Where Do You Draw The Poopy Diaper Line?
On one hand, I feel for the 3-year-old girl who got expelled from preschool for having accidents (of the poop and pee variety). On the other hand, are preschool workers expected to spend a good bit of their time cleaning up after this kid?
Here's what the mother told the WaPo's Brigid Schulte:
"We would like Arlington County to revise its policy so that other kids and other families won't have their lives disrupted like this for something that's totally developmentally normal," Rosso said. "If a kid is emotionally and intellectually ready for school . . . then they should have the ability to go, regardless of whether their bladder has caught up with their brain."
Maybe the mother needs to wait till her kid is potty-trained before she sends her off to preschool. Or, wait -- do what she did:
After frantic calls, the parents found a spot for Zoe in a program that works with children who are being potty-trained."We told Zoe that we want her to go to a school where people aren't going to get mad at her for having accidents," Rosso said.
Since she started at the new school on Jan. 11, her mother said, Zoe has made it to the toilet every time.
All people are not qualified for all situations, and sometimes that includes 3-year-olds.
Does Calling Your Partner "Honey" Kill Your Sex Life?
I don't think so, although I think "Schmoopie" probably doesn't do wonders for it.
I read an interesting new book recommended to me by Dr. Helen, and there's much I agree with in it, save for the notion that calling him "Honey" causes sex to go the way of the dodo. I blogged about this previously here.
The book is Stop Calling Him Honey and Start Having Sex: How Changing Your Everyday Habits Will Make You Hot for Each Other All Over Again
My favorite quote from the book dovetails with a column I wrote (on the woman who left the bathroom door open, then farted, picked her zits, and came to bed looking for some action from her husband). Arana and Davis write on page 61:
Can you imagine Grace Kelly telling Cary Grant that she was going to go "squeeze out a shit"?
I think Steamer and his wife (from the comments on the last blog item) have a good relationship model to go by. In his words:
It's one thing to call your partner Babe or Honey, but please stay away from the cutsie names. Especially in public. And for God's sake, don't insist that your partner call you one of those names in public.My wife and I are exceedingly easygoing. she is the first woman I have ever been with that didn't see my picking up a book or a newspaper as a signal to ask question after question.
We have our time apart, but we can spend an evening together doing something together or we can respect that the other wants to read a book and find something to do on out own.
My wife has a small cleaning company and keeps the apartment immaculate. I am not allowed to clean (although I did when she was laid up after an operation).
And get this. A couple of weeks ago, I was installing roll out shelves in a cabinet she had asked me to make and just before noon, she reminded me that my football game was about to start and I should pack up the tools so I don't miss the kick off. This one's a keeper!
Posted by: Steamer at October 27, 2010 8:33 AM
What's Next In Egypt?
Phyllis Chesler, who was married to an Arab man and lived in the Middle East for some time (as well as continuing to write on issues surrounding it), blogs:
Shamefully, Obama did not even stand rhetorically with the demonstrating and bloodied democrats on the streets of Tehran and he is now only tepidly standing with their counterparts on the streets of Cairo. Yes, America has always supported the Arab "Strong Horse," the brutal dictator whose reign has been justified as a means of ensuring regional stability. Karzai is our man on the ground, as is Mubarak. Secretary of State Clinton has called for "an orderly transition." She opposes "violence." The Pentagon has called for "restraint."I have no idea what they mean. Do you?
Tyrannical as Mubarak has been, if he goes, the Muslim Brotherhood and possibly Al-Qaeda will zoom to power. And, believe it or not, they will be worse, ever so much worse, both to their own people and to the West.
The barefoot Egyptian protesters, the suffering and impoverished people, are simply not organized ideologically, politically, economically, or militarily. They will have no way of holding their own against such dark and purposeful forces. They have not read Saul Alinsky's guidebook and have no charismatic and well-connected leader. One wonders whether the Egyptians finally rose up because they saw Tunisians doing so--and successfully--on the internet, on Al-Jazeera.
Is this an era of cellphone revolutions? Will all that bright technology only end up ushering in a new Dark Age?
Elitists Have Less Fun
Loved this bit from the editors of NYPlusOneMag, "Revolt of the Elites." An excerpt:
To favor a more challenging type of book, a less strictly tonal sort of music, a less representational kind of painting -- or, more to the point today, a less completely shitty grade of film product -- mostly demonstrated that you came from a higher social class. And many Americans have come to agree. So when Al Gore said his favorite book was Stendhal's Red and the Black, this could be boiled down to mean, You know what? I'm an upper-class guy who went to Harvard. Of course, everyone with power in America is an upper-class guy who went to Harvard. But this isn't held to be the problem.The noxious thing about the cultural elite is supposed to be its bad faith. Everyone else in America more or less forthrightly confesses that they're trying to grab as much money as they can, and if somebody has meanwhile forced a liberal education on them, that doesn't mean they've had to like it. Upon making their money, real Americans are furthermore honest enough to spend it on those things that evolution or God have programmed humans to sincerely enjoy. In winter recreation, this might be snowmobiling -- genuine petroleum-burning fun! -- as opposed to cross-country skiing, a tedious trial of aerobic virtue. In wintry Scandinavian literature, it might be Stieg Larsson rather than Knut Hamsun. Oppositions of the same kind -- between untutored enjoyment and the acquired taste -- can be generated endlessly, and are. Half the idea is that genuine, honest people differ not so much in their tastes as in their economic ability to indulge those tastes; there exists an oligarchy of money but no aristocracy of spirit. The other half is that less sincere people -- elitists -- lie to themselves and everybody else about what's really in their red-meat hearts. Instead of saying I'm pleased with my superior class background, they pretend to like boring books, films, and sports.
Ground Zero Mosque: Calls For Tolerance
Me? I'm wildly intolerant of this sort of thinking, and I encourage you to join me in my intolerance. Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein write in the New York Post of the new imam at the Ground Zero mosque/"cultural center" (a culture I hope we don't ever start to emulate):
The new imam at the Ground Zero mosque and cultural center believes people who are gay were probably abused as children and that people who leave Islam and preach a new religion should be jailed.... The organizers of the mosque sought yesterday to distance themselves from Adhami's comments and backpedal on his role in the $100 million project.
The Park51 organization announced earlier this month that he was a "senior adviser" to the effort.
But the Park51 organizers posted on Twitter that Adhami is only an "adviser" and that his views do not reflect those of the project.
Whoopsy! And of course, Islam calls for apostates to be killed. Read about it in detail here, from Ibn Warraq:
It is clear quite clear that under Islamic Law an apostate must be put to death. There is no dispute on this ruling among classical Muslim or modern scholars...
Check out another example of the two faces of Islam here.
Meltdown
Kate Coe is in New York, and writes, "On my way downtown, I run into a childhood pal. E. 51st":
If you get an error message, I'd be super grateful if you'd copy it and drop it to me in an e-mail at adviceamy at the evil AOL dot com, so I can forward it to Gregg.
Oh, and please try to post your comment again if it doesn't go through. Apparently, the problem is intermittent, in the middle of the night.
Welcome To Albuquerque, USSR
TSA thugs don't know your rights, so you'd better. And thanks to all of those, like Phil Mocek, who have stood up to the TSA to their personal financial and other detriment:
A message under the YouTube video:
Video recording made by Phil Mocek at Albuquerque International Airport, just outside the TSA barricade, on November 15, 2009, from approximately 2:34 p.m. - 2:38 p.m. Mountain time. This video (without the subtitles) was presented by the prosecution in State of New Mexico v. Phillip Mocek in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court on January 20, 2011.More information about the case, including addresses for my legal defense fund (I'm paying for this out-of-pocket), can be found in an FAQ maintained by The Identity Project at http://papersplease.org/wp/mocek
Audio of most of the trial is available for download or streaming on the Internet Archive. There's an index at http://papersplease.org/wp/2011/01/24...
Visible and audible in the video are Mocek, Albuquerque Airport Police Department officers Robert F. "Bobby" Dilley (116), Landrow "Wiggy" Wiggins (137), and Julio A. De La Peña (135), and TSA staff LTSO Jonathon Breedon, TSM Gerald Romero, STSO Anthony M. Schreiner, Greg Martinez, and BDO Laura Moots.
More on what happened (winning verdict! Mr. Mocek was acquitted) and your rights here:
Uncontested TSA and police testimony at the trial established, among other things, three important points:Despite calling themselves "officers", TSA checkpoint staff are not law enforcement officers and have no police powers -- and both TSA and police are fully aware of this. When the TSA calls for the police, they are just like any other civilians who call the police, and the police have no obligation to do what they ask. Police should not act, and have no right to act, in such a case, unless the police have a reasonable basis for believing that a crime has actually been committed or is being committed.You have the right, recognized by the TSA, to fly without showing ID. "It happens all the time. We have a procedure for that," according to the lead TSA "Travel Document Checker" at the Albuquerque airport. Signs and announcements in airports saying that all passengers must present ID are false.
You have the right, recognized by the TSA, to photograph or film anywhere in publicly accessible areas of airports including TSA checkpoints, as long as you don't violate any local laws, photograph the images on the screening monitors, interfere with the screening process, or slow down the line. (Whether those limitations to your First Amendment rights claimed by the TSA are legal or Constitutional was not decided in this case, since Mr. Mocek wasn't filming the images on the screening monitors, interfering with the screening process, or slowing down the line.) Signs or statements that photography is prohibited at Federal checkpoints are, in general, false.
Annoying the TSA is not a crime. Photography is not a crime. You have the right to fly without ID, and to photograph, film, and record what happens. Your best defense is your own camera and microphone. Ordinary jurors know, and are prepared to recognize with their verdict, that the TSA and police lie about what they are doing and why.
We salute Phil Mocek for standing up for all of us and our rights, and encourage supporters to contribute to help pay off his legal bills.
Contributions are tax-deductible, too!
More on your rights here. Here's an important point:
You have the right to freedom of movement, guaranteed by the First Amendment ("the right of the people... peaceably to assemble") and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a human rights treaty to which the US is a party: "Everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence. Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.... No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country." Federal law (49 USC § 40101, part of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978) requires the TSA to consider "the public right of freedom of transit" by air when it issues regulations.
Here's the TSA's spin.
Mr. Mocek had a boarding pass, but would not produce ID when asked. As I've said before here on the blog, if you don't have an ID, TSA will work with you to verify you are who you say you are. On the other hand, if you refuse to provide information, you will not be permitted to fly. This process had begun with Mr. Mocek, but was not completed. Without an ID that matches the individual holding the boarding pass, we can't be sure the passenger has cleared government watchlists.
Meanwhile, they keep 3-year-olds off the planes as dangerous suspected terrorists. I'm sure little Carbon is quite the troublemaker in nursery school, but the only thing explosive about him is likely to be found in his diaper.
More from the TSA:
As far as photography, as I stated in a previous post, TSA does not prohibit photography at checkpoints as long as there is no interference with the screening process. As TSOs were talking to Mr. Mocek to verify his identity, he was holding a camera up to film them and appeared to be trying to film sensitive security information related to TSA standard operating procedures on ID verification.
Oh, please. You saw the video above. That your opinion?
If you want to see how they verify ID, buy a $39 ticket from LA to Sacramento and throw it in the trash after you get through "security" at LAX.
The sad thing you'll find out: Anybody intelligent enough to play the nines in the comments here on this blog is smart enough to get whatever they want on an airplane.
The TSA Pulls A Sneaky
The TSA has gone back on allowing private screening companies at airports, blogs travel writer Chris Elliott:
It's not hard to image how much louder the public outcry would have been during the pat-down controversy last year if the Transportation Security Administration had also shut down it Screening Partnership Program, which allowed airports to privatize their security.After all, private screeners were seen as a loophole to avoid increasingly aggressive federal transportation security officers. Several airports were reportedly considering "firing" their TSA screeners after the new body-scanners began appearing, accompanied by more intrusive physical searches.
In short, the program was an escape valve through which the traveling public let out a steam of rage. Had it not been there, who knows what would have happened?
But here's more evidence that the federal agency charged with protecting our transportation systems understands the importance of timing. It waited until yesterday -- two months after the enhanced-screening media circus -- to freeze the program. I wonder how long they've been meaning to do that.
So what does that mean to us?
At some point, the TSA will probably require the privatized airports -- including San Francisco International Airport and Kansas City International Airport -- to revert back to federal screeners, even though many frequent travelers to Screening Partnership Program airports say they've experienced significantly better service and less intrusive and abusive searches.
From CNN:
Washington (CNN) -- A program that allows airports to replace government screeners with private screeners is being brought to a standstill, just a month after the Transportation Security Administration said it was "neutral" on the program.TSA chief John Pistole said Friday he has decided not to expand the program beyond the current 16 airports, saying he does not see any advantage to it.
Oh...keeping the airlines in business?
More from CNN:
"The nation is secure in the sense that the safety of our skies will not be left in the hands of the lowest-bidder contractor, as it was before 9/11," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees. "We applaud Administrator Pistole for recognizing the value in a cohesive federalized screening system and work force."
Who'd otherwise be working their way up from floor sweeper to the French-fry vat at Mickey D's.
Government scores again! A union scores again!
Visualizing Obama's Budget Cuts
From 2009, a student explains Obamanomics in one minute. I think I've blogged this before, but it's worth repeating, and Obama isn't the only guilty one; it's all the creeps who supposedly represent our interests in the House and the Senate:
Blog Problems: Gregg's On It!
Or will be, as soon as he wakes up. Sorry to say, a few of you have reported getting server error messages. I was just able to post (6:52 am now, Pacific Time) so I hope you'll try again now. And thanks, everybody, who let me know. Really helps!
Egypt Is Burning: Incredible Photos
From the LA Times. The link to see all of them is on the bottom left of the photo.
Here's the Telegraph story about the U.S. allegedly secretly backing those behind the uprising. Tim Ross, Matthew Moore and Steven Swinford write:
The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.
...The disclosures, contained in previously secret US diplomatic dispatches released by the WikiLeaks website, show American officials pressed the Egyptian government to release other dissidents who had been detained by the police.
...In a secret diplomatic dispatch, sent on December 30 2008, Margaret Scobey, the US Ambassador to Cairo, recorded that opposition groups had allegedly drawn up secret plans for "regime change" to take place before elections, scheduled for September this year.
The memo, which Ambassador Scobey sent to the US Secretary of State in Washington DC, was marked "confidential" and headed: "April 6 activist on his US visit and regime change in Egypt."
It said the activist claimed "several opposition forces" had "agreed to support an unwritten plan for a transition to a parliamentary democracy, involving a weakened presidency and an empowered prime minister and parliament, before the scheduled 2011 presidential elections". The embassy's source said the plan was "so sensitive it cannot be written down".
Ambassador Scobey questioned whether such an "unrealistic" plot could work, or ever even existed. However, the documents showed that the activist had been approached by US diplomats and received extensive support for his pro-democracy campaign from officials in Washington. The embassy helped the campaigner attend a "summit" for youth activists in New York, which was organised by the US State Department.
LAT via LAObserved
Some "Chinese Mothers" Aren't Chinese
What do you think of the mom who thinks much of her kid's art belongs in the trash can? Michael Tortorello writes for The New York Times:
AFTER careful consideration, Jessica Hanff has found the ideal spot for the art that her 4-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, brings home from preschool: the trash can."We're getting two to four pieces of crayon drawing a day," said Ms. Hanff, a 36-year-old operations manager for an academic research institute. On a recent Tuesday, Ms. Hanff began sorting through a few dozen of Elisabeth's drawings, stacked in the mudroom of the family's Washington home.
"These are printouts off the computer, colored in," she said. "C is for Cat! And she's scribbled some things on it. This is Dora the Explorer." Ms. Hanff stopped to observe the purplish rings that Elisabeth had marked around Dora's eyes. "It looks like someone slapped her in the face. She's got these big shiners."
Ms. Hanff is always on the lookout for "exceptional" drawings. But this entire batch would soon be archived in the rubbish bin. "I'm not sentimental about those at all," she said. "It's my job to avoid raising a hoarder, and I'm leading by example."
But Elisabeth has been known to fish her drawings out of the trash and present them to her mother. "I'll say, 'Oh, thank you,' " Ms. Hanff said. "We'll have a discussion. I'm not callous. But once she turns away, often I'll toss it out again."
A couple different views from the comments:
Pearl WhiteI would pay anything to have one, just one, of my old drawings as a child.
My mother, a product of a strict Catholic orphanage, also had a "no clutter" policy. I remember clearly an incident when I was five. I drew my mom with a triangle nose in "flesh" and the rest of her face in a darker shade. "What's this?" she said. "Mommy, your makeup makes your nose a different color than the rest of your face." Most moms would chuckle at that and go get a makeover. She however, exploded, ripped the drawing to shreds. I was five. (I'm actually choked up remembering this.) I never showed her another drawing in my entire life. The minute I came home with anything, she would dump it in the trash. I went on to be an art major, going to college on a portfolio-based scholarship. I'm now 45 years old with a career as an artist, and I STILL haven't the courage to show my 87 year old mother what I've worked on, what I've won awards for. I can take any critique with an open mind and a calm heart, but I don't show what I can do to my mom. Much like the women in this article, she doesn't "get it." I still struggle with hoarding issues because of having a mom who had control of all of my possessions while I was under her roof and would toss all manner of things when I wasn't looking.
Beady EyeDo as you want with yours, but I wouldn't take a million bucks for that lopsided portrait of me.
Saturday Fun: Felon-Finder
At the top of the page on FelonSpy.com, enter your address and click "Search." Known felons living around you will pop up.
Pass-It-First/Read-It-Later Legislation
The lucky connivers who are supposed to be representing us seem on the verge of taking back a little of Obamacare. John Brandt writes on FoxNews that there seems to be enough support in the Senate for a bill to pass:
The bill, introduced by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., would strike a provision in the law requiring businesses to file a 1099 tax form with the IRS for every vendor with which they have over $600 in transactions.Critics on both sides of the aisle say that the rule places an onerous burden on small business.
Remember: the people in the House and Senate, for the most part, aren't there representing your interests, but theirs. Vote with caution.
via @VPostrel
Women's Rights: A Photographic History In Egypt
Via Instapundit, check out the photo essay illustrating women's rights in Egypt -- from an Egyptian friend of Phyllis Chesler's.
Here's how it goes for the unveiled. (And that's from 2005.)
Scary Poppins
"Mary Poppins" meets "The Shining." The "Mary Poppins" trailer, recut:
And, thanks Elle, "The Shining" as a romantic comedy:
Blog Is Fixed
Yay Gregg! And thanks to everyone who wrote to let me know about the problems and J. who wrote with suggestions. (Sometimes I don't even know there's a problem unless people write me -- always appreciate it.)
Gregg is working on Columns, Amy's Mall, and other areas next. Probably, by the time you read this, the whole site will be back.
You should be able to comment on my blog just fine now. And sorry to be down for much of the day. It was disturbing!
School Choice
I'll blog more on this in the next few days, and report on what I heard at the reason school choice event a few days ago. For now, here's a terrific video from reason:
Doretta blogs at Society For Quality Education
Mom Kelly Williams-Bolar was jailed for lying about her residency to get her kids into a better school district. Unbelievable story, but sadly true. A voucher surely would have been a better solution than breaking up a family and jailing a mom who said about her kids,
"It's overwhelming. I'm exhausted," she said. "I did this for them, so there it is. I did this for them."Like I said, get a hankie.
UPDATED: I was a little exhausted, so I didn't get to add in the notes I took at reason's school choice night. They showed the amazing film "The Lottery," which was not only interesting but extremely moving. At the end, you realize that the inner-city kids who don't get picked to go to this school are pretty much being given a death sentence -- a death sentence, in terms of not being given a chance to go to a school where they'll really learn something. (They'll go back to the schools where 10 percent of the kids are performing on grade level.)
Former mayor Richard Riordan, in the Q&A session afterward, mentioned that D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee said that until you separate the Democratic party from the school board, you're not going to have great schools.
Ben Austin talked about "Parent Trigger." It is:
a historic new law that gives parents in California the right to force a transformation of their child's current or future failing school. All parents need to do is organize - if 51% of them get together and sign an official Parent Trigger petition, they have the power to force their school district to transform the school.
Austin and others said that parents, for the first time, realize they have power. And that's a good thing, because Jerry Brown wasted no time firing him and replacing him with the head lobbyist for the teacher's association.
Somebody pointed out that you can't get elected in New York City -- or many places -- without the teachers union. They described the behavior of the New York teachers union as akin to "mafia thugs."
And I think it was Riordan who said that schools are now designed to serve adults -- teachers! -- not students. And really, the whole deal is about power and money for the union, not even about teachers.
Crazy.
Great trailer from the film we saw, "The Lottery":
Obamacare Won't Hold Down Costs And Won't Let You Keep Your Health Care If You Like It
That's what Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, told Congress. From IBD:
While the Democrats have tried to obscure the facts -- the party itself issued a statement claiming that its plan "lowers costs for every patient" -- Foster's office has taken a straightforward approach in analyzing the issue.Health care costs will go up, it said, because more Americans will be seeking medical treatment in larger numbers. It's simple math.
The office of the actuary is also projecting that about half of the 14.8 million who are in private Medicare Advantage plans will lose their coverage by 2017.
Foster's office has projected, as well, that what the Democrats are calling reform "would collectively reduce the number of people with employer-sponsored health coverage by about 14 million."
Foster was not the only witness at the hearing telling lawmakers that ObamaCare isn't going to do what its supporters have said it will. Dennis Smith, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, said that under ObamaCare, the majority in his state "will have greater costs than benefits" while "close to 10% of" a population of about 5.5 million "will have their current insurance coverage disrupted."
Others say this, too:
• In September, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that under ObamaCare, health care costs will be eating up nearly 20% of the economy by 2019, a significant increase over the 16% to 17% of GDP health care is costing us today.
20 percent of the economy -- paying for other people's care.
We are still experiencing problems from the server snafu. Please bear with us.
"Distracted Moving"?
I'm probably six times as annoyed as the next person by the people who hold up traffic while fingering their electronic binkies while crossing the street, but the answer to all life's issues isn't banning everything until all we can do is stay home in bed sucking our thumbs (until they get around to banning thumbs, too).
At reason, Radley Balko blogs that the Nanny Statists have taken aim at jogging with your iPod. Susan Saulny and Matt Richtel write in The New York Times:
In New York, a bill is pending in the legislature's transportation committee that would ban the use of mobile phones, iPods or other electronic devices while crossing streets -- runners and other exercisers included. Legislation pending in Oregon would restrict bicyclists from using mobile phones and music players, and a Virginia bill would keep such riders from using a "hand-held communication device."
So, because there are no real criminals left in New York, the police would be stopping some Wall Street hot shit crossing West Broadway to see if his headphones are on? Geeeenius.
Speculate With Me
A woman e-mailed me this question:
I know a few older men who are smart, good-looking, have great personalities, and have good jobs. They're also currently in long-term marriages. What shocked me was to find out that they are married to smart UGLY women who look like men! These women are in their 50's and 60's, and look so butch that when I first met them I thought they were the man's ugly brother. What the heck? My first thought, I confess, was, "Does he have to put a bag over her head when they have sex, or do they just not have sex at all?" I know that the kind of love that keeps marriages together is not based on the fleeting looks of youth, but there has to be SOME effort to keep a physical attraction going, no? These women don't wear any sort of makeup or jewelry, they have outdated, mannish haircuts, and wear shapeless, unisex clothing. Your thoughts on this?
My response:
Bizarre! Do you think the women were attractive when they married them? Any more information you can give on this?
Awaiting word.
Any of you have any thoughts on this -- or similar experiences?
Worst Offer (Or Experience) You've Ever Had On A Date?
A friend and I had gone out for drinks and snacks near his place, and I felt really sick afterward (food poisoning). I asked him, "Mind if I come up and throw up in your apartment?"
He said it wasn't exactly the best offer he'd had from a woman.
P.S. It wasn't a date, of course (in fact, I texted Gregg in Detroit while I was throwing up in my friend's bathroom).
"Politics Is A Lot Like High School"
Cato Institute's response to the State of the Union address and politics as usual:
P.S. Great stuff -- they take the President's points, point by point, and blow big holes in them.
I Heard The State Of The Union Address On The Radio
We were driving to a reason event on school choice. Gregg was driving us there, that is. He turned the radio off after I started yelling at it. The president was going on about how great American innovation has been. In recent years, it's produced Google and Facebook, for example.
Now, he's going to save us, he said, all by pumping buttloads of government money into business innovation.
Hello?
Google and Facebook weren't started by the government. Government is what gets in the way of business success! And so I was yelling at the radio.
(At this point, Gregg turned off the radio and changed the subject. But, it's true, what I said just above.)
Here's the particular SOTU address quote from the President:
None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be, or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn't know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do - what America does better than anyone - is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It's how we make a living.
Guess what: None of that came from the government.
You want to subsidize innovation -- remove government regulations and stop bleeding businesses.
Meanwhile, writes Nile Gardiner in The Telegraph:
The Obama presidency has been trying this high spending approach for the past two years and has spectacularly failed to advance America's prosperity. Over $800 billion of stimulus spending has failed to create jobs, and has simply added to America's ballooning $14 trillion national debt, which the Congressional Budget Office predicts could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent of GDP by 2035, a massive millstone around the neck of the world's only superpower.By adopting this reckless stance, Barack Obama is demonstrating once again how out of touch he is with the views of the American people. A New York Times/ CBS News poll published on Friday revealed that 56 percent of Americans think it is necessary to take immediate action to lower the federal budget deficit, with just 38 percent saying it is possible to wait for better economic times. In addition, 55 percent believe it is necessary to cut back on government programmes, as opposed to 39 who are against such cuts. By a margin of 62 percent to 29 percent, American voters support reducing spending rather than raising taxes.
Gardiner is right:
In his State of the Union address, President Obama has a major opportunity to outline pro-growth measures that will rein in the deficit, create jobs, and revitalise the economy. This can only be achieved by cutting spending, freeing businesses from red tape, lowering taxes, increasing foreign investment, and advancing free trade. Economic freedom, not more government intervention, is the key to prosperity in the United States.It is doubtful however that the president will seize this moment, and his chief advisers remain wedded to failed Big Government solutions that will only result in a weaker, more indebted nation that will increasingly struggle to compete internationally. By all accounts, his speech on Tuesday could be disastrous not only for America, but also for US leadership on the world stage.
Farts And Murmurs
Just posted my Advice Goddess column -- one about a wife who "buys into the notion that love involves embracing absolutely everything about a person, including everything that comes out of their intestines."
Bad idea. Really, really bad idea.
Comments are live at the link.
Libertarian Position On The State Of The Union Address
Delivered by Wes Benedict:
President Obama says he wants a freeze in non-security, discretionary spending. In the unlikely event that happens, it won't really matter, because to make a real dent in the deficit, it's necessary to cut spending on the military and entitlements. The president promised big government in the past, and he delivered. I expect more of the same.However, Obama has truly been a hypocrite on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a candidate, he promised to end them. Tonight we heard more hollow promises. The fact is, as president, he has kept those wars going, and has greatly escalated the war in Afghanistan. As a percentage of GDP, military spending is higher now than it was during any year of the George W. Bush administration.
Unlike President Obama, Libertarians would bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, and reduce the military budget.
On the Republican side, I found Congressman Paul Ryan's hypocrisy appalling. He claims to want big cuts in government spending. But he didn't seem to be too worried about cutting spending when Republicans were in charge. He supported the huge Medicare expansion in 2003, and the expensive No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. He supports the expensive War on Drugs. In 2008, he put hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars at risk by voting for the massive TARP bailout, and he even voted to spend billions on the GM and Chrysler bailout.
Just one month ago, Congressman Ryan voted for the tax compromise that included a big increase in unemployment spending, and even extensions of government spending on ethanol.
Republicans don't want to cut spending -- they want to talk about cutting spending.
Congressman Paul Ryan is a perfect example of why Republicans are bad for America.
Republicans' plans for Social Security and Medicare are little more than a distraction. It's time for someone to have the guts to tell seniors the truth: You were promised way too much, and now we've got to make major cuts. I'm asking retirees to think about the enormous debts piling up on your children and grandchildren.
Libertarians would stop spending billions on bailouts, the War on Drugs, federal education programs, and we would end mandatory Social Security and Medicare.
Today, America is a country that attracts hardworking immigrants from Mexico and around the world, leaving countries that are less free and prosperous. Libertarians welcome these immigrants warmly. But I often wonder if -- in 20 years -- America will still be a great place to live, or if it will be another declining civilization fraught with poverty and abuse that your children want to leave.
The future of America may depend on the Libertarian Party steering us towards liberty and away from tyranny.
The Libertarian Party is America's third-largest party, and one of the most successful alternative parties in American history.
We are recruiting bold, principled men and women dedicated to freedom to fill leadership positions and to run for office as Libertarians.
You don't have to agree with every single Libertarian position to join the Libertarian Party. You can still make a difference and help us move our country towards freedom.
More information at lp.org.
A Welfare Mama Named Fannie Mae
Since the government took over Fannie and Freddie, we taxpayers have spent $160 million defending these mortgage companies and their honchos in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud -- a closely guarded secret until last week, writes Gretchen Morgenson in The New York Times:
Documents reviewed by The New York Times indicate that taxpayers have paid $24.2 million to law firms defending three of Fannie's former top executives: Franklin D. Raines, its former chief executive; Timothy Howard, its former chief financial officer; and Leanne Spencer, the former controller....Richard S. Carnell, an associate professor at Fordham University Law School who was an assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial institutions during the 1990s, questions why Mr. Raines, Mr. Howard and others, given their conduct detailed in the Housing Enterprise Oversight report, are being held harmless by the government and receiving payment of legal bills as a result.
"Their duty of loyalty required them to put shareholders' interests ahead of their own personal interests," Mr. Carnell said. "Had they cared about the shareholders, they would not have staked Fannie's reputation on dubious accounting. They defied their duty of loyalty and served themselves. At a moral level, they don't deserve indemnification, much less payment of such princely sums."
...If the former executives are found liable, they would be obligated to repay the government. But lawyers familiar with such disputes said it would be difficult to get individuals to repay sums as large as these. Lawyers for Mr. Raines, for example, have received almost $38 million so far, while Ms. Spencer's bills exceed $31 million.
Perhaps The Second Non-Annoying Yoga Person Ever
My cool younger sister Caroline is not of The Religion Of Yoga, which is how I think of those who practice yoga as a form of granola fundamentalism.
Caroline was once in town and called Yogaworks to see if it would be okay if she took a class there and she followed some of what they do, but also did her own thing. (And she doesn't yell out or anything -- just does moves a little differently, when so inspired.)
They told her it was fine, and come right over, and she did, and somebody from the place took her aside, and with a very wounded expression and tone, complained that she wasn't exactly following their downward dog calls, or whatever. (I despise yoga, and that's about all I know of it.)
I was reminded of Caroline's attitude by a piece about a yoga teacher in The New York Times who's pissing all the yoga fundamentalists off. Love it. Lizette Alvarez writes:
TARA Stiles does not talk about sacred Hindu texts, personal intentions or chakras. She does not ask her yoga classes to chant. Her language is plainly Main Street: chaturangas are push-ups, the "sacrum" the lower back. She dismisses the ubiquitous yoga teacher-training certificates as rubber stamps, preferring to observe job candidates in action.In her classes, videos and how-to book, "Slim Calm Sexy," Ms. Stiles, a 29-year-old former model with skyscraper limbs and a goofball sensibility, focuses on the physical and health aspects of yoga, not the spiritual or the philosophical. For traditionalists, this is heresy, reducing what they see as a way of life to just another gym class.
But if she has deviated from the conventional path, it has not slowed her down. Ms. Stiles, a native of rural Illinois who owns Strala Yoga in NoHo, has built a powerful yoga brand, with no less than Jane Fonda and Deepak Chopra among her devotees.
Critics abound. Jennilyn Carson, the blogger known as Yogadork, cites "deep practitioners who feel it is a disrespect to what the practice is" for Ms. Stiles to pitch yoga as another quickie weight-loss regimen. "It's not a few minutes a day, it's not fitness, it's a lifestyle," Ms. Carson said.
Another detractor, who is known as Linda Sama, described "Slim Calm Sexy" and its marketing campaign as "a complete sellout for the almighty dollar."
"Don't even try to sell me on the 'yoga for the masses' excuse; it's pathetic, and, frankly, she should be ashamed for allowing herself to be talked into shilling for this trash," she wrote on her blog, Linda's Yoga Journey. "That is, if any convincing was really necessary -- somehow I doubt it. But if asked about it, I am sure we would hear the typical higher-lighter-brighter-peace-love-dove-I'm-just-bringing-yoga-to-the-people crap."
A third yoga devotee, speaking anonymously to protect her job in the industry, added: "I don't care what Tara Stiles says yoga is; it's not about making your body beautiful."
What Tara Stiles says -- with a shrug and a smile -- is "Who made these rules?"
P.S. My sister part-time teaches yoga, the fun and non-fundamentalist way, to little old ladies at the SF YMCA. If you're a little old lady, you should go take her class. She also does some meditation class where she talks to people during the class. Little old ladies, I think. They all love it and her, from the sound of it.
Sued If You Do, Sued If You Don't
Being a doctor in the age of litigation, from White Coat's Call Room, a blog from inside the emergency room:
An 87 year old lady who is in excellent health comes into the department because she couldn't move her leg. When she woke up and was fine. Her family helped her get dressed. She read the newspaper at breakfast. Then she went to the bathroom, was in there about 15 minutes, and began yelling for help because her leg hurt and she couldn't get off the toilet. The family thought that she was sitting too long on the toilet, irritating her sciatic nerve, and thought she just needed to let her leg relax for a little while. A couple of hours later, her leg was hurting her more and she still couldn't move it, so they called the ambulance.This was a wonderful little lady who looked like she was 60. She was well-dressed. She carried on a normal conversation and was completely coherent. She joked back and forth with us. Her hair was done up perfectly and she had a fresh manicure. She took a blood pressure pill each day and that was about it. Unfortunately, when you looked at her leg, it was mottled and cold from the mid-thigh to her toes. It was obvious that she had an acute arterial occlusion of her leg. See an example on the right side of the picture above where there is no dye advancing in the femoral artery past the mid-thigh.
I called our vascular surgeon who came immediately and evaluated the patient. He recommended that she be transferred to the tertiary care center in our area where they had "more experience" dealing with these issues and could perhaps do intra-arterial thrombolytics. I called the vascular surgeon at the tertiary care center and he gave a lot of push back. Why were we transferring the patient when we had a vascular surgeon on staff? He demanded to talk to the patient and the family on the phone. While he was talking to the family, the patient had an episode of pulseless ventricular tachycardia.
The patient was a DNR, so we abided by her wishes and did not resuscitate her. About 30 seconds later, she had a pause in her rhythm and spontaneously converted back to normal sinus rhythm. She woke up asking "what happened?"
Upon hearing that the patient had an episode of ventricular tachycardia, the vascular surgeon at the tertiary care center told the family that he would not accept an unstable patient and hung up the phone. The ambulance company refused the transfer.
Our vascular surgeon was faced with a Morton's Fork. If the patient didn't have surgery, she would lose her leg and would likely die from the ensuing complications. However, the patient was also a high risk for having surgery. She just demonstrated an unstable cardiac rhythm and her cardiac enzymes were abnormal. Surgery would likely kill her.
Either way, they all get sued. The rest at the link.
via Overlawyered
Wowee!
Thank you, whomever bought an iPad
Thanks to all of you who buy stuff through these links...no matter how big or how small, it's all appreciated, and helps me keep writing, blogging...and eating!
The High Price Of Celebrity Stupidity
Check out this website, JennyMcCarthyBodyCount.com, and the mission statement:
Jenny McCarthy is a celebrity from the United States. She is most well known for posing nude as a Playboy Playmate, for picking her nose on the MTV show Singled Out, and for being the former girlfriend of actor/comedian Jim Carrey.In 2002 she gave birth to a son named Evan. In 2006 she started promoting Evan as being a "Crystal Child" and herself as being an "Indigo Mom".
In May 2007 Jenny McCarthy announced that Evan was not a "Crystal Child" after all, but had been diagnosed with autism (some people have said that there is a possibility that he may have been misdiagnosed and he actually has Landau-Kleffner syndrome). She holds on to the mistaken belief that Evan's alleged autism was caused by his receiving childhood vaccines. Most anti-vaccination believers claim that the compound thimerosal led to an increase in autism cases. The Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine is their usual target. However, thimerosal was never used as a preservative in the Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine. All vaccines licensed since 1999, with the exception of a few multidose container vaccines (such as some, but not all, HIB and Influenza vaccines), have not contained thimerosal as a preservative. Autism has not declined since 1999, thereby disproving this connection. In addition, Jenny McCarthy's child, Evan, was not born until 2002, well after thimerosal had been removed from most childhood vaccines. This has led Jenny McCarthy, and others, to claim that it was the MMR vaccine itself that caused autism or that it was vaccines in general that caused autism. All of these ideas have been disproven in multiple scientific and legal examinations of the evidence.
In June 2007 Jenny McCarthy began promoting anti-vaccination rhetoric. Because of her celebrity status she has appeared on several television shows and has published multiple books advising parents not to vaccinate their children. This has led to an increase in the number of vaccine preventable illnesses as well as an increase in the number of vaccine preventable deaths.
Jenny McCarthy has a body count attached to her name. This website will publish the total number of vaccine preventable illnesses and vaccine preventable deaths that have happened in the United States since June 2007 when she began publicly speaking out against vaccines.
Is Jenny McCarthy directly responsible for every vaccine preventable illness and every vaccine preventable death listed here? No. However, as the unofficial spokesperson for the United States anti-vaccination movement she may be indirectly responsible for at least some of these illnesses and deaths and even one vaccine preventable illness or vaccine preventable death is too many.
Anti-Vaxxers Should Pay
Interesting piece by Dr. Rahul Parikh on CNN:
Refusing to vaccinate a child is dangerous not just for that child but for entire communities. It's precisely this point a colleague of mine was considering when he had the idea that parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids should pay substantially higher health insurance premiums.It makes sense. Insurance, after all, is just a pool of money into which we all pay. In determining how much we or our employers pay, risk is taken into account.
The perfect analogy is smoking. If you smoke -- and want to turn your lungs black and spend a greater portion of that pot of money on your possible chronic lung disease or any cancers you'll get -- then you may have to pay more.
Why shouldn't we impose the same logic on parents who refuse to vaccinate their children?
...Researchers looking at the 2008 measles outbreak in San Diego, California, showed just how expensive and serious an outbreak of a disease that could have been prevented with a vaccine can be. A child whose parents refused to vaccinate him traveled to Europe and brought home the measles.
That family exposed 839 people, resulting in 11 additional cases of measles. One child too young to be vaccinated had to be hospitalized.
Forty-eight children too young to be vaccinated had to be quarantined, at an average family cost of $775 per child. The total cost of the outbreak was $124,517, about $11,000 per case and substantially more for the hospitalized child. That was just in the money the county and state spent to clean the mess up, and doesn't take into the account the costs to private insurers.
Oral Sex Charges In Oakland Second-Grade Class
This is a weird story that seems to be missing a whole lot of detail.
P.S. Second graders who even know what oral sex is, let alone how to perform it? That's a serious problem -- but not one I'd be terribly surprised by, having heard stories from a friend who taught in the Oakland school district.
An Actually Funny Thing On The Huff Po
"17 Things Every Women's Magazine Will Tell You (That You Should Ignore)," by "The Frenemy."
(Read beyond the first one.)
Dickileaks
That's my new name for information that's intended to be confidential, but is dispensed by cellphone rudesters heehawing in public places:
@DougCoupland Noisy guy in Phoenix Airport lounge is broadcasting astonishingly detailed BC Government secrets via his cell phone. Names. Numbers.
As I wrote in I SEE RUDE PEOPLE, when people are shouting their personal business (and their phone number) in public, I have to assume they're doing it because they're lonely and want people to call them. I like to help them -- by posting their phone number and other information on my blog.
At the very least, the posting should serve as a warning to other cellphone shouters who like to privatize public space as their own. These cellphone shouters aren't likely to transform into more considerate human beings, but seeing other loudsters get theirs on the Web might make them somewhat quieter assholes.
9/11 Has Paid Pretty Well For Some
Annie Karnie writes in the NYPost of high salaries for staffers at the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero:
Schoolchildren thought their penny jars and bake-sale proceeds would go toward building a 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero -- not the six-figure salaries of nonprofit execs. But 11 staffers at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum each pulled down more than $170,000 in total compensation in 2009, according to the most recent filings. Four execs took home more than $320,000.Foundation President Joseph Daniels, 38, pocketed $371,307 after receiving hefty raises three years in a row -- 28 percent in 2006, when he was promoted from acting president, followed by 12 percent and 6 percent.
Museum director Alice Greenwald made $351,000, and capital planning Vice President Joan Gerner soaked up $337,143 before leaving last spring. Development director Cathy Blaney raked in $322,292. The full-time foundation employee also worked last year as a fund-raiser for Gov. Cuomo's election campaign.
...Donors ranged from Ohio high-school students who raised $14,000 by completing a 650-mile trek from their Toledo suburb to Ground Zero, to pupils at Bethpage HS in New Jersey who collected $746 in pennies.
Teacher Shawn Clincy of the Mary Volz School in Runnemede, NJ, whose middle-school students raised $1,000 knocking on doors, was shocked by the salaries. "They're taking money from 13-year-olds who went out and collected donations. That doesn't sit right with me," he said.
Listen To The Evil HR Lady
Love Suzanne Lucas' moniker, the Evil HR Lady (translation: honest and realistic HR lady). I like what she says, too, in a piece for Bnet headlined "Yes, You Should Be Fired For That Facebook Post. (No Matter What the Feds Say Next Week)." Here's her reasoning:
So, why am I in favor of companies being able to terminate an employee for online behavior? (These things, of course, aren't limited to Facebook. Myspace, Twitter, and blogs are all good candidates for firing). Here are 3 Reasons.1. Easy firing=easy hiring. I want companies to hire people. In fact, my fondest wish is that all my readers who are searching for jobs find one this year. The more restrictions government places on terminating employees, the more hesitant companies are to hire new people.
2. Bad judgment isn't limited to online behavior. Companies need employees they can trust to make good decisions. If you lack the critical thinking skills to say, "Hmmm, if I post that my boss is a jerk, my boss just might find out about it," then you probably lack the critical thinking skills to do your job. Yes, people vent. But the internet is not private. And anyone who thinks they can trust all their 476 friends to keep something quiet isn't someone I want on my staff.
3. Companies should be able to presume loyalty. I know, I know, your company doesn't care much about your career and they have no problem firing you, so why should you care about them? Because they pay you to care about them. In a pre-internet case where Delta airline employee was fired over a letter to the editor, "[t]he court in that case held that there '"is an implied duty of loyalty, with regard to public communications, that employees owe to their employers.' Stating that Mr. Marsh violated this implied duty of loyalty by publicly disparaging Delta, the court found that his termination was just." We forbid employees from giving information to the competitor, which would damage the company, so why not forbid employees from posting information that would hurt the company? The exception to this is when the company is engaging in illegal activity. Then employees should speak out and should be afforded whistleblower protection.
Later in her piece, she's also right in line with my thinking in another area -- that employees are entitled to a private life, and there's stuff I don't want to know, and shouldn't. That's why I don't follow the woman who works for me on either Facebook or Twitter. What I care about is how great she is on the job -- and she is great. End of story.
Four Words: Pay The Hospital Back
In response to a reader's question, The Ethicist writes -- at length -- in The New York Times, turning to various "experts," but never gets to the simple, ethical response I posted in the headline above:
My elderly aunt became ill and phoned me, a physician, to ask if she should call an ambulance. I surmised that she was severely dehydrated. From my hospital, I took a bag of saline, IV tubing, an IV lock and a needle. An unsuspecting nurse handed me the tape that secures the needle. I gave my aunt these fluids at home, and she soon felt better, as did I: my stealing $50 worth of medical supplies saved the taxpayers more than a thousand dollars for an E.R. visit. Did I do right? E.G., NEW YORKI love the hint of zany hijinks in the words "an unsuspecting nurse." I respect your concern for your aunt and admire your ingenuity in curbing costs, but -- there is a but -- I am wary of your conduct. You were deceitful with your own hospital and imprudent in taking over your aunt's treatment.
One doctor, the medical director of a large public hospital, e-mailed me to say: "We frown upon treating family members. It's incredibly difficult to be objective in the best of circumstances." He added: "The aunt's bedroom is not the optimal environment for diagnosis or treatment. This physician took many shortcuts and may have done his aunt a great disservice by not performing a complete assessment." He makes a persuasive case that while your diagnosis was correct, it was not certain to be: your aunt might have had other problems requiring a more drastic response.
Your altruistic pilferage, while thrifty, was ethically dubious, requiring you to betray the trust of your co-workers. The medical director I spoke to suggests a less buccaneering alternative: "If he had asked for the supplies, his hospital would have undoubtedly given them to him."
The real solution to such problems is to arrange health care so as to avoid so stark a dilemma, perhaps by providing local clinics or health professionals who make home visits, changes unlikely to occur any time soon. Given the current circumstances, I should offer a word in your defense from another doctor, Paul R. Marantz, director of the Center for Public Health Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who acknowledged that what you did was stealing, but said in an e-mail that "purloining $50 (more likely $20) worth of medical supplies while saving hundreds (more likely thousands) seems a good choice compared with the more burdensome alternative of a visit to the E.R." I agree that those who practice medicine in imperfect institutions might -- must -- sometimes choose imperfect actions, but believe that your supply-room raid still fell short.
The correct answer: The doctor should have asked first and made arrangements to pay first, but in lieu of that, he should have forked over the $20 or whatever after the fact. How hard is that to figure out? Do you really need to interview a slew of people?
Even more disturbing, Marantz is a bigwig at a medical college and he doesn't get that it's nobody's $50 to pay but the guy's or his auntie's?
Slip 'N' Fraud
Video catches the fraudsters trying to scam the supermarkets. Love the lady who doesn't bother to risk falling -- just lies down in the supposed spill, and then fixes her hair:
via @WalterOlson
Time To Have Yourself Erased
I got this from a regular commenter (thank you!) and erased my information. (I'd tried to do it before, but the link didn't work and complaints to Spokeo went unanswered.) If you try the link to my name now, you'll see that it doesn't work. Success! Here's the e-mail:
Hi Amy - I am sending out a lot of these so please excuse me being so brief and direct. I just came across my name, address, relationship status and phone number in this online directory. Yikes. It also had my grandmother (with house value) etc and all people in my family. I found you on there too and wanted to let you know how to remove it (this is not spam, I promise):http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=amy%20alkon#:3683987071/info
Go to that link. Copy that url. Go to the bottom right hand corner of the screen and select the "privacy tab". Paste in your url in the field provided. Type in email then code. Go into email when it arrives and select where it says to - then you have been removed.
If you could post this up on your website and let as many people know as you can- if you think that is a good idea that would be great. I just figured that with all the loonies out there, and you being a little more public then many - it might be a good idea to send this to you. Besides the safety issues, identity theft (as you know) is one bitch to unravel.
Please pass this link on.
The Best Things In Life Are Expensive
Steve Chapman on Obamacare at reason:
Critics have noted many flaws in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul: It's too expensive, too intrusive, too coercive, and too complex. But one central defect that accounts for much of the other mischief: the pretense that making us all better off is a miraculous, cost-free bonanza.The 19th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat foresaw schemes like this when he wrote, "Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." That illusion lies at the heart of the new program.
The president has gone to great lengths not to disguise this element but to celebrate it. He said early in the debate that the additional cost of the program could be paid with taxes on the rich. He vowed to oppose anything "that is primarily funded through taxing middle-class families"--which he plainly regards as the moral equivalent of drowning puppies.
But why shouldn't middle-class families bear the cost of a largely middle-class entitlement? When a typical family buys a new car, it doesn't expect someone else to make the payments. If health care reform showers so many blessings on ordinary Americans, ordinary Americans ought to be more than willing to pay the bill. If they are unwilling, maybe some rethinking is in order.
The Easter Bunny approach is not unknown among Republicans, either. They too like to hand out tasty treats. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in November the GOP would keep some parts of the health care reform, like requiring insurers to take applicants without regard to pre-existing conditions and to let parents keep children on their policies up to age 26. But those provisions are popular partly because their actual cost is invisible.
The general flaw also makes for particular flaws. One of those is the requirement that health insurance companies cover some 45 preventive care services at zero cost to patients--everything from depression screening to diet counseling.
Zero cost to patients -- big fees to other people: those paying taxes and those whose grandchildren, great grandchildren, and so on will be working as servants for the Chinese in lieu of having the money to pay off the vast debt their predecessors incurred.
Walter Williams: Welfare State Has Destroyed The Black Family
Jason S. Riley writes in the WSJ:
Even in the antebellum era, when slaves often weren't permitted to wed, most black children lived with a biological mother and father. During Reconstruction and up until the 1940s, 75% to 85% of black children lived in two-parent families. Today, more than 70% of black children are born to single women. "The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, what Jim Crow couldn't do, what the harshest racism couldn't do," Mr. Williams says. "And that is to destroy the black family.""...The 70% illegitimacy rate is a devastating problem, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with racism. The fact that in some areas black people are huddled in their homes at night, sometimes serving meals on the floor so they don't get hit by a stray bullet--that's not because the Klan is riding through the neighborhood."
Pornography And Husbands
Marriage is between a woman and a man's penis? I got this e-mail this morning:
Wedding vows used to contain the phrase "I pledge thee my troth," meaning "my fidelity". (Yes, I got married that long ago). In the sexual department, that means that as a wife, I now "own" every one of my husband's ejaculations. The only ones he gets as freebees are the wet dreams.Pornography enables him to whack off in the shower. Without me. But the question I had for you is, how can a human being know where "hysteria about porn" stops, and real damage starts? My brother died. When we were cleaning out his domicile, lo and behold! He's into CHILD porn! It would turn your stomach. But you know, it really wasn't causing a problem for anyone, right? ~ Jill
"And I tell you, if anyone so much as looks at a woman with lust, he is guilty of adultery."
My response:
What happens between consenting adults is their business. Obviously, child porn does not involve consenting adults.YOU: "I now 'own' every one of my husband's ejaculations."
If he masturbates, are there millions of runaway slaves to contend with?
If you don't think your husband is looking at other women and getting turned on, you're kidding yourself.
Advice Goddess Free Swim
I ate something that didn't agree with me and I have to go to bed without any blog items (wish I'd tried to go to bed without any supper...!) Anyway, you pick the topics. One link per comment or your comment will be eaten by my spam filter. Want to post a second link? Post a second comment. I should be fine in the morning, and I will post more blog items then.
Amy On The Radio
Taped Dr. Margaret Cochran's show earlier this month. Here's the podcast.
Under Construction
We're changing servers, so there have been some error messages in posting comments, and there may be some bumps today, but things seem to be working now.
Sneaky Stuff In The Comcast Merger
Ira Stoll notes that the FCC's press release says this about the Comcast/NBC Universal merger/acquisition:
As part of the merger, Comcast-NBCU will be required to take affirmative steps to foster competition in the video marketplace. In addition, Comcast-NBCU will increase local news coverage to viewers; expand children's programming; enhance the diversity of programming available to Spanish-speaking viewers; offer broadband services to low-income Americans at reduced monthly prices; and provide high-speed broadband to schools, libraries and underserved communities, among other public benefits....Comcast will make available to approximately 2.5 million low income households: (i) high-speed Internet access service for less than $10 per month; (ii) personal computers, netbooks, or other computer equipment at a purchase price below $150" and "we require Comcast-NBCU to increase programming diversity by expanding its over the-air programming to the Spanish language-speaking community, and by making NBCU's Spanish-language broadcast programming available via Comcast's on demand and online platforms.
Stoll observes:
The Obama administration couldn't get an immigration reform through when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, but its FCC is sure ready to require more Spanish-language programming on American television. Nothing against Spanish, which I took in high school and is a fine language, but why not Chinese-language programming? Why not Yiddish?These FCC requirements are a back-door way of passing laws and mandating spending that could never make it through Congress in a million years.
via Walter Olson
All Drugs Have Side Effects
The question is, does the benefit or potential benefit of the drug outweigh the potential risks? That's a vital question to ask in respect to statins -- drugs that doctors seem to prescribe like they're Tic Tacs.
From the Telegraph/UK, a story by Stephen Adams on how millions are taking statins needlessly:
But a wide-ranging review of previous studies, published today in the journal The Cochrane Library, urges "caution" among GPs who prescribe them. It concludes that there is no "strong evidence" to suggest that statins reduce coronary heart disease deaths among those who have not suffered a heart attack or other cardiovascular event in the past.
Some of the potential side effects?
..."There are some small trials that show evidence of cognitive lapses and depression," he said.Previous studies have also indicated statins could increase the chance of liver problems, acute kidney failure and a type of muscle damage in some people, and can increase the chance of haemorrhagic stroke - bleeding on the brain - in people who have already had one.
ADVERTISEMENT: If you are suffering from chronic addiction to prescription drugs, consider the Alta Mira drug rehabilitation program or the many other options for treatment.
Paul Ryan On Obamacare's Fiscal House Of Cards
Government Protecting Us From Info About Our Bodies!
John Tierney writes in The New York Times of New York's ban on the direct sale of DNA tests to consumers:
What if the would-be guardians of the public overestimated the demand for their supervisory services?In two separate studies of genetic tests, researchers have found that people are not exactly desperate to be protected from information about their own bodies. Most people say they'll pay for genetic tests even if the predictions are sometimes wrong, and most people don't seem to be traumatized even when they receive bad news.
"Up until now there's been lots of speculation and what I'd call fear-mongering about the impact of these tests, but now we have data," says Dr. Eric Topol, the senior author of a report published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine. "We saw no evidence of anxiety or distress induced by the tests."
He and colleagues at the Scripps Translational Science Institute followed more than 2,000 people who had a genomewide scan by the Navigenics company. After providing saliva, they were given estimates of their genetic risk for more than 20 different conditions, including obesity, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, several forms of cancer, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's. About six months after getting the test results, delivered in a 90-page report, the typical person's level of psychological anxiety was no higher than it had been before taking the test.
Although they were offered sessions, at no cost, with genetic counselors who could interpret the results and allay their anxieties, only 10 percent of the people bothered to take advantage of the opportunity. They apparently didn't feel overwhelmed by the information, and it didn't seem to cause much rash behavior, either.
In fact, the researchers were surprised to see how little effect it had. While about a quarter of the people discussed the results with their personal physicians, they generally did not change their diets or their exercise habits even when they'd been told these steps might lower some of their risks.
Government-forced fast food labeling had a similar effect on the public's behavior: None.
Just as they're making health care more expensive, they're making it less possible for us to help ourselves at a reduced price.
Just Say Whatever To Drugs
Portugal took a different step with drug users, writes Keith O'Brien in The Boston Globe:
Faced with both a public health crisis and a public relations disaster, Portugal's elected officials took a bold step. They decided to decriminalize the possession of all illicit drugs -- from marijuana to heroin -- but continue to impose criminal sanctions on distribution and trafficking. The goal: easing the burden on the nation's criminal justice system and improving the people's overall health by treating addiction as an illness, not a crime.As the sweeping reforms went into effect nine years ago, some in Portugal prepared themselves for the worst. They worried that the country would become a junkie nirvana, that many neighborhoods would soon resemble Casal Ventoso, and that tourists would come to Portugal for one reason only: to get high. "We promise sun, beaches, and any drug you like," complained one fearful politician at the time.
But nearly a decade later, there's evidence that Portugal's great drug experiment not only didn't blow up in its face; it may have actually worked. More addicts are in treatment. Drug use among youths has declined in recent years. Life in Casal
Ventoso, Lisbon's troubled neighborhood, has improved. And new research, published in the British Journal of Criminology, documents just how much things have changed in Portugal. Coauthors Caitlin Elizabeth Hughes and Alex Stevens report a 63 percent increase in the number of Portuguese drug users in treatment and, shortly after the reforms took hold, a 499 percent increase in the amount of drugs seized -- indications, the authors argue, that police officers, freed up from focusing on small-time possession, have been able to target big-time traffickers while drug addicts, no longer in danger of going to prison, have been able to get the help they need.
...Not everyone agrees with this analysis. The rate of people reporting drug use in Portugal is, in fact, increasing -- and some say alarmingly so. Others argue that it's hard to draw lessons from Portugal's experiment because the nation increased access to treatment at the same time it decriminalized drugs. Many believe that Portugal's new focus on treatment -- and prevention -- may have had as much, if not more, to do with its success than its policy of decriminalization.
The Prissiest Place On Earth
Universities are supposed to be centers for the free exchange of ideas, but lately, they're anything but. Via ifeminists, Fergus Hodgson writes at WND about a professor who was fired for a joke some students found offensive:
"A group of sociologists did a poll in Arizona about the new immigration law. Sixty percent said they were in favor, and 40 percent said, 'No hablo English.'"That joke in class has Robert Engler, a 12-year sociology professor at Roosevelt University, fighting for his career.
It elicited two written complaints in the spring of 2010 as ethnically offensive, and what followed was a protracted argument that eventually included the termination of his employment from the fall semester.
...Officially, Engler's termination was for noncooperation with the harassment investigation, since he repeatedly chose not to attend meetings that would address the allegation.
Engler said he was willing to cooperate but the department refused to put the allegation in writing. When he brought legal counsel to an appeal meeting, university administrators immediately canceled it.
It wasn't until the student newspaper wrote about the case months after his dismissal that he learned of the origin of the allegations, he said.
"I didn't want to come to a meeting and be charged and not even know what it was," he said.
He said "university representatives insisted in meeting over the summer when I could not gather a defense, while I was engaged in other projects and not in Chicago."
...One student that filed a complaint, Cristina Solis, has spoken out, describing the outcome as fair and saying that she does not regret her decision to complain.
...She believes the remarks were inappropriate for "a school like Roosevelt University, which is based on social justice."
FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) is investigating his case.
Razing California
We probably have to tank the state to save it, writes Adam Sparks at biggovernment, in "Go Bankrupt, California, Please":
Here's the problem, notwithstanding a current state budget deficit of 25 billion dollars, the state has 700 billion dollars in unfunded pension liabilities. This is ticking time bomb. No matter how much we cut and balance today's budget, we will never catch up and meet the needs of the ridiculously high unfunded pensions. This is the problem. Brown's budget may take away state workers' cell phones and some social services dollars, but seriously, big deal. This is just more smoke and mirrors. It just kicks the can down the road. This will not solve our major structural problem.Legalizing online poker, taxing marijuana (both proposed) and taxing air (already passed through cap and trade) will not solve the budget problems. The latter is a way of taxing the few manufacturing industries still dumb enough to be creating jobs in California. If they hadn't got the memo earlier, this bill should be a neon sign. Get out of Dodge. We don't see many folks clamoring for yet cleaner air, but we see millions looking for work.
...Without the political will to attack both the structural problems of K-12 funding and union pensions, there can be no solution to our structural budget crisis. Governor Brown knows this. The alternative is bankruptcy. Federal law prohibits states to file for bankruptcy, but they do allow for a federal receivership to be established and a receiver to take over. This is a distinction without a difference. This would allow us to cancel the pension agreements and refashion them to make sense considering our current economic malaise.
Here's what bankruptcy says, via Thomas Sowell:
Bankruptcy conveys the plain facts that political rhetoric tries to conceal. It tells people who depended on the bankrupt government that they can no longer depend on that bankrupt government. It tells the voters who elected that bankrupt government, with its big spending promises, that they made a bad mistake that they would be wise to avoid making again in the future.Legally, bankruptcy wipes out commitments made to public sector unions, whose extravagant pay and pension contracts are bleeding municipal and state governments dry. Is putting an end to political irresponsibility and legalized union racketeering dropping dead?
Politics being what it is, we are sure to hear all sorts of doomsday rhetoric at the thought of cutbacks in government spending. The poor will be starving in the streets, to hear the politicians and the media tell it.
But the amount of money it would take to keep the poor from starving in the streets is chump change compared to how much it would take to keep on feeding unions, subsidized businesses and other special interests who are robbing the taxpayers blind.
Letting armies of government employees retire in their 50s, to live for decades on pensions larger than they were making when they were working, costs a lot more than keeping the poor from starving in the streets.
Pouring the taxpayers' money down a thousand bottomless pits of public and private boondoggles costs a lot more than keeping the poor from starving in the streets.
Bankruptcy says: "We just don't have the money." End of discussion.
Baptism By Texting
Distracted woman falls into shopping mall water fountain:
Yet Another School With A "No Thinking For Yourself" Policy
Via BoingBoing and FreeRangeKids, a high school has a "no hugging" policy. A senior at the school has written a petition she's going to circulate, and adds this note to FreeRangeKids' Lenore Skenazy:
As a college-bound 17-year-old, I am insulted by the presumption that I am too immature to decide which kind of touches are appropriate for school. If the administration seriously thinks we can't make that distinction ourselves, how do they expect us to survive in college?
Some points from her petition:
•Interpersonal touch is not inherently sexual, and to treat it as such is to make it so. Touch can be a powerful bonding mechanism between friends, and any rule that fails to differentiate between acts of sex and acts of friendship seems arbitrary and inherently draconian.•High school students will soon be turned loose and made responsible for their own decisions. Is it not the responsibility of educators to impart valuable life skills and ready us for autonomy? Outright bans are not the way to do so. Rather than be taught to see interpersonal touch as inherently bad, we should learn the nuances of what is and is not appropriate for public venues. Don't force us to look at the world in black and white. Show us the shades of gray.
Where Is The Line In The Right To Bear Arms?
I'm a supporter of the Second Amendment, but I just read a section discussing elite versus democratic rule in Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior
Miller writes:
...Few would advocate that your local Target store should be allowed to sell FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles.
Recently, I've been seeing op-eds, blog items, tweets, and more with people calling for a ban on Glocks and other weapons.
So, I'll ask you...where do we draw the line, and how, and why?
One take on this from Michael Cannon at Cato.
Jack Dunphy On Dupnik
The incognito LAPD cop who uses the pen name Jack Dunphy quotes Sheriff Dupnik at PJM (in piece about the sheriff's selective observations of where political vitriol comes from):
Sheriff Dupnik: "We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."Dunphy: "If I may be forgiven a brief tangent here, given that non-Muslims are forbidden from so much as entering the city, isn't the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry really Mecca?"
Free Ten-Minute Calls From Your Land Line To Overseas
From Pogue in the NYT:
Listen to a 10- or 12-second ad, get 10 minutes of free calling to any of 55 countries. According to the company, 85 percent of all calls are under 10 minutes long, so most calls are covered.If you have a cellphone, this concept can save you big dollars when you're calling overseas. If you're among the millions of low-income Americans who have landlines and basic phone plans, you can save 50 cents or $1 every time you call long distance, since you begin every FreePhone2Phone call by dialing a local access number.
To try out FreePhone2Phone, I dialed a local number, which I looked up at FreePhone2Phone.com. To reach the New York City access line, you'd dial 1 (646) 500-8620.
...Here's the fine print:
Each call is limited to 10 minutes. A warning tone beeps every 5 seconds for the last half minute, and then you're cut off.
If you try to call the same number again the same day, your call is limited to five minutes, to prevent you from exploiting the system by calling back over and over all day.
Larry C. from New Joisey has a better idea:
Free is always nice (hard to argue with free), but there is no way you should be paying $2.50/min for calls to Paris otherwise.For example, I use a service called Localphone that lets you call internationally for really cheap, for example, it's $0.009/min for calls to France, the UK, etc.
And, you can set up local access numbers so you never have to dial pins, etc.At $0.009/min, why bother messing with FreePhone2Phone?
The Ridiculousness Of The Religion Of Recycling
I try not to waste resources, and to conserve where I can, but some attempts at energy and resource saving are not savings at all; for example, the government ban on incandescent light bulbs. (I just bought 136 of them from WhatsWatt.com.)
Kate Coe made a comment on Facebook (about this blog item on the guy who wants us to live like dirt-poor people in Chad) that reminded me of an old column by John Tierney about the absurdity of the recycling mania. Kate's comment:
Why is reducing consumption supposed to be a good thing? People get paid to make things, sell things, repair things, recycle things. I buy more old stuff than new, but that's merely a function of taste than any position on consumption. I like employment for myself and others.
Tierney writes in a 1996 NYT column:
Yes, a lot of trees have been cut down to make today's newspaper. But even more trees will probably be planted in their place. America's supply of timber has been increasing for decades, and the nation's forests have three times more wood today than in 1920. 'We're not running out of wood, so why do we worry so much about recycling paper?' asks Jerry Taylor, the director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute. "Paper is an agricultural product, made from trees grown specifically for paper production. Acting to conserve trees by recycling paper is like acting to conserve cornstalks by cutting back on corn consumption.
Penn & Teller on the Bullshit! of recycling:
More from Penn & Teller -- how far people will go to "protect the environment":
City Goes After Couple Feeding Homeless
Turns out they're feeding them, free of charge, without a permit. Hundreds and hundreds of Houston's 10,000 homeless people. Tom Abrahams reports at ABC Houston about Bobby and Amanda Herring:
"We come out here and provide a hot meal every single night and a lot of love to go with it," Bobby Herring said."It's just so much about the relationship," Amanda Herring said. "We love them. They love us. These are our friends; they've been home with us."
They say they fed 50 to 100 people every night of the week -- first at an empty loading dock and then under a bridge. But two weeks ago, they were told to stop.
"We were told that we had to have health permits to continue serving," Amanda Herring said.
The city told them they needed permits and that the food had to be cooked in a certified kitchen.
"We just have one set of rules for public feeding and whether you have money or you don't have money, you need to comply with the same set of rules," said Kathy Barton with the City of Houston Health Department.
The idea being that food not cooked in a certified kitchen could make people sick, which is all the worse for someone who is homeless.
"Low-income people and people who are homeless are the most susceptible to food-borne illness and least capable of dealing with that kind of illness," Barton said.
The Herrings aren't sure what to do. Their meals are cooked in people's homes.
"We're not trying to break any laws. We want to comply with the city. We want to work with the city because we believe this is in addition to the city of Houston," Bobby Herring said.
So until they work something out, they'll be coming downtown empty-handed.
I'm sure the homeless will be much less endangered eating out of restaurant dumpsters. Yay, government! Protecting people from a full stomach!
Social Media Revolution
Interesting video.
Your thoughts?
If You Spurn Meat, Why Aren't You Spurning Lamps?
Smart review by Melissa McEwen at HuntGatherLove of a book by a guy named Simon Fairlie, Meat: A Benign Extravagance
Fairlie is more an acolyte of a secular form of neo-puritanism advocating the idea that we should live very simply, perhaps similar to 15th century European peasants, spurning "luxuries" and only having a few "extravagances."But what are luxuries and what is extravagant? One lesson I've learned from studying paleolithic cultures is that humans don't really need very much. Bushmen get along quite well without houses or possessions of any kind. This family in Chad gets by with a tent, a few animals, and meager rations of gruel. Most vegans spurning meat as an arrogant luxury go home to well-lit artificially heated apartments. Why are those OK? I don't know. The whole thing seems arbitrary.
...It's funny because in the end people calling things luxuries are often the most arrogant. Last week I had a conversation with a vegan on a blog about The Heifer Project, which provides families in developing countries with livestock. Vegan dude was angry because Heifer sponsored a study that seemed to show that children fed animal products in developing countries did better. According to him "let them eat tofu!" Well, if folks want to chose a bicycle tofu press over a goat, that's find by me. But I suspect they won't. But that's not the point of vegan dude's views. Vegan dude thinks he knows what's best for everyone. I don't know what's best for everyone, though I suspect that goat milk is better for children than tofu. So in the end I think it should be up to people in Sudan to make that choice for themselves. Too bad the world is full of people who want to make choices for other people.
...This reminds me of some common positions in environmental debates. Namely that (insert food or agricultural practice) is bad because it can't feed the world. Sure, feeding the world is an admirable goal, but isn't it a little silly to assume that there is one system that will feed the world perfectly?
Oh, and regarding the idea that one kilogram of beef requires 100,000 liters of water to produce?
Turns out that number is a bit of accounting gymnastics that would make any product seem inefficient, because it takes into account ever scrap of precipitation that falls upon the area of land a cow might occupy. Hmmm. Guess someone didn't learn about opportunity cost. The rain that falls on grassland isn't going to be collected and sent to people suffering from droughts in Africa in the absence of cattle.
He's Not Just Your Legislator...He's Your Mommy
Iowa state senator Brian Schoenjahn (D-Arlington), is going one better in meddling with people's drink choices than the FDA (which banned caffeinated alcoholic beverages like Four Loco). I observed, upon the ban, that they can't stop you from drinking coffee and a glass of alcohol. Well, that's exactly what Senator Brian Mommypants is proposing, with a bill that makes it a misdemeanor for any biz with a liquor license to "manufacture for sale, sell, offer or keep for sale, import, distribute, transport, or possess any caffeinated alcoholic beverage."
From Jacob Sullum at reason.com:
The bill defines "caffeinated alcoholic beverage" as "any beverage containing more than one-half of one percent of alcohol by volume, including alcoholic liquor, wine, and beer, to which caffeine is added." Hence it apparently applies not only to drinks with a noticeable caffeine kick but also to coffee-flavored liqueurs with detectable amounts of the stimulant, such as Kahlua or Tia Maria, and any cocktails made with them, such as a Black Russian or a Mudslide. In addition to jail time and fines, violators would face revocation (not just suspension) of their liquor licenses, and therefore loss of their livelihoods--a pretty harsh penalty for following the instructions in a Mr. Boston book.
Meanwhile, I must confess, I've taken to drinking very strong coffee and a glass of wine at the end of the day to extend my writing day. ("Hi, my name is Amy, and I'm a workaholic.")
The Government Regulation Epidemic
Everybody thinks slapping down laws and regulations all over the place is the expressway to good health and general utopia. Um...no.
You know those menu labeling laws, requiring restaurants to list calories, etc.? They were supposed to help people choose healthier foods, or so the health experts argued, Shari Roan reports in the LA Times:
The early results of mandatory menu-labeling laws, however, suggest that the well-intended laws may not have a huge impact on consumer eating habits.The latest evaluation of the laws, published Friday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, explored ordering patterns at a fast-food chain in King County, Wash., where a labeling law went into effect two years ago. Thirteen months after the law went into effect, food purchases at the Taco Time restaurants in King County were identical to those at Taco Time restaurants where menu boards did not list nutritional information.
(Italics are mine.)
via @DrEades
No Child Is Too Young To Sex Up?
Pageant kid in a cone bra, little girls getting their eyebrows waxed.
via Raddy
Politically Correct(ed) Huckleberry Finn
Hilarious comic from Ruben Bolling.
A note from Ruben on the illustrations:
"I had pencilled virtually this entire comic (Tom the Dancing Bug), trying to evoke the look of Kemble's illustrations, when I realized (in the shower, the day of my deadline) that instead of continuing to draw and ink the new pictures, I should just re-purpose the actual originals. Not only would I be sure to get the look exactly right (a dodgy proposition when I'm the illustrator), but it was absolutely more in keeping with the premise of the comic. Having the dialogue not quite work with the illustrations would only add to the humor/point of the comic. So I abandoned the pencilled comic (I've never done this before!) and set out to quickly assemble Kemble illustrations and lay the comic out. This took even more time than drawing the comic from scratch, but I like the results much better.In researching Kemble's illustrations (I used that excellent University of Virginia site as a source), I saw that Twain had handpicked him, approved each drawing and ended up loving them. So subsequent editions that replaced or removed these illustrations were among the first steps taken by editors to change the book as Twain had intended it to be experienced."
Former LA Mayor Richard Riordan on Schwarzenegger, Unions, and Bankrupt Cities
"Throughout the country, 90 percent of cities and states are going to go bankrupt within the next five years, probably many of them sooner," says Riordan, in his interview with Tim Cavanaugh. "Nobody wants to sell them bonds. Nobody wants to lend them money."
Taxing the rich isn't the solution, by the way. Being friendly to business is.
The legislature is controlled by the unions, Riordan said, which made it impossible for Schwarzenegger to do anything.
How DOES She Do It?!
She'll tell you, yes she will! Gwyneth Paltrow has helpful advice for working moms. DListed has it, Paltrow's take on "finding a good balance between having a career and being a mom." Paltrow writes:
I asked Juliet de Baubigny, a venture capitalist I met (it's no wonder this woman is so freakin' successful--spreadsheets for family packing ... wow!), and fashion designer Stella McCartney to send in a day in their lives to see how they do the mothers' special--everything all at once. I learned a lot and got some good tips from these ladies. And, because some of you have asked what one of my days looks like, I've included a random one of my more manic days from last November.
Details at the GOOP link.
DListed writes:
Fishsticks somehow manages to successfully conquer a morning filled with: getting Nectarine and Torah to school, feeding her soul to the serpent beast that is Tracy Anderson, picking out the perfect $200 tea towels to go in the service kitchen, yelling at the east wing maid for starching the robe given to her by the Dalai Lama, recording a country song that will debut at #1 as soon as she puts her breath on the mic and writing a soon-to-be award-winning piece for GOOP. And she does all of this while her head is shoved up her ass! Clap. Clap. Clap.
Here's Paltrow's advice for the rest of us, as condensed by DListed. Sooo helpful! Especially the advice on having food delivered from grocery stores I couldn't afford to shop at in the first place. (Do you have a "favorite fishmonger"?)
1. Schedule your time well. When I know what I am doing from hour to hour I get more done. Write it all in the day's calendar, what you want to accomplish and in what time frame.3. I cook a lot, especially on the weekends, so I like to plan a rough menu for the whole weekend and get the food in on Friday. Obviously stores and websites that deliver make this a dream. In London I use Ocado. Also James Knight, my favorite fishmonger, will deliver. Having all of the ingredients means I'm prepared even when I don't think I am.
4. I always lay the kids uniforms and school things out the night before once they are asleep. When it's quiet I can check the "kid list" for show and tell items to bring in, consent forms, ballet kit, etc, so that the morning is less of a scramble.
And here's the one she missed:
But Fishy missed a very important tip: Make sure you come flying out of a wealthy lady's vagina at birth (or marry a millionaire), so that later on in life you can hire a team of nannies to take care of your kids while you write ALL THESE FUCKING LISTS OUT.
Ending Privacy And Creating Tax Revenue While Doing It
Is there no activity we can engage in without being identified? New Jersey assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker of Essex wants to require bike owners to register bikes with the Motor Vehicle Commission for $10 dollars each or face fines of up to $100. From Philly CBS:
A license plate would be issued and will have to be displayed when riding on public roads. Plates would be valid for two years.John Boyle with the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia is against the proposed bill.
"Her office has an issue with bicyclists on the sidewalks," he said. "We are asking our New Jersey members and people in the state of New Jersey to contact their state assembly representatives and ask them to oppose this legislation," Boyle said.
They have "an issue" with bikes on the sidewalk in lots of places. Cops manage to stop people from cycling on the sidewalk without any license plate-age.
State Censors Say No To A Great Plate
Garth Yeaman ordered one of those specialized Virginia license plates with the "KIDS FIRST" imprinted at the bottom, and tried to get the personalized plate, "EAT THE."
Bureaucra-nannies of course turned him down. More here at Jalopnik, with some really great plates in the comments. My fave, the BLOND license plate, installed upside down.
Plate I got a laugh out of -- on a beautiful Jag with a bunch of Indians (from India, apparently) in it: GURU2
Best plates you've seen?
Buy The Way...
The Friday Sale
A Seriously Sick Attitude About Men
Lenore Skenazy writes in the WSJ about some seriously disgusting paranoia about men -- the attitude that if you're male, you're a pedophile until proven otherwise:
Consider the Iowa daycare center where Nichole Adkins works. The one male aide employed there, she told me in an interview, is not allowed to change diapers. "In fact," Ms. Adkins said, "he has been asked to leave the classroom when diapering was happening."Now, a guy turned on by diaper changes has got to be even rarer than a guy turned on by Sponge Bob. But "Worst-First" thinking means suspecting the motives of any man who chooses to work around kids.
Maybe the daycare center felt it had to be extra cautious, to avoid lawsuits. But regular folk are suspicious, too. Last February, a woman followed a man around at a store berating him for clutching a pile of girls' panties. "I can't believe this! You're disgusting. This is a public place, you pervert!" she said--until the guy, who posted about the episode on a website, fished out his ID. He was a clerk restocking the underwear department.
...In England in 2006, BBC News reported the story of a bricklayer who spotted a toddler at the side of the road. As he later testified at a hearing, he didn't stop to help for fear he'd be accused of trying to abduct her. You know: A man driving around with a little girl in his car? She ended up at a pond and drowned.
We think we're protecting our kids by treating all men as potential predators. But that's not a society that's safe. Just sick.
Here's one from the comments:
Cart Pierson wrote: I am a single father with three teenage children. Last fall, on my way home from work, I saw my daughter walking on the sidewalk a block away from our home. She was walking in a residential area on the way to a local store. I pulled my truck beside her on the side of the road to talk for a few minutes and see if she wanted a ride. Since it was a nice day she decided to walk but talked with me for a few minutes. During the less than five minutes I spent talking with her, no less than three cars with woman driving stopped. When I told one woman that I was talking with my daughter and my daughter told her I was her father, she pulled her car forward 100 yards and stayed there the whole time. A few minutes later the police showed up. Again, with doubt not only for me saying I was her father but for my daughter as well.On the one hand I appreciate the vigilance, on the other, when someone sees a young girl laughing and talking with someone on the side of the road with no sign of danger, is their no filter that overides the brain's worst sentiments.
One last point, not one person apologized and to a person, each one individually looked on with disbelief even when set straight. This leads me to another, related point. People appear to be so isolated and fearful in general, that it is difficult for them to determine what is dangerous and what is not. If they would get out more, they may be able to tell the difference. This of course is not an absolute but come on, when virtually every situation is viewed through a filter of perecieved deviance where does that leave us?
Cartman- Denver
What The Tiger Eats
On last post on Tiger Mom Amy Chua's approach. Momma blogger Jen Singer has a wise take on it, and what it's killing: creativity. Her kid gets mostly As, and he doesn't spend painful hour after hour memorizing music -- he writes it, and has fun doing it:
The first time I heard him play the song, I thought someone had taught him a classical tune that I hadn't heard before. Turns out, my son, then 12, had written it himself.Tiger Mom would never stand for that.
...Her kids' days are filled with rote memorization and practice, practice, practice. While her daughter Lulu was forced to play a difficult piano piece over and over again until she got it right, she appears never to have been asked to create anything. And I can't imagine Chua accepting little Lulu spending three hours noodling around on the keyboard to write a classical song, like my son has. She explains:
"What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it."How sad. Actually, half the fun is trying to get good at it. I am certain that my son had an absolute ball writing that song, and the two songs he wrote after that -- one that was played by his brother's fifth grade band and the other that was performed by a high school orchestra. He's good at it, sure, but not as good as he will be a year or five from now. But I allow him the free time to just play around with it, nonetheless. I let him create.
Creativity breeds innovation. Creativity drops out of Harvard to launch Microsoft. Creativity buys a used guitar and forms the E Street Band. Creativity hosts The Daily Showthat entertains millions, writes "The Little House (on the Prairie)" books that has touched generations of girls and creates Facebook.
...In my house, that child strives for creativity, not perfection. I ask my kids to do their best, to practice and to strive for bigger and better things, too, but not at the expense of creativity.
72...
A guy from Traverse City (where my column runs) who friended me on Facebook had a good point:
suicide bombers are promised 72 virgins. wouldn't 36 rock and roll sluts be funner?
A College Prof's Take On "Chinese Parenting"
I posted the other day on Chinese Joan Crawford Amy Chua's piece in the WSJ on how she spares no meanness in pushing her kids. Pasadena City College prof Hugo Schwyzer has another take on it -- "It would be funny if it weren't so deadly: why Amy Chua has blood on her hands":
About one-third of the students at Pasadena City College -- a public two-year, open-admission institution -- are of Asian ancestry. The plurality, if not the outright majority of those East Asian students are of Chinese ancestry. Some are immigrants themselves, many are children of immigrants, but few are more than second-generation Americans. They came from across the Chinese world and its diaspora (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, as well as the mainland itself.) Most are Mandarin-speakers.Many of them, particularly in my Humanities and Gender Studies classes, tell me that their mothers were much like Amy Chua. Many were shamed, some were beaten, almost all were made to feel inadequate. Many, particularly from the more affluent areas of the San Gabriel Valley like San Marino, were expected to get straight As and be accepted into prestigious four-year universities. A great many didn't, and most (despite what Chua claims) got Bs, and more than a few had high school transcripts littered with Cs. Chua peddles (one hopes, how one hopes, with tongue in cheek) the myth of the model minority, the myth in which average grades, depression, drug and alcohol problems, eating disorders and significant learning disabilities simply don't happen to Chinese children. In her world, Chinese children don't get rejected from Berkeley and Stanford and Princeton. But I have Chinese-American students who were not only rejected from those schools, they didn't have the grades to get into Cal State Los Angeles.
Many of these Chinese-American students are at PCC for financial reasons, but the notion that all or even most could have gone to Berkeley if only there'd been a bit more money is also very much a myth. Many of these students were pushed and tutored and browbeaten (and beaten for real), and still couldn't make the grades. Some marinate at home, they tell me, in the hostile simmer of their parents' disappointment. A lucky few have parents who have adopted a more tender and compassionate model, encouraging effort rather than insisting rigidly on a perfect outcome. They are a small minority. Far more are shell-shocked, numb from years and years of the very abuse that Chua celebrates. (I not only know this through my students, but from my first wife, who was born to a Chinese mother and a Filipino father. I saw the success -- but also the haunting damage -- up close.)
...Chua deserves not mere polite disagreement, but repudiation and scorn for perpetuating an ideal that is directly and unmistakably linked to suffering and self-harm. I've seen too much suffering in my years of teaching and mentoring -- and been too convinced of the cause by unmistakable evidence -- to let a fear of being labeled culturally insensitive blind me from my obligation to say three words to Chua: Shame. On. You.
Asian girls and young women have especially high suicide rates. More on that here. The effects of this sort of parenting on boys haven't been reported or discussed much.
Schwyzer link via Kate Coe
Highly Educated Morons
In the New York Observer, Bill Wasik reviews Seth Mnookin's book The Panic Virus
Mr. Mnookin was discussing pediatric health with a new parent in his early 40s who explained that he and his wife had decided to delay their child's vaccines. On what sources had he based this weighty decision? Questions along these lines were met with murk. "I don't know what to say," the man replied. "It just feels like a lot for a developing immune system to deal with."It was this F-word--feels--that left Mr. Mnookin justifiably gobsmacked, and it serves as the departure point for The Panic Virus, an attempt to explain how thousands of otherwise sophisticated Americans could make a fatuous decision to opt out of what is arguably modernity's greatest medical achievement. Most children "exempted" from vaccines (a fittingly ridiculous term, as if the kids place out via AP exam) are not low-information progeny. They are being raised in college towns, in wealthy suburbs and in tony urban enclaves like Park Slope, by the sorts of parents who are otherwise given to grave tut-tutting about the anti-science stances of others--the climate-change know-nothings, say, or the ovine devotees of the garish Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky.
This thinking came out of sleazy Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent study, which never should have been published in the Lancet:
Due to the speculative nature of the paper, based as it was on merely 12 cases (many of whom, it would be reported just months after publication, came to Dr. Wakefield by way of a law firm looking to sue vaccine makers), The Lancet emblazoned the unusual designation "Early Report" on every page. The journal also solicited a response from two vaccine specialists at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and their utter demolition of Dr. Wakefield's methods appeared soon thereafter. That medical consensus stood strongly against Dr. Wakefield was made glaringly obvious within weeks of the study's publication, and one cannot reasonably defend a non-vaccinating parent in 1999 (to say nothing of 2007, or 2010) for relying on his claims.The more complicated answer is that Dr. Wakefield's paper took on a public life of its own. For a decade, even as the medical establishment was disproving its claims over and over again, a network of autism advocates was using it to advance a PR battle against the safety of vaccines. Mr. Mnookin introduces us to these advocates--many of whom, like the former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy, are themselves parents of autistic children--as well as to their chief enablers, alternative doctors like Bob Sears, the best-selling pediatrician whose book on vaccines touts children's "natural immunity" and outlines its own idiosyncratic vaccine schedule.
Tragic moronism.
Like so, from this Oprah Winfrey interview of Jenny McCarthy:
McCarthy: First thing I did--Google. I put in autism. And I started my research.Winfrey: Thank God for Google.
McCarthy: I'm telling you.
Winfrey: Thank God for Google.
McCarthy: The University of Google is where I got my degree from.
Bad science is exceptionally easy to put out.
A girl from a college newspaper just e-mailed me to ask if she could interview me about anorexia -- something like my take on it vis a vis the media. (She read my Psych Today piece on beauty and found my take a change of pace from the vast PC echo chamber.)
I told her that I am not informed about anorexia, and it would take me a month of reading studies to get informed about it, and I don't speak on subjects I'm not informed on.
The girl told me she has two weeks to write this piece, and I don't believe she has a science background (formal or informal). I told her, if that's the case, she can't possibly judge what is and isn't good science.
I told her, when I'm assigned a piece that can't be done in the time period, I let the editor know. She might be able to write a piece that looks passable to an editor, but that doesn't mean it will be a piece that tells the evidence-based truth.
Luckily, I found a section on anorexia in a book (The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption
Back to sleazy Wakefield, of course the anti-vax crowd leapt to the conclusion that his motives were pure -- that it was all about doing good science and helping the children. Of course it was. Just go to physorg.com, and follow the money:
Drawing on investigations and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the report shows how Wakefield's institution, the Royal Free Medical School in London, supported him as he sought to exploit the MMR scare for financial gain.It reveals how Wakefield met with medical school managers to discuss a joint business even while the first child to be fully investigated in his research was still in the hospital, and how just days after publication of that research, which triggered the health crisis in 1998, he brought business associates to the Royal Free to continue negotiations.
One business, named after Wakefield's wife, intended to develop Wakefield's own "replacement" vaccines, diagnostic testing kits and other products which only stood any real chance of success if public confidence in MMR was damaged.Documents reveal the planned shareholdings of Wakefield and his collaborators, and how much Wakefield expected to receive personally. Financial forecasts made available for the first time today show Wakefield and his associates predicting they could make up to £28 million ($43,367,082; €33,290,350) a year from the diagnostic kits alone.
Hideous.
You Are Now Crossing The Border Into The Nanny State
American border officials confiscated a Canadian woman's chocolate Kinder Surprise egg (with the surprise little toy inside) on the grounds that a child could choke on it. The CBC quotes the woman, Lind BIrd:
"It's just a chocolate egg," Bird said. "And they were making a big deal. They said 'if you were caught with this across the border you would get charged a $300 fine,'" she said."It's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous," she added.
In Canada, however, officials said the eggs are so difficult to get into there's little chance they could harm anyone. As such, they are legal.
The U.S. takes catching illegal Kinder candy seriously, judging by the number of them they've confiscated in the last year. Officials said they've seized more than 25,000 of the treats in 2,000 separate seizures.
...As trivial as the border seizure may seem, Bird said the U.S. government has sent her a seven-page letter asking her to formally authorize the destruction of her seized Kinder egg.
"I thought it was a joke. I had to read it twice. But they are serious," she said.
Has a child ever choked on a toy inside a Kinder egg? Then again, has a child ever choked on one of the bazillions of tiny toy pieces that are in Lego and bazillions of other toys? Well, yes, but should we ban toys...or encourage parenting? You know, the kind done by actual parents, not the government acting in loco parentis (with emphasis on the this is fucking loco already).
Point The Finger Right -- In The Mirror?
The Pima County sheriff has been placing blame everywhere but at home. In this NPR piece, he admitted to prior law enforcement contact with Loughner:
"As we understand it, there have been law enforcement contacts with the individual where he made threats to kill," Dupnik said during a press conference Saturday evening. But he wouldn't say who those threats were aimed at.
This blog has more -- unconfirmed allegations -- but seemingly supported by Dupnik's words on NPR.com:
Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn't the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff's Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation. My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner's family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared's obvious mental instability.
Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner.
UPDATE: From the WaPo, David A. Fahrenthold blogs the e-mails of a classmate of Loughner's:
From June 14: "We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon. Everyone interviewed would say, Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird. I sit by the door with my purse handy. If you see it on the news one night, know that I got out fast..."
Loughner was removed from class, the instructor said, because of repeated disruptions.
Chastity Belt For Men
Emasculation, $89 and up. (Actually, probably just a kink for submissives.) Probably NSFW unless you work for me.
P.S. The best is the wood-grain no-woody closet.
Representation Without Representation
Lawyers in class action suits too often represent their clients as a sort of grudging afterthought to representing their own monetary interests. Daniel Fisher blogs at Forbes of my friend Ted Frank's appeal of a judge's award of $21 million in fees to lawyers and $6 million to those they were supposed to be representing:
For a thorough description of how a compliant judge can allow class-action lawyers to turn practically worthless coupons into a fountain of fees, read Ted Frank's appeal of a St. Louis judge's award in the A.G. Edwards case. St. Louis Judge Angela T. Quigless approved a settlement that gives lawyers at Milberg and other firms $21 million in cash but only $6 million for some customers and three annual coupons of $8.22 apiece for the rest. The judge didn't even see fit to inquire into the lawyers' valuation of the coupon portion of the settlement, despite strong evidence that less than 10% of coupons in such cases are ever redeemed. (A simple question to the lawyers might have sufficed: "If they're so valuable," Judge Quigless might have asked, "why don't you accept them at the same 100 cents on the dollar you have told the court they are worth?")The judge did show some backbone when Frank asked her to order an inquiry into how many coupons were redeemed in a nearly identical settlement Milberg negotiated with Edward D. Jones in 2006. She rejected the request.
The New Normal
The drop in wages seems here to stay. Sudeep Reddy writes for the WSJ:
In California, former auto worker Maria Gregg was out of work five months last year before landing a new job--at a nearly 20% pay cut.In Massachusetts, Kevin Cronan, who lost his $150,000-a-year job as a money manager in early 2009, is now frothing cappuccinos at a Starbucks for $8.85 an hour.
In Wisconsin, Dale Szabo, a former manufacturing manager with two master's degrees, has been searching years for a job comparable to the one he lost in 2003. He's now a school janitor.
They are among the lucky. There are 14.5 million people on the unemployment rolls, including 6.4 million who have been jobless for more than six months.
But the decline in their fortunes points to a signature outcome of the long downturn in the labor market. Even at times of high unemployment in the past, wages have been very slow to fall; economists describe them as "sticky." To an extent rarely seen in recessions since the Great Depression, wages for a swath of the labor force this time have taken a sharp and swift fall.
The only other downturn since the Depression to see similarly large wage cuts was the 1981-82 recession. But the latest downturn is already eclipsing that one. Unemployment has stood above 9% for 20 straight months--longer than the early 1980s stretch--and is likely to remain above that level for most of 2011, putting downward pressure on wages.
Many laid-off workers who have found new jobs are taking pay cuts or settling for part-time work when they get new ones, sometimes taking jobs far below their skill levels.
Those are the lucky ones -- the rest are still out of work. But, yay! Our legislators passed that health care bill that nobody read until after they voted it in. Now, instead of dealing with the economy, they're working on whether it'll be repealed.
The Price Of A Free Society
The father of Christina Green, the 9-year-old slain in Tucson, said, "This shouldn't happen in this country, or anywhere else, but in a free society, we're going to be subject to people like this. I prefer this to the alternative." Moving piece from NBC:
In Praise Of Bombastic Assholes
While I was disgusted by people, left and right, seizing the opportunity (the death of a 9-year-old, among others) to point fingers at the other side for causing it, I'm with Slate's Jack Shafer in standing against those who say we need to tamp down nasty political speech to prevent violence:
For as long as I've been alive, crosshairs and bull's-eyes have been an accepted part of the graphical lexicon when it comes to political debates. Such "inflammatory" words as targeting, attacking, destroying, blasting, crushing, burying, knee-capping, and others have similarly guided political thought and action. Not once have the use of these images or words tempted me or anybody else I know to kill. I've listened to, read--and even written!--vicious attacks on government without reaching for my gun. I've even gotten angry, for goodness' sake, without coming close to assassinating a politician or a judge.From what I can tell, I'm not an outlier. Only the tiniest handful of people--most of whom are already behind bars, in psychiatric institutions, or on psycho-meds--can be driven to kill by political whispers or shouts. Asking us to forever hold our tongues lest we awake their deeper demons infantilizes and neuters us and makes politicians no safer.
...Any call to cool "inflammatory" speech is a call to police all speech, and I can't think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power. As Jonathan Rauch wrote brilliantly in Harper's in 1995, "The vocabulary of hate is potentially as rich as your dictionary, and all you do by banning language used by cretins is to let them decide what the rest of us may say." Rauch added, "Trap the racists and anti-Semites, and you lay a trap for me too. Hunt for them with eradication in your mind, and you have brought dissent itself within your sights."
Our spirited political discourse, complete with name-calling, vilification--and, yes, violent imagery--is a good thing. Better that angry people unload their fury in public than let it fester and turn septic in private. The wicked direction the American debate often takes is not a sign of danger but of freedom. And I'll punch out the lights of anybody who tries to take it away from me.
Pay Teachers Now
Especially because we might not/probably won't/surely won't have the money later.
Joel Klein breaks down what's wrong with how teacher pay and pension are divided in the WSJ:
...While defined-benefit pensions sound good in theory--retirees should have security for their later years--they actually create incentives that impede hiring and keeping the best teachers.To begin with, these pension systems make the total compensation package much too back-loaded: Pay in the early years is needlessly low, so we lose good people who don't find the generous benefits at the end worth the lifetime commitment.
Today in New York City, for example, the average annual per-teacher compensation is more than $110,000. The salary portion is $71,000, and the pension portion is $23,000. (The rest is for health insurance, FICA and other benefits.) A mix that was more typical of what exists in the private sector would help us attract more qualified people into teaching--and keep them there during the first five years, when we traditionally lose a third or more.
Here is an example of what that means. New York City's starting salary for teachers is $45,000, and the increases in the early years are low. If instead we started teachers at $52,000 or $55,000, gave them bigger increases in the early years, and paid for it by reducing their pensions, we would attract and keep better teachers.
...On the other hand, because employees typically get a significant lifetime pension only after working 25 or 30 years, there comes a point at which almost no one leaves the system. In New York, few teachers leave after 10 years. Quite a few of these senior teachers admit they're burned out, or would want to try something else, but they stay simply because they cannot afford to forego the pension. Given that these teachers are already tenured, moreover, it's virtually impossible to remove them. This is not a good way to get the teachers that children need in our classrooms.
Why Health Care Costs More In The USA
When you compare things, you have to compare apples and apples. Have we been looking at comparisons of apples and celery? Peter Robinson interviews Thomas Sowell about this and more:
Small Kindnesses, Huge Difference
Moving story at travel writer Chris Elliott's blog about a Southwest pilot who held a plane for a murder victim's family member.
Must Everything Be Polarized?
A 9-year-old girl was murdered in Arizona Saturday, and others were wounded or murdered, and Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is in the hospital with a bullet wound through her head...and all over Twitter and blogs, people are pointing fingers left or right.
There are, for sure, major assholes and horrible people on both sides. It's just how people are -- left, right, and human. But, it was still pretty disgusting to see so many people turning this tragedy into an opportunity to blame the other team.
My tweets and retweets below from today below:
@HowardKurtzWhy the Gabrielle Giffords blame game is depressing and efforts to tie Sarah Palin to the shooting miss the mark. http://thebea.st/htzzeR@nytjim More on the 9-year-old victim, Christina Taylor Green. http://bit.ly/eFV4oX
@PatDollard He now seems unconnectable to any political ideology. An analysis of his rant leads to the conclusion he was a member of Tweaker Party, only
@allahpundit RT @JonHenke: Shooter ID'd as Jared Loughner. Is this him? http://youtu.be/nHoaZaLbqB4 Sounds like an anarchist
@joshtpm Surgeon at hospital says he's "very optimistic about [giffords] recovery." #giffords http://tpm.ly/gn7ww4
@TheAnchoress It is astounding that Giffords has survived. Awful news about the 9 year old child. Judge Roll has also died.
@amyalkon Darci Slaten, University Medical Center public affairs officer: "She is alive and in surgery right now." 16 mins ago http://bit.ly/fZruTn
@amyalkon The conflicting reports on Gifford here, as of 12:06pst, 3:06 est: http://bit.ly/f7YXvt
@amyalkon Rep. Gabrielle Giffords http://t.co/5tuObZW shot in head, confirmed alive, hospital says. Seriousness of injuries unknown. (ABC News)
@BreakingNews More on Ariz. gunman: At least 12 shot, including Rep. Giffords, Democratic party source tells CNN http://bit.ly/hJ7EWx
How To Lose $100 Million
They assumed the rich would just bend over and take it. Bernie at PlancksConstant blogs about states taxing the rich:
Blogger Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard reminds us that the Laffer Curve 1 is alive and well and working as advertised in Maryland: The state couldn't balance its budget last year and created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%, hoping to close gap, assuming the rich would just bend over and take it.One year later and one-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls 2. Instead of gaining $106 million from millionaires the state lost $100 million. It's very simple, if you make 5 million bucks a year and some state wants to grab an extra 5% from you (or $250,000) then it pays for you to move to a cheaper tax state and hire a chauffeur for 50 grand a year and lease a limo at another 50 grand and be driven to work and save $150,000 a year. Do this for 7 years and you add another million to your portfolio.
"Congress On Your Corner"
From an NPR story by Audie Cornish, why Giffords was out there at that store:
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was holding her first "Congress on Your Corner" event of the year when she was shot and critically injured Saturday.The events allow constituents the chance for a one-on-one meeting with the Democrat. And, says Don Bivens, head of the state Democratic Party, they are one of the reasons Giffords has been able to win elections in a district that's not Democratic.
Giffords was fresh off a campaign victory -- winning her swing district by just 1 percent last fall, when dozens of her conservative Democratic colleagues failed.
"People know her. People knows she cares. She knows them," says Bivens, who is a friend of the congresswoman.
That Giffords was attacked in the act of public service made it all the more tragic, President Obama said Saturday.
"Listening to the hopes and concerns of her neighbors -- that is the essence of what our democracy is all about," he said. "That is why this is more than a tragedy for those involved. It is a tragedy for Arizona and a tragedy for our entire country."
These sick people Patrick pointed out (in a comment that got eaten by my spam folder) are the reason politicians can't come out and try to directly hear and represent the people.
What Chinese Kids Don't Do
Amy Chua writes for the WSJ -- a story headlined "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." But, are they? You should be able to read the whole story -- including the bit about the piano. Here's an excerpt:
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.
I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.
All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.
...Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.
A comment at the WSJ by Michael Klein:
We live in a community with a large Chinese population and our kids have had many Chinese (and other immigrant) friends.The problem with the parenting style Ms. Chua describes is that for every child who turns out as successful as the parents hope (as, it is implied, her children did), at least half a dozen are not so successful. Only a few kids get straight As no matter how hard they work. Only a few are accepted to top colleges. Many of the others with parents' expectations of similar achievement end up with severe psychological trauma that manifests itself in depression and worse, and are completely unable to talk to their parents or any family members about it. We have known many Chinese-parented kids who during college or work realize they have no capability to establish their own direction. They are utterly unprepared for "real life" -- where they must make their own decisions. From there on they may run away, break down (as another poster mentioned, break into tears at work), or try to adjust and adapt without help from family. We know of many young-adult Chinese who lead a double life -- one of their own, and one they present to their parents.
Ms. Chua has yet to see the final results of her parenting style. I will guess that things will turn out very differently than she expects.
WSJ commenter Alistair Nicholas writes:
I think the Chinese parenting approach has its value in that it is great at producing child prodigies in music and math. The problem of course is those are restricted fields. The draw back is that few Chinese kids turn out very well equipped for success in the modern world. The reason is that all that rote learning and drilling isn't conducive to developing creative thinking abilities; and avoidance of sleepovers, school plays, sports, etc. doesn't make them very team oriented - a real draw back in the modern world. I'm speaking from the experience of living and working in China for 11 years. My Chinese staff all have very high IQ's, possibly higher than the Westerners in the office, and they can all calculate the most complex math problems in their heads while I'm still fumbling with my calculator. But few of them have the skills to lead a team or solve a real problem in today's business world. At the end of the day I'd hire an American from a second rate university over a Chinese with top grades from the top university in China. Why? They know about team work and can think outside the box.It seems ironic that when people in China are questioning the Chinese approach to parenting and education that an American professor (albeit of Chinese ancestry) is promoting that same method that has been found wanting here to a Western audience. But I don't want to totally diss the Chinese approach - I think there has to be a middle way. Unfortunately this article doesn't promote a balanced approach. Western parents who adopt the Chinese approach in its entirety will come to rue the day.
Why Joe Biden Doesn't Need A Teleprompter
Because he's actually a robot?
Some People Should Speak A Little Less Freely
John Hawkins posts the 40 most obnoxious quotes of 2010. Two of my favorites:
37) "Had a powerful meditation just now -- caused an earthquake in Southern California. ...Was meditating on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake. Sorry about that." -- Deepak Chopra is so out of it he thinks his meditation can cause earthquakes31) "If you're blaming Muslims for the attack on 9/11, then you need to change your mind. Did we blame Christians at the first World Trade attack? We didn't!" -- Russell Simmons
Um, we didn't because the people who attacked the WTC the first time were Muslim. (As good a reason as any not to point the finger at Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.)
Trivia: My New York City dry cleaner fixed me up with one of the FBI guys who was on the team that broke the case.
Successful TSA Luggage Searches
Who says the TSA is totally lame at screening luggage? CBS/Philly reports that a 37-year-old TSA worker named Troy Davis used scanners to identify which bags had laptops in them so he could steal them, and a Sony Playstation.
Oh, and at the end of the article, there's this:
Davis is married with six children.
The guy is a TSA worker and he has SIX children? Now, maybe the guy's wife is a Wall Street high roller, and six mouths to feed (and take to the dentist and doctor) are no problem. What would your guess be?
Finally, if you'd like to know how to sneak a bomb on a plane, just ask an 8-year-old. In TIME, Bonnie Rochman writes:
"Mama," my young son informed me yesterday, "I know how you can sneak an explosive onto an airplane."It was the kind of overconfident declarative that makes a parent sit up and take notice. I did both.
"You put it in the front of your underwear," continued Aviv, who turns 8 this week, "because they don't touch you there."
You know that show, "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" Here's a twist: "Is Your 8-Year-Old Smarter Than A TSA Agent?" Of course, it's 8-year-olds trying to smuggle contraband through the TSA. (I'd bet on the 8-year-olds. You?)
Theft link via reason
Let Businesses Decide Who They Can Lend To
Robin Sidel writes in the WSJ of yet another unfortunate side effect when the government tries to be our mommy:
The Credit Card Act signed into law last year was supposed to stop financial institutions from sleazy antics. But instead, some retailers say, it may restrict stay-at-home moms.Dress Barn Inc., Home Depot Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other companies are urging the Federal Reserve to drop a proposed rule that would require credit-card issuers to consider only a borrower's "independent" income rather than household income. The new standard, which would apply to new credit-card accounts and requests to increase limits on existing accounts, could make it difficult for some customers to get credit on the spot, especially stay-at-home moms.
The proposed rule "would unfairly restrict the ability of many consumers, particularly women not working outside the home, to qualify for credit," wrote David Jaffe, president and chief executive of Dress Barn in a letter to the Fed this month. The company operates 2,477 stores for women and young girls.
...But retailers say the measures go beyond the original intent of the Credit Card Act that sought to limit financial institutions from offering credit cards to college students who don't have income to pay bills.
When I was in college, I applied for -- and got -- a credit card, which I paid off in full every month. Amazing, huh? My bill probably came to around $28 a month, when I even used it. It was usually no more than that because I somehow managed to learn basic math skills in the 12 years leading up to high school graduation, and I realized that a bill would eventually arrive in my mailbox, and that it was highly unlikely a huge stack of cash would materialize out of thin air to pay it with.
If you are too big of an ass to understand this, you will have a problem, and you will go into debt, and maybe then you will learn that you can't spend $50 today with plastic if you don't have $50 socked away for when the Visa bill comes.
Some Liars Are Red, Some Liars Are Blue
Megan McArdle in The Atlantic on the Republicans' pretense that they're for small government:
If Republicans want to reduce the deficit--and they say they do!--then they should find some damn spending cuts to match the gargantuan tax cut they just demanded. Threatening a showdown over the debt necessary to pay for the spending that they won't cut, is childish in the extreme. Spending isn't going to fall until congress cuts it; playing with the debt ceiling just adds in an intervening step of default, which makes everything harder, and makes our country into a lunatic laughingstock.
Bill O'Reilly vs. Dave Silverman
What are all these people doing in churches, synagogues, and mosques?
I suspect some or many people don't believe in god, but don't want to give up the sense of community they get from belonging to the particular house of worship. Come on, do they all really believe in god? Or do some just feel they have to pretend so they don't feel -- and/or get treated -- like the atheist in the scarlet "A" shirt at the church picnic? Anybody want to confess to the latter?
Romania's Tea Party
Romanian fortune tellers and witches are angry about being made to pay taxes, says an AP story:
In the past, the less mainstream professions of witch, astrologer, and fortune teller were not listed in the Romanian labor code, as were those of embalmer, valet, and driving instructor. People who worked those jobs used their lack of registration to evade paying income tax.Under the new law, like any self-employed person, they will pay 16 percent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programs.
Some argue the law will be hard to enforce, as the payments to witches and astrologers usually are small cash amounts of $7 to $10 per consultation.
Queen witch Bratara Buzea, 63, who was imprisoned in 1977 for witchcraft under Ceausescu's repressive regime, is furious about the new law.
Sitting cross-legged in her villa in the lake resort of Mogosoaia, just north of Bucharest, she said Wednesday she planned to cast a spell using a particularly effective concoction of cat excrement and a dead dog.
Maybe Think Of It As A Success Fine?
Satoshi Kanazawa has an interesting post about taxes up at Psychology Today. An excerpt:
But why should the wealthy pay more in taxes than the poor, just because they can? The rationale for progressive taxation has never made any sense to me. Taxes are a fee for living in a nation, and everybody should pay a fee for goods and services that they purchase and consume. A nation provides many public goods for its citizens, like national defense, interstate freeway system, and mail delivery. So citizens should pay for these goods and services that they benefit from. But the wealthy do not uniformly benefit more from national defense or the interstate freeway system than the poor, so why should they pay more?A truly fair (and the only nonprogressive) system of taxation is not the flat tax, where the wealthy still pay much more than the poor, but a really flat tax, where everyone pays the same amount, not in relative terms, but in absolute terms. A wealthy person pays $50,000 for a Mercedes and $2.99 for a Big Mac, and a poor person pays $50,000 for a Mercedes and $2.99 for a Big Mac. Why should Federal income tax (which is a price for the public goods that the government provides) be different?
And there's another problem. Thanks to Barack Obama, half of Americans currently pay no Federal income tax. (More precisely, 47% of households do not pay any Federal income tax. However, because poor people live in larger families and households than wealthy people, I am willing to bet that more than 50% of Americans live in households that pay no Federal income tax.) Why is this fair?
Our nation was founded on the principle of "no taxation without representation." We colonials (rightly) felt that it was unfair of King George III to tax us without giving us a voice in the British Parliament. So we fought, and we won. Now everybody, including the British, agrees that taxation without representation is unfair.
But the principle of "no taxation without representation" also means "no representation without taxation." One should not have a voice in the national government if one is not paying the fee to be a member of the nation. Yet half of Americans are doing just that. They still have a voice in the government - they can vote and otherwise participate in the national politics just like everyone else - without paying the membership fee. In fact, half of Americans who pay absolutely no Federal income tax have just as much vote in national politics as the wealthiest person who pays millions of dollars. Why is this fair?
"African-American Jim"?
At least they didn't go that far in vandalizing "Huckleberry Finn." The LA Times' books writer David Ulin on the censorship job that's been done:
I agree: The N-word is not acceptable -- although I'm not sure "slave" is much of an improvement, with its unthinking conflation of servitude and race. Like professor Gribben, I've discussed "Huckleberry Finn" in the classroom, and it is always difficult and awkward to work around that word. This, however, is precisely why it needs to remain part of our experience of "Huckleberry Finn."Literature, after all, is not there to reassure us; it's supposed to reveal us, in all our contradictory complexity. The fact that it makes us uncomfortable is part of the point -- like all great art, it demands that we confront our half-truths and self-deceptions, the justifications and evasions by which we measure out our daily lives.
Huck is a perfect case in point, a rebel who can't reconcile his love for the escaped slave Jim with his cultural indoctrination, who goes back and forth about whether his companion is fully a human being.
"All right, then, I'll go to hell," he announces when he finally decides the matter. The choice of words is telling, since in choosing not to return Jim to slavery, Huck articulates the central moral argument of the book. This is the point Twain is making, that there is a difference between custom and conscience, between social convention and the ethics of the individual. At the heart of this is the issue of language, the words we use and how we use them, and what they tell us about the reality we construct.
The publisher of the vandalized edition claims that it might spark "good debate." Ulin counters that notion well:
I don't know how that happens, how debate is stirred by sweeping that which disturbs us under the rug.
Honda's Groovy New Motion Thingie
Beware of loud, beige music.
I'm not sure what the real-life application is, since it appears to move about as fast as an arthritic old lady. I personally like to use my legs so they stay in service.
A Truly Silly Lecture Somebody Just Sent Me An Invite To
It's "WEF LECTURE: GENDER EQUITY vs POPULAR CULTURE by Dr. Kenya Davis-Hayes." It's at the Beverly Hills Library, 7:30 pm, Wednesday, January 19, should anyone like to have their head filled with a bunch of tripe -- as is evidenced in the writeup for the lecture:
Women have been heard saying that there is no longer gender inequity in Western society. But when we look closely at the landscape of our culture, we all know this is untrue. Just cruise by a nightclub in any city in America and what do you see? Skin tight mini skirts, sky-high stilettos and an amazing amount of cleavage and this is even in snowy weather or in the rain. But there's more, these women are often on the arms of their male counterparts in full pants, scarves and jackets. So where is the equity?
The comment I left below the Facebook invitation I got:
Um...men and women are biologically and psychologically different. Men evolved to prioritize a woman's looks and women evolved to prioritize money/power/status in partners. Will there also be a talk about how unfair it is that women don't go for unemployed guys like they do for the guy with the big company and the jet?
Hilariously, WEF stands for Women's Empowerment Foundation.
So...women are empowered by whining about how unfair it is that women are wearing tiny skirts when men wear long pants?
A Woman Who Should Have Kept The Cash And Tossed The Wallet
A woman found a wallet and tried to return it to the owner, and ended up arrested and on trial for it, writes Lance Hrenandez at thedenverchannel:
Deborah Heinrich said she opened it to find who it belonged to and then started making phone calls."I left messages at his home phone after I found his number on the Internet," Heinrich said. "I called his bank and a Harley Davidson dealer listed on a business card in his wallet."
When asked if she had intended to keep the wallet, Heinrich replied, "No, not at all."
Heinrich said she even contacted police and asked them for help tracking down the owner.
Once McCreary got back to Casper, he filed a police report.
Police phoned Heinrich back and asked her for the wallet. She said she was going to hang on to it until she heard from McCreary what he wanted her to do.
She said police became aggressive and demanding, but she held firm.
"I just didn't need to be bullied," she said.
Police then arrested Heinrich, and charged her with interference.
"I said, 'Are you serious? I'm going to jail for trying to return a guy's wallet to him,'" Heinrich said.
The first attempt to prosecute her ended in a mistrial.
The judge has set a new trial date for Jan. 13.
This sounds a little more complicated than it is in the story, but even if the woman is a huge pain in the ass, she's not some thief who's a danger to the wallets of the rest of us. Ridiculous.
P.S. I plan to take my chances and continue to try to return any lost dogs or wallets that I come upon.
via Consumerist
Advice Goddess Free Swim
You pick the topic. One link per comment, or your comment will be eaten by my fierce spam software. Want to post a second? Post a second comment. Thank you! More blog items tomorrow (I need to go to bed now!).
You'll Hear The Teachers' Screams All The Way To Fresno
Yes, shockingly, in Illinois, they're talking about tying teacher pay (and whether they get to keep their jobs) to performance. Of course, states had to be bribed with the prospect of Federal taxpayer dollars to do something about their schools. Stephanie Banchero writes in the WSJ:
Illinois lawmakers are considering sweeping legislation that would link teacher tenure to student test scores, make it easier to fire ineffective teachers and curb teachers' right to strike.The measure, debated during a Senate panel hearing Monday, moves Illinois to the forefront of states' efforts to hold teachers more accountable for student performance, while taking on the powerful teacher unions, which often oppose such changes.
Last year, at least a dozen states from Maryland to Washington revamped teacher evaluations and altered tenure rules--a flurry of activity spurred by Race to the Top, President Obama's $4.35 billion initiative to reward states that overhaul education systems. Colorado passed a similar measure to the one proposed by Illinois, where leaders in both chambers of the state house appear to support it. No other state has gone as far as Colorado.
...Under the new plan, teachers would not earn tenure until they've been rated "proficient" or "excellent" by their principals for four years using the new evaluations. Now, public-school teachers in Illinois, like their colleagues across the U.S., get the job protection almost automatically after a few years.
Tenured teachers rated "ineffective" for two years could lose the job protection and revert back to probationary status. And the measure would streamline the firing process, making it easier to get rid of low-performing teachers. The plan also makes teacher performance--instead of seniority--the driving factor in school layoff decisions.
From a commenter at the WSJ, Terri Christopher:
My son has attended an Illinois public elementory school for the past five years. He has not had a male teacher yet (the administrators are all female also). During the last parent teacher meeting, I asked about the lack of male guidance. The teacher, a divorced, feminists, said that he school may hire a male math teacher.A friend worked at a Illinois public school. After two years, she privately bragged how much her 401k earned $20k+. Though she only worked effectively seven months per year, she earned about $41k yearly.
What You Might Not Be Seeing In The Future
Grocery store cashiers -- and cashiers in all sorts of businesses. Not only are self-checkout machines showing up in many retail establishments, you'll soon be able to pay via mobile phone. Beth Teitel writes for the Boston Globe:
We've gotten used to pumping our own gas, printing our own airplane tickets, and answering our own questions on companies' FAQ pages. Now, increasingly, we're being urged to check ourselves out of stores. The old cashier's cry of "Price check!'' has been replaced with "Would you like to check yourself out today?''The practice is everywhere, from library to pharmacy. As Richard Mader, executive director of the Association for Retail Technology, a division of the National Retail Federation, jokes: "You work hard for 35 years and save your money, and you, too, can become a checkout clerk.''
What else that we've always been used to in our lives will soon be on its way out? And how will this -- and changes like the disappearance of cashiers in stores -- affect you, how you shop, and how you feel about it?
A few of the downsides from Teitel's piece:
The fear of looking stupid or delaying others keeps some people from using self-checkout machines, according to a 2009 study. Researcher Michael L. Capella, an assistant professor of marketing at Villanova School of Business, calls it "stage fright.'' More embarrassing than slipping on a banana peel, apparently, is not being able to scan the banana in the first place.Here's another issue facing self-scanners: They don't have time to relax, if even for just for a few minutes. This can lead to a drop in impulse purchases of M&Ms, a disappointment for stores, perhaps, but a boon to shoppers. One study estimated the average American woman could lose up to 4.1 pounds a year avoiding those last-minute grabs.
As she scanned baking ingredients at the Stop & Shop in Brookline, Beth Segers, 51, said she missed having time to stand in line and "zone out and read cheesy magazines.''
The Rest Of Us Will Be Digging Ditches At 90
To pay the pensions of all the "public servants" who retire at 50. Thomas Sowell writes at investors.com:
You cannot have generous welfare state laws that let people retire on government pensions while they are in their 50s, in an era when most people live decades longer.In the U.S., that kind of generosity exists mostly for members of state government employees' unions -- which is why some states are running out of money, and why the Obama administration is bailing them out, in the name of "stimulus."
Once you buy the idea that the government should be a sort of year-around Santa Claus, you have bought the kinds of consequences that follow.
...Nothing is easier for politicians than to play Santa Claus by promising benefits without mentioning the costs -- or lying about the costs and leaving it to future governments to figure out what to do when the money runs out.
In the United States, the biggest and longest-running scam of this sort is Social Security. Fulfilling all the promises that were made, as commitments in the law, would cost more money than Social Security has ever had.
Europe's similarly scamalicious. Rachel Donadio writes for The New York Times of highly educated college graduates who can't find paying work or who find work that barely pays -- and where all that's leading:
LECCE, Italy -- Francesca Esposito, 29 and exquisitely educated, helped win millions of euros in false disability and other lawsuits for her employer, a major Italian state agency. But one day last fall she quit, fed up with how surreal and ultimately sad it is to be young in Italy today.It galled her that even with her competence and fluency in five languages, it was nearly impossible to land a paying job. Working as an unpaid trainee lawyer was bad enough, she thought, but doing it at Italy's social security administration seemed too much. She not only worked for free on behalf of the nation's elderly, who have generally crowded out the young for jobs, but her efforts there did not even apply to her own pension.
"It was absurd," said Ms. Esposito, a strong-willed woman with a healthy sense of outrage.
The outrage of the young has erupted, sometimes violently, on the streets of Greece and Italy in recent weeks, as students and more radical anarchists protest not only specific austerity measures in flattened economies but a rising reality in Southern Europe: People like Ms. Esposito feel increasingly shut out of their own futures. Experts warn of volatility in state finances and the broader society as the most highly educated generation in the history of the Mediterranean hits one of its worst job markets.
...With pensioners living longer and young people entering the work force later -- and paying less in taxes because their salaries are so low -- it is only a matter of time before state coffers run dry.
"What we have is a Ponzi scheme," said Laurence J. Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and an expert in fiscal policy.
What Happened To Detroit
"An epic poem of failure" with some hipster hangouts. Locals complain of "pick and choose journalism," only showing the ruins -- but the ruins are a-plenty:
From the Guardian, "Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre's extraordinary photographs documenting the dramatic decline of a major American city."
Understanding Islam
Things few Westerners know, in a video by The White Roses.
LL Cool Tevye
Heh heh heh...
Dead Trees Or Download?
My friend Lawyer Tom has suggested I not go through a publisher on my next book, a funny but smart and comprehensive book on manners that I'm writing now (more about it below).
This weekend, I saw a bit in the LA Times that Barnes & Noble has reported that e-books are outselling dead tree books online.
This book could be one I would publish myself as an e-book, but I'm not sure whether I should do that. It would be different from a good many e-books (published by people who don't seem to get that writing is rewriting...sometimes until your cuticles bleed). I'd publish it with the same standards as all my work -- meaning that I'd pay to have it professionally edited, and professionally designed, inside and out. In other words, it would look like a professionally done book.
One thing that would be attractive is that nobody would mess with my cover or title or tell me what to do on the interior. Editorial suggestions are one thing -- editorial mandates are another. And I do listen to people whose minds and literary judgment I respect. But, ultimately, I'd like the final decisions on the book to be mine, without any battles.
By the way, for those of you who don't know, the cover of I See Rude People was shot by Gregg, on my front porch, and although the type design was done by an art director at my publisher, it was heavily influenced by me, and by the fact that I love type and shot photostats for some of the biggies in type use: Tibor Kalman, Seymour Chwast, and Roger and Pinky Black (back when they were married). The initial type design for my book was very girly and chick flick'y, and I pushed and pushed to have it changed to be strong and graphic, as it is now.
What I'd like to know from you is how many of you buy e-books, and how many would buy, say, a funny but smart (or so I intend, anyway) comprehensive e-book on manners. Not etiquette or boring stuff like the specifics on table manners (I have no idea what you should do with your fork, except that you shouldn't poke anyone in the eye with it). This is a book on how to treat people in a variety of situations, from the airport to the workplace to dates to Facebook and beyond, and what behavior from other people is rude and unacceptable.
One final question: If you would buy this book, how much would you pay for it? It's probably going to come out around 300 pages, because it is comprehensive. But, the chapters are short and fun. There will probably be about 30 chapters in all.
Probably Too Sensible Ever To Be President
New Jersey governor Chris Christie responds to a teacher's question:
The way he doesn't take shit from the woman shows, yet again, how he's the un-politician.
Here, he tells a teacher to quit if she's unhappy:
Here he is on the idea that he should have a less "confrontational" tone:
Just love the guy. Love. Love. Love.
The Real Deal On Strip Clubs
Tom Matlack at The Good Men Project interviews a friend who used to run a strip club. An excerpt:
Retell me the story about what it means to "make it rain."That was probably one of my first nights there. One guy sits down nonchalantly and says, "Well, could you do me a favor?" And I said sure. He's like, "I need to change out $9,000 in ones." And I go, "Say that one more time?" "Yeah, I need $9,000 in one-dollar bills."
I go over to talk to my buddy, and my buddy immediately says, "Oh yeah, it's going to storm." And he says, "Let me go check out in the safe." He comes back and says, "I can do this." We grab the gentleman's money, we change it into singles. His gal, the girl that he was looking for, goes up onstage. All of a sudden, he just starts throwing the money straight up into the air, and it's raining $1 bills, and it lasts for the entire song. Money's everywhere. I have to get up onstage with a big broom and sweep it up into big garbage bags. It takes me an hour and a half to recount it, and she pays me $150.
What made for the most successful stripper?
The most successful strippers were usually the girls who were intelligent and could talk to anybody. She could talk to a thug, and make him feel all warm and happy, but could also go up to the Mexican cowboy dude who doesn't speak much English, or the white college kids who would come in with the credit card. If you had a girl who could really only deal with one type of person, that's all you could use her for.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about strip clubs?
Well, I think the majority of guys think that they could offer these gals money and take them home, that they're all prostitutes, and that's not true at all. I would say a good 40 percent of them are no different from any of the other women walking around, except they just don't have a problem taking off their clothes. They are comfortable with themselves, and they look at men as complete idiots. I can take that guy's money, why not? Why not. And I love that.
The other misconception is that everybody there is on drugs and whatever. You couldn't be. If these girls were drunk or on drugs, they couldn't talk to the customers, and we would ask them to leave. Everybody's there to make money, pure and simple.
What does it say about male sexuality that men, especially the big spenders, would go into the club and sit there for hours talking with some girl and spending thousands of dollars?
That we're complete suckers.
Here's Good Men Project's inside look at prostitution.
McWhorter: How Legalizing Drugs Will Change Black America
John McWhorter writes at TNR
...With no War on Drugs there would be, within one generation, no "black problem" in the United States. Poverty in general, yes. An education problem in general--probably. But the idea that black America had a particular crisis would rapidly become history, requiring explanation to young people. The end of the War on Drugs is, in fact, what all people genuinely concerned with black uplift should be focused on, which is why I am devoting my last TNR post of 2010 to the issue. The black malaise in the U.S. is currently like a card house; the Drug War is a single card which, if pulled out, would collapse the whole thing.That is neither an exaggeration nor an oversimplification. It comes down to this: If there were no way to sell drugs on the street at a markup, then young black men who drift into this route would instead have to get legal work. They would. Those insisting that they would not have about as much faith in human persistence and ingenuity as those who thought women past their five-year welfare cap would wind up freezing on sidewalk grates.
There would be a new black community in which all able-bodied men had legal work even in less well-off communities--i.e. what even poor black America was like before the '70s; this is no fantasy. Those who say that this could only happen with low-skill factory jobs available a bus ride away from all black neighborhoods would be, again, wrong. That explanation for black poverty is full of holes. Too many people of all colors of modest education manage to get by without taking a time machine to the 1940s, and after the War on Drugs black men would be no exception.
And in this new black community, young black men, much less likely to wind up in prison cells or caskets, would be a constant presence--and thus stay in the lives of their children. The black male community would no longer include a massive segment of underskilled, drug-addicted ex-cons churning in and out by the thousands year after year, and thus black boys growing up in these communities would not see this life as a norm. They would grow up to get jobs, period.
And something else these boys would not grow up with is a bone-deep sense of the police--and thus whites--as an enemy. Because there would be no reason for the police to prowl through his neighborhood.
Before long, the sense of blacks as America's eternal poster children--generated from within the black community as well as from without--would fade away. Think about it.
Let Them Eat Chocolate
Pam Belluck, in The New York Times, writes of a different sort of nursing home, and a different way of caring for elderly patients with Alzheimer's:
PHOENIX -- Margaret Nance was, to put it mildly, a difficult case. Agitated, combative, often reluctant to eat, she would hit staff members and fellow residents at nursing homes, several of which kicked her out. But when Beatitudes nursing home agreed to an urgent plea to accept her, all that changed.Disregarding typical nursing-home rules, Beatitudes allowed Ms. Nance, 96 and afflicted with Alzheimer's, to sleep, be bathed and dine whenever she wanted, even at 2 a.m. She could eat anything, too, no matter how unhealthy, including unlimited chocolate.
And she was given a baby doll, a move that seemed so jarring that a supervisor initially objected until she saw how calm Ms. Nance became when she rocked, caressed and fed her "baby," often agreeing to eat herself after the doll "ate" several spoonfuls.
Dementia patients at Beatitudes are allowed practically anything that brings comfort, even an alcoholic "nip at night," said Tena Alonzo, director of research. "Whatever your vice is, we're your folks," she said.
Once, Ms. Alonzo said: "The state tried to cite us for having chocolate on the nursing chart. They were like, 'It's not a medication.' Yes, it is. It's better than Xanax."
It is an unusual posture for a nursing home, but Beatitudes is actually following some of the latest science. Research suggests that creating positive emotional experiences for Alzheimer's patients diminishes distress and behavior problems.
Great bit, later in the piece, about German nursing homes with fake bus stops outside. Patients "wait for nonexistent buses until they forget where they wanted to go, or agree to come inside."
And I love what I read about this Beatitudes place -- it seems more focused on alleviating people's suffering than following rigid rules.
A Racism Of The Anti-Racists
That's multiculturalism, writes Pascal Bruckner, in a fantastic piece about how Ayaan Hirsi Ali is condemned by Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash for committing "an unpardonable offence" -- for taking democratic principles seriously.
To the multicultis, Hirsi Ali's offense is daring to speak out against the backwardness and barbarianism commanded by the Quran, and to daring demand the end of female circumcision and the vile treatment of women under Islam. Bruckner writes, in a long piece at signandsight:
Multiculturalism is a racism of the anti-racists: it chains people to their roots. Thus Job Cohen, mayor of Amsterdam and one of the mainstays of the Dutch state, demands that one accept "the conscious discrimination of women by certain groups of orthodox Muslims" on the basis that we need a "new glue" to "hold society together." In the name of social cohesion, we are invited to give our roaring applause for the intolerance that these groups show for our laws. The coexistence of hermetic little societies is cherished, each of which follows a different norm. If we abandon a collective criterion for discriminating between just and unjust, we sabotage the very idea of national community. A French, British or Dutch citizen will be prosecuted for beating his wife, for example. But should the crime go unpunished if it turns out that the perpetrator is a Sunni or Shiite? Should his faith give him the right to transgress the law of the land? This is the glorification in others of what we have always beaten ourselves up about: outrageous protectionism, cultural narcissism and inveterate ethnocentrism!This tolerance harbours contempt, because it assumes that certain communities are incapable of modernising. Could it be that the dissidence of British Muslims is not only a function of the retrograde rigorism of their leaders, but also stems from a vague suspicion that all the consideration show to them by the state is little more than a subtle form of disdain, basically telling them that they are just too backward for modern civilisation ? Several communes in Italy are planning to reserve certain beaches for Muslim women, so they may bathe unexposed to male eyes. And within a few years the first "Islamic hospital," complying in all points with the prescriptions of the Koran, may open in Rotterdam. Anyone would think we are reliving the days of segregation in the southern United States. Yet this segregation has the full backing of Europe's most prominent progressives! Theirs is a fight on two fronts: minorities must be protected from discrimination (for example by encouraging the teaching of regional languages and cultures and adapting the school calendar to religious holidays); and private individuals must be protected from intimidation by the community in which they live.
Finally, one last argument militates against Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism: on the government's own avowal it doesn't work. Not content to have serves as an asylum for Jihad for years on end, with the dramatic consequences known to all, the United Kingdom must admit today that its social model based on communitarianism and separatism doesn't work.
...How could we tolerate in Islam that which we no longer tolerate in Catholicism? Secularism, which incidentally is written into the Gospels, is based on a few simple principles: freedom of religious affiliation, peaceful coexistence, neutrality of the public space, respect of the social contract, and the common acceptance that religious laws are not above civil ones but reside in the hearts of believers. France, said the philosopher Hannah Arendt, treated its colonies both as brothers and subjects. Happily, the time of colonies is over. But the republican egalitarian ideal postulates that all human beings have the same rights, independently of their race, sex and confession. This ideal is far from being realised. It is even in crisis, as the riots of November 2005 proved. Nevertheless it seems to be a better guiding light than the questionable worship of diversity.
Hitchens On The Virtue Of Mocking Religion
Why it's better to be a divider than a unifier, how the Bible, Torah, and Quran are "depraved works of fiction," and more:
Government Is Supposed To Cure The Problems Of The Black Family?
Because that's worked so well so far? The Washington Post Op-Ed page-employed nitwit Colbert I. King has yet another brilliant idea -- that "D.C.'s broken families" should be the new mayor's top priority.
What's he going to do, break into women's homes as they're about to have sex, check both partners for wedding rings, and hold the woman's legs together if there aren't any?
Unless there's widespread and outspoken stigma from black leaders for the 70 or more percent of black women who have children out of wedlock, the culture of that isn't going to change. Unfortunately, as Kay Hymowitz writes on City Journal about Children's Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman:
Advocates like Edelman might not have viewed the collapsing ghetto family as a welcome occurrence, but they treated it as a kind of natural event, like drought, beyond human control and judgment. As recently as a year ago, marking the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, CDF announced on its website: "In 2004 it is morally and economically indefensible that a black preschool child is three times as likely to depend solely on a mother's earnings." This may strike many as a pretty good argument for addressing the prevalence of black single-mother families, but in CDF-speak it is a case for federal natural-disaster relief.
Here, from Hymowitz, is why single parents are a problem:
The research of another social scientist, Sara McLanahan, was not so easily rationalized, however. A divorced mother herself, McLanahan found Auletta's depiction of her single-parent counterparts in the inner city disturbing, especially because, like other sociologists of the time, she had been taught that the Moynihan report was the work of a racist--or, at least, a seriously deluded man. But when she surveyed the science available on the subject, she realized that the research was so sparse that no one knew for sure how the children of single mothers were faring. Over the next decade, McLanahan analyzed whatever numbers she could find, and discovered--lo and behold--that children in single-parent homes were not doing as well as children from two-parent homes on a wide variety of measures, from income to school performance to teen pregnancy.
As for the city's hopes for Mayor Gray, here's what my friend, education expert Rishawn Biddle wrote about him in The American Spectator:
...technocrat Vincent Gray, whose only notable achievement in his long career in politics was overseeing the clown college known as the city council.
Biddle is also a realist about the mayoral job -- and he's only talking about school reform, not reforming an entire culture of out-of-wedlockness:
Mayors can succeed in continuing reforms only if they master the other aspects of their job: Keeping crime low; attending to quality of life issues; efficiently managing city government; and artfully keeping opponents (and sometimes, even allies) divided or placated. Fail in any of these areas (let alone all of them, as in Fenty's case) and the mayor may not have much time to overhaul school districts -- or anything else.
Moo Shu Porkulus
Say hello to our new owners, the Chinese.
Krauthammer in the WaPo on the stimulus scam:
Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.
...Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
And he gets all this in return for what? For a mere two-year postponement of a mere 4.6-point increase in marginal tax rates for upper incomes. And an estate tax rate of 35 percent - it jumps insanely from zero to 55 percent on Jan. 1 - that is somewhat lower than what the Democrats wanted.
No, cries the left: Obama violated a sacred principle. A 39.6 percent tax rate versus 35 percent is a principle? "This is the public option debate all over again," said Obama at his Tuesday news conference. He is right. The left never understood that to nationalize health care there is no need for a public option because Obamacare turns the private insurers into public utilities, thus setting us inexorably on the road to the left's Promised Land: a Canadian-style single-payer system. The left is similarly clueless on the tax-cut deal: In exchange for temporarily forgoing a small rise in upper-income rates, Obama pulled out of a hat a massive new stimulus - what the left has been begging for since the failure of Stimulus I but was heretofore politically unattainable.
Conventional Wisdom On Diet Is Not So Wise
Steven Guyenet, who has a Ph.D. in the neurobiology of fat regulation, blogged about the findings of a recent (observational) study that suggests that dairy fat may protect against diabetes. He quotes the researchers:
Our findings support potential metabolic benefits of dairy consumption and suggest that trans-palmitoleate may mediate these effects***. They also suggest that efforts to promote exclusive consumption of low-fat and nonfat dairy products, which would lower population exposure to trans-palmitoleate, may be premature until the mediators of the health effects of dairy consumption are better established.
Guynet translates
Our findings support eating as much butter as possible****. Don't waste your money on low-fat cream, either (half-n-half). We're sorry that public health authorities have spent 30 years telling you to eat low-fat dairy when most studies are actually more consistent with the idea that dairy fat reduces the risk obesity and chronic disease.
Denis Dutton
He was a sweet man with whom I'd exchanged e-mail after he'd linked to some of my pieces, and who I had the pleasure of meeting when Michael Shermer hosted his talk about his excellent book, The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
Finally, here's the New York Times' Margalit Fox's obit on Dutton, who was also the founder of the wonderful Arts & Letters Daily:
Although philosophy has a mania for classification, Professor Dutton was demonstrably beyond category. His portfolio ranged over aesthetics (his major field of inquiry was the philosophy of art); evolution (his book "The Art Instinct," a Darwinian exploration published in 2009, commanded international attention); editing (he founded and edited the journal Philosophy and Literature); obfuscatory prose (he was a publicly sworn foe of same, and ran a competition to honor the worst offenders); plagiarism (as a cultural phenomenon; he was not himself a practitioner); and sitar playing (this he did practice).He wrote widely in the mainstream press, and his opinions were solicited by the news media on subjects from moles' noses ("No one would find the star-nosed mole ugly if its star were iridescent blue," he told The New York Times in August) to the essential difference between plagiarism and forgery (in the first, one passes off another's work as one's own; in the second, vice versa).
He died of prostate cancer, but he lived vigorously, and will be missed by millions.
