind of a peculiar situation to be put in as a stylist, not knowing what they want at all and just hoping it turns out for the best,” says Valentino.

7.    Badmouthing previous stylists: "It kind of makes you feel like you can’t win because this person can’t be pleased. It sets a bad tone,” says Elaine.

8.    Sauntering in ... whenever: “People show up really, really late and don’t even consider whether they can still be taken—they just expect that you’ll be able to fit them in without impacting everyone with appointments behind them,” says Elaine.

9.    Chattering on your cell phone: “I had an attorney come in here once and give way too much information about a case he was working on for the whole salon to hear. It’s just inappropriate—I felt bad for the people involved, and everyone at the salon who had to listen,” says Edwin Paul.

10.    Being a total diva: “Sometimes celebrities or the extremely wealthy come in with just this sense of entitlement—like they can just walk in the door for a four-hour hair and highlight appointment whenever they want. We bend as much as we can, but sometimes their levels of expectation are impossible,” says Paul.

This morning at 5:30 ET, the Nobel Prize winners in medicine were announced in Stockholm (where it was a much more reasonable 11:30 a.m.). In an article last week for Newsweek.com, Sharon Begley wrote about experts who are handicapping the race by selecting  "citation laureates." David Pendlebury of Thomson Reuters measured how often scientists' work was cited by others and, based on that, created a list of Nobel frontrunners. Who were the big winners in the Reuters race? Begley reported its findings and put the company's top seeds in context:

Jack Szostak of Harvard is a pioneer in synthetic biology—basically, creating life in a test tube. For my money, he'll have to wait until he actually succeeds before he gets called to Stockholm, but if he's honored this year it will be a recognition of how far toward that godlike goal he has already come.

Elizabeth Blackburn of UC San Francisco would be a safer choice: she has made crucial discoveries about telomeres, the caps at the ends of chromosomes that are involved in aging as well as cancer. It would be hard to honor Blackburn without also including Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins, who has also made seminal discoveries about telomeres. Greider is still in her 40s; to gauge her accomplishments, consider that the average age of a first-time NIH grantee is about 43.

And who were the big winners? Blackburn, Greider, and Szostak, who each took home one third of the Nobel Prize's $10 million winnings. The Nobel committee cited all of their work for its connection to telomeres, the chromosome caps Begley mentioned above. It's the telomere that helps the chromosome reproduce and keeps it from degrading, said the committee, and Blackburn, Greider, and Szostak were integral in figuring that out:

Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.

The Nobel committee suggests that further research on telomeres may lead to breakthroughs in anti-aging, cancer treatment, and inherited diseases.

This is just the beginning of Nobel week—tomorrow the prize for physics will be announced, followed by the chemistry award on Wednesday, literature on Thursday, peace on Friday, and economics on Saturday. In her article, Begley reported on more findings by Thomson Reuters's Pendlebury, who so far is three for three, and she speculated on winners in other categories. In the final prize, she specifically likes William Nordhaus and Martin Weitzman for their work on the economics of environmental protection. Check in with nobelprize.org this weekend to find out if the Nobel committee feels the same.

After reading Jessica Bennett's article on the why women have sex, it's clear that for everyone, men and women, our motivations go way beyond the need for love or the biological drive to reproduce. So we asked our readers to share some of their stories about sexual motivation.

Over the weekend, we'll publish some of our favorites. Submit your stories to newsweek@tumblr.com or via our Tumblr page.

Reader Submission 1:  Low Standards For Sex, Higher for Relationships

Like many teenagers I was a “loser” in high school. I had a grand total of one sexual partner at the time, in my freshman year, and he didn’t even go to my school. I didn’t love him, he was more like a friend, and I had sex with him because the opportunity was there. I suppose I was sick of feeling like a geek with no sex life to speak of. We broke it off shortly after, of course.

After turning 18, I decided to try online dating. I wanted to make certain my usual circle of buddies were not messed with. I never considered having a relationship with any of my friends because I knew it would ruin what we already had. This is why I always preferred people to start out as perfect strangers. I don’t like to put any strong emotional attachments on my sexual partners or make any official commitments. That isn’t to say that I wouldn’t want a real relationship, but I have never sensed a strong enough connection with anyone to feel ready for such a step.

Find out why this reader would rather have a hot fling than a dumb boyfriend after the jump. 

By Leigh Bond

Kat B., I have a confession: remember that time freshman year when you went home early and my boyfriend was in town so we stayed out late? We came home thankful you happened to fall asleep with music on, and that beds on cinder blocks don’t squeak. Because even though you were only a few feet away, and you could have woken up at any time … no big surprise, but we were doing it.

You were probably already clued in, as evidenced by the sheepish smiles we shot one another over our Saturday-morning dining-hall waffles. But guess what? We all got through it. Then two weeks later, when you invited an entire band to crash in our room during the fall music festival, I went with it, gladly offering up extra pillows to scrawny boys in tighty whities. Because let’s face it: (1) they were pretty cute, and (2) I owed you big. You let me being a tacky lush slide and I let you live out your indie-band groupie dreams, no strings attached.

In other words, we worked it out on our own like budding grown-ups because isn’t that the point of having a college roommate?
   
Apparently though, if I were a student this year at Tufts University, my late-night bad manners would be not only mine and Kat’s weird, blush-inducing problem, but the resident adviser's, the dorm's, and the school's: a new regulation prohibits students in dorms from having sex while their roommate is in the room.

On the surface, it's a good rule: it goes without question that having sex while your roommate desperately cranks up the iPod in the bunk above you is gross and inconsiderate. At the same time, learning to handle the situation is a vital part of growing up into a personally accountable adult. Having a surrogate parental crutch (à la the poor RA) around to finagle the situation for you equals passive immaturity at its most detrimental.

According to CNN.com, the handbook's rules on overnight guests directs students to "not engage in sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room. And sexual activity within your assigned room should not ever deprive your roommate(s) of privacy, study, or sleep time." (In other words, no "sexiling.")

That’s not unreasonable, but is it really necessary? Why not just buck up and grow up? Learn roommate ground rules early. Don’t be routinely inappropriate, and don't expect your roommate to be a paragon of moral virtue. If it becomes a recurrent, life-altering roommate problem, then address it—by calling your roommate out on her behavior and setting up a twin-bed tango schedule, not calling the campus police. Getting the university involved seems so opposite of what college is supposed to teach you: how to handle reality without a protective shield. If you can’t learn to live with quiet, awkward sex from your roommate in college, how do you deal with loud, floor-banging sex from your roommates in apartments postgrad? (It happens.)

Knowing how to stand up for yourself is an integral part of transitioning to adulthood, where even more difficult and uncomfortable situations inevitably arise. Learning when to let things slide versus when to confront a legitimate problem—while recognizing that you still have to interact every day with the source of said problem—is a skill vital to social and professional experience. Your RA can’t get you a raise when you feel you deserve one, your mom won’t be there to tell future roommates to pay for the shoes their dog ate, and your college handbook won’t have tips on how to dump your sweet-but-clingy boyfriend.

Tuft’s giggle-inducing rule isn’t even really about sex. It’s about life—stepping up to it, preparing for it, experiencing it, and creating a personal threshold of the acceptable and the intolerable. In other words, finding your own voice and using it with legitimacy, and knowing when to tell your roommate "Dude, inappropriate!" or "Girl, you owe me," or simply thinking "Hey, that’s gonna make for a funny story over breakfast tomorrow."

College is chock-full of awkward, problematic moments and weighty issues. As far as roommate relations go, if they're not having sex while you're in the room, they're probably downloading music on your computer without asking, eating your food, helping themselves to your closet, or using your toothpaste. People overstepping their bounds, taking what's yours, and thinking of their pleasure instead of your rights happens—in college, at work, in marriage, and throughout life.

The good news: no matter how tricky the problems of the real world, if you make it through dorm living, you’ll probably never have to share a narrow room with a near stranger ever again. The bad news: if you don’t learn to deal with/laugh at/change the problems that this living situation creates, if you never learn how to assert yourself, you’ll find yourself getting screwed in an entirely different way after graduation.

Kat B., I owe ya.

BOND is a student at NYU, a NEWSWEEK intern, and an occasional tacky lush. 

October is breast-cancer-awareness month, and already the country is awash in various shades of pink. But some groups have taken a more direct approach to promoting breast-cancer awareness: namely, by making us all aware of breasts. Big, bouncing, half-naked breasts.