Susan Jacoby In Praise Of Foxhole Atheists
Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, has a terrific essay in The Washington Post decrying the "Yahoo War!" aspect of Memorial Day, and the ridiculous and untrue notion, "There are no atheists in foxholes." She writes about her "disgust at the annual American celebration of a melding of patriotism and religion so often used to justify war":
I was at home working on Memorial Day and wanted to take a break to watch a movie on television. Fat chance. Nonstop movies glorifying war were the only movies being shown. Iwo Jima. Custer's last stand. The Civil War, including the "glorious" lost southern cause as well as the cause of ending slavery. Alvin York overcoming his pacifism. General George Patton, as certifiable a military lunatic as America has ever produced, quoting scripture and slapping a soldier with what would today be called post-traumatic stress disorder.The endless references in these movies to the Bible, and to God keeping watch over soldiers, are as nauseating as the endless television news stories about the "miracle" of a slain U.S. soldier's family finding an Iraqi puppy who was, apparently, the last creature the doomed young soldier had a chance to cuddle.
The real face of war appears on the front page of the May 28 New York Times, in the form of a heartrending photograph of a young woman stretched out full length on the ground--a Pieta with no one to hold--in front of her fiance's grave at Arlington National Cemetery. Empty arms, not answered prayers and warm puppies, are what war is about.
Make no mistake: the association of faith and sentimental "miracles" with war is not only tasteless but dangerous. Faith is used not only as consolation for the pointless deaths of young men and women but often as a rationalization for those deaths. We know that George W. Bush's consultation with a "Higher Father"--his sense of himself as the leader of his nation in a righteous, God-sanctioned mission--played an important role in his decision to launch the war.
The cliche about there being no atheists in foxholes is not entirely true, as evinced by the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. What is true, as demonstrated by the annual parade of faith-based (in more ways than one) war movies, is that the American public and the media are addicted to the notion that God is on our side and watching out for our soldiers in any conflict.
This reflexive equation of patriotism with religion is a blot on our moral landscape, and it cannot be disentangled from the ubiquity of personal faith in America. Of course, there are many people whose faith moves them to oppose war. But they are still letting God off the hook in a way that requires the deepest form of denial--for individuals and for a society. Such people will argue, in circular fashion, that they are following God's will by working for peace. And why do innocent people have to be killed for the peacemakers to live out their faith and follow God's will? Don't ask, because there is no answer that makes sense.
There is nothing good to be said for keeping one's faith in the supernatural in the face of war--a man-made disaster that we are apparently doomed to repeat as long as our species endures. In time of war, we would be much better off if we lost our faith and hung on to our sense of reason.
A Tale Of Naked Whoa
I just posted my Advice Goddess column responding to an e-mail from a guy who'd like to have sex three or four times a week, but whose girlfriend of a year is willing only once a week.
He writes:
I’d like to have sex three or four times a week, but my girlfriend of a year is willing only once a week. She isn’t on antidepressants or other medication. I’m guessing her sex drive is just low since she says she’s very happy with me, and just isn’t usually in the mood. I find begging unappealing, and don’t want to pressure her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I know relationships require compromise. What would be a reasonable one regarding frequency of sex?--Rationed
My response:
Relationships are filled with little tasks that don’t exactly bring a person to screaming orgasm. A man, for example, doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night with some primal longing to bring his girlfriend flowers, rehang her back door, or clean the trap in her sink. Like sex, these things can be expressions of love, but if a guy’s going to lock himself in the bathroom, it’s not going to be with “Bob Vila's Complete Guide to Remodeling Your Home.”So, couldn’t putting out when you aren’t in the mood be seen as just another expression of love? Joan Sewell, author of I'd Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido, told The Atlantic Monthly, “If you have sex when you don’t desire it, physically desire it, you are going to feel used.” Well, okay, perhaps. But, if a guy rotates a woman’s tires when he doesn’t desire it, physically desire it, does he feel used?
Actually, we all do plenty of things with our bodies that we don’t really feel like; for instance, taking our bodies to work when we have a hangover instead of putting our bodies in front of some greasy hash browns, and then to bed. For women, however, sexual things are supposed to be out of the question. I think the subtext here is not doing things we really don’t feel like if it GIVES A MAN PLEASURE. And no, I’m not advocating rape or anything remotely close to it. And, of course, if you find sex with your husband or boyfriend a horrible chore, you’re in the wrong place. Otherwise, if you’re with a man, and he’s nice to you, and works hard to please you, would it kill you to throw him a quickie?
The real problem for many couples is the notion that “the mood” is something they’re supposed to wait around for like Halley’s Comet -- probably due to the assumption that desire works the same in men and women. The truth is, just because a woman isn’t in the mood doesn’t mean she can’t get in the mood. According to breakthrough work by sexual medicine specialist Rosemary Basson, women in long-term relationships tend not to have the same “spontaneous sexual neediness” men do, but they can be arousable, or “triggerable.” In other words, forget trying to have sex. Tell your girlfriend about Basson’s findings, and ask her to try an experiment: making out three times a week (without sex being the presumed outcome) and seeing if “the mood” happens to strike her. You just might find the member getting admitted to the club a little more often.
Sexperts will tell you “a sexual mismatch needn’t mean the end of a relationship” -- which sounds good but tends to play out like being hungry for three meals a day and being expected to make do with a handful of pretzels. Expressway to Resentsville, anyone? If it comes to that, breakup sex is a better idea. You’re always going to have issues in a relationship, but for a relationship to work for you, the biggie’ll have to be something like your falling asleep after sex, not her falling asleep before.
The entire column, plus lots of comments, is here.
And while you while my column is banned from from my local paper, The LA Times, they're liking me in The Green Zone. This e-mail, in response to the above column, made my day:
RE: "Rationed" from Stars & Stripes, Sunday, 20 May 2007Amy,
We, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines of the Baghdad International Zone (aka Green Zone) (all of us guys, anyway) have elected you, "Woman of the Year," as a result of the incredible, spot-on advice given in your column in the 20 May 2007 issue of Stars & Stripes newspaper. We love our women and will slay dragons, change tires, respond to bumps in the night and many, many other things for them, tired or not. The reward, as opposed to withholding same, is a very effective motivator and we encourage that use. It's just that simple!
Thank you!
What About Me Says I'm Likely To Give You A 6 a.m. Computer Tutorial While I'm Eating My Eggs?
I'm in O'Hare Airport on my way to the annual Human Behavior & Evolution Society conference at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. It's 6:06 a.m. here/4:06 a.m. Pacific Time. I'm barely awake, despite having traversed the indoors equivalent of The Great Plains to get to my gate, but I've gotten some bacon and eggs at a little airport diner, and I'm eating my breakfast and preparing to post a blog item.
My table's right next to where people walk past, and some guy in a sport jacket stops at my table. He looks a little business-dude, but I think it must be some professor I know, otherwise why would he be interrupting my breakfast?
"Excuse me, I'm a Windows guy and we just bought a Mac..."
He cannot be serious.
I'm chewing. Incredulous, but going along with it, kind of like watching a car wreck that I happen to be in.
He continues:
"I'm just wondering how you make the things in the browser bar..."
He sticks his arm over the black safety-belt line sequestering the restaurant tables from people walking past in the terminal and starts to go for my screen with his pointer finger.
I frown. "Please don't touch my screen."
He repeats his question:
"I'm just wondering how you make the things in the browser bar bigger..."
I just look at him. He wags his finger in again real close.
"How you make them bigger..."
"Please don't touch my screen."
"It's just that..."
I'm waking up a little: "Look, I just got off a plane, and I'm very tired, and I haven't had any coffee, and I'm really not a computer support person. They have free computer support at the Mac store..."
"Oh, okay...just thought you could help."
And yes, if you were sitting next to me on a plane, and we'd been talking and you wanted to know, sure I'd tell you. But, what is it with this guy that he thinks it's okay to butt into the breakfast of a total stranger at 6 a.m. and start asking for tech support?
You had any recent experiences like this? Is this an example of how the world is getting ruder by the moment or just an anomaly?
And, finally, a note to the over-entitled: Saying "excuse me" then behaving rudely doesn't in any way excuse your behavior.
Morons Who Vote
Raddy asked the question the other day -- how many people know who their Congresstool is? A more stomach-churning question is how many people do you actually trust to cast an informed, intelligent vote? Gary J. Bass writes in The New York Times Magazine:
Of all the people who deserve some blame for the debacle in Iraq, don’t forget the American public. Today, about two-thirds of Americans oppose the war. But back in March 2003, when United States troops stormed into Iraq, nearly three out of four Americans supported the invasion. Doves say that the public was suckered into war by a deceitful White House, and hawks say that the press has since led the public to lose its nerve — but the two sides implicitly agree that the public has been dangerously unsure, or easily propagandized, or ignorant.The disaster in Iraq has also fed a contradiction in American thinking about democracy. On the one hand, Americans continue to share the triumphalist, post-Soviet conviction that no other system of government has any real legitimacy. On the other hand, there is a deepening despair about whether and how the United States should spread democracy, prompted not just by Iraq but also by the endurance of authoritarianism in booming China and Vietnam and the disheartening Palestinian and Lebanese experiments in democratization.
Now Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University, has attracted notice for raising a pointed question: Do voters have any idea what they are doing? In his provocative new book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies,” Caplan argues that “voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational — and vote accordingly.” Caplan’s complaint is not that special-interest groups might subvert the will of the people, or that government might ignore the will of the people. He objects to the will of the people itself.
...If the public doesn’t know how to think, is there a solution? Caplan has some radical medicine in mind. To encourage greater economic literacy, he suggests tests of voter competence, or “giving extra votes to individuals or groups with greater economic literacy.” Until 1949, he points out, Britain gave extra votes to some business owners and graduates of elite universities. (Since worse-educated citizens are less likely to vote, Caplan dislikes efforts to increase voter turnout.) Most provocatively, perhaps, in an online essay Caplan has suggested a curious twist on the tradition of judicial review: If the Supreme Court can strike down laws as unconstitutional, why shouldn’t the Council of Economic Advisers be able to strike down laws as “uneconomical”? (Caplan’s book has been warmly recommended by N. Gregory Mankiw, the former chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, although Mankiw did not allude to this particular proposal.) Caplan also suggests changing the educational curriculum to stamp out biased beliefs in voters and policy makers alike — a suggestion as old as Plato’s wish that a city’s ruling guardians be schooled in the “royal science” of governance, which has seemingly been reincarnated as economics.
Democracy, by the morons, for the morons...we get the government we deserve (because we randomly and unthinkingly vote it in -- if we even vote at all). And go ahead, make fun of the commie French, but 85 percent of them voted in their last election. How informed they were, I can't really say, but at least, this time, they elected somebody in who has some chance of dragging them out of their socialist malaise.
Smart Car/Stupid Car
View from inside the WGA theatre, Beverly Hills, at the Elmore Leonard/Walter Mirisch Writers Bloc event. The one on the left is mine.
"Let’s Donate A Kidney!"
It’s the organ donation version of “Let’s Make A Deal!” From a story by Kate Connolly in The Guardian:
A Dutch reality television show in which a terminally ill woman is to select one of three contestants to receive her kidneys when she dies is to air this week despite criticism that it pushes the boundaries of the format too far.The government has called for De Grote Donorshow (The Big Donor show) to be dropped because it is "unethical" and "wretched" but the broadcaster BNN said it would go ahead to highlight the difficulties of searching for kidney donors.
In the show, due to be broadcast on Friday, a woman identified only as Lisa, 37, will select a recipient based on their history, profile and conversations with their families and friends. Throughout the 80-minute show, viewers will be invited to send Lisa text messages to advise her.
The ruling coalition parties the Christian Democrats and the Christian Union have condemned the show.
But BNN's chairman, Laurens Drillich, said the show would increase by a third the participants' chances of getting a new kidney. "The chance for a kidney for the contestants is 33%," he said. "This is much higher than that for people on a waiting list. You would expect it to be better, but it is worse."
It’s your body…I think you should be able to sell it or give it away if you want to. Is it…tacky…to do it this way? Well, maybe what’s really tacky is dying without an organ transplant because your government thinks it’s tacky, or somehow otherwise wrong, to buy and sell organs. Or just rent access to your vagina for an hour or so.
Here’s an article by Dr. Sally Satel, one of the lucky Americans to get a donated kidney (from my pal Virginia Postrel), who says allowing organ sales is the best way the provide more donated organs:
The chasm between the number of available kidneys and the number of people needing one will widen each year. This is due to our misplaced faith in the power of altruism. The “transplant community,” as it is called—organizations that encourage funding and gifts of organs, and many surgeons and nephrologists—expects people, both living donors and loved ones of the deceased, to give a body part and to receive nothing in return. In fact, it is illegal in the United States to receive money or anything of value (“valuable consideration”) in exchange for an organ, a principle set down by Congress in 1984 in the National Organ Transplantation Act.Don’t get me wrong. Altruism is a beautiful thing—it’s the reason I have a new kidney—but altruism alone cannot resolve the organ shortage. For that reason, more and more physicians, ethicists, economists, and legal scholars are urging the legalization of payments for organs in order to generate more kidneys for transplantation. One doesn’t need to be Milton Friedman to know that a price of zero for anything virtually guarantees its shortage.
“Is it wrong for an individual…who wishes to utilize part of his body for the benefit of another [to] be provided with financial compensation that could obliterate a life of destitution for the individual and his family?” asked Dr. Richard Fine, president of the American Society of Transplantation, in his address to the World Transplant Congress this year.
Supporters of experimenting with a market for organs encounter an array of objections, theoretical and practical. One popular argument, first advanced by Richard M. Titmuss, professor of social administration at the London School of Economics, is that altruism is the sole legitimate impulse behind organ donation. In 1971, Titmuss, a dedicated socialist and member of the Fabian Society, published The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, which rapidly became a U.S. bestseller. He argued that altruistic acts are among the most sensitive indicators of the quality of human relationships and values in a society. Capitalism, on the other hand, is morally bankrupt.
This ethic is very much alive among the bureaucrats that run the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the transplant list. “Organ transplantation is built upon altruism and public trust. If anything shakes that trust, then everyone loses,” says the UNOS website. Yet the trust is already badly rattled. “The current system has degenerated into an equal opportunity to die on the waiting list,” observes nephrologist Benjamin Hippen, who advocated compensating donors (or perhaps they should be called “vendors”) before the President’s Council on Bioethics this summer.
Another theoretical objection to compensating donors is the notion that it will “commodify” the body and thus dehumanize the rest of us, let alone the person who gives his kidney in exchange for “valuable consideration.” Yet with proper respect for donors and informed consent, it strikes me that careful engagement in financial arrangements is far less distasteful than allowing people to suffer and die. These are not abstract people, mind you, like the ones who may well be helped by stem cell discoveries years down the road, but live humans like the 49-year-old former secretary from the Pentagon I met last summer. For four years now, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she has been sitting in Chair No. 7 in the dialysis center a few blocks from our offices.
… Perhaps the most vocal critic of compensating donors is the National Kidney Foundation.
It is offended by the idea that a donor might benefit in ways other than the psychic reward of pure giving. States NKF chairman Charles Fruit, “Families decide to donate the organs of a loved one for altruistic reasons. Payment is an affront to those who have already donated.”[ii] Virginia, a take-no-prisoners journalist, responded pointedly to Fruit on her website,
. “The argument that paying organ donors is ‘an affront’ to unpaid donors is disgusting. Are unpaid donors giving organs to save lives or just to make themselves feel morally superior? Even in the latter case, they shouldn’t care if other people get paid.”
Gratuitous Shot Of My Microscopic Dog
In case it isn't apparent from the photos, Dog is slightly less modest than Naomi Campbell.
If Only We Had Socialized Medicine!
Then people paying for their health care (through their taxes) can get healthcare as shitty as the people getting a free ride! James Christopher reviews Michael Moore's film Sicko in the Times of London:
He travels to London to show off the beauty and brilliance of the British National Health Service. He talks to an unstressed doctor who has a four bedroom house in Greenwich and a £100,000 salary from the NHS. He films empty waiting rooms and happy, care-free health workers. He even talks to Tony Benn about how this wonderful marvel came into existence in 1948.What he hasn’t done is lie in a corridor all night at the Royal Free watching his severed toe disintegrate in a plastic cup of melted ice. I have. I’ve spent more hours than I care to remember in NHS hospitals vainly waiting for stitches or praying for the arrival of a midwife. There are no such traumas in Moore’s rose-tinted vision of our glorious NHS.
How uncommon is this? Apparently, not uncommon at all. Here's Jackie Danicki's Brit boyfriend Antoine's recent experience with their NHS (National Health Insurance) -- a repeat of an experience he'd gone through not long before:
Antoine has been at the hospital since this morning, waiting to be admitted for an ailment I won’t disclose, except to say that it is very painful and that the doctors aren’t sure yet exactly what they are dealing with, though it could be something very serious. They want to keep him overnight at least one night, possibly more. Now, at 10.30PM in London, he is STILL waiting for a bed.Considering how many of my loved ones they’ve killed or otherwise injured, I’m not sure if I’ve ever been more upset with the farce that is the National Health Service than I am right now. The next American who tells me how wonderful socialised healthcare would be for the US might just get more of an earful than I can usually be bothered to produce.
UPDATE: I spoke to Antoine at 11.30PM London time and they still hadn’t got him in a bed, though at least the nurses helped by bitching to him about what a horribly run hospital they work in and providing some comic relief. He texted me at quarter past midnight and said they’d finally found him a bed.
If you think that experience is an anomaly, here are many more, just on Jackie's blog.
Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at Cato, asks a few questions nobody else is asking at Tech Central Station, and then comes up with this, about how disconnected American workers are from their workplace-paid healthcare dollars:
They could start with the fact that federal laws have created a health care system where patients are too often spending someone else's money when they purchase medical care. On average, third-parties pay for 86 cents out of every dollar of medical care American patients receive. That's about the same share as under Canada's socialized health care system.As a result, U.S. patients demand too much medical care and pay too little attention to whether that care is cost-effective. Is it any wonder health insurance premiums are skyrocketing, our uninsured rate is too high, and quality is less than it should be?
There's a lesson here for those who want to cover the uninsured: focus on the incentives facing the 250 million Americans who have health insurance, not on the estimated 47 million who don't. If the federal government stopped encouraging people with health insurance to be less careful consumers, then coverage would be more affordable, the number of people without coverage would shrink, and the quality of care would improve.
That's why the most important reforms would allow workers to control the health care dollars that their employers currently control. If workers are allowed to own those dollars, 180 million Americans would start making more cost-conscious decisions about their health insurance and their medical care. President Bush's proposal to give all taxpayers a standard deduction for health insurance is one such reform. Another would allow workers to take all their health benefits as a cash contribution into a health savings account.
Of course, I'm against workplace paid health insurance altogether, which discriminates against the single person on behalf of the guy who's got a wife and six kids on the work healthcare dole. I pay for my own healthcare through Kaiser. It really isn't a big deal. And I'm 43 and it's $235 a month, and I didn't get denied health care because I was smart enough and responsible enough to have it ever since I got out of college. I was with Oxford in New York, and I've been with Kaiser ever since my last "real job," in my late 20s. It's not the Cadillac of healthcare, but it's adequate, and I'm pretty much paying Ford Focus prices.
Oh yeah, and for anybody (like Bill Maher in the video below or an American friend of mine living in France) who waxes poetic about French health care, a story I've told before: The expat friend, who's married to a French woman, was bragging about his "free" health care. I reminded him that, moments before, he'd been complaing about paying...get this...65 percent of his income in taxes. That's not free health care, that's extraordinarily expensive health care.
review link via Samizdata
What Can You Say About A Country That Was Too Stupid To Get On Board With The War In Iraq?
Freedom fries, anyone? Bill Maher on the Republican cred that comes from hating the French (and no, I don't agree with everything he says, but he has some good points).
The Draft Dodger-In-Chief
Bush isn't alone in that, and we're talking past and present. Lawrence J. Korb and Max A Bergmann write in the LA Times that perhaps the only issue in which there's near-total bipartisan unity in Washington is the opposition to the draft:
By vetoing the initial Iraq war supplemental spending bill because it contained a timetable for withdrawal, President Bush clearly believes that a substantial number of U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq for an indefinite period of time. But how are we going to sustain operations in Iraq beyond 12 to 18 months? The president insists that setting a withdrawal timetable will tie the hands of commanders on the ground, but it is not the timetable that will tie their hands. It is the breaking of the U.S. Army.Currently, our ground forces, specifically the Army, are stretched to their limits. Our soldiers and Marines have been fighting in Iraq for more than four years and in Afghanistan for almost six. To meet the demands of the president's surge, the Army is scrambling to find enough troops. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has already been forced to extend tours for soldiers serving in Iraq from 12 to 15 months. Soldiers are being sent back to Iraq for their second and third deployments; some have not even been home a year before being sent back. Many new recruits are being sent into intense combat in Baghdad without proper training. And in some cases, the Army has been so desperate that, as Mark Benjamin of Salon magazine first reported, it is even forcing injured soldiers back into combat before they have adequately recovered. Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey recently remarked that "the ground combat capability of the U.S. armed forces is shot."
...Yet the president will never call for the draft. He knows the country would never support the level of sacrifice for this war that implementing a draft would demand. But this is one of the very reasons why the all-volunteer Army was designed the way it was — to prevent a commander in chief from fighting a war that lacks the support of the public.
Instead, the president will lean even more heavily on those who have already served. As a result, troops will be sent back for their third, fourth and fifth deployments; through "stop-loss" orders, soldiers will be prevented from leaving the service even though they have fulfilled their term of duty; deployments will be extended even longer; and the National Guard and Reserves will stay on duty in Iraq, further depleting our already thin domestic response capability.
In the end, the president will not only be unable to stabilize Iraq, he will have destroyed the finest army the world has known.
David Remnick's Book Report
Okay, well if this (a link a regular reader who disagrees with my views on Israel sent me) -- does that mean this is justified? Or what? What's the answer? The Israelis lay down their weapons, abandon all the medical discoveries and progress they've made turning a shitty little piece of earth into a viable democracy -- in which peaceful Arabs have the same rights as Israelis (unlike non-Muslims in Muslim countries) -- and leave?
UPDATE: Here's the view from 1967, from The Economist's special correspondent from Israel during the Six-Day War. The proposed solution from another piece in The Economist:
Right now both continue to offer too little and demand too much. Israel has at least abandoned the dream of a Greater Israel that bewitched it after the great victory of 1967. The illusion that the Palestinians would fall into silence has been shattered by two intifadas and every rocket Hamas fires from Gaza. Israel's present government says it is committed to a two-state solution. But it is a weak government, and has lacked the courage to spell out honestly the full territorial price Israelis must pay. The Palestinians have meanwhile gone backwards. If Hamas means what it says, it continues to reject the idea that Jews have a right to a national existence in the Middle East.What self-defeating madness. For peace to come, Israel must give up the West Bank and share Jerusalem; the Palestinians must give up the dream of return and make Israel feel secure as a Jewish state. All the rest is detail.
Got A Car To Sell?
Because the middle-aged man and woman sitting behind me in a Mar Vista, California café and going through the want ads made it LOUD AND CLEAR they're looking for a used car, and they apparently don't care who knows -- or is forced to be a party to their search:
MAN SHOUTING INTO CELL PHONE: Does it have chrome wheels, do ya know?
He then gave their number several times, first as 310-302..., then as 310-402..., and then his wife corrected him and he finally got it right:
310-902-5003!
And I know it's right because I checked by calling them on Skype while still sitting there in the cafe. The woman:
Hello? HELLO?!
We hear you lady, and your husband, too, all too clearly. Essentially, this:
ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! NOT YOU! ME! ME! ME!
As for you -- those of you reading this blog -- if you've got a car to sell, perhaps you should call them. The sooner they buy one, the sooner everybody around them can think an uninterrupted thought!
Thank You In Advance For Not Inviting Me To Your Bridal Shower
Not that I get invited to many weddings, not believing in marriage and all. But, Nancy Rommelmann gets it exactly right in a conversation she has with an editor that she writes up on her blog -- what creeps me out about so many phases of the industry that is being a bride:
I didn’t know anyone but the bride, who was being passed from woman to woman in order to have short, intimate conversations that required much touching of the other's hair. I sat at the glass coffee table and tried to get my bearings. I looked out the window at the ocean. I considered drinking the wine the other women had broken into, but sensed it would make me surly. I stared out the window some more, until the bride took her seat amidst a spread of presents wrapped in paper, each paper announcing its origin in a series of dots or stripes or initials or significant pale blues. There was a lot of flapping and maneuvering as four women were assigned the duties of, respectively, announcing the gifts, handing over the gifts; writing down who gave which gift, and folding the used paper. I felt some low-level static at the nape of my neck. Then the shrieking started, timed with the opening of each gift, gifts that seemed purchased specifically to produce shrieks, a lacy garter, the crotchless panties, a black latex bodysuit of the kind Catwoman might wear, with those great 50s cone-tits, an outfit that seemed to demand some modeling, and so in the barely perceptible dip that preceded the next gift, I said, “Put it on.”That stopped the shrieking for a moment; in fact all conversation stopped. Then one of the women looked at me as though I might be a rapist, the moment passed, and the women recommenced. I felt as though I were wearing a helmet of static at this point, and took to staring at the glass coffee table, thinking what a good release it would be to jump on it, the reliable satisfaction of feeling it smash beneath my feet. A reverie that must have been pleasant indeed, as when I looked up it was but another gal and me on the sofa, the others having moved back to the canapés and Chardonnay, and the gal looked at me in all her blondness, and said, “Isn’t it just so great to hang out with all women?”
“But it’s only quarter to one,” said my husband, as I used the phone in the kitchen to tell him he needed to come and get me, now.
“The thing I hate about those showers is the whole re-virginization thing,” said the editor. “The bride’s thirty-six; she’s had forty-four lovers over the past twenty years, and we’re all going to shriek at the sight of a dildo?”
We ordered more drinks. “Though of course,” she said, “they never do give a dildo.”
Much more very entertaining Nancy at the link above -- on fish in pants and other idiocy.
And an idea or two of my own about weddings are at this link to my column, With This Ka-ching! I Thee Wed, where a guy asks if it would be okay to ask their wedding guests to chip in for a downpayment on a house. An excerpt:
Is this a celebration of love you’re planning, or Live Aid for the overspent middle class? If it’s the latter, don’t hold back. Make the receiving line double as a giving line by sticking an ATM at the beginning. Let no moment go unmerchandised: “For $80, you’ll get a DVD of our wedding night. For an extra $180, we’ll even throw in the bedroom scenes!” Don’t forget to offer your guests the option of a monthly direct-debit from their bank account, which may usher them up the tiers of giving; turning, say, gold-level friends into platinum ones.You claim you’re after the American Dream -- the idea that, through hard work and determination, anybody can have a happy, prosperous life. Um, yes, but that’s supposed to be your own hard work and determination, not that of your friends. Some couples do ask their families to chip in for a down payment instead of a big wedding -- but, at what point do your parents get to be done feeding the upstretched palm? Then there’s the tacky new trend of setting up a Web site where wedding invitees can seamlessly pay for the couple’s home, honeymoon, and more. Suddenly, they’re not just your pals, they’re also your PayPals!
There are arguments for registering for gifts: it prevents a couple from ending up with 26 blenders, saves them when others’ bad taste is not exactly their bad taste, and it’s a relief for “friends” who’d scarcely recognize the bride but for the big white dress. But, maybe people who don't know you well enough to gift you without assistance have no business coming to your wedding. And frankly, if a wedding is about the love, not the loot, is it best celebrated with a flock of lead crystal butterflies, or the $14.95 John Gottman book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work? Of course, you two could also do with a few visits to a Certified Financial Planner so “’til death do us part” doesn’t become “’til debt do us part.”
This being America, not the Sudan, what do most of us reeeally need on top of what we already have? Will your love be meaningless if you express it in a rented one-bedroom apartment while eating on Target-ware instead of Wedgwood? Unless you’re dirt poor, why not tell your guests "love is all we need," and in lieu of gifts, suggest they donate to your favorite charity? Otherwise, maybe a truly meaningful wedding gift would be a letter from each guest, perhaps to bind into a book, with their hopes for your marriage; such as, that it will last longer than the payments they'd be making on that jewel-encrusted breadbox they would’ve ordered you from Tiffany’s.
And here's a bit about the wedding of one of the happiest couples I know:
They borrowed only a house for their wedding -- for a potluck dinner after they got married on the beach, surrounded by 40 of their closest friends. Their un-extravaganza took three weeks of planning and cost several hundred dollars -- if you add the cost of their clothes, several cases of Prosecco they picked up at a wine warehouse, and “a really nice chocolate cake.”
I didn't go to that wedding (since I didn't know them until after they were married), but another guy who knew how to do a wedding right is my very good friend David Wallis, whom I met about 20 years ago at the NYU off-campus housing office. When he and his wife Penny got married, they threw a wedding in the Berkshires at their country house, complete with bales of hay, ribs and corn on the cob under a tent in case it rained, plus a New Orleans jazz band.
They got married on their back porch. I cried. And not because I was broke after buying them a wedding gift. For the record, I got them the fantastic Gary Larson boxed, two-volume set, The Complete Far Side 1980-1994, to always keep them laughing.
20-20 Foresight
Who knew? For example, that:
...after Saddam was toppled, there was “a significant chance that domestic groups would engage in violent conflict with each other and that rogue Saddam loyalists would wage guerilla warfare either by themselves or in alliance with terrorists.”
And that:
“many angry young recruits” would fuel the rank of Islamic extremists and "Iraqi political culture is so embued with mores (opposed) to the democratic experience…that it may resist the most rigorous and prolonged democratic tutorials."
And that:
the war also could be “exploited by terrorists and extremists outside IRAQ.”
And that:
“"Iraqi patience with an extended US presence after an overwhelming victory would be short," and said "humanitarian conditions in many parts of Iraq would probably not understand that the Coalition wartime logistic pipeline would require time to reorient its mission to humanitarian aid."
Well, as Lisa Myers and Robert Windrem of the NBC News Investigative Unit, from whose story the quotes above are taken, write, turns out the administration knew. Yet:
None of those warnings were reflected in the administration's predictions about the war.In fact, Vice President Cheney stated the day before the war, "Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
All of these warnings above of the risks and consequences of the war , which will be released by the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, were made to the administration. But, as Myers and Windrem write, "those warnings were seemingly ignored." More from their piece below:
One of Tenet's clearest arguments regarding the administration's dismissal of all but the rosiest assessments of post-war Iraq comes in his description of a White House meeting in September 2002. There, a briefing book on the Iraq war was laid out for policy makers."Near the back of the book, Tab 'P', was a paper the CIA analysts had prepared three weeks earlier,” Tenet writes. “Dated August 13, 2002, it was titled, 'The Perfect Storm: Planning for the Negative Consequences of Invading Iraq'. It provided worse case scenarios:
"The United States will face negative consequences with Iraq, the region and beyond which would include:
* Anarchy and the territorial breakup of Iraq;
* Region-threatening instability in key Arab states;
* A surge of global terrorism against US interests fueled by (militant) Islamism;
* Major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic Alliance."“These should have been very sobering reports,” says Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst at the Brookings Institution. “The administration should have taken them very serious in preparing plans for a difficult post-Saddam period. And yet the administration did not do so.”
Homophobia Trumps Terrorphobia
The "war on terror" is being kneecapped by the war on sense. Clinton, for some inexplicable reason, gave us "Don't Ask/Don't Tell," and we're firing homo Arab translators by the dozen. From an AP story by Lolita C. Baldor:
Lawmakers who say the military has kicked out 58 Arabic language experts because they were gay want the Pentagon to explain how it can afford to let the valuable specialists go.Seizing on the latest discharge, involving three specialists, House members wrote the House Armed Services Committee chairman on Wednesday that the continued loss of such "capable, highly skilled Arabic linguists continues to compromise our national security during time of war."
Former Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Benjamin said his supervisor tried to keep him on the job and urged him to sign a statement saying he was not gay. Benjamin said his lawyer advised against signing because the statement could be used against him later if other evidence surfaced.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Benjamin said he was caught improperly using the military's secret level computer system to send messages to his roommate, who was serving in Iraq. In those messages, he said, he may have referred to being gay or going on a date.
"I'd always had been out since the day I started working there," Benjamin said. "We had conversations about being gay in the military and what it was like. There were no issues with unit cohesion. I never caused divisiveness or ever experienced slurs," said Benjamin, who was in the Navy for nearly four years.
He was fired under the "don't ask, don't tell" law passed in 1994. It lets gays serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts. The law prohibits commanders from asking about a person's sex life and requires discharge of those who openly acknowledge they are gay.
Rep. Marty Meehan (news, bio, voting record), who has sought a repeal, organized the letter to Rep. Ike Skelton (news, bio, voting record), D-Mo., asking the committee hold a hearing about the Arabic linguists.
"At a time when our military is stretched to the limit and our cultural knowledge of the Middle East is dangerously deficient, I just can't believe that kicking out able, competent Arabic linguists is making our country any safer," Meehan said.
Now, I can understand, if this were the 50s, that there might be some suggestion that a gay guy in the army could be blackmailed. But, it's 2007, and whether or not you're a homophobic asshole, you see gay people all around you, and maybe even if you are a homophobic asshole, you could learn to deal, same as I manage to deal with things that upset me, like men with hairy toes wearing thongs. On their feet, that is. That's upsetting enough.
Hang With Elmore Leonard Tonight
There are still tickets left for his Writers Bloc talk with producer Walter Mirisch, tonight, in Los Angeles, at the WGA Theatre.
Details: Friday, May 25, 2007 at the Writer's Guild Theatre, 135 South Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20. Reservations: 310.335.0917 or online. From the Writers Bloc site:
Elmore Leonard, clearly one our favorite novelists on the planet, chats with legendary producer Walter Mirisch. Elmore Leonard is the author of more than forty novels, and his new one, "Up in Honey's Room," takes us to Detroit during WWII. We meet free-thinking beautiful girls, escaped German prisoners of war, sociopathic Himmler admirers, and get to reacquaint ourselves with Carl Webster, star of a recent Elmore Leonard novel, "The Hot Kid." As always, our only regret about the book is that it ends. Walter Mirisch produced some of the most enduring movies of our time, including "In the Heat of the Night," "The Magnificent Seven," and "West Side Story," to name but a few.
More from ElmoreLeonard.com:
Elmore wrote the screenplay for (Mirisch's) Mr. Majestyk in 1973 and began his long friendship with Walter to whom he dedicated his “Hollywood” novel, Get Shorty with:To Walter Mirisch, One of the Good Guys.”The Writer’s Bloc is Andrea Grossman’s celebrated conversation series which puts interesting and sometimes controversial in the arts and politics together on stage for some free form discussion. Elmore has done Writer’s Bloc three times before with Martin Amis, Scott Frank and Judy Muller.
Meet My Next Car
They could've made it smaller, cuter, and sportier for my taste. But, this is Honda's new hydrogen car, the FCX. They say it will be for sale next year. More about it here, at CNN Money. Hey, how 'bout that American innovation?! (Anybody seen any recently?)
Scotts Miracle-Sue
Terracycle is going to be mistaken for Scotts Miracle-Gro like Betty White is going to be mistaken for Shaquille O'Neill.
Yet, the big company is suing the very little company claiming consumers will mix up the two bottles. Uh...huh! Here's the story from the website Terracycle put up, suedbyscotts.com:
The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, a $2.2 billion assets giant which has at least a 59% share of the relevant market, has sued tiny TerraCycle, Inc., an inner-city company founded by college students to create an eco-friendly business. TerraCycle manufactures all-natural garden products by feeding organic waste to worms and bottling the resulting worm poop compost tea as ready-to use plant food in soda bottles collected by schools and other charities across North America. TerraCycle is located in the Urban Enterprise Zone of Trenton, New Jersey.Scotts claims that the two companies' products look similar and will confuse customers because some TerraCycle plant foods have a green and yellow label with a circle and a picture of flowers and vegetables on it.
Yeah, right...like the Terracycle bottle that has the big cartoon lettering, "WORM POOP" at the top. Which makes me want to buy it immediately, despite the fact that I try to avoid getting close to nature (even the kind in my yard) at all cost, and get itchy when I'm too far from concrete for more than five minutes.
Scotts also objects that TerraCycle says its plant food is as good or better than "a leading synthetic plant food" and is refusing Scotts' demands that TerraCycle hand over its scientific tests conducted at the Rutgers University EcoComplex to Scotts' scientists and lawyers. Scotts refuses to turn its tests over to TerraCycle.TerraCycle's Answer with Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaims has denied Scotts’ claims that TerraCycle’s advertising is untrue or that consumers will be confused by TerraCycle packaging. TerraCycle alleges that Scotts' trademark and trade dress claims are being used to maintain its monopoly power when it already has a market share estimated to be between 59% and 85% in published reports. TerraCycle alleges that Scotts has abandoned, misused and/or mutilated its green and yellow box trademark registration and should therefore be cancelled and that Scotts’ claims are barred by the doctrine of unclean hands (Amy: I just love these legal terms!).
TerraCycle's filing includes examples of numerous competitive garden products packaged in green and yellow and of Miracle-Gro®'s use of other color schemes in its packaging.
More about the suit at the site.
P.S. Got any really old packages of Miracle-Gro laying around? They write at the Terracycle site:
We need evidence (in color, indicating the source and date) that companies other than Miracle-Gro sold plant food or other fertilizer products in packages which were predominantly green and yellow in the period from January 1, 1990 to April 1, 1996. This would include Scotts' products before the two companies merged on May 19, 1995. Possible sources: advertisements in old gardening magazines, books and catalogs; state Department of Agriculture fertilizer registration label files.
If you don't like litigious bullies and want to help in some way, there's more information on how to do that at the link above. At the very least, pass the word on, pass the link on, and/or blog it yourself!
Maybe, Just Maybe, Ron Paul Was Right
You may not like the truth, but that doesn't make it any less true. Radley Balko writes at Reason that maybe Ron Paul had a point:
Perhaps, Paul suggested, the 15-year presence of the U.S. military forces in Muslim countries may have motivated them. For that, Giuliani excoriated him, calling it an "extraordinary statement," adding, "I don't think I've heard that before."Let's be blunt. Giuliani was either lying, or he hasn't cracked a book in six years.
The "blowback" theory isn't some fringe idea common only to crazy Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists. It doesn't suggest that we "deserved" the Sept. 11 attacks, nor does it suggest we shouldn't have retaliated against the people who waged them.
It's a well-established theory accepted among most foreign policy scholars that states, simply, that actions have consequences. When the Arab and Muslim world continually sees U.S. troops marching through Arab and Muslim backyards, U.S. trade sanctions causing Arab and Muslim suffering, and U.S. bombs landing on Arab and Muslim homes, it isn't difficult to see how Arabs and Muslims could begin to develop a deep contempt for the U.S.
This isn't to say we should never bomb or invade an Arab or Muslim country. Certainly, to the extent that the Taliban in Afghanistan gave Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda refuge after the attacks, we had no choice but to invade the country and topple its government.
But we also shouldn't just attack any Arab or Muslim country, which is what we seem to have done with Iraq. Saddam Hussein's government was brutal, ruthless and tyrannical. No doubt. But so are a number of countries with which we're allies, most notably Saudi Arabia .
Hussein's government wasn't a threat to us. It wasn't militant Islamist. It was secular. There were no WMDs. And Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever to Sept. 11.
Not the truth people like to hear. In fact, if you tell that truth, people will accuse you of being downright un-American, and maybe do whatever they can to keep you off the air and out of the debate. Tell the "truth," however, and you'll reap some pretty nice rewards. For example, Balko continues:
It's striking just how right people who think like Ron Paul were before the war, and how incredibly wrong those now piling on him were. And yet Paul Wolfowitz was promoted to head the World Bank; Dick Cheney is still vice president; and Mitch Daniels is the governor of Indiana.The people who were wrong were rewarded. And without any sense of shame, they go right on mocking the people who were right.
And yet, I still heard George Bush on the radio yesterday, going on about how the "dangerous winds" of terrorism are "swirling," and suggesting they'll come blow our house down here in America, but for our war in Iraq? Yeah, right. The truth: Because of our war in Iraq, there are now many more terrorists out to get us.
The other truth: We're not going to "win" by staying in Iraq. We're only going to pour money and troops down the drain to avoid saying we've lost. And yes, I think, vis a vis Muslim collectivism, it's most likely impossible to maintain a democracy in an Islamic country.
Jonathan Rauch, again in Reason, puts it pretty concisely:
The generals were doing everything short of sending up fireworks to warn that Americans will not know by September whether Iraq can be secured enough so that U.S. forces can come home. Rather, Americans may know whether Iraq can be secured enough so that U.S. forces can productively stay in Iraq. If the surge works, the troops would resume what they were doing four years ago: building the government, rebuilding the country, and (hopefully) standing down as Iraqis stand up.Bush is, in effect, asking for a do-over. It is a tough request to make, and audacious in light of the administration's performance the first time around; but Bush warns that the alternative is worse, because to fail in Iraq would be a disaster.
Here he runs into a problem. The public does indeed believe that failure in Iraq would be a disaster—for Iraq. But the public does not believe it would be a disaster for the United States. To the contrary: In an April CBS News poll, only 30 percent of respondents said that a withdrawal from Iraq would increase the threat of terrorism against the United States, while 59 percent said there would be no change and 8 percent said the threat would diminish. Other polls have been finding for the better part of two years that the public sees the Iraq war as making the United States no safer from terrorism. The public, in other words, views stabilizing Iraq as social work rather than security work.
In the past year, public opinion has tipped from expecting U.S. success in Iraq to expecting failure, but Bush's bigger problem is that the public has rejected his whole strategic vision. "By a nearly 2-to-1 margin," the Gallup Organization reported last month, "Americans say the benefits of winning the war in Iraq to the United States are not worth the costs the United States would have to bear in order to win it." Bush believes that the United States cannot afford to lose in Iraq; the public believes that the United States cannot afford to win.
Elmore Reads Venice
That's crime novelist Elmore Leonard at the Rose Cafe reading Venice Paper, which started as a single sheet of paper about four years back, when the inimitable Tibby Rothman thought Venice needed a news source. It's since become LA's least-known publishing success story.
These days, Tibby puts out almost 40 pages, four-color, packed with ads, stories, photo spreads and columns. Her star contributors included the incredible photographer Kwaku Alston, whose work runs in other little papers like The New York Times. Alston did a beautiful four-color photo series of Venice in the issue above that I sent to France so my friend Pierre could get to see what it's like at the quirky beach in California.
My friend Chris Mulkey, who you've seen in a million movies and TV shows (recently, committing a cold-blooded murder at the beginning of the Robert Duvall/AMC/Walter Hill movie Broken Trail), writes a column when he isn't too busy acting.
The online edition of Venice Paper is here.
photo by Gregg Sutter
Venice reads Elmore
Elmore's latest crime novel is getting great reviews, like this one from Charles Taylor in Newsday, and I loved it, too -- it's a wild, hilarious, sexy ride through 40s Detroit with U.S. Marshall Carl Webster, a hottie named Honey, Heinrich Himmler's unknown twin brother, a cross-dressing killer, and a German spy ring.
I always love Elmore's treatment of women characters. Honey's especially great. And she's really the one in charge here, in a whole lot of ways. (The smartest women know that that doesn't take brawn or a badge.) Accordingly, you gotta love how Honey enters a room:
She stuck out her right arm in the Nazi salute to show she had come in peace—with no intention of causing trouble—and said, "Sieg Heil, y’all. I’m Honey Deal."
Get your copy of "Up In Honey's Room" here.
And, if you want to see and hear Elmore personally, you're in luck, because he'll be talking at Andrea Grossman's Writers Bloc on Friday, interviewed by Walter Mirisch.
Details: Friday, May 25, 2007 at the Writer's Guild Theatre, 135 South Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20. Reservations here. Scroll down.
More about "Up In Honey's Room" and Elmore at elmoreleonard.com.
Looks Like The Shit And The Fan Are About To Have A Rendezvous
"Turd blossom," also known as Karl Rove, has a former executive assistant, Susan Ralston, who's seeking prosecutional immunity before testifying about administration ties to my pen pal, Jack Abramoff. Charles Babbington writes for AP:
At her May 10 deposition, Waxman's memo said, Ralston said she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if asked about Abramoff's contacts with White House officials, including Rove. However, her lawyer, Bradford Berenson, told the committee that if Ralston is granted immunity from prosecution, she would testify about Abramoff's relationships with White House officials and "the use by White House officials of political e-mail accounts" at the Republican National Committee, the memo said.Ralston has "useful information about both of those subjects," Berenson told the committee, and "she is more than willing to provide it to the committee" under "a grant of immunity," the memo said.
The use of RNC e-mail accounts by Rove and other White House officials has been questioned in the ongoing inquiry in the administration's firing of several federal prosecutors.
Is it possible that just a teeny bit of the shit this administration has been shoveling will stick to them? What's your guess? Will voters not accept more of this in the next election? Could they even, say (gasp!), elect a Democrat? Will Newt, who I believe will run, be free of the stench of this administration? Will he and Thompson eventually be the last Republicans standing? Predictions?!
Not Taking Know For An Answer
Just posted another Advice Goddess column. This one's about a woman who doesn't want her husband to know she had a fling with a guy they know -- 10 years prior, when she and the guy were in college together. And rightly so. Here's my reply:
Your husband knows you were a hussy. That’s why he made it clear he never wanted to be told what you did, and with whom. And a good thing that is, since it sounds like the details of “with whom” may sometimes be limited to “#59. Ian’s friend from SF,” “#61. Jeff McSomething-Or-Other,” and “#63. Guy from plane.”If your husband’s going to maintain his preferred picture of you as his little Snow White, you’re going to have to help him stay in the dark about Bobby and the rest of the 107 dwarves. The problem is, curiosity can make even the most sensible people stupid. If your husband catches wind of the Bobby story again, even though he knows he’s better off not knowing, he’ll probably squeeze you for answers. Even if you tell him “It was nothing,” and “It happened once, more than 10 years ago,“ and he understands that intellectually, his male brain is likely to turn it into a sexual horror film on an extremely unlimited run: “Bobby! Bigger! Better!” Of course, in your husband’s mind movie, Bobby is not just “well-endowed,” he had to be lowered onto your bed with a special crane. And reminders of Bobby will be everywhere. Your husband will be watching the news when they show some enormous missile being launched. He’ll squint his eyes a little, and suddenly, it’s anatomically correct, and what’s that printed on the side? “Bobby, Class of ‘96”?
Disclosures about one’s sexual history should be made according to a modified version of the old “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” -- with the caveat, “unless what happened in Vegas can cause big purple boils to form on your partner’s upper lip.” This does run counter to the “tell-all” model of marriage -- the mistaken notion that your spouse has the right to know everything about you, and the equally mistaken notion that it’s a good idea. Am I telling you to lie? Like a big shaggy rug. If your husband asks you about Bobby: “It never happened.” If he presses you: “It’s a rumor, and it’s wrong.” Be prepared to be just as firm in refusing to let him deconstruct the rest of your sexual past. Should you feel guilty about lying, remember, in the short run, coming clean is easier, feels better, and requires much less upkeep. In the long run, “happily ever after” works best when it isn’t hyper-focused on naked, drunk, and grope-ily ever before.
The entire question and answer is here.
Islamo-Fascist Chic Now Available On Amazon!
Suicide And The City
Via the Daily Mail, meet Gaza's "The Suicide Sisters" (picture at the link):
Clad head to toe in black and clutching sub-machine guns and automatic rifles, they vowed to die killing Israelis.The women, at once sinister and yet awkward in their long dresses and munitions belts, say they will blow themselves up in attacks on Israeli soldiers if the Gaza Strip is invaded.
They gathered as Israel pounded the Strip with airstrikes yesterday - in response to weeks of rocket attacks from Palestinian fanatics.
"If the Israelis try to invade northern Gaza Strip, we will defend our land and our homes," one of the women declared as the group gathered at the Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza City.
"We will turn our bodies into living bombs against the Israeli army," she added and demanded revenge against Israeli "crimes" carried out against the Palestinians.
I guess it's cheaper than liposuction. (Come on, we know it isn't exactly Angelina Fatima Jolie under there!)
At least in "Sex And The City," the girls got sex, cosmos, and shoes. The girls from Gaza blow themselves up, and for what? To protect a culture that treats them worse than dogs? Real bright, ladies.
Tofu Is Murder
Kill a cow! Save a child!
Two nitwit vegans were recently convicted of murdering their child after he died of starvation at six weeks old -- at a weight of 3.5 lbs. Nina Planck writes in The New York Times that it's at least the third conviction of vegan parents in four years. At least she knew better. Well, at least before she spawned. She writes:
I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run.
Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as “first class” (from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and “second class” (from plants), but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.
The fact remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.
A vegan diet may lack vitamin B12, found only in animal foods; usable vitamins A and D, found in meat, fish, eggs and butter; and necessary minerals like calcium and zinc. When babies are deprived of all these nutrients, they will suffer from retarded growth, rickets and nerve damage.
Responsible vegan parents know that breast milk is ideal. It contains many necessary components, including cholesterol (which babies use to make nerve cells) and countless immune and growth factors. When breastfeeding isn’t possible, soy milk and fruit juice, even in seemingly sufficient quantities, are not safe substitutes for a quality infant formula.
Yet even a breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty fish. It is difficult to overstate the importance of DHA, vital as it is for eye and brain development.
...An adult who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil. Children fed only plants will not get the precious things they need to live and grow.
If you know any dietary faddists who don't eat meat, please show them this link, too, by BBC New health reporter Michelle Roberts:
Lindsay Allen, of the US Agricultural Research Service, attacked parents who insisted their children lived by the maxim "meat is murder".Animal source foods have some nutrients not found anywhere else, she told a Washington science conference.
The Vegan Society dismissed the claims, saying its research showed vegans were often healthier than meat eaters.
'Development affected'
Professor Allen said: "There have been sufficient studies clearly showing that when women avoid all animal foods, their babies are born small, they grow very slowly and they are developmentally retarded, possibly permanently."
"If you're talking about feeding young children, pregnant women and lactating women, I would go as far as to say it is unethical to withhold these foods [animal source foods] during that period of life."
She was especially critical of parents who imposed a vegan lifestyle on their children, denying them milk, cheese, butter and meat.
"There's absolutely no question that it's unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegans," she told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Missing nutrients
She said the damage to a child began while it was growing in the womb and continued once it had been born.
While we're at it, here's a link for any raw food faddists you might know or encounter:
No human foragers have been recorded as living without cooking, and people who choose a 'raw-foodist' life-style experience low energy and impaired reproductive function. This suggests that cooking may be obligatory for humans...
And finally, isn't life simply too short to eat things that look and taste like sesame seed-encrusted turds? Want a cruelty-free meal? Eat a steak!
Crime Scene Cleanup Needed
Under this pile of phone books is a bug -- or what remains of a bug -- about the size of my car. I don't know what it was. From research I did on Google, it's possible it was a pseudoscorpion or a potato bug. But, I came out yesterday afternoon when Lucy was barking at it. It was so terrifyingly huge, all I could think of to do to it -- all that was within my girly realm of capabilities when it comes to giant, brontosaurus-like insects -- was drop a phone book on it and then jump on the phone book. Go ahead and laugh. I'm sure I looked completely idiotic.
The crime scene cleaner also known as Gregg will be over later with a humanitarian gourmet food delivery and to watch the finale of 24. Until then, I'm stepping around the phone books, and hoping the thing isn't like a cockroach, as I think cockroaches can flatten themselves out and squeeze through improbable areas.
An Improbable Couple
Great LA Times op-ed piece by Larry Flynt, the only person in Los Angeles who will publish my writing, on his friendship with Jerry Falwell. And they even let him say "ass," when the other day, an Augustin Gurza piece prissily used "derriere." (Oh, those Calendar ladies!) Here's an excerpt from Flynt's piece, about the years after he won a Supreme Court case against Falwell for parodying him in Hustler:
No wonder that when he started hugging me and smooching me on television 10 years later, I was a bit confused. I hadn't seen him since we'd been in court together, and that night I didn't see him until I came out on the stage. I was expecting (and looking for) a fight, but instead he was putting his hands all over me. I remember thinking, "I spent $3 million taking that case to the Supreme Court, and now this guy wants to put his hand on my leg?"Soon after that episode, I was in my office in Beverly Hills, and out of nowhere my secretary buzzes me, saying, "Jerry Falwell is here to see you." I was shocked, but I said, "Send him in." We talked for two hours, with the latest issues of Hustler neatly stacked on my desk in front of him. He suggested that we go around the country debating, and I agreed. We went to colleges, debating moral issues and 1st Amendment issues — what's "proper," what's not and why.
In the years that followed and up until his death, he'd come to see me every time he was in California. We'd have interesting philosophical conversations. We'd exchange personal Christmas cards. He'd show me pictures of his grandchildren. I was with him in Florida once when he complained about his health and his weight, so I suggested that he go on a diet that had worked for me. I faxed a copy to his wife when I got back home.
The truth is, the reverend and I had a lot in common. He was from Virginia, and I was from Kentucky. His father had been a bootlegger, and I had been one too in my 20s before I went into the Navy. We steered our conversations away from politics, but religion was within bounds. He wanted to save me and was determined to get me out of "the business."
My mother always told me that no matter how repugnant you find a person, when you meet them face to face you will always find something about them to like. The more I got to know Falwell, the more I began to see that his public portrayals were caricatures of himself. There was a dichotomy between the real Falwell and the one he showed the public.
He was definitely selling brimstone religion and would do anything to add another member to his mailing list. But in the end, I knew what he was selling, and he knew what I was selling, and we found a way to communicate.
I always kicked his ass about his crazy ideas and the things he said. Every time I'd call him, I'd get put right through, and he'd let me berate him about his views. When he was getting blasted for his ridiculous homophobic comments after he wrote his "Tinky Winky" article cautioning parents that the purple Teletubby character was in fact gay, I called him in Florida and yelled at him to "leave the Tinky Winkies alone."
When he referred to Ellen Degeneres in print as Ellen "Degenerate," I called him and said, "What are you doing? You don't need to poison the whole lake with your venom." I could hear him mumbling out of the side of his mouth, "These lesbians just drive me crazy." I'm sure I never changed his mind about anything, just as he never changed mine.
I'll never admire him for his views or his opinions. To this day, I'm not sure if his television embrace was meant to mend fences, to show himself to the public as a generous and forgiving preacher or merely to make me uneasy, but the ultimate result was one I never expected and was just as shocking a turn to me as was winning that famous Supreme Court case: We became friends.
You could say this is the porno/fundanutter version of that camp where Israeli and Palestinian kids got together.
GOP, The Party Of Whiny Pussies?
That "big tent" the Republicans brag about becomes the not-so-big tent as a GOP official circulates a petition to get libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul thrown out of the big top. On Slate, John Dickerson gives the reasons that's silly:
1) Paul's argument is actually a GOP talking point: Whenever the president, Dick Cheney, or John McCain wants to argue that terrorists will come to America if we leave Iraq too early, they point us to Bin Laden's words as proof of their point. That's what Paul was doing when he made his comment about 9/11. "Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us?" he said. "They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years." Here's just one instance, from 1996, in which Bin Laden in one of his declarations of war said exactly what Paul claims: "More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression (sanctions) imposed on Iraq and its people. The children of Iraq are our children. You, the USA, together with the Saudi regime, are responsible for the shedding of the blood of these innocent children. Due to all of that, whatever treaty you have with our country is now null and void."2) The GOP is not supposed to be the party for sniveling ninnies: The recent Fox debate demonstrated that candidates look better when they face tough questions from either the moderators or other candidates. Whatever the merits of Giuliani's response to Paul, it was good political theater. Rudy looked strong and commanding. This helps him, and it helps the party. Even Nixon understood that it's the tough questions, not the softballs, that improve a candidate's standing with voters. So why would Republicans want to yank off stage the guy who is such a great foil? (A corollary: This is one of the reasons Democrats are silly to turn down debates hosted by Fox. They're missing a chance to look confident and full of conviction in front of tough questioning.)
3) It's a retreat into the bubble: President Bush has been rightly criticized for not listening to opposing viewpoints or for not himself posing uncomfortable questions that challenge the reigning orthodoxy. So why would the GOP want to make a show of putting its fingers in its ears by trying to erase Paul?
4) It's giving away the high ground: For the last 15 years, Republicans have criticized Democrats for not inviting pro-life Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey to speak at the party's 1992 convention for fear he would muddy the party's pro-choice message. Their own tent, Republicans boasted, was big and open: That's why famous pro-choicers like Colin Powell and Giuliani appeared at Republican conventions in prime time even though the party platform is thoroughly pro-life. If they punish Paul for saying a few inconvenient things in public, Republicans can no longer make that claim. They look like the party of the tiny tent.
I'm reminded of Bill O'Reilly's whinging about discrmination against Christians when stores don't make their employees celebrate the biggest shopping day of the year by saying "Merry Christmas." Oh, that poor, downtrodden majority, those Christians. Can we work up a big, collective boohoo?
What's Best For Us, Not What's Best For Them
Democrats once again show themselves to be the party of other people -- people who aren't actually taxpaying citizens of this country -- by complaining that the immigration plan favors the needs of American businesses over the needs of immigrant families. Well, gee, imagine that. Can't we get something out of the deal? (Not that I'm for rewarding millions of people for illegal behavior.) Julie Hirschfeld Davis writes for the AP:
The proposal constitutes a far-reaching change in the immigration system that would admit future arrivals seeking to put down roots in the U.S. based on their skills, education levels and job experience, limiting the importance of family ties. A new class of guest workers would be allowed in temporarily, but only after the new security measures were in place — expected to take 18 months."This is a bill where people who live here in our country will be treated without amnesty but without animosity," Bush said.
Kennedy hailed it as "the best possible chance we will have in years to secure our borders and bring millions of people out of the shadows and into the sunshine of America."
Kyl said the measure wasn't perfect, "but it represents the best opportunity that we have in a bipartisan way to do something about this problem."
It was clear, however, that many Republicans and Democrats were deeply skeptical. Reid said it needed improvement.
"I have serious concerns about some aspects of this proposal, including the structure of the temporary worker program and undue limitations on family immigration," Reid said.
Conservatives on both sides of the Capitol derided the deal as "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, using a politically charged word that figured prominently in campaigns across the country last year.
"I don't care how you try to spin it, this is amnesty," said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.
The proposed agreement would allow illegal immigrants to come forward and obtain a "Z visa" and — after paying fees and a $5,000 fine — ultimately get on track for permanent residency, which could take between eight and 13 years. Heads of households would have to return to their home countries first.
They could come forward right away to claim a probationary card that would let them live and work legally in the U.S., but could not begin the path to permanent residency or citizenship until border security improvements and the high-tech worker identification program were completed.
A new crop of low-skilled guest workers would have to return home after stints of two years. They could renew their visas twice, but would be required to leave for a year in between each time. If they wanted to stay in the U.S. permanently, they would have to apply under the point system for a limited pool of green cards.
End Marriage Privileging. Or Give It To Everyone
This is an idea I've had for years -- that it's wrong, simply by virtue of being married, to give certain people specials rights and privileges, and that everyone should be allowed to have one "point person" who gets the rights and privileges a married person now gets to give to their spouse. Dalton Conley, chairman of New York University’s sociology department, has beat me to writing about it, in Sunday's New York Times:
...Rather than argue about whether gay or lesbian couples should be allowed to tie the knot, or be granted any marital rights at all, perhaps it is time to do an end run around the culture wars by unbundling the marriage contract into its constituent parts. Then, applying free-market principles, we could allow each citizen to assign the various rights and responsibilities now connected to marriage as he or she sees fit.In addition to employer benefits, some of the key marital rights include the ability to pass property and income back and forth tax-free, spousal privilege (that is, the right not to testify against one’s husband or wife), medical decision-making power and the right to confer permanent residency to a foreigner, just to name a few.
...Is that really fair to the gay man who falls in love with a foreigner he can’t sponsor? For that matter, is it fair to the many Americans who can’t sponsor aging grandparents or, in some cases, even parents? Or even to straight Americans who are happy marrying their own kind, but don’t want to see the country fill up with my romantic baggage?
Why not instead give all Americans the right to sponsor one person in their lifetime — a right that they could sell, if they so desire? This would mean that if I wanted to marry a Kenyan after divorcing an Australian, I could, but I would need to purchase — perhaps on e-Bay — the right to confer citizenship from someone else who didn’t need it.
Likewise, why not let all Americans name one person (other than their lawyer, priest or therapist) who can’t be forced to testify against them in court? This zone of privacy could be transferred over the course of a lifetime, perhaps limiting such changes to once in each five-year period.
While we are at it, how about allowing each of us to choose someone with whom our property is shared, with all the tax (and liability) implications that choice would imply? We might even allow parenthood to become contractual, by letting people name the people they want to be stepparents to their biological children.
We could go down the list of rights and responsibilities embedded in the marriage contract. Ideally, most people would choose one person in whom to vest all the rights, but everyone would have the freedom to decide how to configure his domestic, business, legal and intimate relationships in the eyes of the law.
Furthermore, let's rightly separate the religious institution of marriage from the secular state, like Kinsley writes in The Washington Post:
...The solution is to end the institution of government-sanctioned marriage. Or, framed to appeal to conservatives: End the government monopoly on marriage. Wait, I've got it: Privatize marriage. These slogans all mean the same thing. Let churches and other religious institutions continue to offer marriage ceremonies. Let department stores and casinos get into the act if they want. Let each organization decide for itself what kinds of couples it wants to offer marriage to. Let couples celebrate their union in any way they choose and consider themselves married whenever they want. Let others be free to consider them not married, under rules these others may prefer. And, yes, if three people want to get married, or one person wants to marry herself, and someone else wants to conduct a ceremony and declare them married, let 'em. If you and your government aren't implicated, what do you care?
Pat Condell Doesn't Respect Your Beliefs
British comedian Pat Condell has a terrific video out about "The Religion of Peace" on YouTube. On his site, he says:
Hi, I'm Pat Condell. I don't respect your beliefs and I don't care if you're offended. Cheers.
Naturally, they're very, very offended in Berkeley, and the commissioners managed to come out against Condell's tape, which they received via e-mail. Apparently, they have yet to see the film "Undercover Mosque," which contains these gems from those peace-loving, "tolerant" British imams:
•Dr Ijaz Mian on the subject of non-muslim laws: "You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir [non-Muslim], We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others" [1]
•Preaches hatred of non-muslims who are repeatedly labeled as Kuffirs.[2]
•Abu Usamah saying of apostates: "Whom ever changes his religion from Al Islam to anything else kill him".[3]
•Abu Usamah speaking on the deficiency of women's minds: "Allah has created the woman, even if she gets a PhD, deficient. Her intellect is incomplete, deficient. She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal the one witness of the man."
•Praises the killer of a British soldier serving in Afghanistan, stating "The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.” [4]
•Sheikh Al Faisal: "You have to bomb the Indian businesses, and as for the Jews you kill them physically" [5]
•Advocates violent Jihad against the non-muslims and predicting that an army of Muslims will arise against the non-muslims in England.[6]
•Dr Bilal Philips on marriage with pre-pubescent girls: "The prophet Muhammad practically outlined the rules regarding marriage prior to puberty. With his practice, he clarified what is permissible, and that is why we shouldn't have any issues about an older man marrying a younger woman, which is looked down upon by this society today, but we know that Prophet Mohammed practised it, it wasn’t abuse or exploitation, it was marriage" [7]
•Condemns Muslim integration into British society.[8]
•Calls for the overthrow of the British government and democracy.[9] "They will fight in the cause of Allah. I encourage all of you to be from among them, to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching - where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength."[10]
•Dr Mian: "You are in a situation in which you have to live like a state within a state, until you take over. But until this happens, you have to preach, until you become such a force that the people they just submit to you, hands up, until you become strong enough to take over" [11]
•Sheikh Al Jibali: "by the age of 10 if she doesn't wear a hijab, we hit her."
•Dr Mian saying of the Saudi religious police: they can imprison people if they do not pray; "if you don't come for prayer, we will arrest you. But if you still don't, then we have to bring the punishment on you - you will be killed"[12]
•Abu Usamah saying that homosexuals should be killed by throwing them off a cliff, stating "throw [the homosexual] off the mountain." [13]
Just a thought, but perhaps the Berkeleyites should be condemning not Condell, but Abu Usamah? I mean, it would be a sensible alternative to giving him the key to the city, which is kind of what they're doing by condemning Condell.
Not Only Is He Unethical, He Brags About It
Always amazed by this sort of thing. A letter to the editor in New York Times Magazine:
The EthicistTo the average 20-something who dispenses movie tickets, I certainly look like a senior. When those who are presumptuous or perceptive enough to think I may be under 65 (which I am) and ask me for proof of age, I simply look them in the eye, sigh and say, “You’re not going to card me, are you?” Recent memories of being asked to prove that they are of legal drinking age prompt them to issue the senior discount without further ado. It’s proof that experience and cunning beat youth and energy almost every time.
Eric Mendelsohn
Toronto
I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society
Amy Alkon's correct book cover -- with photo of the actual Amy Alkon on it...instead of mock-up art, which the publisher erroneously sent to Amazon.
Coming October 30, 2009, via McGraw-Hill.
Boo-hoo, Looks Are Important!
There's a silly piece on CNN.com bemoaning how hard it is to be a girl who's a plain or homely aspiring rock star. (Like there are now, or have ever been, a whole lot of ugly movie stars who got in on the fantastic actress plan.)
Life works a lot like junior high. Deal with it. If you have a face like a shoe, consider singing jingles. On the other hand, if you're a gorgeous pop star, and you can't sing, I won't buy your music.
Here's an excerpt from the CNN piece:
(music executive Jody) Gerson says the way female artists look reflects our society, where women are constantly judged on their appearance and oversexualized. But she also says it reflects the way we listen to music these days -- or don't listen."They have to look hot and sexy in these videos," says Gerson, who is credited with helping discover Alicia Keys, among others, and is now executive vice president of the U.S. Creative division of EMI Music Publishing.
"In the days of Aretha Franklin, people saw Aretha maybe a couple of times a year," she said, "but you listened to a record without a visual. You didn't watch it. Everything today, you watch it."
Gerson also agrees with Wilson about the marketing factor. With dwindling profits and budgets, record labels try to maximize artist exposure with clothing deals, cosmetic contracts, movie roles and modeling gigs.
"How many endorsements does Beyonce have? Do you think it's because she's the most talented person on earth or do you think it's because she's gorgeous? I think she's talented but she's also gorgeous," Gerson says. "I think you need the whole package."
And that notion, according to Wilson, "totally sucks."
"My favorite singers in the world were Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, and Patsy was a large woman, and Loretta -- she was never some kind of a supermodel, but they were the greatest female voices in country music, and they changed lives and they made a difference," says Wilson, who, although considered sexy, feels she doesn't fit today's beauty standards.
Where are the Patsy Clines of today? More often than not on smaller, underground labels, which put more of a premium on talent. And with the devolution of today's music industry, Gerson says, small labels may be the best path to success for a woman who doesn't look like a mold of a Barbie doll.
So how would Gerson advise the flat-chested, overweight, amazingly talented singer to chase her dream? Put out her own music and promote herself on the Web.
"As far as we've come as women," Gerson asked, "where are we really?"
Oh, please. Nobody has a right to be a pop star. "Where are we really?" Maybe making as much of our looks as we can while working within reality.
The Compass Versus The Chicken Entrails
Via evolutionblog, Bill Maher on Scarborough Country, on why he's had it out for religion:
BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME": I've always had it out for religion, for very good reasons. It's mostly destructive. I don't know what happens after you die, but to believe what another person tells me just makes me want to say to that person, "How do you know?" So that's what I would ask you. How do you know what happens after you die?It's only, Joe, because somebody in this long game of telephone from 2000 years ago told you what it was. But if some person hadn't told you, and a person just came up to you on the street and says, "Yes, there's a God, and he had a son, and he sent him on a suicide mission to Earth. And then, on Easter, he flies bodily up to Heaven." I mean, what would you think of a person in the 21st century who believed that somebody could fly bodily up to Heaven?
SCARBOROUGH: But Mr. Maher wasn't finished with that. He went on to talk about religion's effect on politics in America and around the world.
MAHER: It's extremely dangerous. It warps people's thinking. The Bush administration has 150 graduates of Pat Robertson's law school. That's right, Pat Robertson, the man who believes that hurricanes are caused by gay people.
Monica Goodling, who was a very high official in the Justice Department, she was 33 years old, and she was given the job of evaluating all of the U.S. attorneys, all people who are older than her, with more experience, who really know what they're doing. She graduates from Pat Robertson's law school and, at the age of 33, is given this job. Why? Because she and her boss, Alberto Gonzales, and his boss, George Bush, belong to the same cult.
Yes, it's the same cult, but basically what qualified her for this was that they all believe that this space God flew up bodily to Heaven and that's going to save their ass, OK? These are not qualifications for high government office, and that's just one example. Religion warps...
SCARBOROUGH: So are you saying that Christians that believe, as I believe, that there was a Jesus, that he was born, that he died, and he rose again, should we be disqualified from public service because we belong to this cult?
MAHER: You shouldn't be disqualified from public service, but it shouldn't be the most important qualification. And it is, apparently, in the Bush administration.
SCARBOROUGH: Of course not. But that's about George Bush; that's not about Jesus Christ.
MAHER: OK, but George Bush...
SCARBOROUGH: Come on. You and I both know it's not about Jesus. It's about loyalty to George Bush. That's the number-one qualification for working in the Bush administration.
MAHER: You asked me what I had against religion. I'm telling you. It warps the opinions of people who run the world and the people who believe it enable those people to run the world so badly. Why is it going so badly in Iraq? Basically, because there are two sects, the Shiites and the Sunnis, and they have a quarrel over who succeeded Muhammad in the seventh century. That's why...
SCARBOROUGH: Take that up with Shiites and Sunnis. You don't see Christians going around shooting each other in America, do you?
MAHER: I'm just making the point, Joe, that religion warps people's thinking. Until we get over these, I'm sorry, yes, childhood myths, we can't think straight and we can't solve our problems in a functional way, in a way that involves rational thinking. We are steering the ship of state by cutting open a chicken and reading the entrails, like the Romans did, instead of using a compass, which would be science.
Backwards To The Future
Via MEMRI TV, an Islamic leader (who appears to be wearing a dinner napkin on his head) explains how to properly beat one's wife, then details a woman's duty to lick up her husband's boogers. (I'll take fries and a chocolate shake with that, please!)
The whole video is at the above link. Here are the high points.
So...next time you think it's no big deal that, say, Muslim taxi drivers licensed by the city of Minneapolis are refusing to take passengers with wine or even a Leader Dog at the airport...just think about where all of this is leading. Maybe not today or tomorrow...but maybe some or many of us will either be forced to convert or be killed within your lifetime, for refusing to bow to primitivity like this.
Charlotte's (Tangled) Web
When do you lie? When it's convenient? When you're protecting yourself? Only to protect somebody else's feelings? I just posted a new Advice Goddess column -- a question from a guy with a girlfriend who did a bit of point-shaving (in the age department). Here's his question:
I’m a 49-year-old guy, and when I met my girlfriend of six months she told me she was 30. Our 19-year age difference worried me, but she said it was cool with her. A few weeks ago, I inadvertently discovered she's really 39. She admitted it, apologized, and said she didn't know why she didn’t tell me. I’m glad she's 39, but should I be worried about this kind of dishonesty spilling over into other areas?--Trust Tested
And here's my reply:
“Beauty is truth,” wrote Keats. Clearly, Keats never experienced underwire, implants, or those little silicone patties women stick in their bras. (There’s a reason they don’t call them “truthsies.”)The truth is, beauty is rarely truth, and typically the product of a massive disinformation campaign. If you think about it, even deodorant is a lie -- and may be a “gateway drug” to lipo, Botox, and lips by Goodyear. For liars on more of a budget, there are those pantyhose that squeeze a size 16 woman into a size six woman -- until she passes out and has to be removed from her nylons by paramedics wielding the “Jaws of Life.”
Men, too, lie about their looks -- with Rogaine, hair plugs, socks in the crotch, and the untucked shirt hiding the really big gut. And then, because women are into fiscal good looks, a man’s more likely to introduce himself as “a consultant” instead of “unemployed,” or to live in a treehouse he’s sublet from some kid so he can make the payments on his Jag.
Accordingly, a girl who turns the clock back nine years is lying, but there are lie-lies and there are like-me lies, and they shouldn’t be assigned the same point value. Back when you were, say, just some cute stranger in a bar, her age-shaving was a like-me lie. But, then you started dating. There was a grace period (two dates, three dates) in which she could’ve played the silly girl card, and said, “Tee hee, I have a confession to make. I liked you so much I told this stupid lie!” Instead, she stuck to her deception -- even though she knew that the truth would’ve made you feel much better. The coverup turned it into a lie-lie -- a sign of questionable character -- and probably led to some fast talking about how old she was when she got her first mullet.
Will her dishonesty spill into other areas? It’s possible. Let’s look at the area you’re probably most worried about -- some other guy’s bedroom. Researchers Todd Shackelford and David Buss gave a battery of tests to 107 married couples, and found three personality traits common to those more susceptible to infidelity. The first is narcissism -- being self-absorbed, self-important, lacking in empathy, and prone to exploiting others. Next on the list are low conscientiousness and high “psychoticism,” clinical terms for a personality marked by impulsivity, unreliability, and an inability to delay gratification.
Even if some or all of this sounds disturbingly familiar, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll stray. Don’t bother asking her whether you can trust her (what’s she going to say, “Probably not”?). Just act like you can so you can observe her in unguarded moments and learn the truth without her knowing she’s telling it. In time, you should get a sense of whether she’s just insecure, and insecure about admitting to it -- or inclined to take those “little shortcuts of life” more accurately known as lying, cheating, and relocating to the Caribbean with the contents of your bank account.
Comments have already been collecting here, on the original entry.
Choosing Our Guests Wisely
When's the last time you said, "Hey, drunken stranger, here's my house -- why don't you come in and vomit on my rug"?
Chances are, you don't invite just anyone into your home. Likewise, maybe we shouldn't invite just anyone into our country. In light of the averted Ft. Dix massacre, Daniel Pipes has a good idea:
...Immigrants seeking refuge in the West must be grilled for their attitudes toward our civilization, our religions, and politics. Whether it be Somali refugees in the United Kingdom, Algerian ones in France, or Balkan ones in the United States (remember the Salt Lake City shooter in February, as well as four of the current six accused terrorists), individuals given the privilege and benefits of a new life then with some regularity turn around and attack their adopted fellow citizens. This unacceptable pattern has to be scrutinized to prevent future such atrocities.
Asking them questions actually isn't enough. Immigrants should pay for a full background check and psychological work-up. Too expensive for you? Well, then you'll just have to make do with blowing people up in your country of origin.
Ask People To Think And They'll Boycott The Crap Out Of You
Religious nutters are so easily offended. If they're so sure there's a god, why don't they just laugh off as stupid people like me who suggest that believing in god without any evidence makes about as much sense as believing there's a giant purple vagina hovering over your house -- at the ready to grant you three wishes?
A god-believin' Ohio Starbucks lover is now an ex-Starbucks customer, thanks to a message she read on one of their cups. Margo Rutledge Kissell writes about, well, let's call it "The Last Indignation of Michelle Incanno," in the Dayton Daily News:
Printed on the cup was: "Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure."It is attributed to Bill Schell, a Starbucks customer from London, Ontario, and was included on the cup as part of an effort by the company to collect different viewpoints and spur discussion.
"As someone who loves God, I was so offended by that. I don't think there needs to be religious dialogue on it. I just want coffee," said Incanno, a married mother of three who is Catholic.
She wasn't satisfied with a company disclaimer saying the quote is the author's opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks. It invites customers to respond at www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit.
Starbucks spokeswoman Sanja Gould said the collection of thoughts and opinions is a "way to promote open, respectful conversation among a wide variety of individuals. "
But Incanno said her Starbucks days are over.
"I wouldn't feel right going back," she said.
via Romenesko's Starbucks Gossip
Another Reason People Might Be Naming Their Kids Apple Or Bacon
Kevin J. Delaney writes in The Wall Street Journal that it's a Google thing:
Before Abigail Garvey got married in 2000, anyone could easily Google her. Then she swapped her maiden name for her husband's last name, Wilson, and dropped out of sight.In Web-search results for her new name, links to Ms. Wilson's epidemiology research papers became lost among all manner of other Abigail Wilsons, ranging from 1980s newspaper wedding announcements for various Abigail Wilsons to genealogy records listing Abigail Wilsons born in the 1600s and 1700s. When Ms. Wilson applied for a new job, interviewers questioned the publications she listed on her résumé because they weren't finding the publications in online searches, Ms. Wilson says. (See Google results for Abigail Garvey and Abigail Wilson.)
So when Ms. Wilson, now 32, was pregnant with her first child, she ran every baby name she and her husband, Justin, considered through Google to make sure her baby wouldn't be born unsearchable. Her top choice: Kohler, an old family name that had the key, rare distinction of being uncommon on the Web when paired with Wilson. "Justin and I wanted our son's name to be as special as he is," she explains.
In the age of Google, being special increasingly requires standing out from the crowd online. Many people aspire for themselves -- or their offspring -- to command prominent placement in the top few links on search engines or social networking sites' member lookup functions. But, as more people flood the Web, that's becoming an especially tall order for those with common names. Type "John Smith" into Google's search engine and it estimates it has 158 million results. (See search results.)
For people prone to vanity searching -- punching their own names into search engines -- absence from the first pages of search results can bring disappointment. On top of that, some of the "un-Googleables" say being crowded out of search results actually carries a professional and financial price.
If you really want an advantage, change your name altogether to start and end with A. You usually get listed first in a list of names -- or get called first you're up for an award with a group of people. It can be a bad thing if you're up for the firing squad, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Bye-Bye, Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa, Courbet's famous studio scene at Musée D'Orsay, Titian's "Venus of Urbino" at the Uffizi...so many paintings and great works of western art are threatened by the spread of radical Islam. Fjordman writes on "Why Western Art is Unique, and Why Muslim Immigration Threatens It," noting that we're the only culture in the history of mankind "to develop realistic, faithful depictions of beings and matter in our paintings and sculptures, rather than merely stylized depictions," and this doesn't really work for the Allah-worshippers:
The legend that the missing nose of the Great Sphinx at Giza was removed by Napoléon Bonaparte's artillery during the French expedition to Egypt 1798-1801 is incorrect. Sketches indicate that the nose was gone long before this. The Egyptian fifteenth century historian al-Maqrizi attributes the act to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim. According to al-Maqrizi, in the fourteenth century, upon discovering that local peasants made offerings to the Sphinx, al-Dahr became furious at their idolatry and decided to destroy the statue, managing only to break off its nose. It is hard to confirm whether this story is accurate, but if it is, it demonstrates that Sufis are not always the soft and tolerant Muslims they are made out to be.Far from damaging the Sphinx, the French expedition brought large numbers of scientists to Egypt to catalogue the ancient monuments, thus founding modern Egyptology. The trilingual Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, was employed by philologist Jean-François Champollion to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822. In this task, Champollion made extensive use of the Coptic language. Arab Muslims had controlled Egypt for more than a thousand years, yet never managed to decipher the hieroglyphs nor for the most part displayed much interest in doing so. Westerners did so in a single generation after they reappeared in force in Egypt. So much for "Arab science." And they did so with the help of the language of the Copts, the Egyptian Christians, the only remnant of ancient Egypt that the Arab invaders hadn't managed to completely eradicate.
Sita Ram Goel and other writers have tracked the destruction of numerous pre-Islamic temples in India in the book Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them. Infidels would be well-advised not to believe that such cultural Jihad is a thing of the past. Within a few years, thousands of churches have been destroyed in Indonesia, and many more Serb Orthodox churches and monasteries have been damaged by Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia. An attack on statues at a museum in Cairo by a veiled woman screaming, "Infidels, infidels!" shocked the outside world. She had been inspired by Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, who quoted a saying of the prophet Muhammad that sculptors will be among those receiving the harshest punishment on Judgment Day. The influential Sheikh Youssef Al Qaradawi agreed that "Islam prohibits statues and three-dimensional figures of living creatures" and concluded that "the statues of ancient Egyptians are prohibited."
The great Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan were demolished by the Taliban regime in 2001, who decreed that they would destroy images deemed "offensive to Islam." The Taliban Information Minister complained that "The destruction work is not as easy as people would think. You can't knock down the statues by dynamite or shelling as both of them have been carved in a cliff. They are firmly attached to the mountain." The statues, 53 meters and 36 meters tall, the tallest standing Buddha statues in the world, turned out to be so hard to destroy that the Taliban needed help from Pakistani and Saudi engineers to finish the job. Finally, after almost a month of non-stop bombardment with dynamite and artillery, they succeeded.
Judging from the experiences with the Bamiyan Buddhas, it is tempting to conclude that the only reason why the pyramids of Egypt have survived to this day is because they were so big that it proved too complicated, costly and time-consuming for Muslims to destroy them. Had Saladin's son Al-Aziz had modern technology and engineers at his disposal, they might well have ended up like countless Hindu temples in India or Buddhist statues in Central Asia.
As a European, I fear for the future of the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. There is every reason to believe that they will end up the same way as the Bamiyan Buddhas. Although it may not happen today, tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow, sooner or later, pious Muslims will burn these works of art, and doubtlessly consider it their sacred duty. Muslim immigration now threatens many of the masterworks of the Western tradition of art, the most inventive and groundbreaking mankind has ever seen, with annihilation. History will never forgive us for our cowardice and stupidity if we allow these treasures to be destroyed just because we think history is boring or don't want to say anything unfashionable about other cultures.
The official reason given by Muslims for why non-Muslims are not allowed to visit the cities of Mecca and Medina is because they might damage or destroy the Islamic Holy Sites. But since Muslims have a proven track record of more than a thousand years, from Malaysia to Armenia, of destroying non-Muslim places of worship or works of art, perhaps we should then, in return, be entitled to keep Muslims permanently away from our cultural treasures?
Sacrificing, Not Supporting, Our Troops
That's what the Iraq war is all about. For any newcomers here, let me restate that I'm not a dove, and I was all for going after bin Laden, and pretty much flattening the mountains of Afghanistan. But, while Saddam was a bad guy, that had nothing to do with us. But, Bush was so desperate to get him, there were made-up lies about WMDs, and a push to take all the people who volunteered to go after bin Laden to fight some weird war -- and for what? To avenge Bush senior? I'm not a blithering idiot, and after all this time, I still have no idea why we're in Iraq. All we seem to have accomplished there is getting a lot of our people maimed and killed and fomenting terrorism where there was none before. Accordingly, I got this press release this morning, by Elan Journo, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute:
Study of Troops’ Mental Health, Ethics Indicts Bush’s Selfless WarA recently disclosed Pentagon study on the impact of the Iraq war on U.S. combat troops suggests that many are stressed and hold views at odds with official ethics standards. Critics view this as evidence that more must be done to ensure troops comply with those standards. But in fact the study provides evidence for a searing indictment of Washington’s immoral battlefield policies--policies that entail the sacrifice of American troops for the sake of the enemy.
The study reports, for example, that less than half of the soldiers and Marines surveyed would report a team member for unethical behavior. It also finds that “soldiers that have high levels of anger, experienced high levels of combat or screened positive for a mental health problem were nearly twice as likely to mistreat non-combatants” as those feeling less anger and screening negative for a mental health problem.
Although many military personnel may support the Iraq war, and although war is inherently distressing, Washington’s immoral policies necessitate putting our troops in an impossible situation. The reported attitudes of combat troops in Iraq can be understood as the natural reaction of individuals thrust into that situation.
U.S. troops were sent, not to defend America against whatever threat Hussein’s hostile regime posed to us, as a first step toward defeating our enemies in the region; but instead the troops were sent (as Bush explained) to “sacrifice for the liberty of strangers,” putting the lives of Iraqis above their own. Bush sent our troops to lift Iraq out of poverty, open new schools, fix up hospitals, feed the hungry, unclog sewers--a Peace Corps, not an army corps, mission. Consistent with that immoral goal, Washington enforced self-sacrificial rules of engagement that prevent our brave and capable forces from using all necessary force to win, or even to protect themselves: they are ordered not to bomb key targets such as power plants, and to avoid firing into mosques (where insurgents hide) lest we offend Muslim sensibilities.
According to the report: "More than one-third of all Soldiers and Marines continue to report being in threatening situations where they were unable to respond due to the Rules of Engagement (ROE). In interviews, Soldiers reported that Iraqis would throw gasoline-filled bottles (i.e., Molotov cocktails) at their vehicles, yet they were prohibited from responding with force for nearly a month until the ROE were changed. Soldiers also reported they are still not allowed to respond with force when Iraqis drop large chunks of concrete blocks from second story buildings or overpasses on them when they drive by. Every group of Soldiers and Marines interviewed reported that they felt the existing ROE tied their hands, preventing them from doing what needed to be done to win the war."
When being ethical on Washington’s terms means martyring oneself and one’s comrades, it is understandable that troops are disinclined to report "unethical" behavior. When they are in effect commanded to lay down their lives for hostile Iraqis, it is understandable that troops should feel anger and anxiety. Anger is a response to perceived injustice--and it is perversely unjust for the world’s most powerful military to send its personnel into combat, prevent them from doing their job--and expect them to die for the sake of the enemy. Our troops are put in the line of fire as sacrificial offerings--and it would be natural for an individual thrust into that position to rebel with indignation at such a fate.
The study not only indicts the self-crippling rules of engagement that liberals and conservatives endorse; it brings to light the perversity of the moral code of self-sacrifice on which those rules of engagement are based.
Is There Some Joke I'm Missing Here?
Perhaps some Swiftian baby-eating thing that's flying over my head? Because, if not, this LATimes piece by a Seattle doctor named Steve Dudley is one of the creepier things I've read in a long time.
What's lunch, $8, $12, $20? This guy's a whore for it, to the drug company reps, and only in exchange for a little Caesar salad, veal Parmesan, Italian rolls, marinated veggies, tiramisu, and a few pens:
I listen politely and even agree to use their drug. I'm always polite. And I haven't had the tiramisu yet. Everyone is happy. Yet there's a little devil on my shoulder whispering in my ear, wanting to stir up the pot. Should I tell them about their competitors who breezed through earlier in the week inviting me to the ballgame: box seats, free beer and brats? But I don't. I am a polite doctor, choosing not to bite the hand that feeds me. And, oh, that tiramisu looks good.The free pens are nice. I'm frequently losing pens, so these will come in handy. I can always use the Post-its too. And these friendly people with their $600 suits take such an interest in me. For 30 minutes, I feel like a king. The least I can do in return is prescribe their drug. What does it matter to me?
And then it hits me. No, not a severe case of dyspepsia from seconds on the veal. I'm talking about the big picture. When patients come to see me, they expect me to be their advocate, free from external influences. People trust me. They willingly place the most intimate details of their lives in my hands.
Afterward, late in the afternoon, I step into Room 7. One of my older patients is eager to see me. He's not doing well. In spite of his advanced age and feeble health, he is trying to care for his ailing wife at home, with the assistance of home nurses. He is utterly lost without his wife. He adores her so much. She is his whole world.
He is looking for solace, hope … anything to ease the pain of losing his soul mate. I think to myself that she's dying — there's nothing we can do.
But you can't tell someone in the midst of a crisis something like that. What he wants is hope in the form of a pill. Something to help her talk or sleep or be less depressed, anything.
I want to help him. He needs something to hang his hopes on. And about then, I burp. The acid taste of tiramisu rises in my throat, burning the whole way up. It sure tasted good at the time, but I'm not so sure now. Nevertheless, this brief eructation reminds me of my wonderful meal and those kind people who went out of their way to bring it to me. Didn't they leave plenty of samples of that new antidepressant? Lucky for my patient that he came in today instead of yesterday. The sample cabinet is full of brightly packaged pills with pictures of smiling people.
I suggest that I think we may be able to help his wife with one of the new pills, an antidepressant. It works great and just may help perk her up.
My patient reaches for the little box of pills as earnestly as if it were a life ring from the Titanic. He turns it over and over clumsily in his calloused hands, examining it every which way, this new little talisman. His face brightens. His tears dry up. He has hope. And I have played a part. I'm a hero. I like that.
What I don't tell him is that it's not much different than older drugs, just newer and sexier — and pricier, once the free samples run out. We'll deal with that later. I'm in a bit of a rush right now. First pitch is at 7:05 and the beer and brats are waiting for me.
Yeah, I think I'm catching the self-loathing he's expressing...but it's just not good enough.
Explode The Homeless!
If the TSA really believed there were explosives in the lotion and other items they take away from passengers, would they be donating them to the homeless? Xeni Jardin posts a reader e-mail to BoingBoing:
A couple weeks ago my family came to New York, where I live, from my hometown near Salt Lake City. Before leaving, my mother had purchased a small tube of lotion and put it in her purse. When she got to the security checkpoint at the airport, she realized she still had the lotion. She handed it over to the TSA worker who told her that it would be donated to a local homeless shelter.
So, is the furor over the liquids utter bullshit, or do the people running the TSA really, really hate the homeless?
Left, Right, And Wacky In The Head
Like Faye Dunaway in Chinatown, sobbing, "My daughter...my sister!..." but with a funny hat and a big scepter, the Pope is confused. One moment, it's Marxism that's the root of all evil. The next, it's capitalism. Via AP/CNN:
Like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict criticized capitalism's negative effects and Marxist influences that have motivated some grass-roots Catholic activists, remnants of the Liberation theology he moved to crush when he was a cardinal."The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful destruction of the human spirit," Benedict said as he opened a two-week bishops' conference aimed at re-energizing the church's influence in Latin America.
But he added that unfettered capitalism and globalization, blamed by many in the region for the deep divide between the rich and poor, gives "rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness."
Yoohoo, Mr. Pope..."Capitalism's rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off the free market and sticks back on you!" Yes, the Church, that's right...primitive religious belief, and the need to keep the business of it going, is the source of much of the misery in the world. And, where the Church has left off, the Allah fanatics have managed to pick up.
Capitalism, Mr. Pope, has made our country the place with more opportunity than any other in the world. About that "worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol, and deceptive illusions of happiness..." -- isn't that the sort of thing that religion offers? Well, with a twist: the worrying degradation of rationality so one can sublimate oneself, not to a joint or a beer, but to the collection plate, in an irrational, fear-based ploy to save oneself from some made-up hellfire.
Surely you all don't believe in this silliness...do you?
Monsieur Liarface Meets Madame Hotflash
I'm not normally a Peggy Noonan fan. For me, she typically goes over like a cup of yesterday's Ovaltine. But, I did like her perceptions about the Ségo/Sarko debate vis à vis the notion of men and women engaging in politcal debate, and how they should handle themselves. From the Wall Street Journal:
The debate wasn't guys in ties in a row, it was a man and a woman sitting face to face across a table. They were eyeball to eyeball, and you got to see who blinked. The moderators were modest, in the background, not the star. Even the two candidates were not the star. What they think and who they are was the star.At one point, as they disagreed on the facts of the mainstreaming of exceptional children, Ms. Royal accused Mr. Sarkozy of "the height of political immorality" and of "lying." She said she was "scandalized" and "very angry." She meant to show her steel, puncture his imperturbability, and reveal his rumored dark temper. Look what happened:
Sarkozy: Calm yourself, Madame.
Royal: No, I will not calm down.
Sarkozy: You need to be calm to be president of the Republic. . . . I don't know why Mrs. Royal, who is normally so calm, has lost her cool.
Royal: I have not lost my cool! I am angry, sometimes it is right and healthy to be angry. The president of the Republic should be angry at injustice.
Sarkozy: You fly off the handle very easily . . .
It was a clever flipping of intent: He showed her temper. Watching it, you could imagine unseen subtitles. I did not call you a liar, Monsieur Liarface. I did not call you emotional, Madame Hotflash.
Ms. Royal's frustration, and the look she got when she realized she'd dug a hole, was as revealing as Mr. Sarkozy's enjoyment of the inflicting of pain; he seemed to show a mild version of that great old word of French derivation, sadism.
...What Mr. Sarkozy had going for him in the debate is that he was not afraid of Ms. Royal because she was a woman. He was not undone by her femininity. American candidates seem much more awkward in this area. When up against a strong woman, male candidates don't know what is appropriate and standard political aggression and what is ungentlemanly bullying.
Mr. Sarkozy was not afraid or tentative. He was poised. He seemed to think he was facing a formidable adversary, and it didn't matter whether it was a man or a woman, it mattered that she was a socialist and socialism isn't helpful. And so he approached her as a person who is wrong.
She was not afraid of the boy. He was not afraid of the girl. He granted her no particular mystique; she granted him no particular advantage. They were appropriate.
Why Don't I Shut The Hell Up?
Yes, I am living "the engaged life," one rude asshole at a time.
Yesterday, I wrote about a woman I encountered on Friday who let her dog trot in front of her into the street without a leash.
Only the fact that I drive with an eagle-eye out for ignoranuses like her stopped me from hitting her dog. I laid on the horn and screeched to a stop just as he was about to cross diagonally in front of my car.When I rolled down my window and yelled at the woman for having him off-leash and in the street, she said the sidewalk (a few paces back) was out of commission -- as if that explained her dog being allowed to wander off into traffic.
It became apparent that she wasn't exactly the brightest lightbulb in the package when she complained that I'd probably awakened the neighbors with my honk (I should have avoided honking and let her dog run in front of my car?), and then called me "stupid" repeatedly.
Stu "El Inglés" Harris posted the following question:
Sounds suspiciously like over-horning to me. If, because of your exceptional alertness, you were able to screech to a stop in time, what purpose did the horn serve?
Which I answered:
I honked the horn and screeched to a stop at the same time. When a dog is on a direct trajectory in front of my car, I'm not really thinking about the neighbors. Besides, it wasn't exactly 4am (I think it was about 7:20...photo says 8:20am, but I think that's because my camera time wasn't changed for daylight savings time).P.S. If somebody has to wake me up to keep a dog from getting run over, they hereby have my permission.
And again, I didn't say I honked five times, or even twice, but one of those people, a "Bruce," commented on the entry, I guess to try to shame me into "just taking it" in the future:
P.S. If somebody has to wake me up to keep a dog from getting run over, they hereby have my permission.Amy,
You say this now, however when someone is actualy honking in your neighborhood you will probably write some blog entry about how some rude person was honking incessantly in front of your house.
I have never known (or heard of) anyone who has had as many altercations with other people than you appeared to have had. You ever think you bring these things upon yourself.
My reply?
I absolutely do. Another person would have driven on and said nothing to the woman. I live an engaged life. When you sit at a coffee shop undisturbed by a would-be abusive cell phoner who is deterred, not because he or she has good manners, but out of fear of being exposed to the world because he or she has read about what I did to the woman who shouted next to me at the Rose in the Wall Street Journal, blow me a kiss.The other day, I saw the neighbor whose window is directly across from where the woman parked with her car doors open and the music booming from her radio. He didn't come outside. But, he thanked me for speaking out.
Just a couple of examples, no need to list them all.
P.S. If only more people spoke out I wouldn't have to do all the speaking out myself. But, I find that I do influence people to speak out. Recently, Kate Coe called me up and told me I'd inspired her to say something to a woman in a bank who was annoying everyone while shouting into her cell phone. The woman started yammering on about "a silent auction." Kate being Kate, she turned around and said, "emphasis on silent!" and the woman piped down.
What do you speak out about, Bruce? Or do you just take it when you see people litter up your neighborhood, when you nearly hit a dog because somebody has let it trot, leashless, in front of your car, or when they ruin your ability to read the paper and enjoy your breakfast because they're shouting into their cell phone? Are you really that big of a pussy?
Now, not everybody has what it takes to take people on. Frankly, it's easier for me because I'm a girl -- because most guys and most girls aren't going to slug me for saying something to them about shouting into their cell, or whatever, and those who look like they might, or might be armed, I do my best to ignore. But, if you don't currently take people on yourself, maybe you should consider trying, just a little. We all benefit when people speak up. Bossy girls and bigmouths are the people who get stuff done in the world, huh?
Somebody I Admire Who Won't Shut Up Either
That would be Christopher Hitchens, about whom Michael Kinsley writes in The New York Times:
Hitchens is an old-fashioned village atheist, standing in the square trying to pick arguments with the good citizens on their way to church. The book is full of logical flourishes and conundrums, many of them entertaining to the nonbeliever. How could Christ have died for our sins, when supposedly he also did not die at all? Did the Jews not know that murder and adultery were wrong before they received the Ten Commandments, and if they did know, why was this such a wonderful gift? On a more somber note, how can the “argument from design” (that only some kind of “intelligence” could have designed anything as perfect as a human being) be reconciled with the religious practice of female genital mutilation, which posits that women, at least, as nature creates them, are not so perfect after all? Whether sallies like these give pause to the believer is a question I can’t answer.And all the logical sallies don’t exactly add up to a sustained argument, because Hitchens thinks a sustained argument shouldn’t even be necessary and yet wouldn’t be sufficient. To him, it’s blindingly obvious: the great religions all began at a time when we knew a tiny fraction of what we know today about the origins of Earth and human life. It’s understandable that early humans would develop stories about gods or God to salve their ignorance. But people today have no such excuse. If they continue to believe in the unbelievable, or say they do, they are morons or lunatics or liars. “The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal,” he remarks, unsympathetically.
Although Hitchens’s title refers to God, his real energy is in the subtitle: “religion poisons everything.” Disproving the existence of God (at least to his own satisfaction and, frankly, to mine) is just the beginning for Hitchens. In fact, it sometimes seems as if existence is just one of the bones Hitchens wants to pick with God — and not even the most important. If God would just leave the world alone, Hitchens would be glad to let him exist, quietly, in retirement somewhere. Possibly the Hoover Institution.
Hitchens is attracted repeatedly to the principle of Occam’s razor: that simple explanations are more likely to be correct than complicated ones. (E.g., Earth makes a circle around the Sun; the Sun doesn’t do a complex roller coaster ride around Earth.) You might think that Occam’s razor would favor religion; the biblical creation story certainly seems simpler than evolution. But Hitchens argues effectively again and again that attaching the religious myth to what we know from science to be true adds nothing but needless complication.
For Hitchens, it’s personal. He is a great friend of Salman Rushdie, and he reminds us that it wasn’t just some crazed fringe Muslim who threatened Rushdie’s life, killed several others and made him a virtual prisoner for the crime of writing a novel. Religious leaders from all the major faiths, who disagree on some of the most fundamental questions, managed to put aside their differences to agree that Rushdie had it coming. (Elsewhere, Hitchens notes tartly that if any one of the major faiths is true, then the others must be false in important respects — an obvious point often forgotten in the warm haze of ecumenism.)
And P.S. I thought this passage in Kinsley's piece was particularly amusing:
The big strategic challenge for a career like this is to remain interesting, and the easiest tactic for doing that is surprise. If they expect you to say X, you say minus X.Consistency is foolish, as the man said. (Didn’t he?) Under the unwritten and somewhat eccentric rules of American public discourse, a statement that contradicts everything you have ever said before is considered for that reason to be especially sincere, courageous and dependable. At The New Republic in the 1980s, when I was the editor, we used to joke about changing our name to “Even the Liberal New Republic,” because that was how we were referred to whenever we took a conservative position on something, which was often. Then came the day when we took a liberal position on something and we were referred to as “Even the Conservative New Republic.”
Hitchens' new book is God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
I Almost Hit A Dog On Friday
This dog, specifically, after he was allowed to trot, untethered, into the street, ahead of the woman walking him.
Only the fact that I drive with an eagle-eye out for ignoranuses like her stopped me from hitting her dog. I laid on the horn and screeched to a stop just as he was about to cross diagonally in front of my car.
When I rolled down my window and yelled at the woman for having him off-leash and in the street, she said the sidewalk (a few paces back) was out of commission -- as if that explained her dog being allowed to wander off into traffic.
It became apparent that she wasn't exactly the brightest lightbulb in the package when she complained that I'd probably awakened the neighbors with my honk (I should have avoided honking and let her dog run in front of my car?), and then called me "stupid" repeatedly.
It's bad enough this woman is allowed to have a dog, but three words for her, should you happen to know her or see her around Venice or Santa Monica:
Yoohoo, Ladies...Where's The Outrage?
Via iFeminists, Christina Hoff Sommers has a terrific piece in The Weekly Standard of the lot of women in Muslim societies and the mostly deafening silence of American feminists in response. When they do pay attention to women outside the West, it's often just to draw illogical parallels to them:
The inability to make simple distinctions shows up everywhere in contemporary feminist thinking. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, edited by geographer Joni Seager, is a staple in women's studies classes in universities. It was named "Reference Book of the Year" by the American Library Association and has received other awards. Seager, formerly a professor of women's studies and chair of geography at the University of Vermont, is now dean of environmental studies at York University in Toronto. Her atlas, a series of color-coded maps and charts, documents the status of women, highlighting the countries where women are most at risk for poverty, illiteracy, and oppression.One map shows how women are kept "in their place" by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Uganda: Both countries are shaded dark yellow, to signify extremely high levels of restriction. Seager explains that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman for his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same rating because, Seager says, "state legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001." Never mind that the Ugandan practice is barbaric, while the activism surrounding abortion in the United States is a sign of a contentious and free democracy working out its disagreements. Besides which, Seager's categories obscure the fact that in Uganda, abortion is illegal and "unsafe abortion is the leading cause of maternal mortality" (so states a 2005 report by the Gutt macher Institute), while American abortion law, even after the recent adoption of state regulations, is generally considered among the most liberal of any nation.
On another map the United States gets the same rating for domestic violence as Pakistan. Seager reports that in the United States, "22 percent-35 percent of women who seek emergency medical assistance at hospital are there for reasons of domestic violence." Wrong. She apparently misread a Justice Department study showing that 22 percent-35 percent of women who go to hospitals because of violent attacks are there for reasons of domestic violence. When this correction is made, the figure for domestic-violence victims in emergency rooms drops to a fraction of 1 percent. Why would Seager so uncritically seize on a dubious statistic? Like many academic feminists, she is eager to show that American women live under an intimidating system of "patriarchal authority" that is comparable to those found in many less developed countries. Never mind that this is wildly false.
Hard-line feminists such as Seager, Pollitt, Ensler, the university gender theorists, and the NOW activists represent the views of only a tiny fraction of American women. Even among women who identify themselves as feminists (about 25 percent), they are at the radical extreme. But in the academy and in most of the major women's organizations, the extreme is the mean. The hard-liners set the tone and shape the discussion. This is a sad state of affairs. Muslim women could use moral, intellectual, and material support from the West to improve their situation. But only a rational, reality-based women's movement would be capable of actually helping. Women who think that looking like a pear is an essential human right are not valuable allies.
I particularly liked the bit in Sommers piece about the flawed thinking of Coochie Monologuist Eve Ensler, who has a hard time discerning the difference between elective "vaginal rejuvenation" surgery in Beverly Hills and forced female genital mutilation in Kenya. "What's wrong with this picture?" Ensler asks.
Sommers nails it:
A better question is: What is wrong with Eve Ensler? These two surgical phenomena are completely different in both scale and purpose. The number of American women who undergo "vaginal labial rejuvenation" is minuscule: There were 793 such procedures in 2005, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. By contrast, a World Health Organization 2000 fact sheet reports: "Today, the number of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation is estimated at between 100 and 140 million. It is estimated that each year, a further 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM."The women who elect laser surgery, moreover, are voluntarily seeking relief from physical irregularities that cause them embarrassment or inhibit their sexual enjoyment. The practitioners of genital mutilation, in countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia, believe that removing sensitive parts of the anatomy is the best way to control young women's sexual urges and assure chastity. Genital cutting causes great pain and suffering and often permanently impairs a female's capacity for sexual pleasure. Thus, the intentions of the handful of American adults who choose labial surgery for themselves are exactly the opposite of those of the African parents and elders who insist on cutting the genitals of millions of girls.
Given her capacity for conceptual confusion, it is perhaps not surprising that Ensler cites "gang rape in a suburban high school parking lot" to show how women in America are menaced. Yes, that is an atrocity. But it happens rarely, and America's allegedly "misogynist" culture reacts to it with revulsion and severe punishments.
Isabel Blows Us Off
Another wild and fun one bites the dust. Suffering from cancer and lifelong depression, Tatler magazine fashion director and general fashion icon Isabel Blow apparently took her own life last Saturday. From the London Daily Mail:
Friends staying at Hilles, the couple's Arts and Crafts home in Painswick, Gloucestershire, suggested that Blow, who suffered intense bouts of depression, poisoned herself on Saturday after telling house guests she was going shopping.Her death follows at least two other suicide attempts. Last year she was in hospital after taking an overdose and in 2005 tried to kill herself by throwing herself off a bridge over a motorway.
Her husband, to whom she became engaged 16 days after meeting him, said: "She was a ray of sunshine. She was a beautiful, brave woman: indefatigable, courageous and brilliantly theatrical.
Via Jackie Danicki and Hillary Johnson's Jack&Hill blog, there are a few quotes to remember her by. Here's one from Blow herself that I loved:
If you don't wear lipstick I can't talk to you. You need to have lips. They are very important for getting men.
And here's one from Vogue's Anna Wintour, for whom she once worked as a personal assistant:
She was not too good at getting to the office before 11am, but then she would arrive dressed as a maharaja or an Edith Sitwell figure. I don't think she ever did my expenses but she made life much more interesting.
The Daily Mail profile of Blow is here.
What They Say
Note on the door of the liquor store on Abbot Kinney, which has been mysteriously closed for several days:
What They Really Mean
Another note several feet down, on the liquor store's window:
Groovy! I'm A Finalist For A Piece I Wrote For Hustler!
It's in the Magazine Feature/Commentary category of the LA Press Club Awards:
G2. FEATURE/COMMENTARY
*Amy Alkon, Hustler, "Gail Dines, Enemy Of The State"
*Johnny Dodd, People magazine, "A Rockin' New Life"
*Michael Goldstein, LA Times West, "The Other Beating"
*Oliver Jones and Sandra Marquez, People magazine, "Out on the Range"
*Lorenzo Benet, People magazine, "Mary Kay Letourneau & Vili Fualaau: One year later"
Hustler is actually the only publication in LA that shows any interest in publishing my writing. And I have to tell you, as Cathy Seipp (who was paid rather handsomely for writing for Penthouse for a number of years) and I used to say to each other, if you want to see real exploitation, write for a women's magazine. Hustler lets me write the way I want, language and all, and not only are they very nice to me, they always pay me right away -- and nobody ever tells me a check is "stuck in accounting," like it's some vast, winding large intestine-like place that simply can't be navigated by mere mortals.
But, back to my story -- it's about radical feminist attempts to perpetuate what I call The Victim Industrial Complex, and why they're so damaging to the women they profess to protect. Here's an excerpt from my piece (note: Dines and Jensen are Gail Dines and Robert Jensen, who are not just radical feminists, but, most horrifyingly, are also college professors):
Another big theme for Dines and Jensen -- a perennial favorite of the ever-literal and painfully unfun victim feminists -- is that porn isn’t a realistic depiction of female sexuality. In their book, Dines and Jensen complain -- and hold on for a big shock -- “…women in the videos in our sample never said no and were always immediately ready for sexual activity.” Most astonishingly, women “…are expected to express pleasure during sex through facial expression and moaning.” And then, hang on for another shocker: “Women…were typically dressed in clothing that maximized the visibility of their bodies, such as low-cut blouses and short, tight skirts.” And, finally, “Anything the man did to the woman was depicted as producing intense pleasure in the woman, and everything the woman did to the man also made her orgasmic.”Are these people retarded? What man wants to watch a video showing a fat woman in a housedress who always has her period? It’s fantasy, ladies. What’s next, attacking chick flicks on the grounds they inaccurately depict male sexuality since they always end with the guy proposing, not suggesting that he and the girlfriend have a threesome with her best friend?
Like all radical feminists, Dines and Jensen claim they’re only looking out for women (literally a dirty job in their case, since it requires watching piles of porn). In reality, feminist lies and disinformation usually hurt those the feminists profess to protect. A classic example is the phony-baloney claim that one in four college women get raped, widely circulated by feminists whose careers depend upon convincing white, upper-middle-class women that they’re victims. Luckily, one white, upper-middle-class woman, Kate Roiphe, smelled something in the one-in-four statistic, writing, “If 25 percent of my women friends were really being raped, wouldn’t I know it?” Of course she would. Of course we all would. Yet, as Roiphe’s punishment for daring to even question the statistic, Dines suggested to Newsweek that Roiphe was just trying to suck up to the “white-male patriarchy,” calling Roiphe “a traitor” and “the Clarence Thomas of women.”
It turns out Mary Koss, the Kent State psych professor who directed the study, got her statistics from responses to questions like “Have you ever given in to sex play when you didn’t want to because you were overwhelmed by a man’s continual arguments and pressure?” Sure, a “yes” could mean you were a rape victim -- or, maybe, that you were simply a victim of your own weak will: “Oh fuck, we could sit around arguing for an hour, or I could just blow him.” And take the question “Have you ever had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?” Let’s be real: If a woman’s passed out on the floor, and a bunch of guys have sex with her, sure that’s rape. If, however, she simply has one-too-many Long Island Iced Teas, and does something she later regrets, is that rape, or is it just…bad judgment?
Researchers who used sound scientific methods came up with much lower figures than Koss; for example, the finding by the University of Washington’s Margaret Gordon showing 1 in 50 women is a rape victim. Truth-in-feminism advocate Hoff Sommers notes the paucity of headlines generated by researchers like Gordon, who based their statistics on solid data. Gordon described pressure from “really avid feminists…trying to get me to say that things were worse than they really are,” but refused to budge from what good data told her was the truth.
Hoff Sommers also references New York magazine reporter Peter Hellman’s 1990 investigation into rumors of a rape outbreak at Columbia University. Upon investigation, he found only two rapes were reported to the Columbia campus police that year, and fewer than one thousand on college campuses across the entire country -- which works out to fewer than one-half of one rape per campus. Nevertheless, Columbia was pressured by feminists to install an expensive rape crisis center at the university. Hoff Sommers quotes Hellman describing a typical Saturday night for the three peer counselors sitting around at the center: “Nobody called; nobody came.”
So, while Dines professes to be acting in women’s best interest, Katie Roiphe, in doubting the “one in four” statistic, was actually the one best serving women –- calling into question the pervasive campus rape hysteria. Sounding the alarm when there’s little need for an alarm, or such a loud and persistent alarm, comes with a price. It means deflecting attention and funding from where it’s really needed; for example, in preventing the very real risk that homeless inner-city women will be victims of violent sexual assault -- a topic which doesn’t gather quite the crowd as does fomenting unnecessary fear of men on a campus of coddled women. As for the real issue in pornography -- women and children in the developing world being sold into sex slavery -- the victim feminists can’t worry so much about that; they’ve got a “Take Back The Night” march across campus.
Who do we really have to fear? Legal scholar and ACLU president Nadine Strossen points to “the feminist procensorship movement.” In her book, Defending Pornography – Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights, Strossen explains, “Women’s rights are far more endangered by censoring sexual images than they are by the sexual images themselves. Women do not need the government’s protection from words and pictures. We do need, rather, to protect ourselves from any government infringement upon our freedom and autonomy, even – indeed, especially – when it is allegedly ‘for our own good.’”
In other words, Dines, Jensen, and the “Big Sister”-hood are the real victimizers here: pseudo-intellectual thugs who demonize men, infantilize women, and use the media to beat up anyone who dares question the unsupported contentions they pass off as truth. In reality, you don’t protect women by convincing them they’re victims, but by telling them they’re powerful enough to protect themselves, teaching them how, and insisting they do it. You teach women they have choices, and must be personally responsible for those they make. And, you celebrate critical thinking and truth-seeking over blind acceptance of “the facts.” Only by throwing off the yoke of victimhood can women alert themselves to real dangers instead of busying themselves with phony ones -- those that pay the salaries of Dines and Jensen, and give them a level of status they probably couldn’t attain any other way.
While We're On Porn
Here's an unscientific survey you could help me out by responding to: Do straight men look at gay porn? Once? Sometimes? Ever? And if the answer is "once"...is it simply for curiosity's sake? How about if the answer is "sometimes"?
Whoopee! Gas Prices Are Sky-High!
That's the extent of Andres Oppenheimer's Miami Herald column from Thursday:
Hurrah! Great news! When I filled up my car's gas tank yesterday, I paid an all-time record $3.41 a gallon, and experts are predicting that gasoline prices may soon reach $4 a gallon.I can't wait!
I'm not kidding. I am more convinced than ever that unless gasoline prices rise above $4 a gallon, there won't be a nationwide uproar strong enough to force Washington to get serious about reducing the U.S. suicidal dependence on foreign oil.
...Judging from U.S. Energy Information Administration figures, the long-term picture is bleak: based on current trends, Americans will continue buying SUVs, Hummers and ever-growing cars, and U.S. dependence on foreign oil will increase. Consider:
• While light trucks and SUVs accounted for 19 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States in 1975, the percentage grew to 50 percent by 2005. By 2015, light trucks and SUVs are projected to account for 52 percent of all new U.S. car sales, according to EIA projections.
• U.S. imports of foreign oil have soared from 35 percent of total U.S. oil consumption in 1973 to 60 percent of total U.S. oil consumption in 2006, according to the EIA.
''Overall imports of oil are going to increase, as we consume more petroleum,'' Jonathan Cogan, a spokesman for the EIA, told me in a telephone interview Wednesday.
My opinion: This is insane! I have nothing against you buying a light truck or an SUV if you are a soccer mom with quintuplets, a concert bass player, or a rancher in Montana.
But when I see these ever-growing vehicles driving through Miami -- where I have yet to find a hill, let alone a mountain -- with just one person inside, carrying nothing, I can only conclude that America deserves the foreign oil-rich despots that are causing so much trouble.
As long as America doesn't get serious about reducing oil consumption, petro-dictators will grow stronger, and there will be more of them. So when I see $3.41 gas prices, I say: ''Bravo!'' The sooner we get to $4, the better!
I don't buy gas very often (I spent a total of $157 last year on gas for my hybrid Honda Insight), so I'm never too sure what the price is. Still, last week, when I bought gas, I was shocked to find it was $3.89!! at the Shell on Lincoln and Pico in Santa Monica...not the cheapest station, because it's near the freeway, but I was down to fumes (which in my car might get me 20 or so miles, but I didn't want to chance it).
via Drudge
Businessman With Cat On Back, Santa Monica
P.S. I'd be there with my dog on my shoulder if the silly health codes didn't prohibit her from staying inside with me!
Advice Goddess And Finalist!
My blog is one of five finalists in the LA Press Club Awards, along with those of my pals Monica Corcoran and Pat Saperstein.
I6. WEBLOG, INDIVIDUAL*Amy Alkon, Advice Goddess
*Monica Corcoran, Variety.com, The Stylephile
*Marc Cooper, LA Weekly, MarcCooper.com
*Patricia Saperstein, EatingLAblogspot.com
*J. Craig Williams, Esq.
Other categories I've entered have yet to be announced.
Diddle He Or Didn't He
I just posted another Advice Goddess column -- this one, a letter from a woman who, out of the blue, decides that the boyfriend of a woman whose letter I answered in my column, must be molesting his stepdaughters. Sick, huh?
Here's her letter:
Because I value trusting one’s instincts, I’m prompted to write about your advice to “Uneasy,” the woman whose boyfriend would go into another room to talk on the phone to his stepdaughters from a previous relationship. I feel the woman was expressing suspicion that he still had some interest in their mom out of an unwillingness to believe that he may be behaving inappropriately toward his stepdaughters. One in four women reports having been raped or molested in childhood, and stepfathers play a prominent role in those statistics. He may not be a “molester,” but maybe he’s asking the girls about their bodies in ways that make them uncomfortable. You should have encouraged “Uneasy” to call a truce with her boyfriend: He takes calls openly, and she drops the nagging if there isn’t anything unseemly going on.--Uneasier
And here's my reply:
Oh, the dark world of people who prefer to take their phone calls in private. Yes, this guy could be a molester, and could be asking these girls inappropriate questions about their bodies. And when I walk away from my boyfriend to take a call, I could be planning the violent overthrow of our government, and arranging to trade my neighbors’ twins for a suitcase nuke -- or maybe I simply see no need for corroborating witnesses when I try to reschedule my cleaning lady.The woman in question admitted that she had no reason to believe her boyfriend had any interest in an ex-wife he’d divorced over five years earlier, or was anything but a stand-up guy trying to remain a father figure to his very young stepdaughters. Yet, according to you, merely because he preferred to talk to the girls without his jealous girlfriend standing over him, I should have encouraged her to say something along the lines of “Hey, honey, I’ll calm down if only you let me listen to your calls so I can be sure you aren’t raping babies.”
Warped thinking like yours makes me realize how lucky I am to be a woman and white as typing paper. Although I recently got stopped by a cop for going the wrong way on a one-way street (he rolled his eyes and let me go when he realized I wasn’t drunk, just ditzy), I’m generally safe from automatic presumptions of criminality like Driving While Black or Living And Breathing While Male.
Here you are, parroting this outrageous man-bashing propaganda -- “one in four women reports having been raped or molested during childhood” -- maybe because you heard it repeated so often you assumed it was fact. This figure is a common misquote of a survey by radical feminist sociology professor Diana Russell. Although Russell presents herself as a truth-seeking social scientist, her work reflects a substantial bias against men, as evidenced by her claim, based on one of her studies, that “a considerable amount of marital sex is probably closer to the rape end of the continuum.”
The actual figure from Russell’s survey was an unbelievable one in 2.6 women sexually abused before the age of 18 -- a figure she arrived at with substandard sampling techniques and what UC Berkeley professor Neil Gilbert, in his book Welfare Justice, calls “research that lumps together relatively harmless behavior such as attempted petting with the traumatic experience of child rape.” For example, one of Russell’s questions asked, “Did anyone ever try or succeed in touching your breasts or genitals against your wishes before you turned 14?” Well, if you put it that way, even I was a victim of child sexual abuse: It was sixth grade, we were playing spin the bottle in somebody’s basement, and the boy who kissed me tried to feel me up.
Should we really count a quick boob grab I got from some sixth-grader the same as the experience of some other 12-year-old girl who was repeatedly forced to have sex with her uncle? We should if we’re looking to criminalize being male -- and never mind if that poisons relations between women and men, dilutes funding and attention to real victims, and leads to prejudicial policies like British Airways’ that no unaccompanied minor can sit next to a man. (Which -- horrors! -- means some unaccompanied brat is more likely to be seated next to me!)
Women best protect themselves by appraising men as individuals, based on evidence, not by leaping to the assumption that “stepdad” equals sex predator. In other words, my advice to “Uneasy” stands. My advice to you? Pick up Christina Hoff Sommers’ Who Stole Feminism? to get a better idea of the damage done by radical feminist activism tarted up as serious science. Contrary to what the likes of Diana Russell would have you believe, you should come to the conclusion that the answer to “Hey, Dad, how’d you meet Mom?” probably isn’t “While raping her at knifepoint.”
Comments on the original entry are here. And here's a letter from a reader in C-Ville Weekly, the Charlottesville, VA alt weekly that runs my column, and my reply:
Sexual abuse sans sarcasmThe Advice Goddess’s recent column [“Diddle he or didn’t he?” April 24, 2007 (not on-line)] contains outrageous and dangerous misinformation. The letter-writer, “Uneasier,” states that “one in four women report having been raped or molested in childhood, and stepfathers play a prominent role in those statistics.” She is absolutely correct! Amy Alkon, “The Advice Goddess,” is sarcastically dismissive of this data and states that it is a “common misquote of a survey by radical feminist sociology professor Diana Russell.”
The truth is that at least one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18, most often by a parent or step-parent. This is data that has been collected and verified in repeated studies over several decades.
In 2004, the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association and the Centers for Disease Control joined to present the First Congressional Briefing on the Epidemic of Child Sexual Abuse. These are not “radical feminist” organizations, using “substandard sampling techniques.” These prestigious medical and scientific professionals urged our Congress to study the long-term medical and mental health consequences of this serious problem and urged Congress to direct funding toward treatment and prevention.
Our own Virginia Department of Health did an extensive survey about the prevalence of child sexual abuse in our Commonwealth and found the same results.
The irony is that this column was published in April, “Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month.” Your readers, many of whom are adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, deserve to know that they are believed and supported.
Joyce Allan
CharlottesvilleAmy Alkon replies: I have enormous sympathy for victims of child sexual abuse, but I don’t see how perpetuating an untruth helps them in any way. This “one in four” stat has been widely disseminated, and is repeated by some reputable organizations, but that doesn’t mean they checked out the methodology behind it. I did. I dismissed the data because it’s bad data—derived from biased questions and substandard methodology—as is that of others who came up with similar stats (Finkelhor, for example, whose work is used in the Virginia study Ms. Allan mentions). These researchers are respected mainly because nobody looks too hard at how they got their numbers, perhaps because the subject matter makes questioning their numbers taboo. To understand what, specifically, is wrong with their stats, read Welfare Justice by UC-Berkeley professor Neil Gilbert. Child sexual abuse is a terrible thing, but advocacy researchers like Russell trivialize real sexual abuse by giving the impression that nearly all women are victims—in turn, criminalizing being male and diverting funding and attention away from the real victims.
Make A Marriage License More Like A Driver's License
Fellow Pajamas blogger Ace Of Spaces slams Mitt Romney for going off on the French for the creation of seven-year marriages. Biggest problem with this? It's a fiction -- literally: from an Orson Scott Card novel.
My take on it?
What's wrong with seven-year marriages if that's what people want? Personally, I don't believe in marriage, and I think living together is uncivilized, and kills your sex life. In my advice column, I've recommended that a marriage license be more like a driver's license -- renewable if you don't scream at your spouse too much, or start withholding sex. Why would that be a bad idea?
And P.S. For people with kids, I think there should be a "delivery room through dorm room" plan, with an option to renew.
And a message for nitwit Mitt: What France does have, which is pretty damn smart, is a registered partner agreement (the PACS -- pacte civil de solidarité) for people like me who don't want to get married, but would still like the right to visit their partner in the hospital and continue living in their apartment after the partner dies, just to name a couple of examples.
Mommy Dearest (As In, Mommy's Quite Expensive)
I'd bet people who have businesses big enough that they have to pay health insurance to the employees (a dumb and unfair idea -- unfair since a single person ends up subsidizing the guy with the wife and five kids) are reluctant to hire women who are of the age to get knocked up and take maternity leave.
Those of you ladies who aren't kid people who are regular readers here, my advice, if you're going for a job -- subtly let the potential employer know. If they figure out you're not going to sock them with maternity fees, and then take off from work for a period of time, and then, eventually, leave at 4pm every day to pick up the kid...well, I'm guessing you'll be more employable.
Oh, sorry -- was that non-P.C. of me? I'd bet it's how employers think...and you know what? Rightfully so. I only have two employees -- my part-time assistant and my part-time bookkeeper -- but if my company were bigger, but still small, it would sock me big-time if I had an employee who took off on maternity leave, and especially, if I had to pay for it.
I'm for the kind of health insurance where it's not tied to a job -- health insurance like mine, where I write the check for my insurance to Kaiser every month, and pay my own way.
You can't afford to take time off work? Buy more shirts at thrift stores, and fewer at Ann Taylor! Take vacations in a tent instead of in a hotel! Is that too big a sacrifice for you? Boo frigging hoo. How about you sacrifice to have a kid instead of your employer and, in turn, other employees?
A Dallas woman, Michelle Degani writes on WashingtonPost.com of not taking a job because an employer won't pick up the cost, in money and time, for her pregnancy. That's her right -- but I find the sense of entitlement in that rather shocking:
I received a job offer a few weeks ago. It was great except for the maternity leave policy, which HR told me was generous. The policy: First year of employment, you can buy short-term disability (STD), which might pay 60% of your salary while you're out, but the details are gray. After one year, the company gives you three weeks of time off with full pay, and then you get nine weeks of STD at 60% of your salary.I'm 42, and have a one-year-old daughter. I married my husband in 2006. I think I got pregnant on my wedding night, a miracle and a blessing considering my age. We're hoping for another child soon. My biological clock is striking midnight, so maternity leave is crucial.
I don't know about all of you, but I didn't have the mental capacity to go back to work three weeks after having a baby. Not all of us can forgo our full salary, even for a few weeks, so 60 percent of my salary for another nine weeks wasn't an option either.
When I asked the HR person how others at the company were handling maternity leave, he said they save extra money so they can live on a reduced salary while on leave or they bank their paid time off (PTO) and use it for leave. I don't want to be pregnant and panicked about how I'm going to pay my bills while recovering. I don't want to go back to work after only three weeks because we can't pay bills. And what if I need my paid time off for an emergency?
I didn't end up taking the job. Given my "advanced maternal age" I didn't want to postpone trying to get pregnant again long enough to make sure I qualified for maternity leave at the new company. I decided to stay at my current company, which has a decent maternity leave policy -- eight weeks after two years of employment.
Restauranteur Guilty Of Murderism
Naturally, O.J. Simpson's lawyer accused the restauranteur, who threw Simpson out of his restaurant, of "racism" instead. The AP's Beth Campell writes:
The owner of an upscale steakhouse in Louisville said he asked O.J. Simpson to leave his restaurant the night before the Kentucky Derby because he is sickened by the attention Simpson still attracts."I didn't want to serve him because of my convictions of what he's done to those families," Jeff Ruby said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "The way he continues to torture the lives of those families ... with his behavior, attitude and conduct."
...Ruby - who owns restaurants in Cincinnati, Louisville and Belterra, Ind. - said Simpson, who was in town for the Derby on Saturday, came in with a group of about 12 Friday night and was seated at a table in the back. A customer came up to Ruby and was "giddy" about seeing Simpson, Ruby said.
"I didn't want that experience in my restaurant," Ruby said, later adding that seeing Simpson get so much attention "makes me sick to my stomach."
He said he went to Simpson's table and said, "I'm not serving you." Ruby said when Simpson didn't respond, he repeated himself and left the room.
Ruby said Simpson soon came up to him and said he understood and would gather the rest of his party to leave.
Simpson's attorney, Yale Galanter, said the incident was about race, and he intended to pursue the matter and possibly go after the restaurant's liquor license.
"He screwed with the wrong guy, he really did," Galanter said by telephone Tuesday night.
What will Simpson do, knife him and leave him bleeding to death on the sidewalk?
Christopher Hitchens' Eight-Point Plan
In his review of Mark Steyn's book in City Journal, he offers these eight points for "facing the Islamist menace":
1. An end to one-way multiculturalism and to the cultural masochism that goes with it. The Koran does not mandate the wearing of veils or genital mutilation, and until recently only those who apostasized from Islam faced the threat of punishment by death. Now, though, all manner of antisocial practices find themselves validated in the name of religion, and mullahs have begun to issue threats even against non-Muslims for criticism of Islam. This creeping Islamism must cease at once, and those responsible must feel the full weight of the law. Meanwhile, we should insist on reciprocity at all times. We should not allow a single Saudi dollar to pay for propaganda within the U.S., for example, until Saudi Arabia also permits Jewish and Christian and secular practices. No Wahhabi-printed Korans anywhere in our prison system. No Salafist imams in our armed forces.2. A strong, open alliance with India on all fronts, from the military to the political and economic, backed by an extensive cultural exchange program, to demonstrate solidarity with the other great multiethnic democracy under attack from Muslim fascism. A hugely enlarged quota for qualified Indian immigrants and a reduction in quotas from Pakistan and other nations where fundamentalism dominates.
3. A similarly forward approach to Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, and the other countries of Western Africa that are under attack by jihadists and are also the location of vast potential oil reserves, whose proper development could help emancipate the local populations from poverty and ourselves from dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
4. A declaration at the UN of our solidarity with the right of the Kurdish people of Iraq and elsewhere to self-determination as well as a further declaration by Congress that in no circumstance will Muslim forces who have fought on our side, from the Kurds to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, find themselves friendless, unarmed, or abandoned. Partition in Iraq would be defeat under another name (and as with past partitions, would lead to yet further partitions and micro-wars over these very subdivisions). But if it has to come, we cannot even consider abandoning the one part of the country that did seize the opportunity of modernization, development, and democracy.
5. Energetic support for all the opposition forces in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora. A public offer from the United States, disseminated widely in the Persian language, of help for a reformed Iran on all matters, including peaceful nuclear energy, and of assistance in protecting Iran from the catastrophic earthquake that seismologists predict in its immediate future. Millions of lives might be lost in a few moments, and we would also have to worry about the fate of secret underground nuclear facilities. When a quake leveled the Iranian city of Bam three years ago, the performance of American rescue teams was so impressive that their popularity embarrassed the regime. Iran’s neighbors would need to pay attention, too: a crisis in Iran’s nuclear underground facilities—an Iranian Chernobyl—would not be an internal affair. These concerns might help shift the currently ossified terms of the argument and put us again on the side of an internal reform movement within Iran and its large and talented diaspora.
6. Unconditional solidarity, backed with force and the relevant UN resolutions, with an independent and multi-confessional Lebanon.
7. A commitment to buy Afghanistan’s opium crop and to keep the profits out of the hands of the warlords and Talibanists, until such time as the country’s agriculture— especially its once-famous vines—has been replanted and restored. We can use the product in the interim for the manufacture of much-needed analgesics for our own market and apply the profits to the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
8. We should, of course, be scrupulous on principle about stirring up interethnic tensions. But we should remind those states that are less scrupulous—Iran, Pakistan, and Syria swiftly come to mind—that we know that they, too, have restless minorities and that they should not make trouble in Afghanistan, Lebanon, or Iraq without bearing this in mind. Some years ago, the Pakistani government announced that it would break the international embargo on the unrecognized and illegal Turkish separatist state in Cyprus and would appoint an ambassador to it, out of “Islamic solidarity.” Cyprus is a small democracy with no armed forces to speak of, but its then–foreign minister told me the following story. He sought a meeting with the Pakistani authorities and told them privately that if they recognized the breakaway Turkish colony, his government would immediately supply funds and arms to one of the secessionist movements—such as the Baluchis—within Pakistan itself. Pakistan never appointed an ambassador to Turkish Cyprus.
When Horny Is Criminal
Ridiculous notions about prostitution in an op-ed column by Colbert I. King in The Washington Post. He writes:
The government should have a special interest in knowing who Palfrey's alleged clients are, if, as The Post reported, they include government officials and military officers. If these men are lawbreakers, shouldn't they be brought to justice, too? One expert has said that men "who buy sex acts don't respect women, nor do they want to respect women."
Come on, this is just silly. Who can make this assumption about a wide swath of men, simply because they visit prostitutes? All that is evidence of is that they wanted sex, and in my view, were moral enough to pay for it -- making a fair, free-market exchange -- instead of fooling some woman into putting out by making her think they wanted a relationship.
As for men who "don't respect women" -- why should that be a matter of law? That seems to be what King's advocating (or at least justifying) by linking that statement with the sentence before it, about bringing men who visit prostitutes "to justice." Excuse me, but why is it "justice" to prosecute sex acts between consenting adults?
Finally, who's this "one expert"? Why isn't this "expert" named? I e-mailed King to ask.
King continues -- about the men who pay for sex:
There's reason to believe that many of them would benefit from being arrested and diverted to the U.S. attorney's "John School" -- a one-day, eight-hour education and awareness program for the purchasers of prostitution.Of the 550 johns arrested, all signed up for "John School"; only one did not successfully complete the program and only two have been rearrested.
At any rate, you can bet there are a lot of District residents waiting to see if the government will hunt down and expose the men who patronized the accused D.C. madam the same way it has pursued those who patronize drug dealers.
The problem isn't those who patronize drug dealers, but those who keep drugs illegal, making what others choose to experience entirely within their own bodies a crime.
They're Pro-Life -- But Only If You're Cute And Innocent
CNN contributor Roland S. Martin digs in where Chris Matthews didn't think (or was too timid) to go -- the hypocrisy that those who are "pro-life" tend to be very, very pro-death when it comes to snuffing out the life of prisoners held for capital crimes (which they may or may not have committed in some cases):
Folks, it's hard to say on one hand that every life -- at every phase -- is important, but then say, "Send them to the death chamber!" Those two are diametrically opposed to each other.And I'll be the first to tell you that many Christians -- especially right-wing conservatives -- are staunch anti-abortion advocates on Monday. And on Tuesday, if there is an execution, they are right there supporting that one as well.
It would have been nice had debate moderator Chris Matthews forced the candidates to deal with this issue.
But let's also expand the pro-life dialogue. Where do the Republican candidates stand on funding Head Start for children? Is that not part of the development of human life? Are we going to see Republican candidates seek to change Medicaid laws to allow dentists to better care for those who get government assistance? Or are we willing to see another case like Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old Maryland boy who died because his family lost their Medicaid, and the boy's abscess, which might have been cured with an $80 tooth extraction, led to his brain becoming infected?
Are the Republican candidates going to vigorously fight for expanded pre-natal care for mothers in many inner cities around America, where the infant mortality rate rivals that of some Third World countries?
What is needed -- on both sides -- is a full-scale discussion on what it really means to be pro-life.
Life is indeed precious. And just as I have tussled with my personal views on being pro-choice and supportive of the death penalty, the pro-lifers should really examine whether they are as passionate about life beyond the womb.
LA Would Be A Big Small Town
...If somebody did something about the traffic. I drove to Silverlake at around 9:20 Sunday morning for Maia Lazar's 18th birthday Sunday afternoon. It took me, from the entrance on the 10 freeway at Lincoln Boulevard near Olympic to the Starbucks at Glendale Blvd. and Silverlake Blvd...a grand total of 20 minutes. The same ride on a weekday afternoon? Two screamingly horrible hours.
But, what to do? Subway? Monorail? I'd get around town a whole lot more if it wasn't so painful -- like last week's three-hour trip from Santa Monica to Dodger Stadium...part of which was the parking hell Matt Welch wrote about in the LA Times a few weeks ago:
Enter the Dodgers' pratfall-prone owner. McCourt (who made a fortune in parking lots in his native Boston) decided in the off-season that the way to improve Chavez Ravine's car-crunch was to eliminate the one thing keeping it from being a real nightmare: human choice.Now, instead of traffic flowing opportunistically into whatever route the defense offers, fans are being herded like goats into lots near where they enter, and forced (with a few exceptions) to leave exactly from whence they came. The result Monday was as predictable as a runner advancing on Juan Pierre: The worst traffic most people had ever seen at a baseball game.
I managed the two-mile- plus post-game commute to work in a cool 90 minutes, and even that doesn't do justice to the horror. Planners have created scores of new parking spots from which you can only exit by backing up directly into the three-lane flow of outbound traffic, a feat requiring an average of three uniformed traffic herders per disruption.
Thankfully, the Dodgers' website urges attendees to check the "parking alert page," where you can learn such handy tips of the day as "check traffic before you leave for the stadium" and "arrive early at the ballpark to avoid missing any of the game." Even that latter tip is a cruel hoax: The parking gates only open two hours before game time so as to discourage tailgating.
At a certain point, I'd rather just stay home and read about Los Angeles. For those who concur, I recommend Denise Hamilton's crime novels about the LA Times reporter/crime-solver Eve Diamond (My favorite: Prisoner of Memory), but there's also her most recent, the anthology Los Angeles Noir, with stories by Denise and 16 other LA writers.
Ségo Concedes To Sarko!
Just got the news from a friend in Paris -- 11:22 am PST. There's hope for France yet!
Why Islam Creates Murderers, Foments Hate, And Keeps Women Down
Meet Don bin Quixote -- tilting at windmills while the rest of the world moves forward. Yet another fantastic article explaining Islam at faithfreedom.org by "Omyrus." I'll excerpt a few pieces below, but the whole piece is worth reading:
Islam was immensely successful in the first few centuries of its birth. It spread like wildfire from Spain to Pakistan. The success was due to the fact that Islam is a warrior religion - the last of its kind today. But the qualities and ethos that led to success are also some of the reasons for its current failure. Today Muslims are among the poorest and most backward people in the world.Lets take a look at some Islamic beliefs that make no sense unless you realise that Islam was designed to support a war machine. Firstly there is the emphasis of heavenly rewards for its fallen warriors. Just as the ferocious Vikings believed that brave fallen warriors go to Valhalla, Muslims believe that those who are killed in a Holy War (Jihad) go to heaven where they will be rewarded with 72 virgins.
For the conquerors who survived the war, they will get booty and again girls. So either way they win. It is useful for a commander to have brave warriors who do not fear death. Besides this, Muslims are also discouraged from fraternizing with non-Muslims. The Koran tells Muslims not to take Christians and Jews as friends and also says that Idolaters are filthy. Contempt for non-Muslims lead to hate. Hate is a useful emotion to cultivate in your warriors. Compassion and empathy for the “other” do not make willing warriors.
...Next, Islam is highly ritualistic and many rituals and practices appear to a modern person to be pointless. For example, out of the five pillars of Islam, four of them are ritualistic and in themselves do not do any material good. Praying five times a day, declaring Mohammed to be a prophet, going to Mecca to walk round and round the Black Stone and fasting during Ramadan do not by themselves make this a happier, kinder and more prosperous world. The only one of the five pillars that does some good to mankind is the giving of the zakat - alms for the poor. However, this alms giving must be only for Muslims or it does not count. Therefore it benefits only a fifth of mankind.
Would it not be better for the Grand Designer of Islam (whoever that might be) to declare the five pillars to contain prohibitions against murder, theft, adultery and encouragements to perform kindness and assistance to the unfortunate people of the world? Besides these five pillars, Islam has countless other rituals and practices. These include the growing of beards, which hand to use to wash your private parts, which shoe to put on first, what types of body hair you are allowed to remove and so on. Some of these practices and rituals appear meaningless to me but on further examination there is a purpose to them.
The trick is to stop thinking that Islam, like other religions, was designed primarily to uplift humanity from barbarism by making us kinder, more forgiving and so on. It was designed instead to support a war machine. Islamic rituals and practices are designed at least partly to induce discipline and to unite Islam’s early followers who were drawn from many tribes. Lets take a look at the requirement to pray five times a day, facing Mecca.
By praying five times a day, Muslims are reminded to submit to God 5 times a day. By facing Mecca, they are reminded of Arabia and to subtly get Muslims to identify themselves with Arabia. That is also why they insist that you cannot understand the Koran fully unless you know Arabic. Prayers are to be made in Arabic. That is why there are so many Arab wannabes among non-Arab Muslims. This is also why to this day, Muslims are a potential fifth column in western countries. Their loyalty is often to their Ummah and not to the state they live in. Loyalty to their nation state is weak.
...While Islam can create disciplined soldiers, it cannot create good scientists.
As explained earlier, Islam’s ritualistic practices inculcate blind obedience among its followers and not questioning inquisitive minds. The way the Koran is taught in traditional Madrassahs is by memorization. This leaves no room for asking questions. The student is not encouraged to ask questions but only receives wisdom and learning from the teacher. Asking questions risks the student of being accused of blasphemy or unbelief.
The learning process is receptive and not interactive. Great scientists and philosophers do not come from such a passive environment. Human society progresses only if you have people willing to challenge orthodoxy. It should be noted that some of the greatest thinkers, scientists, philosophers, physicians and poets in Islam’s golden age were accused of blasphemy or apostasy. Bashshar Ibn Burd, Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Razi and Al-Ma’arri were most likely apostates.
...Islam is a warrior’s creed that served its early followers well. From impoverished desert tribes, they rose to forge an empire in a short time that stretched from Spain to India. The ethos it engendered – brotherhood for believers, contempt and hatred for non-believers, belief in heavenly rewards for fallen warriors, a high fertility rate (which requires the subordination of women), blind obedience – created formidable warriors.
But these same qualities are handicaps for Muslims in the age of the microchip. Today they lead to poverty, belligerency, war and defeat. Many Muslims look back with fondness to their days of glory and try to recover their former days by using the old methods. That is why there is today a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism across the Muslim world. They are bewildered at their weakness and look for conspiracy theories. Muslims think their failure is due to some Jewish or American plot not realizing that failure comes from within themselves. They are out of touch with reality.
...Muslims are now like Don Quixote tilting at windmills in a world they no longer understand.
via Brussels Journal
What's Wrong With National Health Care?
Ask the Brits. Well, ask those who are able to get medical care to remedy their poor hearing. It turns out a bunch of treatments are going to start getting denied, and not only the frivolous ones. The article is subheaded "Fertility, multiple sclerosis and migraine therapies at risk." Multiple sclerosis and migraine therapies? Dennis Campbell writes in The Observer/UK:
British doctors will take the historic step of admitting for the first time that many health treatments will be rationed in the future because the NHS cannot cope with spiralling demand from patients.In a major report that will embarrass the government, the British Medical Association will say fertility treatment, plastic surgery and operations for varicose veins and minor childhood ailments, such as glue ear, are among a long list of procedures in jeopardy.
James Johnson, the BMA chairman, will warn that patients face a bleak future because they will increasingly be denied treatments. He will urge the NHS to be much more explicit about what it can realistically afford to do and ask political leaders to engage in an open, honest debate about rationing.
...Some PCTs have been bitterly criticised for refusing to pay for expensive new cancer drugs; treatment to prevent older people going blind through age-related eye degeneration and operations to help obese patients lose weight through stomach-stapling.
Each trust already has a committee of medical experts that takes decisions on whether to fund medication for complaints which are not covered in their basic contract with the Department of Health. These include treatments such as growth hormone for adults, neuro-stimulation for migraines, breast reduction and enlargement, treatments for incontinence and even some care for multiple sclerosis.
...Dr Michael Wilks, one of the BMA's senior office holders, revealed the organisation's radical thinking in a recent letter to its 139,000 members updating them on the progress of the BMA working group, headed by Johnson, which has drawn up the document. He told them the group had concluded that 'while the service should remain universal, the challenges raise questions about how comprehensive the service can continue to be. This will depend on whether politicians and the taxpayer are prepared to contemplate either increasing expenditure or explicit rationing.
I'm reminded of an American friend, married to a French woman and living in France, who bragged about his "free" health care. I reminded him that he'd just complained about paying 65% of his income in taxes. That's not free health care, that's extraordinarily expensive health care!
When Free Speech Becomes Stolen Speech
I'm a fierce defender of freedom of speech, including your right to criticize me, make fun of me, parody me, and call me an ignoranus -- providing you don't steal my name to do it.
In other words, site names like AmyAlkonsucks.com, AmyAlkonisamoron.com, and AmyAlkoneatssnot.com are just fine with me. The moment you take my name, however, and make it look like the site is mine, I'm going to legally fuck you up the ass with a sharp stick, as long and hard as the law and your savings will allow.
I actually think the parody site just put up about me is sort of funny, particularly the part about the minor skin disease spread across the population, and how 2% of it is "The Alkon Family." Too bad the person who put it up doesn't have the sense or the ethics to know not to steal my name and make it the site name look like it's actually mine.
Actually, come to think of it, if they hadn't done that, I'd probably just be pleased, and kind of flattered, and I'd probably put a link to the parody site on my blog.
The Doublemint Twins Hit 80
Try The P-Chip
When I was growing up, we didn't have the V-Chip, just the P-Chip -- parents who actually parented, instead of leaving the job to the government. Kerry Howley writes in Reason of the FCC alternative to the parenting thing:
Consider the V-Chip, the blocking device that Congress demanded be installed in every new TV larger than 13 inches. Even more beguiling than the little-known on/off switch, this control module appears well beyond the understanding of most child-owning Americans. The report warns us that activating a V-Chip is a “multi-step” process. Even worse, parents don’t even seem to know that their televisions contain these devices. Thirty nine percent of parents who own V-Chips apparently think they don’t. And blocking technology, the report helpfully explains, “does not ensure that children are prevented from viewing violent programming unless it is activated.”When it comes to the TV ratings system, parents don’t fare much better. “Only 24 percent of parents of young children,” explains the report, “could name any of the ratings that would apply to programming appropriate for children that age.” In 2001, 14 percent of parents said they’d never heard of the TV ratings system; today, 20 percent say they’ve never heard of it. Twelve percent of parents knew that the rating FV stands for “fantasy violence”; eight percent told researchers that it meant “family viewing.”
...There is another, more Occam-friendly explanation for parents' ignorance of ratings and chips, but it is in no one’s interest to suggest that parents aren’t particularly concerned about the effects of Extreme Makeover or CSI. Free speech groups who promote education and voluntary parental controls are invested in parental competence. Government officials who want to “help” parents by obviating the need for parental discretion must argue that their help is wanted. Both sides of the debate have adopted the rhetoric of parental empowerment, and they’re both faced with a majority of parents who choose not to use the tools they’re forced to buy. And so censorship advocates argue that parents are the true children, in want of the protection they’re simply unable to provide.
It’s not that parents don’t think media violence is benign in the abstract; when polled, they tend to express concern about its effects. It just doesn’t seem to be their kids at issue. A similar dynamic seems to be at work in video game purchases. According to a recent Federal Trade Commission report (pdf), 90 percent of parents are aware of the game ratings system, and two thirds of parents always or usually agree with its determinations. Yet 40 percent of parents who know system report that they let their kids play games deemed Mature; nearly a quarter of kids named an M-rated game as a favorite.
Parents, adrift illiterates that they are, probably haven’t perused many studies on media violence and child aggression, nor many meta-analyses assessing the state of that research. But perhaps they’ve already concluded, through the field experiment that is parenting, what skeptical researchers have long held: The link between televised violence and a violent society is extremely tenuous. It’s a fact even the report’s authors seem to have gathered, given their tepid description of the link. “We agree with the views of the Surgeon General and find that, on balance, research provides strong evidence that exposure to violence in the media can increase aggressive behavior in children, at least in the short term.”
Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason, writes in a piece originally published in the LA Times of the FCC's real goal, as stated by FCC commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate:
The ultimate goal of the report, she argues, is not simply to empower parents who worry about what's on TV in their house but to change "the media landscape outside our homes" (emphasis hers) and to increase "the amount of family-friendly, uplifting and nonviolent programming being produced."
Hey, lady, ever heard of the free market? Companies produce stuff because there are customers to buy it. We already have "public TV" that we're all forced to pay for with our taxes (I'm not anti-PBS and NPR -- I just think they should not be taxpayer funded). I enjoy watching violent, sexy TV like CSI and 24 (although this season of 24 gives new meaning to the term "straining credulity"). If some parent is letting their kid stay up to watch Grissom on Vegas CSI find a taxidermied severed head -- perhaps the solution is, I dunno, suggesting they take parenting classes, not taking away (or at least limiting) my TV?
The People In Charge of Protecting Annoying You At Airports
...Protect annoy themselves for a change. Matt Apuzzo at AP writes:
The Transportation Security Administration has lost a computer hard drive containing Social Security numbers, bank data and payroll information for about 100,000 employees.Authorities realized Thursday the hard drive was missing from a controlled area at TSA headquarters.
If they're all about security, why do they have this information lying around on a hard drive anyway?
TSA Administrator Kip Hawley sent a letter to employees Friday apologizing for the lost data and promising to pay for one year of credit monitoring services.
Whoopee! And they've announced this publicly, so after a year, if the drive has been stolen, the thief can start really reaping from the people on it.
"TSA has no evidence that an unauthorized individual is using your personal information, but we bring this incident to your attention so that you can be alert to signs of any possible misuse of your identity," Hawley wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press. "We profoundly apologize for any inconvenience and concern that this incident has caused you."The agency said it did not know whether the device is still within headquarters or was stolen.
TSA said it has asked the FBI and Secret Service to investigate and said it would fire anyone discovered to have violated the agency's data-protection policies.
I'm sure that'll be very comforting to all the employees who have to repeatedly check their credit -- especially those in the many states (unlike California) where they aren't allowed to freeze their credit.
Does Ron Paul Have A Chance?
I didn't get to watch the debate (I have several pretty crushing deadlines now), but I heard a bit of it on the 11 o'clock news...with political consultant Sherry Bebitch Jeffe saying it wasn't a debate, but the political version of speed dating.
I read that three of the candidates don't accept evolution -- Tancredo, Brownback and Huckabee. Jeez, if these guys get anywhere near having a chance, how embarrassing is that for the level of rationality and modernity in this country. (To think people call Europe "the old country.")
Anyway, from one of the snippets I saw on the news, I was pleased to see they included libertarian Texas rep Ron Paul, who was the single person they showed talking sense. Is it possible Ron Paul has a chance of getting elected? Here's an excerpt from one of his columns, "Getting Iraq War Funding Wrong Again," from LewRockwell.com:
What is the best way forward in Iraq? Where do we go from here? First, Congress should admit its mistake in unconstitutionally transferring war power to the president and in citing United Nations resolutions as justification for war against Iraq. We should never go to war because another nation has violated a United Nations resolution. Then we should repeal the authority given to the president in 2002 and disavow presidential discretion in starting wars. Then we should start bringing our troops home in the safest manner possible.Though many will criticize the president for mis-steps in Iraq and at home, it is with the willing participation of Congress, through measures like this war-funding bill, that our policy continues to veer off course. Additionally, it is with the complicity of Congress that we have become a nation of pre-emptive war, secret military tribunals, torture, rejection of habeas corpus, warrantless searches, undue government secrecy, extraordinary renditions, and uncontrolled spying on the American people. Fighting over there has nothing to do with preserving freedoms here at home. More likely the opposite is true.
More Ron Paul columns at this link. Here's another excerpt -- from his statement on the Iraq War Resolution before the U.S. House of Representatives on March 7:
The 2007 military budget, $700 billion, apparently is not enough. And it’s all done under the slogan of “supporting the troops,” even as our policy guarantees more Americans will die and Walter Reed will continue to receive casualties.Every problem Congress and the administration create requires more money to fix. The mantra remains the same: spend more money we don’t have, borrow from the Chinese, or just print it.
This policy of interventionism is folly, and it cannot continue forever. It will end, either because we wake up or because we go broke.
Interventionism always leads to unanticipated consequences and blowback, like:
-A weakened, demoralized military;
-Exploding deficits;
-Billions of dollars wasted;
-Increased inflation;
-Less economic growth;
-An unstable currency;
-Painful stock market corrections;
-Political demagoguery;
-Lingering anger at home; and
-Confusion about who is to blame.These elements combine to create an environment that inevitably undermines personal liberty. Virtually all American wars have led to diminished civil liberties at home.
Most of our mistakes can be laid at the doorstep of our failure to follow the Constitution.
That Constitution, if we so desire, can provide needed guidance and a roadmap to restore our liberties and change our foreign policy. This is critical if we truly seek peace and prosperity.
Who is Ron Paul? His bio here:
Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.
And here are some of his beliefs:
-Rights belong to individuals, not groups.
-Property should be owned by people, not government.
-All voluntary associations should be permissible -- economic and social.
-The government's monetary role is to maintain the integrity of the monetary unit, not participate in fraud.
-Government exists to protect liberty, not to redistribute wealth or to grant special privileges.
-The lives and actions of people are their own responsibility, not the government's.
I don't like his position on abortion, but I'm with him on a number of the other issues. Does a libertarian finally have a chance, if even a snowball's chance? At the very least, some of his beliefs might get aired to Americans who aren't all that familiar with libertarianism, and who are disenchated with Democratic and Republican sleaze-and-stupidity-as-usual.
Of course, it's my belief that Newt Gingrich will end up being the Republican candidate. Smart of him to stay out of the loser pack at the moment by not declaring.
Jack Dunphy Has A Good Question
"In the time Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and all the lesser voices in the Choir of the Perpetually Outraged have spent bellowing about the rantings of an aging radio gasbag, how many young black men have been busying themselves killing each other?" In National Review, Dunphy writes of a terribly brutal double rape and double murder that nobody's heard of -- while a rape that never happened at Duke made national and international news over and over and over again:
Chances are, unless you live in Tennessee, you will not recognize the names Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Christian, 21, and Newsome, 23, both of Knoxville, were driving through that city together on the night of January 6 when they were kidnapped and murdered. Newsome’s burned body was found along some railroad tracks on January 7. Christian remained missing for two more days until her body, stuffed in a trash can, was found in a home not far from where Newsome’s was found. Police and prosecutors allege both victims were raped before being killed. Yes, both. Three men and a woman have been charged with the crimes in a 46-count grand jury indictment handed down in Knoxville on January 31.The story was given a few brief mentions on the AP wire, which were in turn carried on the Fox News and ABC News websites, but you’ll find no mention of the crime in the online archives of CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, the New York Times, or the Washington Post. Run a similar search for stories on the Duke case and you’ll be sifting through the results for hours. It’s not as though these news providers have shied away from crime since being embarrassed in the Duke case. For example, when Tara Grant went missing from her suburban Detroit home in February, the investigation grew and grew in media attention until it became a national story.
...Yet the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome are known to almost no one outside Tennessee. Why?
It’s simple: the four suspects accused of killing Christian and Newsome are blacks from the inner city of Knoxville.
Uh oh, we’re not supposed to talk about such things, are we. We’re careful to step ever so gingerly around issues of race and crime, except of course when there is an opportunity, as in the Duke case, to point to a group of privileged whites and say, “See? Look at how badly they’ve behaved! Look at how they treated that poor black single mother!” And in the Michigan case we can look down our noses at a prosperous suburban white family and say, “Look how screwed up they are!” A visitor from a foreign land might read the news and suspect America was plagued by rampaging hordes of collegiate lacrosse players and middle-aged suburbanites. And all the while the far more serious problem of violent crime among minorities in our inner cities is almost completely ignored.
...To its credit, the Los Angeles Times has begun bringing some small measure of attention to these disturbing numbers in the form of its new online feature, the Homicide Report, which tracks every murder occurring in Los Angeles County and includes information on each victim’s race. The inclusion of this information has been criticized in some quarters, and the Times’s response to this criticism deserves quoting at length:
. . . The Homicide Report departs from this rule [against mentioning a victim’s race] in the interest of presenting the most complete and accurate demographic picture of who is at risk of dying from homicide in Los Angeles County. Race and ethnicity, like age and gender, are stark predictors of homicide risk. Blacks are vastly more likely to die from homicide than whites, and Latinos somewhat more likely. Black men, in particular, are extraordinarily vulnerable: They are 4% of this country's population, but, according to the Centers for Disease Control, they represented 35% of homicide victims nationally in 2004. Local numbers mirror these national disparities. According to an analysis for The Times by county health officials of homicide data between 1991 and 2002, Latino men ages 20 to 24 were five times more likely than white men the same age to die, and black men were 16 times more likely.The Homicide Report recognizes the peril of dehumanizing victims by reducing their lives and deaths to a few scant facts — particularly racial designations which provide only the roughest markers of ancestry and history. But given the magnitude of difference in homicide risk along racial and ethnic lines — and the extremity of suffering which homicide inflicts on subsets of the population — we opt here to present information which lays bare racial and ethnic contours of the problem so conspicuous in the coroner's data. The goal is to promote understanding, and honor a basic journalistic principle: Tell the truth about who suffers . .
...Only when the true magnitude of this problem is acknowledged can its solutions be identified and implemented. It will come too late for Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, of course, but in at last daring to report the grim but persistent truth in these statistics, perhaps the Los Angeles Times has opened a door through which the remedy to inner-city crime is found.
Can We Talk About Persistent Public Nose-Blowing?
Okay, if you have to sneak a little booger clearance and it’s impossible to leave your table for some reason (like, when you weren’t looking, somebody chained you to your chair), we’ll deal. Once.
As I'm writing this (to be published later), I’m sitting in a café at a table adjacent to that of a rather pretty girl with about three three-ton truckloads of snot up her nose, who thinks nothing of snorting it out, loudly and repeatedly, into a series of napkins -- while I’m eating lunch. (Or, rather, while I was eating lunch. The combo of her big honking snot blows and my egg salad platter just wasn't working for me.)
How does it not occur to…curs…like her, that it might be a tad…UNAPPEALING!…for others in earshot to be forced to participate in the details of their congestion?! Stay. The Fuck. Home. You disgusting walking secretion.
If only I could find out this girl’s name, and…hmmm, here’s a thought…I’ve always fantasized about calling the mother of some undermannered cretin I encounter in public and asking who’s responsible for the inconsiderate oaf-ette her daughter has become. One of these days...one of these days!
Hopeless Springs Eternal
I put up another Advice Goddess column yesterday; this one, from one of those young nitwit girls with a Joan of Arc complex. Here's her question:
I am 22, and my boyfriend of 15 months is 41. He has an extremely difficult time expressing any affection or emotion, and our physical intimacy has been dwindling despite my efforts to seduce him. His family says I’m the first girl he’s brought home since 1987, and his longest relationship. They’re rooting for me, and say I should call them if he starts pushing me away. They want him to have a family, and he says he wants one, too, but has never come close. I realize I’m young, but for the first time, I feel selfless. I would happily sacrifice my happiness for his. It’s so important to me that he is able to become a father, even if it is not with me. But, maybe our age difference means we were supposed to meet so I can bear his children. I strongly believe this man is my soul mate, even if he is not so sure. How do I keep from going crazy while not pressuring him so much that I lose him?--Holding Pattern
Here's my answer:
Just what every kid needs, a father who’s incapable of expressing any affection or emotion. Should work wonders when your little girl wakes up screaming for her daddy to protect her from the monsters. Oops, Daddy doesn’t do hugs. Could she work with a pat on the back, or maybe a nice firm handshake?As for you, proud holder of the title, “First Girl He’s Brought Home Since 1987,” I’m guessing the others didn’t find emotional constipation such a strong selling point. Apparently, it works for you. (Pops was a cold chap?) Clearly, you don’t want a man who’s affectionate. If you did, you’d be with one. It seems what you really want is a challenge: Go where no woman has gone before! Only you can unlock the love within! (Yeah? Wanna bet?) When a guy shows you he’s incapable of affection, the appropriate response isn’t to latch onto him like a tick and go celebrate with his family.
Chances are, your parents sent you through school so you could make something of yourself, not make something of a broken, middle-aged man. At 22, you’re faced with all these big questions: Who are you, where are you going, what are you doing? The answer shouldn’t be making some guy your project in hopes of avoiding the looming uncertainties of you. Once you actually do the work to develop a self, you might be a little pickier about where you sacrifice it: maybe for world peace, or for those little babies with the distended bellies -- not for a guy who won’t caress your neck unless you call his mother and get her to talk him into it.
Putting aside how silly it is to believe that everybody has one designated “soul mate” (some women say that about each of their six husbands), you can’t actually believe yours is a guy whose emotional availability rivals that of a cinderblock. Instead of clinging to this picture of the life you could have if only he were completely different, why not ditch him and work toward the life you could have if you were completely different? Like, if you had a strong self, felt you deserved to be happy, and to have love in your life. It beats setting yourself on a path to wake up at 30, bitter and resentful, realizing you aren’t the only couple in need of marital aids -- just probably the only one turning to gallon jugs of de-icer and a portable defibrillator.
There are already a pile of comments at this link.
One More Thing To Love About Kate Coe
She's very smart, very funny, and whenever somebody offers me some TV gig, I typically call her up, tell her what I'm worried about and she pops off, off the top of her head, the way they actually should be doing it...which always makes total sense and is always a much better way than the way they actually are doing it.
And then, there's the fact that she, like me, is the kind of person people just want to spill shit to. At the Reason magazine party last night for John Stossel's new book, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong, she revealed that a guy sitting next to her on an airplane once turned to her and said:
"I've tasted my own semen."
Hmm, first I'm snot-blogging, now it's semen. Seems there's sort of a theme going here. I promise to return to my regularly scheduled excretion-free vulgarities as soon as possible. But, first, there's this, bringing up the rear, via Jackie Danicki, and available at some point here. And while I'm at it, I just can't leave out the tampon stun gun:
Ladies can replace that monthly period with an exclamation mark as feminine hygiene goes lethal with The Pink Stinger, a taser/stun gun creatively disguised as a tampon...except for the buttons, prods and high voltage. This weapon of mass absorption aims to target a niche market consumer, that being the tampon wielding women who desire private and discreet security in a friendly familiar package.
No Negotiating With Barbarians
Yoohoo, all you apologists for the Palestinians...I don't think this Hamas primitive is making any exceptions. From a Jerusalem Post story by Etgar Lefkovitz, a top Hamas official orders the kiling, not just of all Jews, but all Americans, based on his belief in a god he has no evidence exists and that murder-inciting book, the Koran.
He doesn't do that in so many words (that would bring trouble); he asks "Allah" to do it -- code for: "Hey, all you 16-year-olds with no good reason to live since Palestinian society is not about production, but about whining and death -- go blow your ass up in the presence of Israelis or Americans who are doing shit with their lives." Here's an excerpt from Lefkovitz' story:
Sheik Ahmad Bahr, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, declared during a Friday sermon at a Sudan mosque that America and Israel will be annihilated and called upon Allah to kill Jews and Americans "to the very Last One." Following are excerpts from the sermon that took place last month, courtesy of MEMRI....The Hamas spokesperson concluded with a prayer, saying: "Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one. Oh Allah, show them a day of darkness. Oh Allah, who sent down His Book, the mover of the clouds, who defeated the enemies of the Prophet, defeat the Jews and the Americans, and bring us victory over them."
He has most conveniently just declared war on us. The response is clear. Squash them like bugs before this gets out of hand.
via Drudge
Those Poor Little Lost Bunnies, The Palestinians
Over at Dhimmiwatch, Fitzgerald lays out the truth about the "Palestinian" "refugees":
Arab and Muslim states, or governments, although they now ask Israel to surrender still more, created the so-called "Palestinian refugee" problem. These were not classic refugees, hounded out, but rather people who left a war zone, for an Arab assault was anticipated even in 1947. They were confident that they would soon be returning. The evidence for this, written and spoken, is overwhelming. However, very few people bother to consult that evidence. Or if they do, they dismiss it with hardly a moment’s thought, since it does not correspond to their own deeply imbedded misinformation. An army of Arab propagandists, speaking both directly and through their willing Western megaphones (such as Jimmy Carter, morally the worst of our presidents), have fed them that misinformation for decades now.One of the staples of modern journalism is the "Arab" or, in a little nunc-pro-tunc updating, the "Palestinian" family that "returns" to Jaffa or Jerusalem to stare wistfully at their old house. I remember one case a few years ago where someone came to "stare" at his "old house" and it turned out that the "old house" had been built long after 1948, and on an empty plot.
Fantastic fact page about Israel -- from a link posted by one of Fitzgerald's commenters.
La Vote En France
Sarkozy and Ségo are debating at noon, PST, on TV5, France. I get TV5 at home, but a friend in my French class last night said it's also disponible (available) on the Internet as a live simulcast. Even if your French isn't that great, because it's a debate, they're likely to be speaking slowly and sans argot (slang). Here's the TV5 link.
Vote Your Vagina
There's a truly stupid piece about French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal in the IHT, via The Boston Globe, which reminded me of how angry I get when people assume I'd be excited to vote for a woman for president.
Excuse me if I don't choose to vote for a candidate based on whether or not they have labia, but simply on whether they're the best person to lead. In looking to elect a symbol of feminism in France, MIT humanities prof Isabelle de Courtivron feels differently:
Indeed, if any woman is to reach the highest office, it should be Ségolène Royal, for she corresponds to a French national archetype of femininity. In a new book the writer Michele Sarde details how this young woman from the provinces represents a subtle mixture of traditional France and the rebellious modernity of Simone de Beauvoir. She is an educated woman who has always worked. With her partner, François Hollande, she has shared both private responsibilities (they have four children together) and political visions (he is the secretary of the Socialist Party).
Okay, so she's pretty, she's from the provinces, and she's got some spirit! Plus she's "educated," she's always worked, and she's got a peer marriage with her partner -- yet another deluded socialist paving the way to the total economic ruin of France. Gee whiz, where's the line to vote?!
Madame de Courtivron continues (and, as she does, her piece seems more and more like it must be a joke):
So where are the feminists who should be celebrating this historic occasion and protesting the sexist attacks on the first serious woman candidate for the French presidency? A petition entitled "1 million women have had enough!" - objecting to the way Royal has been treated - has gathered only 17,000 signatures. "Feminism" remains a taboo word in France.Femininity and power are still incompatible in many parts of the world. I say this with a glance toward this side of the Atlantic, where the first serious woman candidate for president has endured petty, unfair criticism in areas ranging from her hair style to her marriage. So while women are gaining political power around the world , the bad news is that they still often find themselves blocked by unrealistic expectations and intractable gender stereotypes. Royal's experience may reflect not just a "French exception," but also a more global reality.
What I've read about Royal reflects that she's a rather dim bulb with few good ideas, a total lack of experience or sense in foreign policy, and a knowledge of economics (check out her minimum wage package, just for starters) that shows her to be the political equivalent of a ditsy housewife who has no idea how to balance her checkbook. Electing her would be an economic and political disaster for France...which already has just about all the enconomic and political disaster it needs, no?
What France really needs, of course, is not some kicky chick with a pretty face, nice legs, and a winning smile, but Margaret Thatcher. Okay, so Thatcher is a battle-ax who dresses just slightly more snappily than the queen, and she looks a bit like a man in drag. The lady has a command of politics, economics, and how to run a country -- and without answering every other question she's asked like Royal does by demurely saying she'll defer to her advisors.
And P.S., in suggesting Thatcher, it's only a coincidence that she happens to be a woman. Of course, the fact that she's British is a major stumbling block. But, if you can't get Thatcher, France, do try for the next best thing -- even if that person doesn't have a clitoris or legs that look all that comely in a short skirt and a little pair of heels.
"The Pay Gap" Is Really A Data Gap
I suspected this as I heard all the howls of commentators on TV about how women are getting screwed in the paycheck department. I remember a talk I heard by Steven Pinker at an evolutionary psych conference about how women tend to go into social work and lower-paid professions, and if we're going to have affirmative action to bring women into engineering, should we also try to force men to go into "listening professions" and such that they're generally not as interested or equipped for? (And no, this isn't to say that men can't be shrinks or women can't be engineers -- and it is to say that Summers shouldn't have been fired.)
A digression into the truth about Summers' speech by Steven Pinker over at The New Republic:
Summers's critics have repeatedly mangled his suggestion that innate differences might be one cause of gender disparities (a suggestion that he drew partly from a literature review in my book, The Blank Slate) into the claim that they must be the only cause. And they have converted his suggestion that the statistical distributions of men's and women's abilities are not identical to the claim that all men are talented and all women are not--as if someone heard that women typically live longer than men and concluded that every woman lives longer than every man. Just as depressing is an apparent unfamiliarity with the rationale behind political equality, as when [Nancy] Hopkins sarcastically remarked that, if Summers were right, Harvard should amend its admissions policy, presumably to accept fewer women. This is a classic confusion between the factual claim that men and women are not indistinguishable and the moral claim that we ought to judge people by their individual merits rather than the statistics of their group.
Perhaps relevant, perhaps not, in the hiring and pay dispute, is the fact that a lot of employers would probably rather hire a man than a woman who may get pregnant and leave. And then there's the fact that I think a lot of men take a more competitive approach to their careers -- perhaps because a career, not a guy's looks, is largely what determines whether he gets chicks, and what kind. I also take a competitive approach to my career, working seven days a week writing, because what I do is largely who I am, and it means a great deal to me. I find other women more likely to want children and families -- although, of course, not all. Or, if they don't want a family, many tend to put their relationship first and who they are second. (Incidentally, by not having my relationship be my whole life but yet very important to me, I think it's a lot happier than most people's.)
Back to the pay gap, luckily, there Steve Chapman over at Reason to take apart the data behind the whining:
On its face, the evidence in the AAUW study looks damning. "One year out of college," it says, "women working full-time earn only 80 percent as much as their male colleagues earn. Ten years after graduation, women fall farther behind, earning only 69 percent as much as men earn."But read more, and you learn things that don't get much notice on Equal Pay Day. As the report acknowledges, women with college degrees tend to go into fields like education, psychology and the humanities, which typically pay less than the sectors preferred by men, such as engineering, math and business. They are also more likely than men to work for nonprofit groups and local governments, which do not offer salaries that Alex Rodriguez would envy.
As they get older, many women elect to work less so they can spend time with their children. A decade after graduation, 39 percent of women are out of the work force or working part time -- compared with only 3 percent of men. When these mothers return to full-time jobs, they naturally earn less than they would have if they had never left.
Even before they have kids, men and women often do different things that may affect earnings. A year out of college, notes AAUW, women in full-time jobs work an average of 42 hours a week, compared to 45 for men. Men are also far more likely to work more than 50 hours a week.
Buried in the report is a startling admission: "After accounting for all factors known to affect wages, about one-quarter of the gap remains unexplained and may be attributed to discrimination" (my emphasis). Another way to put it is that three-quarters of the gap clearly has innocent causes -- and that we actually don't know whether discrimination accounts for the rest.
I asked Harvard economist Claudia Goldin if there is sufficient evidence to conclude that women experience systematic pay discrimination. "No," she replied. There are certainly instances of discrimination, she says, but most of the gap is the result of different choices. Other hard-to-measure factors, Goldin thinks, largely account for the remaining gap -- "probably not all, but most of it."
The divergent career paths of men and women may reflect a basic unfairness in what's expected of them. It could be that a lot of mothers, if they had their way, would rather pursue careers but have to stay home with the kids because their husbands insist. Or it may be that for one reason or another, many mothers prefer to take on the lion's share of child-rearing. In any case, the pay disparity caused by these choices can't be blamed on piggish employers.
June O'Neill, an economist at Baruch College and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has uncovered something that debunks the discrimination thesis. Take out the effects of marriage and child-rearing, and the difference between the genders suddenly vanishes. "For men and women who never marry and never have children, there is no earnings gap," she said in an interview.
That's a fact you won't hear from AAUW or the Democratic presidential candidates. The prevailing impulse on Equal Pay Day was to lament how far we are from the goal. The true revelation, though, is how close.
It's All Where You Put The Punctuation
Abstinence Only -- or -- Abstinence: Only For Other People! The escort-visiting Randall Tobias said this to PBS' Frontline PBS' Frontline in March 2005, when he was Bush's global AIDS czar:
Well, the heart of our prevention programs is what's known as ABC: abstinence, be faithful, and the correct and consistent use of condoms when appropriate. This is not an American invention; this is something that President [Yoweri] Museveni in Uganda figured out over time when he recognized that there was an enormous problem in Uganda.And it's also not "ABC: Take your pick." It's abstinence really focused heavily on young people and getting them to understand that the best way to keep from getting infected is to be abstinent and not engage in sexual activity until they are old enough and mature enough and get into a committed relationship, such as a marriage. B is being faithful within that committed relationship. And A and B, those two things together clearly had a huge impact in bringing the infection rates down in Uganda.
C recognizes the fact that there are individuals in high-risk circumstances...
(such as Federal officials seeing prostitutes)
...who either by choice or by coercion are going to find themselves unable to follow A and B, and therefore they need to have access to condoms, and they need to understand the correct and consistent use of condoms. I think more and more of the experts, the people who really understand the prevention requirements with HIV/AIDS, have come to endorse ABC in a very balanced way as the appropriate prevention centerpiece.
via Slate