I don't really think your thoughts are right. Maybe you need a loan?
Jackhammer Jesus
Bet even Mel's feeling the good vibrations.
Equal Rights Are Sooooo Complicated!
David Frum argues against allowing gay marriage because it might get a little difficult legally, if one state (say, Massachusetts) truly allows all citizens to be treated equally, and the bigots in the rest get to treat gays like tax-paying second-class citizens. Here are a few questions he finds particularly troubling:
1) A Massachusetts man buys a condo in Miami. He marries another Massachusetts man. The condo purchaser dies before he can write a new will. Who inherits the condo?2) Two Massachusetts women marry. One of them becomes pregnant. The couple split up, and the woman who bore the child moves to Connecticut. The other woman sues for visitation rights. What should the Connecticut courts do?
3) A Massachusetts man is accused of stock fraud. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenas his spouse. The spouse claims marital privilege and refuses to answer the SECís questions. May the SEC compel him to answer anyway?
4) A Massachusetts woman marries another Massachusetts woman. The relationship sours. Without obtaining a divorce, she moves to Texas and marries a man. Has she committed bigamy?
5) Two married Massachusetts men are vacationing in another state. One of them has a stroke. The hospital concludes he will never recover. Local law requires the hospital to ask the next of kin whether to continue treatment. Whom should it ask?
6) A Massachusetts man marries a foreign visitor to the United States. Should the foreigner be entitled to US residency?
7) A Delaware family set up a trust for their son. The son moves to Massachusetts, marries a man, and then gets divorced. The trust is the son's only financial asset. Should the Massachusetts take the trust into account while dividing up the coupleís possessions? If yes, what happens when the Delaware trustees refuse to comply?
8) A Massachusetts woman married to another woman wins a lawsuit against a California corporation. She dies before she can collect her debt. Her closest blood relative demands that the corporation pay the relative, not the surviving spouse. Who should get the money?
I ask these questions to drive home this point: Americans may live in states, but they conduct their financial and legal lives in a united country bound by interstate institutions.
If a couple gets married in Massachusetts and that marriage goes truly unrecognized by any entity outside the state ñ well then the Massachusetts wedding ceremony is just a form of words, as meaningless as the illegal weddings now being performed in San Francisco. If youíre not married outside Massachusetts, then you are not really married inside Massachusetts either.
Obviously, this can't be an issue states decide. We need to institute a national policy in which all citizens are allowed equal rights. Morever, the rights above, including inheiritance and hospital visitation of sick partners, should not just be granted to married people. We should have registered partnership agreements for people like me, in committed relationships, who don't believe in the irational idea of committing for life, and/or don't like the psycho-social baggage that comes with marriage. Moreover, it's time to end the privileging that comes with marriage -- in social security benefits and tax breaks. Sure, you can get a few bucks off your taxes for the upkeep of your 12 bratty children. But why should "single" people (a term I've never liked, since it defines people by comparison to "married," as if that's the gold standard) pay more in taxes than married people? The same, by the way, goes for the self-employed.
Mr. Frum, there are a lot of things about our society I don't like -- religious nuts crusading for institutionalized bigotry, to name just one -- but I don't try to legislate away their right to spew their thinly-disguised hate. If, Mr. Frum, you're a man who doesn't believe men should marry men, here's a simple solution for you: Don't marry one. But as long as rights are being granted to heterosexuals who marry, those rights also rightfully belong to gays.
Cingularly Worthless?
Did anybody else out there, with an OS X Mac, buy a Bluetooth Sony Ericsson T68i phone (I got mine about a year ago), after being told by Cingular sales reps that they'd be able to use it as a modem with their iBook or Powerbook? I just got off the phone with one of those phone company ladies (in response to a nasty letter about another issue -- how they're sneakily overcharging me every month [no matter how often I complain and ask them to stop] to the tune of about 75 cents for long distance charges, when I pay for free nationwide long distance service).
While I was on the phone with this woman, I was reminded -- very unpleasantly reminded, that is -- of how I'd paid extra to get this phone, and even signed up for two years with them to get it at a discounted rate. I did this only because Cingular told me I'd be able to use my phone as a modem. Well, not only could I not make it work as a modem, my boyfriend couldn't either -- after spending about two excruciating hours on the phone with their tech people. Now, my boyfriend is a guy who, among other things, not only designs Web sites (my blog, for example), he pretty much takes apart computers and puts them back together for amusement...so, if he can't get the damn phone to work as a modem, nobody can. In short, I think I got rooked.
The Cingular woman, most irritatingly, kept telling me, "I'm sorry that you feel that way." "No, you aren't!" I eventually shouted into the phone, after hearing about her twelfth robotically repeated apology. "If you were truly sorry, you'd give me back the money that I wasted on this phone...and my Bluetooth (connection) chicklet, too!" Nooo...they couldn't do that. Before my final tantrum, Cingular Woman insisted, a number of times, that a number of their customers use the Bluetooth phone with their laptops. And how many were on Macintoshes, I asked her. HOW MANY ON MACS!? She "(didn't) know." None!...I bet.
Am I wrong? Please let me know. After all, I don't want to be unfair to irritating and unhelpful phone company customer service people. If you're connecting to the Internet via your computer and a Sony Ericsson T68i, do comment below and let me know. And, if you don't mind, spread this post to Mac/Tech people in the know. There's nothing I despise like paying for something I'm not getting -- and if Cingular is overselling this, let's get the word out, and Blogo-spear them.
--Yours In Consumer Indignation, The Advice Goddess
Amber Rumpenstuff
My Bond Girl name. What's yours?
(via Amy Langfield)
Why People Believe In Really Dumb Crap
Mark Henderson explores the idiocy of people who should know better:
Take, for instance, the followers of Dr Deepak Chopra. Chopra is a real doctor whose credentials, like his powers of reason if not his bank balance, have lapsed. He makes millions of dollars by advising the gullible. His bestsellers, among their many banalities, take literally the maxim that age is a state of mind. ìPeople grow old and die because they have seen other people grow old and die,î he argues. ìAgeing is simply learned behaviour.îIt hardly takes a genius to spot the flaws. Yet Chopraís speaking fee is $25,000 (£13,600), his annual income tops $20 million and his list of client-disciples includes Madonna, Hillary Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Demi Moore hopes to live to a great age through his teachings. ìEven 130 years isnít impossible,î she says.
Modern peddlers of snake oil such as Chopra are the worthy targets of a coruscating new book: Francis Wheenís How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World. From Ronald Reaganís astrological charts to Cherie Blairís ìBioElectric Shieldî and the Queen and her heirís homeopathic hokum, it lays bare the extent to which delusion, paranoia, ignorance and nonsense have takenover public life.
Far too many otherwise sensible people, Wheen argues, have abandoned rational inquiry for superstition, instinct and anecdote. As he puts it: ìIt was as if the Enlightenment had never happened.î This flight from facts has appeared in many guises. Creationism and postmodernism, alternative medical quackery and management speak are all cut from the same cloth: they share a pig-headed refusal to face up to sober evidence that the emperor is wearing no clothes.
Henderson sees some hope in the fact that some poll seemed to indicate that the average person would want data to be peer-reviewed -- "the independent refereeing process for scientific research" -- if they knew what peer review was. (Professional journals require articles and studies submitted for publication to be judged by a group of the author's professional peers, and published, revised and resubmitted, or rejected by the publication, based on the decision of that jury.)
Henderson is very optimistic. I am not.
UPDATE: Thanks to Jim Bennett, here's the link to the American version of Wheen's book, Idiot Proof: The 25-Year History of How We Stopped Thinking.
Remember Freedom Of Speech?
You might not remember it for long. Jeff Jarvis has a great, rage-filled blog item on the squashing of Howard Stern by Censor Channel (uh, Clear Channel):
The more I think about this, the more enraged I get. One tit flopped out and the government -- the Bush administration -- can't wait to play to its far-right fringe and censor speech and intimidate speech and chill speech. How dare they? This is not the role we expect of our government. We don't need a nanny. Let's hear a little liberartarian outrage at government meddling in our lives and our speech. Let's hear a little conservative outrage at government growing beyond its bounds. Let's hear a little liberal outrage at goverment stiffling free spech. I don't give a damn whether you like or despise Howard Stern; that's beside the point. If you're American, you cherish free speech and you should be appalled at what is happening to it. This is not coming from media consolidation. This is coming from government intimidation. F Michael Powell. F the FCC. F Clear Channel. Defend Howard Stern. Or lose your own rights to say what you want where and when you want to say it.
If you care about your right to free speech, he (and I) suggest you speak up about it before it's a dim memory. Start by contacting the idiots at the FCC.
Here's my own e-mail to the lead FCC nanny, Michael Powell:
Not everyone in this country is a bible-thumper. Those who are have the freedom to change the channel or turn off the set. But not for long, right? What you're doing is an assault on the freedoms of all citizens of this country. I'm not a big fan of Howard Stern, but my fingers work -- I can tune the radio to a lot of channels besides the one he's on. What happened to the party of small government? Who crowned you nanny? You disgust and appall me, and I loathe the Democrats, but I'd vote for an orangutan before I vote for George Bush and the likes of you, you vile, freedom-sucking cur. --Amy Alkon
Gay Is The New Black
The next time you open the newspaper, and see the words of some mouth-foaming bigot railing against gay marriage in a news story, go through the piece and replace the word "gay" with "blacks and whites" -- as in, "Allowing blacks and whites to marry will be the downfall of society as we know it."
No, The National Guard isn't marching on the San Francisco city hall with dogs and fire hoses -- but the fight for gay citizens to have the same rights as all other citizens is a sad repeat of the fight for civil rights for black Americans. Once again, the bible-toting bigots are using history and religion to justify their bigotry -- and once again, notes C.W. Nevius, in the SF Chronicle, they simply expurgated all the parts that don't support their case:
"It is really much more complex in religious perspective than you might think,'' says Tolbert, the George Atkinson Professor for Biblical Studies at the Pacific School of Religion. "What the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) suggests as a general model for marriage is polygamy. You look at someone like Solomon who had 200 wives and 600-and-some concubines. Or Abraham, who had his first child by his wife's slave. It sounds as if it was quite normal.''Tolbert, who is also the executive director for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, points out that marriage didn't even become a sacrament of the church "until the 12th century. For the first 1,200 years (A.D.) in Europe there were civil unions by town or village government.''
Nor does the New Testament offer much help. In fact, by some selective readings it sounds as if the Bible has mixed views of marriage. As Tolbert says, Jesus says very little about marriage, and both he and Paul were single men. And Paul, at least, recommended chastity.
"Marriage is not a sin,'' says Paul in First Corinthians, "but it is better to be unmarried.''
"The Bible is an incredibly important sacred icon in our culture,'' says Tolbert. "But I just think a lot of people don't read it.''
No, they prefer to use it as weapon.
Never Too Busy For Bigotry
It seems my friend, screenwriter David Bottrell ("Kingdom Come" and other movies), is one of those people who's of special interest to our fundamentalist-in-chief -- that busy guy who's never too busy to make a special effort to see that gays and lesbians remain second-class citizens. Here's what David had to say about that:
Well, I guess I should feel honored in some odd way. Itís not every day the President of the United States announces his support for a constitutional amendment specifically designed to take rights away from ME personally. Who knew that the President could afford to take time away from the troubled economy and the war in Iraq to deliver such a calculated slap to my face?What a sad state of affairs. Perhaps Iím naÔve, but I continue to believe that there exists out there somewhere a quiet majority of intelligent, compassionate heterosexual people who understand that gayness is not a choice. Surely that same group also understands that as tax-paying, law-abiding citizens, we gay folks are not greedily seeking ìmoreî rights, just the same basic civil rights as our heterosexual brothers and sisters. Long ago, marriage was made into a civil institution for a very good reason -- to strengthen society -- and as a civil institution; shouldnít it be available to all who care to enter into it?
By endorsing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, Mr. Bush has sadly aligned himself with that same loud-mouthed, unappealing group of people who always want to use ignorance, bad theology and fear to grab headlines when we as a country have much bigger fish to fry (like national security and the environment, for example).
Call me Pollyanna, but I believe the battle for same-sex marriage will ultimately be won ñ but not by activists, liberal judges or even by gay people. In the end, it will be won by compassionate, fair-minded heterosexual people who will finally come to realize that you canít start a sentence with ìWell, I have nothing against Gay peopleÖî without proving just the opposite. Not that Iím any great biblical scholar, but it seems to me that the two most consistent themes in the Bible are to ìlove Godî and to ìlove thy neighbor as yourself.î So perhaps as this debate rages on, it would behoove us all to keep in mind that to love oneís neighbor is to wish them the exact same happiness and fulfillment in their lives that you experience in your own (including the right to honorably marry the person you love).
--David Dean Bottrell, Los Angeles
Sanctimony Sells!
"Jesus died for your sins -- and also to sell you a really bitchin' 'Passion' coffee mug," writes Mark Morford. Nothing like cheap movie swag to make a movie David Denby called "a sickening death trip" go down a little easier:
You, yes you, can right now purchase a truly stylin' sepia-toned "Passion of the Christ" cross-adorned coffee mug, an exact replica of the one Jesus Himself used every morning at the Jerusalem Starbucks.You can buy "witnessing tools," including lapel pins labeled in indecipherable Aramaic (yay Aramaic! What a comeback! Who knew?) and lapel pins with crucifixes, and packs of "witnessing cards" to swap with your Jesus-happy friends, just like the Disciples did when they sat around the holy campfire, swapping tales of sad lost goddesses and making s'mores with communion wafers and pink Easter marshmallow peeps.
But nothing says "slightly masochistic Jesus fanatic" like adorning your fine self with a two-inch silver pewter crucifixion-nail pendant, hanging 'round your neck from a nice 24-inch leather chord. Oh my yes.
It's an actual product, available right now for about ten bucks from Mel Gibson's official "Passion of the Christ" movie Web site, while supplies last, which they will forever and ever because they're doubtlessly made in bulk by Malaysian sweatshop workers wearing faded "Lethal Weapon IV" T-shirts who all believe in a very unhappy Allah. Irony, it knoweth no boundaries.
Hey...where's my Mary Magdalene "Girl Power" ring!?
Hep To Reality
ìSometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each
other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.î
--Katherine Hepburn
Taliban-Town, USA
Andrew Gumbel reports on the self-proclaimed Mormon "prophet," Warren Jeffs, who's installed himself as religious dictator of a small community in Utah -- one which could very well be the next Waco:
Jeffs permits no books, newspapers or television for his followers, telling them that much of the outside world is evil. Public entertainment was never a big feature of life in Colorado City, just the occasional dance or picnic, but now it has been banned altogether. Jeffs expects every family to hang at least one portrait of him above their mantlepiece, and to listen to tapes of his sermons -- there are at least 150 -- until they can be recited verbatim.To enforce his will, he has formed a gang of teenage boys, known variously as Uncle Warren's Sons of Helaman or, simply, the God Squad, who knock on people's doors unannounced and conduct searches to check for signs of insubordination.
Since Jeffs controls the trust that owns all the land in Hildale and Colorado City, and since he claims divine authority to determine every aspect of the lives of the 6,000-odd inhabitants, from the jobs they do to the people they marry, he has many ways of expressing his displeasure.
In the past few months, he has broken up three dozen polygamous families, "reassigning" wives and children whose menfolk have fallen out of favour. Last month, Jeffs excommunicated and expelled 20 prominent people, including his nonagenarian chief bishop, Fred Jessop, longstanding mayor Dan Barlow, and several members of Barlow's extended family. The current whereabouts of some of those expelled is far from clear.
Others, meanwhile, have refused to leave, rising up instead in open revolt against him.
The most visible rebel, 35-year-old Ross Chatwin, recently invited the national media to gather in front of the house he has been ordered to give up and hear him liken Jeffs to Adolf Hitler. "Warren is out of control," Chatwin later told me in his sparsely furnished living room, as four of his six children ran in and out.
"If men are not perfectly obedient and submissive to him, he shatters their families. And people go along with it, because they are totally convinced he is talking to God daily. It truly is one of the most effective brain-washing schemes since Hitler."
At the same time as Jeffs is conducting a purge within his community, he is facing mounting pressure from the outside world, as ever more alarming reports surface of a polygamy culture in Colorado City tantamount to a slavery racket in teenage girls. The testimony of dozens of girls who have run away from the community, some of whom have gone on to testify in court, suggests that sex abuse, paedophilia and incest are rampant.
Young girls -- they used to be as young as 11 or 12, although in recent times they have more typically been 15 or 16 -- are given away in marriage solely on the say-so of the prophet. They will be traded among the men like chattel. Often, their designated husbands are old enough to be their grandfathers, or even their great-grandfathers, and have multiple wives and children already. Not only are the girls not consulted ahead of time; they are effectively raped on their wedding nights, and held in a state of captivity thereafter.
After decades of inactivity -- the result of fear, laziness and a residual sympathy for the polygamists among mainstream Mormons -- the authorities in both Arizona and Utah have decided it is time to crack down, and Warren Jeffs may very well be their prime target. Weak laws make it hard to prosecute polygamy in and of itself, but both states deem it a felony for a man to have sex with a minor, and Utah birth certificates show that Jeffs has conceived children with at least two girls under the age of 18.
Can we all please join the 21st century before somebody gets hurt?
TECHNICAL NOTE: The story has some minor text-translation problems -- question marks where there should be dashes (on Mac OS X Explorer and Safari browsers), but is well-worth a read.
The Shouter Limits
Bob Morris included yours truly in his New York Times column about the anti-zen way to encourage good manners. He starts with his experience:
The three children two rows ahead of me on a Florida flight over a recent holiday weekend were going wild, yelling across other passengers, whining and screaming like colicky infants (though they were far from it). Their indulgent, clueless parents were doing very little to control them.I had earplugs. Still, I could hear them clearly. Should I say something?
My instinct was to lay low, but after witnessing the obvious distress of the crew and other passengers for two hours, I became emboldened. "Will you please shut those kids up?" I yelled at the top of my lungs.
There was a moment of silence while the father looked around for the source of the complaint. I stayed seated, anonymous behind him. But then the man next to me (who runs a martial arts school for children in New Jersey, he later said) took up the cause. "And if they won't shut up," he yelled, "get some duct tape for their mouths!"
The other passengers nodded in support. Some were even smiling. Perhaps I had been uncivil, but it was clearly in the name of the greater good. I guess I had given voice to the collective superego, the one that yells out what everybody else is thinking of the ill-mannered ó Emily Post with a bullhorn.
You go, Emily! And here's the part with my part:
"Someone has to be the ethical fascist," said Amy Alkon, a syndicated advice columnist who hands out cards in Los Angeles teasing S.U.V. drivers as road-hogging, gas-guzzling vulgarians." Sally Beatty, a Wall Street Journal reporter who chastised a rude receptionist in a doctor's office the other day, said, "You just see something that needs to be done and you do it."Me? I was mortified for my eruption on that plane, but eventually pleased as well. Because to everyone's relief, those children were quiet for the rest of our flight.
Sometimes you just have to demand good manners in the rudest possible way.
That was what I did today when I encountered a cur on her cell phone in a no-cell phone-zoned Santa Monica cafe. There's actually a "No Cell Phones" sign at this particular place. Cur Woman saw it (and told me so after I pointed the sign out), but saw fit to ignore it. "It's raining out," she whined plaintively, as if Noah and The Ark were about to wash up any moment. I noted that the sign did not say "No Cell Phones -- except when there's a light mist," (which there was) but, simply "No Cell Phones." (Moreover, I'd just gone outside and stood under an awning to talk to my boyfriend on my own cell phone, and I didn't exactly get washed away in the torrential afternoon sprinkle.) Well, the woman stormed over to my table, as fast as her little drumstick-shaped legs could carry her, and demanded, "Who do you think you are?!" -- probably assuming I'd crawl under my table and curl up like a bug.
Well, not only am I naturally rather tall, I was wearing my normal four-inch-heeled slut boots. I got up from the table, stood up straight, towering over her, and announced, "I'm Amy Alkon, The Advice Goddess," and added, most conveniently, "And you can find me talking in the Sunday NY Times Styles section about rude people like you!" (Thank you, Emily Post/Bob!)
Our Girl In Cur-hood didn't disintegrate into a small pile of ashes from my withering squint (sadly, I'm all posture and no special powers), but there was more squawking from her about how I should be minding my own business, blah, blah, blah. I told her I'd been hoping to -- until my business was interrupted by her yammering. She squawked on a bit, then wobbled across the room on her little drumstick legs to commune with some other rule-flouter -- loudly detailing how she was disturbed by me while disturbing the peace. Oh, the injustice!
Now, I don't claim to be mature or anything. Perhaps I could have approached her a little less confrontationally. Perhaps. Still, I do get a little pissy about needing to interact with the universe all the time just because the place appears to be populated, largely, by inconsiderate boors. That said, there is something about standing up and looking down on the top of some squat rude person's head when you're berating them that is near-sex-like in the satisfaction it brings!
Say Phir Milengay To Your Privacy
(That would be "goodbye" in Hindi.) Because your social security number and a lot more are in the hands of somebody in Calcutta who's probably getting about three cents for handling your private medical or financial records. (Try not to laugh too hard when Bush administration officials claim this is good for our economy.) Kim Zetter reports for Wired on the outsourcing of our privacy:
Companies increasingly are outsourcing more than just programming jobs to places like India. They are using foreign accountants to prepare U.S. tax returns, foreign radiologists to examine X-rays and even foreign clerks to transcribe dictation of sensitive medical data from American doctors. In these cases, most Americans have no idea that someone outside the United States handled private information about them. More worrisome, Americans might not be able to sue or collect damages from foreigners who misuse the information.Last year a medical transcriber in Pakistan threatened to post patients' medical records online unless the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center settled a financial dispute. Lubna Baloch, the transcriber, claimed she hadn't been paid the 3 cents a line reportedly promised by a Texas man, who, in turn, had subcontracted the work from a Florida woman. The Florida woman herself had subcontracted the work from Transcription Stat, a firm in Sausalito, California, that was paid 18 cents a line by the medical center for the work. The owner of Transcription Stat said she couldn't respond to questions due to a pending lawsuit in the case.
ReadMyBoobs.Com
Just when you thought milk cartons and temporary tattoos were the last new frontier in advertising...
Nancy Rommelmann, Left, Right, And Center
Nancy Rommelman (stunning in vintage Chanel, bien sur!) parties at both ends of the spectrum. At our end, the party Cathy Seipp, Emmanuelle Richard and I threw for Hollywood, Interrupted, Marc Ebner and Andrew Breitbart's deliciously scandalous new book about, among other things: misbehaving Hollywood celebrities, their abused nannies, Linda Lovelace and a dog that couldn't get it up (or didn't want to), and Mike Ovitz's tree-peeing son.
We gave away free books at our party (courtesy of Wiley, a publisher to covet, apparently), and there were free drinks and hors d'oeuvres, too. Viva capitalism! (Sadly, nobody came from the LA Weekly this time to complain about our free hors d'oeuvres.) As I noted on Cathy's blog, "It's always the commies complaining about the free gourmet food!"
Life In The Fat Lane
Check out this new Web site about wide loads -- human and vehicular.
A Brief Break From Boobs
Yes, it's a vagina moment again. Well, not for everyone. No, it seems "Not all vaginas are skinny, white + straight" and "My cunt is not represented here." Don't say I didn't warn you: Swallow what you're drinking before you click this link, because you'll be laughing so hard you'll be snorting it out your nose.
The Anthropology Of Shopping
Paco Underhill, called "a Sherlock Holmes for retailers," spends much of his life spying on shoppers, then reporting back to retailers so they can redecorate to make more money. I read his last book, Why We Buy, on the recommendation of an anthropologist, actually, and found it fascinating. In it, he explains, among other things, what he calls "the butt-brush effect": Shoppers, especially women, hate to be bumped or brushed from behind. If aisles are so narrow that they get bumped or jostled, they'll stop looking at merchandise and move on.
His latest book is Call Of The Mall. And that's where Roy Rivenburg followed him:
He began in the foyer of JCPenney, an area he calls "the landing strip" or "decompression zone." As shoppers enter a mall from outdoors, their walking speed downshifts and their eyes need time to adjust to the lighting. "This transition stage is one of the most critical things we've learned in two decades of studying how shoppers move through retail environments," Underhill explains in "Call of the Mall." If merchandise is placed too close to the door, it doesn't get noticed, he says.Many department stores locate perfume counters near the entrance, a throwback to pre-automobile days when fragrance sections were "a bulwark against the stench of horse manure coming in from the street."
After zipping through Penney's, Underhill steps into the heart of Del Amo, a retail behemoth so sprawling it contains two Victoria's Secrets, two Carlton Cards and two Bath & Body Works.
As he navigates the mall, Underhill reels off statistics, trivia and play-by-play commentary on the sights around him.
Most of his banter zeroes in on "ways that merchants shoot themselves in the foot," such as a maternity store with aisles too narrow for baby strollers or a clothing shop with barebones fitting rooms. "Why don't we do a better job of romancing the dressing room?" he asks, going on to recommend adjustable lighting that simulates outdoor and indoor environments. "The dressing room is often the least glamorous part of a store, and yet it's where so much of the decision-making happens."
In Robinsons-May, he notes the contrast between the sleek cosmetics displays and the clutter behind the counter ó clunky beige cash registers, 1980s-era telephones and frayed notebooks. If the store is trying to peddle glamour, he says, it should modernize the entire operation.
At Styles, a women's clothier, Underhill spots a mistake so common he can't resist meddling. With no clerks around to stop him, he bolts for the display window and starts rearranging the mannequins.
A moment later, he returns outside to explain his handiwork: Most mall window displays are aimed straight ahead, which means the only way to see them as you stroll past is to crane your neck unnaturally or walk sideways. A better method, he says, is to face the display slightly sideways, so the shopper sees it while approaching the store.
Hmm. That sounds fine if the customer arrives from the right side, but what about people approaching from the opposite direction? Wouldn't they see only the backs of the mannequins? Yes, Underhill says, but they'll be vastly outnumbered. That's because research shows that most mall pedestrians follow a counterclockwise loop through a mall ó except in Britain, where people drive on the left side of the road and thus prefer a clockwise path as pedestrians.
Underhill, a self-described "tall, bald, stuttering research wonk" who spends a third of his time on the road ("There are more than 100 American malls to which I could give you accurate driving directions off the top of my head," he notes), has seen just about everything in retail. He can tell you, for example, that products displayed on tables sell better than those on shelves or racks.
But he's in for a surprise at Hermit Crab, a kiosk vendor near the middle of the mall. It's a tub of beach sand crawling with tiny crabs in hand-painted shells. It's an eye-catcher, but Underhill finds it slightly creepy: "This is a testament to the fact that we are fascinated by critters ... but how soon will it be before the ASPCA [cracks down]?"
At least they're hard to shoplift!
(via Arts & Letters Daily)
Nancy Rommelman's Journey
Nancy Rommelman reads a story of a sick little girl, who looks just like hers, and falls in. This week's LA Weekly cover story.
What First Amendment?
"Censorship is not a solution for trashy TV," writes Wendy McElroy about the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004. "Nipplegate by Janet" wasn't the impetus for the Act, she observes, but it may propel its passage:
Radio is particularly vulnerable. There are more independent radio stations than television ones; a high percentage of radio programming is live; the FCC-targeted shock jocks are a radio phenomenon; and, there are few television equivalents to freewheeling college radio stations. But both radio and television are equally vulnerable to the vagueness of the FCC's definition of indecency.For example, one standard of indecency is whether the material is "patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." Accused violations can be judged on a case-by-case basis according to this ill-defined measure.
In a letter to the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Laura Murphy -- Director of the ACLU Washington National Office wrote, "Because of the vagueness, speakers must...[guess] what the FCC will determine to be prohibited. Increasing fines merely exacerbates the problem, particularly for small broadcasters. Rather than face a potentially ruinous fine, smaller broadcasters are more likely to remain silent."
Murphy concludes, "The bottom line is that broadcasters enjoy First Amendment protection."
The FCC's recent and heightened focus on indecency has already caused a chilling of free speech. For example, in 2001, a noncommercial community radio station in Oregon was fined $7,000 for playing a feminist rap song that included profanity. Although the fine was rescinded, the process took two years and the investigating agency declared, "it was a very close case."
With the threat of the BDEA, even large broadcasters are chilling free speech and self-censoring. The most publicized instance is NBC's decision to cut the image of an elderly woman's breast from its popular medical drama "ER." John Wells, "ER's" executive producer, argued that the audience was aware of the show's adult themes and could adjust their viewing habits accordingly.
Wells' argument points to the best solution to the vulgarity of Jackson and her ilk. It is not a shotgun policy that may be absorbed by media mega-corporations while destroying community and alternative broadcasting. The solution is for audience to flex their buying and boycott power.
They did so with "The Reagans," the anti-Reagan movie that posed as historical drama. When consumers threatened to boycott companies that bought commercial time during the movie's broadcast, CBS relegated it to a comparatively small-time slot on Showtime.
Broadcasters are listening to audience feedback. When Nicole Richie uttered profanity on the "Billboard Music Awards" that was carried by FOX, the network immediately explored ways to prevent future embarrassment, including adding a five-minute delay to live feeds.
Today, the first response to any controversy is, "there ought to be a law." But in matters of morality and freedom of speech, it is best for law to be the very last recourse society considers. The first resort is to let freedom and the free market function.
Physicians Committee for "Responsible" Medicine
This group's idea of acting "responsibly" involves stripping a dead guy -- Dr. Atkins -- of his privacy, and marching lies about him around the media to serve their (vegetarian diet-promoting) cause. Vile. Syndicated columnist Neil Cavuto very responsibly comes to Atkins' defense:
The group says Atkins was fat, 258 pounds, proof, one of its members later told me, that Atkins either didn't practice what he preached, or did, and got fat anyway.What the group failed to point out, and USA Today confirmed, is that Atkins went into the hospital weighing 195 pounds. He quickly fell into a coma and lingered for nine days in that vegetative state, being fed liquids that doctors tell me can indeed add dramatic weight in a short period of time.
But what Atkins ultimately weighed getting into, and sadly out of, that hospital doesn't matter. Common decency does. And this Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine wouldn't know the first thing about it.
It's one thing to hate a diet. It's quite another to use a dead man to make your point about that diet.
That dead man can't defend himself. So allow me.
I knew Atkins. I covered Atkins. The times I saw him he didn't look obese to me. And why would he? He was the poster child for the most talked about diet revolution in human history! You don't stay on message if you're not staying in shape. And the Atkins I saw was staying in shape.
He freely told me he battled weight in life.
It's a pity he can't battle classless fools in death.
Once again, here's a little responsibility in photography.
Cooter Conversations
You don't see men running around shouting about their penises. Why do certain feminists feel this relatively recent compulsion to express their feelings of "vaginal empowerment" via the spoken (or rather, screeched) word?
Lisa De Pasquale,Ýprogram director of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, casts a critical eye on The Vagina Monologues and the ticky-tacky "V-Day" (intended to be a -- cough, choke, where's my Dramamine? -- vagina-positive version of Valentine's Day). "The V-Day Web site proudly states that 'the 'V' stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina,'" reports Pasquale, wryly adding, "Perhaps "Vulgar" should also be added to the list":
Some of their ideas for high school students include having a "Vagina Friendly" bake sale, designating a "Rape Free Zone" in one's high school, and organizing an "Envisioning Group" that brainstorms what the world would be like without violence.What high school has a designated rape area? What baked good are unfriendly to the vagina? One has to wonder if these activities are more successful in inciting snickers and embarrassment than ending violence against women and girls.
Not surprisingly, Gloria Steinem, oft-quoted disseminating crap like "The most dangerous situation for a woman is not an unknown man in the street, or even the enemy in wartime, but a husband or lover in the isolation of their own home," was compelled to weigh in with her own special brand of inanity:
The shape we call a heart resembles the vulva far more than the organ that shares its name. ...It was reduced from power to romance by centuries of male dominance.
Oh, please. Every time you speak, Gloria, I try to figure out what you have reduced yourself to since the last time I saw you quoted. Unfortunately, I'm never sure what, technically, would be the next step down from horse's ass -- the form you reduced yourself to decades ago, thanks to your myriad insipid, ridiculous, and blatantly false pronouncements. (Steinem's propaganda, along with that of numerous others from the feminist industrial complex, is neatly debunked in Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Sommers, a book I highly recommend to all women whose identities weren't extruded, fully-formed, from the man-hating, robo-victim sisterhood that feminism has become.)
Eek. Even after losing myself in paragraphs of Gloria-bashing above -- always invigorating! -- I'm still picturing bake sales piled high with little strawberry-frosted vagina cookies. Truly embarrassing. It's probably only a matter of time before these V-Girls are running around whining about how oppressed they are via home-made pussy hand puppets. Oops. Let's not give them any bad ideas they haven't already had all by themselves.
All Breasts All The Time
As you may have noticed, this blog is dedicated to keeping you abreast of all the news in boobs. The Santa Cruz Sentinel weighs in on what we really should be afraid of, and it's not Janet's breast, but the scary people who would "protect" us from Janet's breast:
We agree that children should be protected from some of the raw programming that we see. But itís not the governmentís job to ban adult programs simply because some child somewhere may see it. An adult in his or her own home has the right to watch whatever he or she wants ó without the government interfering.Rather than have government officials decide what should be on, weíd rather that private citizens react in the best way they can ó by turning off the set. Sleazy programming is there simply because thereís a market for it. Maybe Jacksonís dirty dancing with Justin Timberlake was a surprise to some, but to many others it was just business as usual. Itís axiomatic that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
That horrible taste and excessive slobbering over sexual themes is irritating, but itís hardly illegal. After all, there are some adult shows ó "Sex and the City," to name one ó that are well done, funny and deserving of an audience. No, we wouldnít want kids watching, but we see no reason for the government to ban it just because some people donít like it.
If you donít like whatís on cable, or on satellite, just cancel the service. But please, leave the government out of it.
Yeah, you chose to pop out those little effigies of yourself, now you parent them -- without erasing all the vulgar images on TV that I'd enjoy immensely if I watched them instead of reading about "the horror, the horror" the next day in the press.
(via Buzzmachine)
Duck The Vote
Media Circus columnist Cathy Seipp asks the lazy, uninformed idiots not to vote:
Look, voting is a privilege as well as a right and if you donít vote, you should be ashamed of yourself. But the reason you should be ashamed of yourself is that not voting is lazy and idiotic. Should the lazy idiot constituency be encouraged to influence society even more than it already does? This is the paradox (and the problem) that hangs over these do-gooder media campaigns to get out the youth vote, which heat up every election year. But I donít see how the crotch-grabbing antics that now seem integral to the Viacom brand encourage an informed electorate. You can lead a horse to water, but you canít make him turn off the MTV.
Finally, she spanks the indignant commies over at the LA Weekly -- starting with Gregg Goldin, who managed to find the dark side of free hors d'oeuvres at the party Cathy, Emmanuelle, and I threw, with Reason magazine and LA Press Club, for John Stossel. Later, she bends over LA Weekly's Hollywood columnist, Nikki Fink, and gives her a good slap:
(Finke)...had whipped herself into a fury over CBS chief Les Moonvesís recent misadventures and thinks he should resign. The Super Bowl incident, according to Nikki, was the last straw. So she called up CBS spokesman Gil Schwartz to ask if he also thought Moonves should resign. Schwartz responded: ìItís an outrageous and moronic question not worthy of an answer.îFond as I am of the rude and inappropriate question, I have to say I was initially with CBS on this one. Moonves is not an elected official, and presumably neither Nikki nor many of her readers are Viacom shareholders. I canít see why she thinks most of us should care about personnel matters in Big Media.
But then I read Nikkiís list of Moonves sins: Heís a ìformer child actor who Ö repeatedly plays himself on TV.î Heís a ìshow-biz insider who pals around only with others of the industry.î And ñ you might want to be sitting down for this one ñ heís a ìbicoastal philistine who used to live in a Brentwood mansion and is right now looking at opulent Malibu beach houses.î
Looking at them right now? After all this? Couldnít Les at least show some shame and limit himself to unopulent houses? Since when did Nikki become such a bleeding-heart pushover? Resign, bah. Obviously, the man deserves the chair.
Whose Marriage Is It Anyway?
There are a few problems with the wacked thinking of people who seek to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying, notes Jacob Sullum:
The state does not own marriage and therefore cannot change it to the liking of this or that interest group. It is astonishing that conservatives, of all people, are so quick to grant the government that kind of power over something they hold sacred.The Federal Marriage Amendment says, in part, "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." Taken literally, the amendment forbids religious groups from sanctioning homosexual unions; a minister who officiated at such a ceremony would be violating the Constitution. The absurdity of that scenario suggests how confused our thinking about marriage has become.
At the same time, the amendment's backers insist it would not bar states from granting gay couples all the legal advantages of marriage, so long as the arrangement was not called "marriage." The president himself has said he has no problem with legal provisions that allow gay couples to take care of things like hospital visitation rights, insurance benefits, and inheritance, provided "the sanctity of marriage" is preserved.
The best way to do that is to take marriageóthe word as well as the institutionóback from the state.
The Face Of Gay Marriage
See here. Sure looks a lot more romantic and meaningful than some hetero marriages -- Britney Spears', to name just one.
Immaculate Deception
As promised, here's the link to Matt Welch's bombshell investigative piece on how efforts to squeeze child support out of deadbeat dads are actually rounding up a lot of innocent men -- and ruining their lives. Not to be missed.
Slim Chance Atkins Was Fat
Check out these photos, taken two months before his death.
(via Gawker)
Trial In Error
James K. Glassman makes a very good point -- "As Martha Stewart's trial moves into a third week, an important question remains unasked: Why are the feds prosecuting someone for receiving inside information, anyway? Isn't the criminal the corporate official who acts on knowledge that the public doesn't have?" He thinks the SEC should leave Martha alone and focus on the corporate-level crooks:
Although it's clear that top officers in a company are breaching their fiduciary responsibility if, for example, they buy stock with secret knowledge that their company is about to be bought by another firm, it's far from clear why someone like Stewart should even be considered for prosecution under the insider-trading law, which stresses misappropriation -- that is, using material, nonpublic information in breach of a duty of trust or confidence. Waksal was in a position of trust; Stewart wasn't.Also, who is hurt? Assume Stewart did know that Waksal was selling. That might have given her an edge over the buyer of her 3,928 shares, but the buyer was ready to buy on Dec. 27 anyway -- if not Stewart's shares, then someone else's.
In a book published in 1966, economist Henry Manne showed how insider trading actually makes markets more efficient because it speeds information that's immediately reflected in share prices. That's what we want from markets: a quick response to reality. In most other markets -- art, for instance, or cattle trading -- it is perfectly fine for one party to have inside information that the other does not. Prices ultimately reflect those facts, and prices are the way the public gleans knowledge.
Let's be honest about what Martha is really being tried for -- being rich, successful, and having bigger balls than a lot of men (albeit gilded, and trimmed with rickrack).
Advanced Bitchslapping
"An old definition of a gentleman is someone who is never rude except on purpose."
--Christopher Hitchens, Letters To A Young Contrarian.
Matt Welch Has Bathroom Issues
Just when you think there's absolutely nothing to fill your blog on deadline morning, Matt Welch goes off on bathroom automation:
I've studied this trend for several years now, and I can confirm that at least one out of every four sensory-triggered urinal-flushers in America suffers from a kind of aquatic Tourette's Syndrome, sending cascades of water both downward and outward at intervals that CalTech's finest couldn't predict. Woe to the end-user standing prone in front of a gusher; it can take hours to remove the phony appearance of incontinence, and that's one hell of an awkward position to assume in front of a wall-mounted blow drier.The EZ Flush system has also migrated to the stalls, and for reasons utterly beyond my grasp, these seem to be most frequently situated in supposed classier washroom environments. In January, I found myself in a four-star InterContinental Hotel where not only did the automatic stall-flush fail to perform its critical function, the automatic lights failed as well, thereby throwing the entire room into a blackout at the worst possible moment.
Now, you didn't hear it from me, but some say it was an overenthusiastic auto-flush toilet that causes Janet's "wardrobe malfunction." I don't know -- some sort of delayed reaction or something -- auto-flush now -- and boob covers fly off hours later. Scarrrreeey!
Touched By A Sex Columnist
Is it just me, or is Sex In The City going disturbingly warm and fuzzy in their final episodes? On Sunday nightís show, there were puppies having puppies and sleigh rides and Hallmark-style snowy winter cutaways -- I half expected James Taylor to pop up next to crack dealers crooning ìYouíve Got A Friend.î Luckily, there was some respite -- when a big, fat, coke-snorting 80s party girl said something like, ìThis city is so boring I could just die,î and promptly fell off her Manolos and out a skyscraper window to her death -- or the entire show would have been entirely unwatchable.
The Advice Goddess On Biography Channel
A lot. Starting tonight, with "The Advice Minute with Amy Alkon," 11 one-minute advice bits running between Biography's programming, starting tonight, after 8:30pm EST. Per my advice origins, I'm giving advice on the streets of New York (and in my favorite downtown bar, because it rained cats, dogs, and Shetland ponies on our shoot day), to the likes of Cairo, the cross-dresser looking for love, and Dave, the adorable single guy from the south who says "New York women are savages!"
Are You Ready For Your Colonoscopy?
There's a perception, that just because movie stars are rich and famous, they should have to put up with any and every sort of invasion of their privacy. Well, while it's often hard, these days, to get shocked by the level of press invasiveness by a certain kind of press...it seems Nicole Kidman was recently asked if she had breast cancer because some reporters "obtain(ed) her medical records without authorization" from a Los Angeles hospital! Truly despicable. I'd like to propose that each of the guilty undergoes a live, nationally televised colonoscopy as their punishment. Too gross for the viewers, you say? Well, if the recent silly brouhaha about Jane's boob (vis a vis the normal TV fare of rapes, maimings, and murders) was any indication; as long as there's no titty showing during the telecast, it shouldn't bother the public much. As far as the issue of Janet's exposed boob goes, my big question is: "Why only one"?
"Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name"
To any lingering religious fanatics who defend their bigotry against gays with the notion that "gay sex isn't natural," check out these homosexual penguins in a New York Times story by Dinitia Smith:
Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan, are completely devoted to each other. For nearly six years now, they have been inseparable. They exhibit what in penguin parlance is called "ecstatic behavior": that is, they entwine their necks, they vocalize to each other, they have sex. Silo and Roy are, to anthropomorphize a bit, gay penguins. When offered female companionship, they have adamantly refused it. And the females aren't interested in them, either.At one time, the two seemed so desperate to incubate an egg together that they put a rock in their nest and sat on it, keeping it warm in the folds of their abdomens, said their chief keeper, Rob Gramzay. Finally, he gave them a fertile egg that needed care to hatch. Things went perfectly. Roy and Silo sat on it for the typical 34 days until a chick, Tango, was born. For the next two and a half months they raised Tango, keeping her warm and feeding her food from their beaks until she could go out into the world on her own. Mr. Gramzay is full of praise for them.
"They did a great job," he said. He was standing inside the glassed-in penguin exhibit, where Roy and Silo had just finished lunch. Penguins usually like a swim after they eat, and Silo was in the water. Roy had finished his dip and was up on the beach.
Roy and Silo are hardly unusual. Milou and Squawk, two young males, are also beginning to exhibit courtship behavior, hanging out with each other, billing and bowing. Before them, the Central Park Zoo had Georgey and Mickey, two female Gentoo penguins who tried to incubate eggs together. And Wendell and Cass, a devoted male African penguin pair, live at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island. Indeed, scientists have found homosexual behavior throughout the animal world.
At least, in the animal kingdom, the straight creatures just go off and have sex amongst themselves instead of concerning themselves with whether the other creatures are sodomizing each other.
Business As Delusional
Francis Wheen on the top ten modern delusions. My favorites:
1. "God is on our side"
George W Bush thinks so, as do Tony Blair and Osama bin Laden and an alarmingly high percentage of other important figures in today's world. After September 11 2001 Blair claimed that religion was the solution not the problem, since "Jews, Muslims and Christians are all children of Abraham" - unaware that the example of Abraham was also cited by Mohammed Atta, hijacker of the one of the planes that shattered the New York skyline. RH Tawney wrote in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism that "modern social theory, like modern political theory, developed only when society was given a naturalistic instead of a religious explanation". In which case modern social and political theory would now seem to be dead.4. We mustn't be "judgmental"
In 2002 the Guardian revealed that Christian fundamentalists had taken control of a state-funded school in Gateshead and were striving to "show the superiority" of creationist beliefs in their classes. When Jenny Tonge MP asked Tony Blair if he was happy that the Book of Genesis was now being promoted as the most reliable biology textbook, he replied: "Yes. . . In the end a more diverse school system will deliver better results for our children." This is the enfeebling consequence of unthinking cultural and intellectual relativism. If some schools start teaching that the moon is made of Swiss cheese or that the stars are God's daisy chain, no doubt that too will be officially welcomed as a healthy sign of educational diversity.6. Astrology and similar delusions are "harmless fun"
Those who say this never explain what is either funny or harmless in promoting a con-trick which preys on ignorance and anxiety. Yet even the Observer, Britain's most venerable and enlightened Sunday newspaper, now has a horoscope page.9. America's economic success is entirely due to private enterprise
In the 19th century, the American government promoted the formation of a national economy, the building of railroads and the development of the telegraph. More recently, the internet was created by the Pentagon. American agriculture is heavily subsidised and protected, as are the steel industry and many other sectors of the world's biggest "free-market economy". At times of economic slowdown, even under presidents who denigrate the role of government, the US will increase its deficit to finance expansionary fiscal and monetary policies. But its leaders get very cross indeed if any developing country tries to follow this example.
(via Arts & Letters Daily)
Angry, Humorless P.C. Alert
In the comments section of the India, Inc. blog item. See Sravan Kameratt comment.
--posted by Amy Alkon, Pasty White Girl Of Indeterminate European Diaspora Extraction
Today In Boob News
Janet has been dumped as a presenter from the Grammycast, the SAG awards may go on 10-second delay, and the boobs in the House and Senate are set to grill Viacom/CBS honch Mel Karmazin about Nipplegate.
(via our man always on top of the breasts David "Tell Me Everything" Rensin)
Roll, Roll, Roll Your Boat
Anybody with kids who buys an SUV should be jailed for attempted child abuse. Just read the latest rollover statistics.
And here's Ben Greenman's New Yorker interview of Malcolm Gladwell on the boom of the SUV culture -- and on the narcissistic, rude, and dunderheaded people who drive them.
I'm A Covergirl
This link won't last forever, but click here for my covergirl debut, and click on the cover shot for the interview, by Hillary Johnson, editor of the Ventura County Reporter. Woo hoo!
The Daily Breast Watch
News in and about boobs today includes a case of breast removal from ER. Where will the neo-Puritans wield their scalpel next!?
(via our man with his eye at 34C-level David "Tell Me Everything" Rensin)
India, Inc.
Outsourcing American jobs has heavy psychic costs -- to me, for one. I was a paid guest two times on the now-aborted Jesse Ventura show, debating him on SUVs and smoking bans. One show was shot here in Hollywood; I was flown to Minneapolis for the other. Enroute to the Minneapolis show, I made the mistake of eating a hamburger at the airport. The hamburger, actually, wasn't that bad. It cost me $6.49. The very sweet young production coordinator offered to reimburse me. I gave him the receipt, and sometime later, received a check for the princessly sum of $6.49 -- which probably cost NBC $25 to process. Well, maybe they'll be just as kind in picking up my ensuing mental hospitalization costs, too.
A few days ago, I got a 1099 form in the mail, from NBC, for $6.49, made out to Amy Azicon instead of Amy Alkon. It had my social security number, but was sent to my home address (where the car picked me up for the show, but where I only get junk mail) instead of to my mailing address. Problem -- the $6.49 wasn't work income. I would have just lived with being taxed for it, except I was worried about a possible IRS mess-up, thanks to the misspelled name and the address that doesn't match the address on my taxes.
I called the number on the top of the 1099 that says "QUESTIONS: 1-212-664-4444." Cleverly, they put on the main number of NBC in New York, not the number of anybody who has anything to do with correcting wrong 1099s. After much "push one if you'd like to be executed immediately; press two if you prefer extended torture," I finally got transferred to accounts payable, and was promptly ordered to dial 1-866-665-7340. This, most charmingly, got me connected to a lady on the lower east side of Calcutta. The phone conversation started like this:
INDIAN WOMAN: Hello.ME: Hello, I have a problem with my 1099.
INDIAN WOMAN: Hello.
ME: Yes, hello, I have a problem with my 1099.
INDIAN WOMAN: Hello.
ME: No, no, no...this is not going well. This is the part of the conversation where you're supposed to say, "Hi, but I'm the wrong person," or "I'm the right person, and how can I help you?"...something, anything...please speak!
The conversation only degenerated from there. Highlights included my assisting her in spelling my proper street address. PIER Avenue. And the "avenue" part wasn't the problem. I'm not making this up. It took five minute to get P-I-E-R on the page. P. Is for Paul. Extended waiting period. And so on. And then she read back that it was P...for Beer! And so on. Arrrrrrgh!
Ultimately, I called NBC in New York to complain. After being shuffled from wrong person to wrong person, I finally get some help from a really cool woman in accounting with a New York accent (what a relief). She's sharp, and on-the-ball, and she calls me twice -- the second time to give me the number of the guy in accounting who might be responsible for the Calcutta employees. He's going to get an earfull tomorrow -- from me -- about how she's the kind of person NBC should be hiring to do the jobs now being outsourced to India.
Is NBC really saving money on this? (Don't answer that too fast -- not without tabulating the costs of my electroshock therapy, six months of institutionalization, and a Christian Dior strait jacket with matching bed restraints.)
UPDATE: At 7:30am, Pacific Time, I was awakened by another limited-English lady from India.
LADY FROM INDIA: W.G. (who is lucky I am not mentioning his full name) sent me an email saying you have the wrong address. Your address is 1099?ME: No! No! My address is not 1099. (I start to tell her my address, then stop). It's a wrong 1099 form! And you know what? I'm not going to talk to you about this. I'm going to call W.G. and he's going to deal with this!
I call W.G. at NBC and leave an enraged message, noting that I've just been visiting a friend in New York who has been in a coma, and kind of needed to catch up on my sleep -- a rather difficult endeavor, when non-English-speaking Indian ladies are calling me to not resolve my problem at 7:30 am Pacific Time!...thanks to NBC's unpatriotic and irritating practice of giving American jobs to people in Calcutta!
The Bad Words Police Are On The Case
Dan Nephin of the Associated Press reports on a second-grader in Pittsburgh, suspended from school for saying "hell." Woooo. What's next on the banned words list, "poopy"?
This piece reminds me of the day at Gold's Gym, Venice, when the big, huge stuntman-like actor from Pearl Harbor (the one who had the fight with Cuba Gooding, Jr., someone told me) ignored a rather polite and reasonable request I made of him, and ran off to tattle on my to the gym staff for calling him a lunkhead (which he told me would result in my getting thrown out of the gym). A huge, musclebound grown man tattled on me! For calling him a lunkhead. (Take that you meanie!)
(link via David "Tell Me Everything" Rensin)
Everything's Coming Up 1950s
Cathy Young analyzes Dr. Laura's new book, which takes the notion "don't be a controlling bitch" a step too far:
Schlessinger has a point, and to some extent her message can be read as one of equality: If you want your husband to treat you well, be nice to him, and don't forget that he has feelings too. Some of the callers mentioned in her book could definitely benefit from the advice to respect and appreciate their husbands more. One woman bristles at the suggestion that her husband should have input in decisions about purchases for the family. Another expects her husband to be "understanding" when, between kids, job, and all sorts of other activities, she has no time for sexual or emotional intimacy.Alas, the sensible stuff here comes with a lot of baggage. Thus, reminders that marriage is a two-way street are intended mostly for wives who forget about their obligations: Schlessinger is emphatic about her belief that the happiness of the marriage depends on the wife, and if the husband is neglecting her it's probably her own fault.
There's also her irksome propensity to present grossly simplistic caricatures of the sexes as eternal verities. She is particularly fond of one male caller's comment, "Men are only interested in two things: If I'm not horny, make me a sandwich." Little deviance from traditional roles is tolerated: women cook and make a happy home, men are out in the workforce "slaying dragons"; a husband's demand that a wife give up her career to spend more time with him is treated as an expression of love.
What's more, Schlessinger's catalog of wifely sins ranges from wanting to take an extended vacation sans husband to failing to take an interest in his hobbies. And while she is certainly right that it's not "subjugation" to love a man or take pride in your marriage, must she approvingly cite a listener who writes, "Remember that without him, you are only a sorry excuse for a person"?
Suddenly, I feel like taking 12 showers.
Like The Surrendered Wife, this book addresses (and exascerbates) the symptom, not the problem: women who have low self-esteem. That's what makes a woman controlling. Thus, the answer isn't to grind a woman into a ground for refusing to be the epitome of subservience, but to encourage women to go entirely the other way: to be about "Who am I?" instead of "Who am I with?" -- the shortcut too many women take, thinking marriage and children are an easy way out of the hard work of developing a self. Of course, that's merely a shortcut to misery and controlling bitch-hood -- one that's about 5000 miles away from a fun, loving relationship.
Peek Experience
See Janet Jackson's halftime show here.
(via Gossiplist)
The Three Stooges Guard The Airports
Does the TSA make us safer, or just more inconvenienced -- and worse? James Bovard tells the whole sorry tale over at Reason.com:
In June 2002 news leaked out that TSA airport screeners missed 24 percent of the weapons and imitation bombs planted in the governmentís undercover security tests. At some major airports, screeners failed to detect potentially dangerous objects in half the tests. The results were worse than they first appeared, because the testers were ordered not to "artfully conceal" the deadly contraband and instead pack their luggage "consistent with how a typical passenger in air transportation might pack a bag." Although the tests seemed designed to see if screeners could catch terrorists with single-digit IQs, they still failed to find the weapons much of the time.That does not mean TSA screeners donít find anything. Notable triumphs have included seizing a tiny pair of wire cutters from a Special Forces veteran who had been shot in the jaw in Afghanistan and needed the cutters to snip his jaw open if he started to choke; evacuating terminals in Los Angeles upon discovering that travelers were carrying such dangerous devices as a belt buckle or a tub of jam; and shutting down several concourses in St. Louis after a federal security screener spotted what appeared to be a "cutting tool" in a carry-on bag. After detecting the suspicious object, the St. Louis screener followed proper procedure: He fetched his supervisor to take a look at the frozen image on the video screen at the checkpoint. A few minutes later, the supervisor concluded that the bag was indeed suspicious and needed to be manually searched. But the passenger had long since retrieved it and headed to his or her flight. Hundreds of passengers were evacuated and up to 60 flights were delayed; despite many searches, the suspicious item was never found.
Larry! Moe! Curly! Bag-check on one!
A Little Male Bashing For Old Times' Sake
"A rerun of Christina Hoff Sommers' classic rebuttal of the myth that SuperBowl Sunday inspires a spike in domestic violence," via iFeminist.
