"[Felicity] Huffman will be expected to eat breakfast from 5:30 a.m. to 6:15 a.m., lunch from 10:45 a.m. to noon, and dinner after 4 p.m. When she’s not eating, Huffman can do a variety of things..."

"... including listening to music on a pre-approved device. She’s also allowed to work on one in-unit craft project at a time. This includes cross-stitch, drawing, card making, crotchet, origami, scrapbooking and watercolor. If she wants to spend time outside, which is open to her from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Huffman can engage in a series of sports, including basketball, volleyball, track, softball, and tennis. While at the prison, Huffman will be expected to wear an inmate uniform at all times. The uniform consists of khaki pants and a coordinating blouse with a brown t-shirt underneath, with the blouse tucked in and buttoned (minus the top button) at all times."

From the People Magazine account of the actress's living conditions in the minimum security prison where she's serving a 2-week sentence.

The noun "crotchet" means "A whimsical fancy; a perverse conceit; a peculiar notion on some point (usually considered unimportant) held by an individual in opposition to common opinion" (OED). It would be funny if that were considered a craft project to recommend to prisoners.

The "kind of knitting done with a hooked needle" — which is probably what People meant — is spelled "crochet."

ADDED: The prison — the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin — is where Patty Hearst was held for 21 months. President Jimmy Carter commuted her 7-year sentence in 1979 and Bill Clinton pardoned her in 2001. And Sara Jane Moore — who tried to assassinate Gerald Ford — spent 32 years there. Moore got a life sentence but was released on parole.

"The actress Felicity Huffman will plead guilty in the college admissions fraud scandal, prosecutors said on Monday, along with 12 other parents and one coach charged in the sweeping investigation."

The NYT reports.

“My daughter knew absolutely nothing about my actions, and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her,” Ms. Huffman said in a statement. “This transgression toward her and the public I will carry for the rest of my life.”

"At Stanford, she said, she saw students rely on their parents to set up play dates with people in their dorm or complain to their child’s employers when an internship didn’t lead to a job."

"She" = Julie Lythcott-Haims, "the former dean of freshmen at Stanford and the author of 'How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success,'" quoted in "The Unstoppable Snowplow Parent/Helicopter parents are so 20th century. Snowplow parents keep their children’s futures obstacle-free — even if it means crossing ethical and legal boundaries" (NYT).

In the 1990s... parents began filling afternoons and weekends with lessons, tutors and traveling sports games... [T]oday’s working mothers spend as much time doing hands-on activities with their children as stay-at-home mothers did in the 1970s....

So sad! I grew up in the 1950s, and my mother stayed home, and I don't remember her doing any "hands-on activities" with us kids. There wasn't even the concept of mothers arranging "play dates." You went outside and found your own friends, and no one needed to drive you to their houses. You found them because they lived on your block. It pretty much worked for mothers to be completely hands-off in those days.

Imagine a mother arranging play dates for a college student!

In a new poll by The New York Times and Morning Consult of a nationally representative group of parents of children ages 18 to 28, three-quarters had made appointments for their adult children, like for doctor visits or haircuts, and the same share had reminded them of deadlines for school. Eleven percent said they would contact their child’s employer if their child had an issue.

Sixteen percent of those with children in college had texted or called them to wake them up so they didn’t sleep through a class or test. Eight percent had contacted a college professor or administrator about their child’s grades or a problem they were having....

Then there are the mothers who act like they know children should be independent but they're up to something else for their own little darlings:

Felicity Huffman, an actress charged in the college admissions scheme, has long extolled the benefits of a parenting philosophy in which children are to be treated as adults. On her parenting blog, What the Flicka (which was taken down this week), she described raising children as “one long journey of overcoming obstacles.” In another post, she praised schoolchildren “for walking into a building every day full of the unknown, the challenging, the potential of failure.” This week, Ms. Huffman was accused of paying $15,000 for an SAT proctor to secretly inflate her daughter’s test scores.

Scarlett Johansson shrinks from criticism and backs out of playing the role of a transgender man.

She/her people wrote a statement: "In light of recent ethical questions raised surrounding my casting as Dante Tex Gill, I have decided to respectfully withdraw my participation in the project. Our cultural understanding of transgender people continues to advance, and I’ve learned a lot from the community since making my first statement about my casting and realize it was insensitive...."

Etc. etc. Her initial response to critics, what she now needs to represent herself as "realizing" was "insensitive" was: "Tell them they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto and Felicity Huffman’s reps for comment." In other words, lots of cisgender actors have not only played transgender characters, they've received high honors — an Oscar for Leto, an Oscar nomination for Huffman, an Emmy for Tambor. It must have seemed to Scarlett that she'd get extra credit for stretching herself into this role.

But that's not where the culture is right now, Scarlett learned. As Hollywood Reporter reports, there are actors who are themselves transgender, and no one seems interested in giving them an opportunity to stretch and show that they can play cisgender characters:

... Transparent actress Trace Lysette, tweet[ed], "I wouldn’t be as upset if I was getting in the same rooms as Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett for cis roles, but we know that’s not the case. A mess."

The argument seems to be that at least all transgender roles should go to transgender actors. It's an interesting argument and it was effective, but it was only effective in scaring cisgender actors off of any transgender role. What will be the result of that victory? Will the transgender actors get what they want? The big goal is to get access to cisgender roles, to make it seem bigoted to exclude them. Obviously, there's the question what audiences will want to see.

A similar question is whether people have accepted gay actors playing straight characters. I'm looking at "Gay Actors Who Play Straight Characters" and noticing that many of the roles are straight people with characteristics stereotypically assigned to gay people — "Jim Parsons has played several socially awkward heterosexual characters, including Sheldon Cooper on 'The Big Bang Theory'... Jane Lynch on "Glee" (playing a high school coach).

Quite aside from the goal of getting access to cisgender roles, there's the question whether there will be support and enthusiasm for movies about transgender characters if the actor isn't tasked with pretending to be transgender. There's no impressive stunt to perform. Maybe there will be more movies where some characters happen to be transgender without that needing to be the whole story. There could be an argument like what we've seen from black actors for many decades: It's wrong to limit us to stories about black people. Almost any role should be playable by a black actor.

In that light, Scarlett Johansson found herself in a position like that of the last white person cast to play Othello. Yes, there was a long tradition of eminent actors playing Othello, and maybe some day, black actors will get so many roles that it will be fine to have another white actor as Othello, but right now, we're in transition.

SAG awards and politics.

Here's an article about the Screen Actors Guild awards, which is linked at Drudge with the line "'BROKEBACK' SHUT-OUT AT SAG..." Why is what happened to "Brokeback Mountain" the story? Isn't it nice that the ensemble cast of "Crash" got some recognition? Do we find politics so much more interesting than art? We're obsessed with the politics of sexual orientation, aren't we? Don't forget to note that Reese Witherspoon beat out Felicity Huffman for the best actress award, after both women won Golden Globes (the Globes have two categories, for drama and for comedy/musical). Huffman played a transexual in "Transamerica," while Witherspoon played a good wife in "Walk the Line." Witherspoon even went on at some length, in her acceptance speech, about all the wonderful wives who support their husbands and get little recognition for the fine lives they have lived in that role. It's all so meaningful, isn't it?

No Lisa Kudrow? Then I just don't care about any of your opinions.

The Screen Actors Guild Award nominees were just announced.

A quick scan reveals what you'd expect to see. For movies, they round up the folk from "Capote," "Brokeback Mountain," "Walk the Line." There's TV too. Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series. Oh, it's the usual Patricia Heaton, Megan Mullally stuff. No Lisa Kudrow, for the brilliant "Comeback"? Then I really don't care about your judgment about anything. Or do you think if she was good the show wouldn't have been cancelled? Or, why waste an award on a show that can't be helped?

Well, this reminds me. Whenever you read one of these lists of nominees, what you really want to know is who got snubbed. I mean, there are some things actors do that are just such over-the-top pleas for a nomination that it's really embarrassing when they don't get it. Like, for actress-in-a-movie this year, they had to feel required to give a nomination to Felicity Huffman for "Transamerica." She did the big gender identity thing this year. That's usually good for a nomination. Oh, and Charlize Theron got ugly again, so we need to say yes, Charlize, very nice. Again.

So, who got snubbed?

Bonus link: the Directors Guild Award nominees.

UPDATE: Chris emails:

OscarWatch.com has a list on the left side bar of all the potential contenders, and it has color-coded asterisks marking which ones got the nominations from each group, so you should be able to figure it out there.

But I'll tell you, here (these are just all the people they list on oscarwatch.com who didn't get nominated):

Actor: Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow), Jeff Daniels (The Squid and the Whale), Ralph Fiennes, Eric Bana (Munich) snubbed.

Actress: Keira Knightley, Joan Allen, Gwyneth Paltrow, Naomi Watts, Vera Farmiga (who I've never heard of).

Sup Actor: Bob Hoskins is the main snub. Terrence Howard in Crash apparently, when he's also a contender in Hustle & Flow in the lead category. Will Farrell, Frank Langella, and Kevin Costner

Sup Actress: This is more interesting--Maria Bello and Scarlett Johannson snubbed. Laura Linney, Diane Keaton, and some other people I don't think anyone cares about.

DGA "snubs": The Constant Gardener, Walk the Line, Cinderella Man (Ron Howard), King Kong, Syriana, Match Point (Woody), A History of Violence.