Phone-Sexual Assault

Am I crazy or is this kid essentially a serial rapist? Extorting sex by threatening to send SWAT teams to women's homes sounds pretty rape-like to me.

Movie Review: In A Lonely Place

In a Lonely Place gave him a role that he could play with complexity because the film character's, the screenwriter's, pride in his art, his selfishness, his drunkenness, his lack of energy stabbed with lightning strokes of violence, were shared equally by the real Bogart.
...
Being himself supremely confident of his own attractiveness to women, he scorned every form of demonstrativeness. When a woman appealed to him, he waited for her like the flame waits for the moth.

-Louise Brooks

This could have been a Lifetime Original Movie, were it not for the casting. Note to the ladies out there: Psychologically unstable old murder suspects with control fetishes are not marriage material! But as my fellow cinéaste noted after watching this movie, "this is slightly less misogynistic than the Twilight books," since [SPOILER] the female lead rejects his dominion. The idea that this controlling, violent, paranoid creature is a reflection of the true Bogart taints the rests of his films, though. Not recommended, if you'd prefer to maintain your enjoyment of Casablanca and such.

Public Nudity, French Pop Edition

The last woman seems like she's having the least fun, but the other two seem to be enjoying themselves. And contra some PTN commenters, nobody was overcome with lust and leaped on the nude women. (via)

Inglourious Basterds [SPOILERS]

Very depressing film. Shoshanna's revenge is preempted by the Basterds, she dies for essentially random reasons, and the man who actually killed her family gets away with a nasty scar? The emptiness and pointlessness of it all is staggering.

Smack Talk, Online and Offline

Which would you rather have happen:

- Someone calls you nasty names on an anonymous blog.

- Someone in your social circle badmouths you directly to your significant other.

Which is more credible to the audience? Which is more likely to have a direct impact on your life? Which would cause more actual injury?

I've had both happen to me and it's clear which one hurts more.

(Note: This Port character sounds kind of nasty, so I'm not defending her fight-fire-with-fire approach, but I'm always skeptical of lawsuits based on internet smack, especially when it's not clear the plaintiff's life was materially damaged.)

Oh, look, shiny!

These almost make me want a tattoo. The watercolor ones are really cool. It sort of reduces tattooing to its most fundamental essence: You're painting on yourself. Having a tattoo that's of a thing means you are burdened with its connotations and significance. This is pure body-as-canvas. Neat.

I recognize that this flitting about is flaky and have decided I don't care. Bikes! Tattoos! The plus side of being easily distracted by nifty things is it saves money---never enough time to invest in such passing fancies.

Bad Dads

You know, fathers aren't coming off very well in the NYT Magazine piece on women's rights abroad. In particular, they appear to be spending money on hookers and booze instead of feeding or educating their damn kids:

If poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. ...

[W]hen the men’s crops flourish, the household spends more money on alcohol and tobacco. When the women have a good crop, the households spend more money on food. “When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves.”

For another example of bad fathering, note that the girl star of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire remains in the slums (at least until her father can sell her):

[H]er family's shack was demolished by city municipal workers and later rebuilt in the same spot, next to an open sewer and piles of garbage. She remains in the slums because her father, despite Boyle's offers for a new home, isn't sure he wants to leave. He also was caught in an undercover sting by a British newspaper where he allegedly agreed to sell her for adoption to a wealthy Dubai family for the equivalent of $290,000; he denies the allegation.

Another depressing data point: An Afghan girl on her way to school was badly injured in an acid attack and thousands were collected to pay for surgery. Although there was sufficient money to send her and a female chaperone to the U.S. for the procedure, her father refused:

[A]t 17, Shamsia was of marrying age. As an unmarried girl, her reputation had to be preserved at all costs. Traveling to the United States, with all its possibilities for corruption, was out of the question. So if she stayed, according to her father, she wouldn’t be able to marry because of her injuries; but if she left to go to the U.S. and have her injuries repaired, she wouldn’t be able to marry either. ...

“I want to help your daughter get medical care,” I said. “People have given me a lot of money for this purpose.”

“Why not just buy me a house,” Ali said. “Buy me a big house in Kabul.”

“The money is for your daughter,” I told him.

I was reduced to pleading. I suddenly felt like a parody of a wealthy Westerner, forcing charity onto an unwilling third-world subject.

“Just give the money to me,” Ali said.

Even Shamsia had changed her mind.

“We want to live in Kabul,” she said.

And so it had come to this. The Taliban, or someone who thought like them, had thrown acid in the faces of a number of girls, and a number of readers in the United States and other countries, filled with generosity, had given their money to take care of one of those girls and the school. And now the girl’s family, for reasons I could barely comprehend, was telling me, in effect, that they wanted something else.

I offered a compromise: What if we brought your daughter to Kabul and had doctors check her there?

Ali said nothing.

And if she needs surgery, I continued, would you consider allowing us to bring her to one of the better hospitals in India, an hour’s plane flight over the Himalayas?

“I will think about this,” Ali said.

I pressed some more.

“O.K.,” he said finally. “But you will need to put us up in Kabul.”

I'm not holding my breath on this one. The girl's eyes were so badly burned she can no longer see well enough to read. And yet priority one for dad is turning some of the funds people gave for his daughter's medical care to a new house. (It is possible that the girl is not being pressured by Pops to say she'd rather be blind in a big house in Kabul than healed in her home town, but I'm surpassingly skeptical.)

Email Address Stigma?

I don't do hiring, of course, but this article about email address stigma is far too extreme and somewhat shallow. If someone has an AOL or Hotmail address, I might think that they were somewhat behind the times, but to imply that Amber@AmberTaylor.com would be the soul of professionaisml is a bit of a stretch. An email domain like that might strike one as self-aggrandizing puffery. (Or just evidence that you have an uncommon name---that particular one belongs to an actress who hasn't worked since 1996, not me, frex.) Any other kind of personally registered domain is going to look like you're involved in some other venture, which potential employers probably don't want.

It's easier for relatively recent grads to skirt this issue, since most of us have some Name@alumni.almamater.edu address that we can put down, even if it just forwards to a webmail account and shows up as a reply-to. But most of us lose our other email addresses when we switch jobs, so it's useful to establish some webmail base camp to use when looking for work. If older workers without alumni email privileges have somehow managed to keep a usable, spam-free toehold in a venerable account, why dock them for being a reliable user of a service? As long as someone knows not to put FluffysMommy@furbabies.com or seductress_amber@hotmail.com* on a CV, cut them some slack. I know there's a recession on and people are just looking for ways to eliminate the mass of applicants, but blackballing someone for a Yahoo.com email domain is just silly.

* Okay, so there was this snooty clique of high school girls who threw themselves "Temptress slumber parties" where they ate strawberries and whipped cream and gave themselves faux-elegant "Temptress names." A friend and I quipped that we should set up a rival organization, the Seductresses, with the motto "we get results!" (Never set up an email account based on a joke.) But of COURSE I did not put this email address on a resume. Even at 17 I knew better. And Hotmail eventually ate it anyway.

Connectivity Bleg

Is there some way I can set things up so I get an email whenever someone leaves a voicemail or text on my cell phone? This is Gmail/iPhone, if that matters.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I would like to learn to ride a bike. What is the best way to go about this while keeping entry costs low? Should I buy a cheap bike on Craigslist? A kids' bike (I am 5'0")? Or would it be okay to learn on a friend's bike, even if that friend is slightly taller than I am? I do not want to shell out a bunch of money on a bike when there is a strong possibility that I will skin my knees, pout, and resign myself to driving (actual process that occurred 20 years ago).

Hint: Women like hot dudes. It's that simple.

Peter Suderman is sort of on the right track about why women love Don Draper. All the other males on the show are old-school men, and most television characters benefit from screenwriting and the absence of life's little indignities. But these others are not played by Jon Hamm. Women would love Jon Hamm if he was playing Stalin.

BTW, I haven't seen the Season 3 premiere yet so no spoilers in the comments, please.

Open Thread

Talk amongst yourselves.

Fake Trend Watch: Podgy Hipster Dudes

Broadsheet points to lame NYT article trying to make potbellies the next man-date:

“I sort of think the six-pack abs obsession got so prissy it stopped being masculine,” is how Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out, explains the emergence of the Ralph Kramden. What once seemed young and hot, for gay and straight men alike, now seems passé. Like manscaping, spray-on tans and other metrosexual affectations, having a belly one can bounce quarters off suggests that you may have too much time on your hands.

“It’s not cool to be seen spending so much time fussing around about your body,” Mr. Hicklin said.

And so guys can happily and guiltlessly go to seed.

No. Just no. Pot bellies make a man look either oafish, or like a gorilla.

Neurotypicality and Fiction Reading

This whole conversation just sets my heart to twanging.

Not all that many kids start reading anything outside of assigned schoolwork before 13 anyways.

I wonder if not reading fiction CAUSES lowered social understanding, rather than that being a bit socially blind leads to less fiction reading. That is, I suspect that most people read fiction and watch plays and so on to help them have insight into others' and their own emotions and motivations.

In the past 10 years I've made a concerted effort to read fiction, especially the classics. Its helped me a great deal understand the motivations and inner-lives of human beings -- something I wasn't great at, and still don't have a natural aptitude for.

As I see it, there are only 3 ways to understand humans (in descending order)
1) Fiction
2) Statistically-valid surveys
3) Anecdotes.

Fiction: It's an end unto itself AND helpful social conditioning! How any intellectually curious person could avoid 1) reading for pleasure in childhood and 2) the draw of narrative is utterly baffling. Is the idea that it didn't really happen, so it's not worth knowing? Fiction is just hypothesizing and testing with human personas as lab materials. You know if you're doing it right if it rings true with experience of actual humans.

Would you change these diapers for $600/week?

This reminded me of the long-ago PTN conversations on public sex and nudity and whether making someone an unwilling participant in your sexual gratification should always be redressable at law.

Unputdownable

Thoughts on what makes books "unputdownable." The trifecta of efficient plotting, occasional lyric prose or deft imagery, and engaging characterization seems a fair summary.

My mind snagged, though, on the division of books as either conducive to fast reading or to contemplative reading. The latter is not quite the same as being elliptical or something you can dip in and out of. Certain books are elliptical and strange and episodic, in a way that might make them ideal candidates for the sort of on-again-off-again reading that Bachner enjoys,* but may also be "unputdownable": you can blow through the interludes and meditations in great gulps, even in a single night, because something (maybe not the plot, but some current of desire) draws you in and refuses to let you surface. (Bachner seems drawn to books that almost force you to surface; this is, as she recognizes toward the essay's end, almost a guarantee of reduced readership. Some people will not enjoy being pushed out, and some may never return.**)

This is the sort of thing I think about a lot, without actually teasing out the components, when looking for travel reading. The ideal travel book for a beach trip is either fast reading or entirely episodic; the former is effortlessly immersive, and many of us don't want to have to work hard at getting into a book on a lazy vacation. The latter has its own appeal in this situation, as you may be reading in small chunks of time, while you sunbathe or between bursts of activity. Something that does not require sustained attention or recall of what's previously read, like a volume of short stories, may fill these gaps ideally.

A book that is unputdownable may actually interfere with one's plans, such as they are. Perhaps the appeal of trashy "beach reads" can be said to rely in part on their low status; despite our emotional need to continue reading, we're aware that doing so is not, objectively, valuable, and thus breaking out of the trance is marked with a touch of wry guilt. (A book like Drift, beloved of Bachner, is not a good candidate insofar as the breaking free is driven by an emotional need for distance and processing. A vacation book should conform to your schedule, not the other way around, and be easy to hop back into.)

But on a different kind of trip, especially my fondly remembered solitary train trips (which I won't be repeating for the foreseeable future, it seems), the ideal book is 1) immersive, 2) based on a continuous or linked narrative, and 3) amenable to contemplative reading and requiring sustained attention. This last is a subjective bit of prioritization; there are few times in my modern life other than long train rides when nothing bears on me but the desire to push on through a difficult book. A book that breaks itself into putdownable pieces unnecessarily dislodges the mind from its track while the train still chugs along its own. But absent everyday distractions, the requirement of a rapid, efficient plot can be relaxed. A slower, more meandering one is more than sufficient, as long as some momentum is maintained.

This is perhaps just to say: unputdownability is almost always desirable to both publisher and reader, but its requirements are heavily reliant on the circumstances of the reader.

* Which may include "edgy, explosive, poetic, radical, plotless work." I have no problem with elliptical and episodic and revisitation-friendly; I despise and abhor "edgy, explosive, poetic, radical, plotless work" when it comes in prose-length chunks. It is almost always self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing.

** Note also Bachner's mention of a book that was unputdownable and not of poor quality, but which she did not enjoy. Perhaps this sort of book is the most revealing, in terms of our examination of unputdownability.

Are you masculine?

Interesting slide show with photos of subjects at their most masculine. A couple of pictures contain nudity. The best parts are the little background details (all participants were photographed in their homes and chose their own settings and poses).

Is this your dog?

My friends found this dog under the New York Avenue bridge in DC today. We are trying to find his owners. He is a neutered male Chihuahua, approximately 10-12 pounds, light yellow in color, found wearing a blue AKC-brand collar with no tags. If you know this dog, please contact me at the email address on the sidebar.

A bug, not a feature.

On the epidemic of men raping men in the Congo:

The male rape cases are still just a fraction of those against women. But for the men involved, aid workers say, it is even harder to bounce back.

“Men’s identity is so connected to power and control,” Ms. Walker said.

I'm not sure if an identity based on power and control is really what we want people bouncing back to, but there's no evidence that male victims are being encouraged to reframe their masculinity. I'm afraid that the logical consequence might be for them to reassert their power and control by dominating weaker others. A truly difficult problem.

Robot Cabs Now!

I HATE when cabbies are on their cell phones. It typically causes one of the following:

- Cabbie does excellent impersonation of crazy person talking to self, creeping you the hell out, but is actually on the phone.

- Cabbie is too engrossed in conversation to notice you're hailing his cab (optional bonus: next cab in line tells you to take Oblivious Cabbie instead).

- Cabbie is on phone when you board the cab and you aren't sure whether/how loud to interrupt him with the little matter of your destination.

- You think the cabbie is asking you a question but of course he's talking to someone on the phone.

- You think the cabbie is talking on the phone but he really said "Turn here?" and whizzes past your street as you politely ignore what he's mumbling about.

- Cabbie gets off the phone and wants to talk to you about the topic of his conversation, usually how terrible his kids are.

- Cabbie gets in argument with caller and starts yelling into the phone, startling the living daylights out of you.

- Cabbie is on phone when you arrive at your destination, making the negotiation for change more annoying than usual.

- Distracted cabbie gets in an accident/gets a ticket/etc.

* insert Princess Bride joke here *

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been working through the Summer of Weddings. This weekend was my first really religious Christian wedding. And first ever religious service (there was a Mass)! I am a heathen.

Weddings I Have Been To:
1 Catholic
2 Jewish
7 Basically non-religious (Universal Life Church officiants ftw)

Mini Book Review: Daughters of the North

Stupendously readable dystopian feminist SF. Guaranteed to have absolutely no dragon sex. I went in blind and enjoyed it much more than I would have had I known where the plot was going. It's like [SPOILER] The Handmaid's Tale plus David Koresh plus global warming minus religion. I passionately love the north of England and bad ass women and post-apocalyptic scenarios. If you do also, read this book right now.

Things you apparently can't do in DC

- Get someone arrested for attempting to burglarize your house.

- Dance at the Jefferson Memorial.

- Say that you hate the cops.

I've only had to call the cops once in my life, and that was when I came home two days in a row to a wide-open door (both were unique and unrelated freak incidents---it only looked like someone kept breaking into the house). The police were very professional and cool about the whole thing. Of course, this was not in the District.

Zombie Bamber?

So for my birthday I got a buckwheat pillow, making my sleeping arrangements even more deeply ridiculous: the four-inch thick foam topper on my mattress is much softer than my previous pillow, much less this one. There's no good reason for this; I bought a loveseat instead of a decent mattress when I moved into my house and the inertia is strong, sunk costs for the expensive topper are overly influential, etc.

(Also, I hate having deliverymen come after the altercation with the loveseat guys, who mysteriously forgot that the back came off the piece until I told them that their half-hearted attempts to get it up my stairs and proposal to leave it in my downstairs living room, for which I had already purchased a couch, meant that I was refusing delivery and they could just take the damn thing back.)

Anyway, with the too-thick mushy foam topper and the buckwheat pillow, my pillow is harder than my sleeping surface. Absurd. But the combination is not uncomfortable, as the pillow, with a little nestling action, does conform neatly to the head and neck. The only disconcerting part is that once the pillow is conformed to your head, it tends to keep you completely in place the entire night. I close my eyes while lying in bed on my back, arms at my sides, and wake in EXACTLY the same position. It's like I wasn't asleep at all, except for the remembering dreams and not being tired part. (I can sleep on my side with the pillow, but that is less comfortable; the cheek demands to be cushioned on something softer. On the stomach is right out, which is a pity since I do like that also.)

I do recommend these pillows, if you do not mind their incredible swipple factor and high cost.

Seen and heard

I see lots of people who were spanked as children and take the attitude that "I turned out okay, so it's good enough for my kids," and lots of people who were not spanked who are anti-spanking for their own children, and even a fair number of spankees who say they wouldn't continue the tradition. But is there anyone who wasn't spanked as a kid who decides, yep, corporal punishment is awesome?

Random Roundup

Rapists rape because they like raping.

An adventure in Italy. I was coldly abandoned by Alitalia when flying back from Venice some years ago. Upon finally arriving in Paris for my connection (long since missed), Air France did put me up in the Gallic equivalent of Motel 6.

The smallest bank in America.

The dumbest criticism of Harry Potter yet?

Going Mad

Okay, this is pretty cool:



ETA: Better?

The Best Blueberry Cake in the World

This is the only cake I can remember where the end product is more delicious than the batter.

Ingredients:
2 cups (275 g) plus 1 tsp flour, 1/2 wheat and 1/2 white
1 tablespoon (10 g) baking powder
1 teaspoon (6 g) table salt
16 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup (170 g) packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Topping
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Whisk 2 cups of flours, salt, and baking powder together. Cream butter and sugars in mixing bowl until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing briefly after each one. Alternate adding flour mixture and buttermilk until all is combined. Toss blueberries with 1 tsp flour and gently fold in. Pour batter into 9-inch springform pan. Combine sugar and cinnamon for topping. Scatter blueberries for topping over batter and sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 50 minutes or until toothpick in center comes out clean. EAT.

Elimination Follies

I usually don't read the comments on the Volokh Conspiracy, but these are worthwhile if you enjoy hysterical displays in response to sex-role challenges.

I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Via Mike, this is the stupidest thing I have ever seen from a Harvard Law grad. It's even worse than my classmate's plan to prevent gentrification by outlawing the sale of black-owned homes in Harlem.

Bad movies you love

It didn't show up on this list, but Nate & Hayes would have been my pick, except that I tried a couple of times recently to rewatch it and just couldn't hit my groove. Maybe it is a film best watched alone, or at least with my mother and lots of Brandy Alexanders.

I feel bad about my neck: dude edition

John Scalzi laments the neck equivalent of cankles.

Mandatory arrest?

More criminal justice/police discretion discussion fodder: If both parties in a relationship initiate violence, what should happen? Lock 'em both up?

Resolved: disorderly conduct arrests are bogus.

This situation sounds totally FUBARed and obviously the cop should not have arrested Professor Gates, but I am befuddled by the number of people who seem to think that the 911 caller and the cop should have recognized Gates by sight. Cambridge is a densely populated urban area full of NPR-famous people. I'm sure that I passed many of Gates's stature while strolling about Cambridge and failed to recognize their august presences (ditto in DC). And one can't help but wonder whether these same people who are aghast that Gates could go unrecognized would take a very different line re: "don't you know who I am?!?" were this a similarly prominent actor or pro athlete.

Infertility is covered by the ADA.

Do sentencing discounts for parents amount to disability discrimination?

what

Anna Karenina is not a beach book, y'all.

Awesome books I have read lately: Public Enemies, The Judging Eye, Stone's Fall, A Quiet Flame, The City & The City. Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series is also pretty great. (His Dresden Files mysteries leave me cold, though.)

Tyler is dry.

Why not just charge your suicide to your credit card?

Not big on Bing

When I Google myself, I am the top two web results and the first image result. When I Bing myself, I show up at the bottom of page two in a result from a spamblog that copied the old Harvard Target Shooting Club officer list.

Montana is full of the murderous.

These maps are pretty cool. Counterintuitive, but cool.

Ikea is totally awesome and Stephanie Zacharek is not.

I think that part of the reason people today demand cheap, disposable furniture is mobility. Paying extra for solid wood, heirloom-quality pieces is all very well if you're certain you won't have to spend hundreds of dollars moving them from place to place multiple times. I've moved over a dozen times in the last ten years. In the halcyon days of three checked suitcases for no extra charge, some of those were by plane, with assistance from U.S. Parcel Post and Media Mail. I can't imagine the hassle of not being able to cheerfully abandon or sell for a pittance most of the furniture I purchased during that time.

Incidentally, I'm sure the cute names for Ikea products serve a marketing function, but they're also functional. Can you imagine if their two dozen different coffee tables were all called something like "glass-topped 3 x 5 wrought-iron table" or "oak-veneer 4 x 2 table with storage drawers"? How easy would that be to remember when you got to the self-serve stacks at the end of the store?

[Not emigrating]

Reading this made me curious: How do illegal immigrants get health care in Canada?

Gossip Girl

I had no idea who "Jon and Kate" were until recently and still don't really know who "Spencer and Heidi" are, but I keep up with blogger romances in an almost unseemly way.

A dream deferred?

More blogfodder from Ta-Nehesi Coates's site, this time from the comments to his discussion of Steve McNair's death and the need for men to take more account of the risks of sexual and romantic activities:

The piece-on-the-side realized that she wasn't the ONLY piece-on-the-side.

I'm still waiting for them to reveal that she was pregnant.

Then again, maybe she was just a delusional 20 year old who thought she had hit the jackpot, only to be told, "We're just having fun."

That "then again" sounds right, but I don't like the subtle misogyny of "hit the jackpot." After all, men will use an implied promise of a better life and material wealth as a way of getting sexual access, then renege when they get bored/are done. At 20, you aren't delusional - you're just naive. ...

I have an open question for readers: the person who broke your hearts the hardest, whom it took you the longest to get over, were they higher on social and economic ladders than you? Or were they lower?

Part of the trauma of losing a relationship is the trauma of losing the imagined future with that person. One can mourn that miscarried future, and whatever security it might have brought, without reducing the beloved to a meal ticket or a leg up the social ladder. Does this reflect your experiences?

God is not a fiscal conservative, apparently.

Why did we ever have Air Force jet flyovers of piddling local festivals? What is the cost of fielding a bunch of fighter jets, and why would anyone want to incur that cost to taxpayers for something so self-evidently unrelated to military readiness as this? The benefit to recruiting from these exercises cannot possibly justify the expenditure.

Commonplace genius and white supremacy

One of the best posts I've read lately.

Obama doesn't work as Mr. Smith because Obama is not just your local boy scouts leader from next door. Obama is a brilliant man. His talent can't give me faith that my neighbor is making good decisions in the voting booth because Obama is much smarter than my neighbor.

That's why Obama's triumph isn't a victory for the "democratic ideal".

I think this is a pretty solid argument. But it makes assumptions about the American experience that some of us simply don't share. More to the point this "democratic ideal" is really a euphemism for white populism, and from a black perspective, even white tyranny.

The history is helpful, here. For most of this country's history, being black and brilliant was not something that set you a part from other black people--it was something that could get you killed by white people. A study of this country's history reveals to not be hyperbole. This notion that white people of medium talents could rise to rule the world was not simply "the democratic ideal," it was the tyranny of our lives--with depressing, disastrous effects. The idea that mediocre white people could rise to incredible levels of power was not so much an ideal for us--it was the whole point of white supremacy.

We obviously live in a different era. But still, one of the most depressing things about being black and "making it" is the incredible randomness of it all. To the extent that intelligence is measurable, I sat in classrooms with people who were smarter than me, worked harder than me, and studied longer than me. ...

When you're black, and likely when you're Latino, and likely when you're a kind of white, you see brilliant people all the time--and they get taken out in the most horrific ways. They have kids too soon. They get shot on the way home from school. They get hooked on crack. They go to jail. And then there is that one kid who makes it, who despite the wages of race in this country, goes on and does something big. To many black people, that person is Barack Obama.

Perhaps if you are white, Barack Obama represents the end of the idea that your next door neighbor could be president. But you should consider that just because Barack Obama isn't your next door neighbor, doesn't mean he isn't mine.

I often like to tell the story of how I got into Harvard because of a cement-truck accident. Imposter syndrome, or just wry acceptance of the randomness underlying the alleged meritocratic ideal? We all know those kids---old friends, maybe---who were sharp and intelligent and somehow derailed. There but for the grace &c. And in their place, the privileged and marginally competent?

more than one membership to more than one club

Trans folk hate forms. The real question, perhaps, is why any forms (except medical ones) should have an M/F box in the first place.

Plague Books

Have you ever disposed of "a book so bad [you were] reluctant to put it on [your] shelves, lest some of the suck leak out and infect nearby books [you] knew to be good"? I sold From Hell, but out of fear it would psychically contaminate my dreams, not because it would infect other books.

Kiss Kiss

Today is International Kissing Day. You still have a few hours to make the most of it.

Random Roundup

Zubon on Samuel Delany.

Greatest headline ever?

Blogger wedding.

Money can't buy me love

What are the ten most expensive things you have paid for? What are the ten things you have bought that made you happiest? Is there overlap? On both my lists:

International travel: Belize, Western Europe, and Japan especially.
Designer clothes: Because I am vain and it gives me great pleasure to look stylish. And because I like beautiful, well-made things with high uses to dollars ratios.
Furnishings for my current house: This is the first place that I have really made my own through choice of decor and furniture. I don't know why anyone would have a home with white walls in every room anymore.
My car: Not having your own car really sucks! And hand-me-down cars are fine, but it's great to be able to pick something out on your own, so that it meets your needs and wants.
Books: I try to go to the library but I've probably spent thousands on books despite my cheapskate intentions.

Basically, it looks like my best expenditures have been either experiential (reading, traveling) or expressive (clothes, furnishings, picking my car). You?

Hands off my uterus legs

William Saletan: Bodily sovereignty is for suckers! Should I be reassured that he's also a paternalist when it comes to things other than abortion?

It's for science!

I can't believe that I missed out on the chance to be part of the Kissing Experiment.

What is this weed?

And why is it in my yard?

Random Roundup

First world problems: Texas sucks because "in a true mark of backwater-ness, there was like 1 non-Starbucks coffeeshop with wireless, and no vegetarian food restaurants that were halfway decent."

Swedish couple won't disclose their child's sex ... even the kid doesn't know!

Monticello is pretty awesome.

"My own nightmares had two reoccurring themes, one concerned standing on the beach at Weston Super Mare, my home town, when the tide suddenly goes out very fast and returns as a huge tidal wave that is about to engulf me," Parker said. "The other dream includes a dinosaur roaming the streets at night and looking in at my window. I wondered if my experience was common amongst women."

Elen síla lumenn’omentielvo!

Via JZ: LOTR read-along.

Fewer Seats for Fox News Watchers?

Is it a good thing for the Democrats if Republicans drum up an anti-census movement?

1. Let Republicans refuse to be counted in the census.
2. Reapportionment and redistricting using figures with depressed Republican populations shift congressional advantage (further) to Dems.
3. Profit!

Best blog EVAR?

Check out these blistering reviews of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, along with a philippic on the Apatowian penchant for "Because, Um...? Girls" and a scathing letter to Andrea Dworkin.

Erfolgtraurigkeit Watch: Food Writing Edition

Someone gave Ezra Klein a Washington Post column on food. The inevitable effect of media concentration and blog cooptation by the MSM, good-old-boyism, or what? Ezra Klein has every right to his opinions about food, but he is not a terribly impressive food writer.

Traveling While Female

This woman's experiences as a single traveler ... do not really reflect my own. Or those of anyone in my generation, perhaps. The big challenge is learning to pack light? There are no countries that are better than others for single female travelers? Boggle.

Vamps in the City

I've previously posted on my idiosyncratic reasons for disliking urban fantasy, but if you're into that, here are some reading recs.

The more you know

Word of the day: psephological (via The Economist)

Buffy versus Edward Cullen

You can have the brisket if I make tofu.

I sometimes wonder if I am incrementally destroying the earth by corrupting a certain vegetarian of my acquaintance into meat-cheating. But since I've become much more likely to eat meatless meals of late, perhaps it all balances out, or even is a net gain.

Too Much Parenting?

I didn't have a set curfew, but the rules for teens referenced in this post hardly appear fascist. Letting someone know where you'll be ("I'm heading to X's house." "Hey, I decided to go over to Y's for dinner.") is just courteous. Although not allowing a teen girl in her own house alone on the ground that she might have her boyfriend over seems silly. Won't they just go parking?

Sibling Rhetoric

Memo to well-meaning pundits: Absent a shared parent, someone is not my brother or sister.

Unrelatedly: How to explain cheesiness to non-English speakers.

Vacation Musings

Anybody been to Crete?

The Atlantic on marriage

Sandra Tsing Loh is getting divorced. She uses this as an excuse to argue against marriage in general.

I can work at a career and child care and joint homeownership and even platonic male-female friendship. However, in this cluttered forest of my 40s, what I cannot authentically reconjure is the ancient dream of brides, even with the Oprah fluffery of weekly “date nights,” when gauzy candlelight obscures the messy house, child talk is nixed and silky lingerie donned, so the two of you can look into each other’s eyes and feel that “spark” again. Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance.

Apparently she had an affair and then realized she wanted to give up on the marriage. Her decision spurred a few of her friends to confess their own fantasies of divorcing their staid husbands. The DoubleX bloggers are dissecting the piece---and Tsing Loh.

Check out this previous STL article on women preferring food to sex with their husbands (foreshadowing her overweight friend who sneaks Dove bars at night and then grouses that her husband no longer finds her attractive?).

Quiz referenced by STL on personality types in romance. (I am a Director/Builder.)

Caitlin Flanagan's prescient rebuttal of STL on sex in marriage?

What they don't understand, and what women of an earlier era might have been able to tell them, is that when the little faucet turns off, it is time not to rat out your husband (is there anything more wounding to a man, and therefore more cruel and vicious, than a wife's public admission that he is not satisfying her in bed?) but rather to turn it back on. It is not complicated; it requires putting the children to bed at a decent hour and adopting a good attitude. The rare and enviable woman is not the one liberated enough to tell hurtful secrets about her marriage to her girlfriends or the reading public. Nor is she the one capable of attracting the sexual attentions of a variety of worthy suitors. The rare woman—the good wife, and the happy one—is the woman who maintains her husband's sexual interest and who returns it in full measure.

Another Atlantic piece on sex and marriage:

Sexuality is all about bridging distances—but to bridge distances, you must have distances. And for all our sentimental talk of seeking an “other half” (perhaps the only expression to loom as large in Plato’s Symposium as it does in the cursives of Hallmark), most of us do not, in fact, seek “a part of ourselves.” We do not long for our left leg. We do not desire our brother, nor usually even our best friend. Erotic love—for all of its attraction to what it recognizes and identifies with—is drawn at least as strongly to what it does not recognize. In truth, it is drawn toward the distant and dangerous more than it is to the sweet, the solicitous, the familiar.

An oldie from the Atlantic archives:

To be happily married requires a maturity that most of us do not have; marriage proves difficult, sooner or later, and particularly when entered upon immaturely. To be happily married two people must like each other, which means accepting each other as they are and knowing in what ways to leave each other alone. Most of the unhappy marriages which hang on and on, undermining the potential of two human beings, are based on weakness and fear, pity, obligation, sadism, guilt, all of which are things that beset both people in one way or another and make for distrust and dislike.
...
One happily married woman described love as "a sense of the other." It is this fascination with another person and an almost uncanny awareness that are the real material of love. The feeling that no matter what he does, I know why he does it, and I am interested. I may thoroughly disapprove, I may be exasperated with him for it, but I know why without even thinking about it or possibly being able to explain it. I am absorbed in all his reactions. All of his complexity, all of his contradictions simply fall into place for me, even if everyone else thinks he is mad. As Cathy said in Wuthering Heights, "Nelly, I am Heathcliff! Not always as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself; but he is always, always in my mind." This is love in the grand manner. It is beyond advice columns, beyond the dogged search for happiness. This is what it is all about.

But to have it, we have to know ourselves to begin with, and believe in it when we get it.

I don't find STL's anti-marriage proposals realistic or appealing. Thoughts?

ARGH.

How many times can I lose one of my favorite earrings?

Oh dear.

This is where I live.

Etsy Peddles Stuff, Sara Mosle

DoubleX concern trolls Etsy.

Most of the commenters to the article make the obvious point that Etsy, for a true capitalist, is one among many possible marketing channels. Etsy rules, although it's tough to find new stores sometimes. My Etsy custom tote bag that's being made right now was definitely more than the average item price of $14. I could have just replaced my cat-destroyed H&M bag with another, but I am patronizing a small business in upstate New York and getting something unique by using Etsy.

The real issue is not whether SAHMs are getting caught up in a fantasy; most acknowledge that crafting's not going to pay the mortgage. It's whether we support people with artistic urges by encouraging them to inject a little commerce into the mix. Say a seller barely breaks even, but gets to spend lots more time doing something creative she enjoys. That's not a bad scenario! She could be scrapbooking (which is a giant money pit and a time suck) or deadening her impulses with soap operas! Why bash a site that faciliates the production of art and trade that makes everyone better off? Bloggers monetize their hobby all the time and most blog commentary isn't worth a stitch marker. Lay off the random 30-somethings who enjoy making handbags and sell them for a little extra cash.

(Sometimes I wonder if we've come full circle, back to custom artisan goods, with the internet to enable cottage industry to reach a broad enough market to make it worthwhile. For things like clothes and accessories, has industrialization lost its advantages?)

Surprise Frenchies & Proto-Jewish Mothers

So I got the results back from my DNA test. it provides tests for risk for bunches of diseases (some of which are backed by lots of research, and others with limited support that can only elevate or suppress one's general paranoia). The ones that are very well-established for scary diseases are placed behind double walls.

BRCA Cancer Mutations (Selected)

*click*

"You clicked on BRCA mutations. Do you really want to know if you need a preventative mastectomy? DO YOU?"

*click*

"You're fine. Of course this is all about risk. You could still get sick even if you lack these mutations."

*whew?*

In other news, my mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is K2a*. Apparently some substantial fraction of Ashkenazi Jews are K2a2* or K2a2a, which are branches from the K2a* line. They also compare your DNA with sample individuals from different countries and I am smack in the middle of the overlapped French and German clusters and nowhere near the Irish grouping. Very interesting.

Anyway, if someone wants to share profiles you should message me.

A common flower girl tries to be wise

It has come to my attention that I know exactly jack about philosophy! (Note: Never fulfill your philosophy requirement by taking a class on Ayn Rand at the engineering college on the ground that you already read the books in high school.) I am reading Bertrand Russell on my Kindle but am aware that a 65-year-old book may not be the best sole source for enlightenment. I am looking for other volumes that are available for the Kindle or from my local library. I vaguely recall Julian Sanchez talking up Reasons & Persons but have not yet succumbed to the necessity of ordering an actual book.

Relatedly, I wish there was a "Vampire Porn Y/N?" toggle for the fantasy section of Amazon. It's really its own subgenre by this point and swamps everything else.

Social climbing : Trying for a better job :: Passing : Demanding equal rights?

Speaking of careers, I was wondering when the pro-Roma backlash against the anti-banker Drag Me To Hell would start. (I found it a very entertaining movie, and somewhat interesting for the contrast between its multi-ethnic casting overall and the old-fashioned depiction of an evil Gypsy villain.) But the review I saw that highlighted this issue also chose to attack Christine, the main character, for her "social climbing." Do people of all classes really hate climbers? What is it to be a climber? Is it the obviousness of our mucky striving? The inability to know one's place? The forsaking of roots and beginnings? Was Christine's true offense her failure to embrace solidarity between urban little old ladies and poor rural farm girls?

Some of us just picked this up on our own

How to kiss someone taller than you.

Women seeking old boys for access to club?

Why can't guys mentor women? Perhaps it's best to find the best experience and personality match regardless of gender.

shutupshutupshutup

Who died and made William Saletan the king of "moderate" abortion discourse? I'm so sick of hearing from this guy about his pompous, baby-splitting (ha) solutions to a problem that will never directly affect him.

(This is part and parcel of my more general disgust with self-consciously moderate fence-sitter pundits. Too many people mistake mealy-mouthed faux-Solomonic bloviating for genuine, intelligent acknowledgment of valid points from both sides. Sometimes you have to take a position. Sometimes there is no compromise.)

Tightwads of the world, unite!

Check out the Cheapness Studies blog, where Phoebe, Rita, and Belle are hashing out a telos of thrift.

I am no longer eligible for tightwad status as I have too often succumbed to the lure of online shopping and decadent handbags. But I'll be reading to try to get back on the wagon.

ISO Haircut Inspiration

Difficulty level: Straight, is currently just below the shoulders and mostly one length.

I was only slightly trolling.

Today's xkcd was just for me. (via tom and asg)

ETA: Sparkledammerung!

What is the best pro-choice charity?

I will give a few hundred dollars to a pro-choice charity this week.
Which charity should I choose?

Juicing

If you listen to most of the folks in this article, steroids are like the fountain of youth.

[T]hese drugs are the bedrock of a burgeoning anti-aging industry, where those nearing 40 and beyond can go to a clinic and take effective and controlled steps that will aid them in reversing the aging process. Science, in the long run, will win out.

At least that’s what Clapp, who takes a Darwinian view of the matter, believes.

“If you have the intellectual capacity to move against [when you’re going to die,]” he says, “you’re going to move against it.

“There’s many more important things here than how a man gets a bigger bicep or hits a ball farther,” adds Clapp. “The survival of the human race can be based in this thing we’re talking about.

Hmph. Not survival. I doubt people are likely to breed more with steroid use. Life extension, I can see. For dudes. HRT for women has had mixed results. What happens if you give women steroids and balance them out with estrogen and progesterone supplementation? The same things? Or would that just be a one-way ticket to Chynatown?

Dinnerblogging: Trout and such

We had a very yummy improvised dinner last night, which I thought it might be useful to document, should I or someone else want to recreate the savor.

Arugula Salad

Chopped caramelized pecans, shaved Gruyere, and balsamic vinaigrette over baby arugula: mmm.

Baked Waxy Potatoes

White new potatoes, washed and chopped into 1 inch cubes, tossed with a dash of olive oil, salt, pepper, dried chives, and a dash of turmeric. Bake wrapped in foil at 375 for 45 minutes. Cheerfully yellow and yummy.

Lemon Thyme Trout

Place fillets skin-side-down on nonstick sheet, salt and pepper, sprinkle with 1 tbsp lemon thyme leaves, and adorn with small cubes of butter (total about 1-2 tbsp). Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or so (next time, would turn heat up to 400 or 425 and bake for less time). Very tasty.

Survey

What is the most unintentionally inappropriate song you've ever heard played at a wedding reception? I have been to multiple weddings where everyone present was chanting "we want prenup!" (too late, folks), but Get Low is a promising contender, if only for the location of the singer's dripping sweat. Not that these kinds of songs aren't great for dancing, but they can be a little funny if you listen too closely.

Mandatory disclaimer to my recently married friends: Your weddings were awesome.

The case against gay marriage?

Is this guy for real? (via)

Uniquely ridiculous?

The first few chapters of John Grisham's The King of Torts : me :: any episode of ER : my RN mother?

Särbo & Sambo

Sometimes relationship terminology can become frustrating. If you were Swedish, you'd have greater choice. I doubt "sambo" will take off in America, though, for obvious reasons.

Playing your song

On the difficulty of having a song, and the haunting power of old love songs:

When the song ended, I went outside, sat on the curb, and cried. Sure, I had lost my boyfriend, but it was more than that. I had also lost my favorite love song. The problem with the songs that once made you happy is they tend to remind you that you were happy once.
...
[L]ove songs have no sense of timing. You can't choose which one is yours. You can try to cue up your favorite song to play at the precise second you decide you've fallen for someone, but in the end, something like "Funkytown" is going to play at some perfect moment, and then you're stuck with it.

I relish how the passage of time has worn away the associations between some much-beloved songs and prior context. There is nothing like getting one of your favorite songs back.

Do androids dream of electric bags of sand?

Haven't been feeling very bloggy lately.

Non sequitur : Is Richard Morgan not a big fan of the ladies? Because from the writing of the sex scenes in Thirteen, I'm thinking he might not be. Breasts are always "sagging into" men's hands, and women's nether parts are described as "rubbery."

Baby's got her blue genes on.

So I decided to get my DNA tested. In six to eight weeks, you will know if I was born bad or just drawn that way.

Hearts and flowers

Via Belle: MRIs of brains in love. What would your brain look like?

The psychology of Facebook profile pictures

Do you have a photo of your kid as your profile pic on Facebook? What about a picture of you and your SO? One girl I went to high school with has an ultrasound image of her second kid as her profile pic. Every time I see it, it weirds me out.

[BLURRY FETUS] is cooking dinner

[BLURRY FETUS] is studying for pre-comps

[BLURRY FETUS] is scrapbooking

It's like a cross between Look Who's Talking and Ally McBeal or something. Isn't accommodating pictures that are not of you the very reason why there is a distinction between profile pictures and other random albums you upload?

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Walcott.

I don't see how a history of sexually harassing students is irrelevant to hiring decisions for a professorship if that professor would have to interact with students. Does the Oxford Professor of Poetry lecture to empty rooms?

Hypothetical

If a man publicly stated that he loved his wife more than he loved his children, would he be condemned or hailed as a romantic?

Review: Star Trek

So I saw it. And it was good.

I was afraid that I would be, per Belle, one of "the grateful mildly obsessive fans ... who are generally so happy to see some new incarnation of their Most Favorite Thing Ever that they are way too forgiving of the flaws and thus express too much enthusiasm," but it turns out that I am more of a "purist[] too devoted to The Canon and thus likely to be too critical of any endeavor." Eomer kept noshing on the scenery at every spare moment, but the guy playing Rebooted Kirk was not bad. The fanservice recitation of cliched lines was simultaneously cringeworthy and enjoyable. The pre-credits sequence was an exercise in eyerolling, but I loved the Young Spock interlude (although Winona Ryder's old lady makeup was really distracting---she is only six years older than the actor playing her son! Like there aren't actual age-appropriate actresses who need work?).

And now we get to the heart of my ambivalence: Spock. Constant Readers know that I have a soft spot for Spock. In my long-ago days as an avid consumer of Star Trek fanfic, Spock/Uhura was my preferred het ship. But seeing it play out on the big screen just showed how part of the appeal was the improbable and forbidden nature of said ship! In the grand scheme of canon rape, it was a small thing, considering the wholesale rejiggering of the Trek universe through time travel. But it undermined my enjoyment a bit, as did the almost total annihilation of the most interesting of the Federation's member races. These new factors may eliminate the Amok Time storyline! Does rebooted Spock even have to worry about pon farr? And isn't the logical choice at the end to avoid the false dichotomy, get some Spock gametes, and set about rebuilding the Vulcan race through artificial means? Does anybody else care? Okay, it's just me.

But things get blowed up real good, and Kirk fights lots of baddies, and Leonard Nimoy, looking older than God, passes the torch with wry aplomb. Sulu/Harold is a total badass and that Shaun of the Dead guy does a good Scotty. Go see the movie.

Corsetry to the rescue?

If I had a slightly tinier waist, I would not hesitate to buy this dress. As it stands, I am considering whalebone-based solutions. (via)

Your My favorite band sucks.

Related to this previous post: Why is it so hard to admit that something you love might not be perfect? Can't you just enjoy someone's company, or lame, psychologically problematic fantasy novels, or pop music without having to defend it on substantive grounds? Junk food tastes good. Mental junk food tastes good. The fundamental appeal of mainlined sugar and fat (or their fictional equivalents) is undeniable, just as is the fact that too much of the stuff will rot your teeth/brain.

(Full disclosure: I am typing this while listening to Ashlee Simpson, with a cat named after a Harry Potter character in my lap.)

(edited to clarify that Ms. Simpson is not my favorite anything.)

Playing catch-up with my vamp media

I finally got to see the first two episodes of True Blood recently. There's a romantic pairing between a vampire and a telepath. The telepath likes being with the vamp because she can't hear his thoughts and it's relaxing. Of course, readers of crap YA fiction know that a human-girl/vampire romance with blocked telepathy also features prominently in Twilight.* It seemed weird that this particular kind of pairing would emerge in two sources concurrently. I was deeply concerned: Was Alan Ball ripping off a Mormon housewife? My enjoyment of Six Feet Under would be retroactively degraded were this true. Fortunately, the 2008 True Blood TV show is based on a book series published years before the release of the original Twilight novel.

* Apparently there is also a love triangle in both involving the vampire, the human girl, and a shapeshifter who can turn into a canine, but I haven't gotten that far in True Blood yet.

You mourned insufficiently for the bodega!

Via Rita: Embracing diversity means getting victimized and liking it?

During a recent crime wave, I'd kept the bat by the front door, somehow imagining that I could use it to defend my family. Then, earlier this same evening, I had heard a scream outside. I grabbed the bat and ran into the cold dark streets. A young woman cried out "I've been robbed!" She pointed at a shadowy figure running across Tremont Street, the boundary between my turf and alien turf. I chased him. ... In a flash of panic, I swung the bat, and he fell.

Later, sitting in my dining room, all I could think was: I'm no hero. I hit a man with a baseball bat. A brown-skinned man. A poor man. Was this the "diversity" I had bargained for? This was the bat I had used growing up in relentlessly suburban, middle-class Lexington, Massachusetts, where diversity meant playing with a few Catholics and an occasional Jew. Six years ago, I had moved my family to Boston's South End, reveling in its economic and racial variety. Did I feel virtuous living there? Our son's school was a model of statistical integration: one-third black, one-third white, one-third "other." We met with neighbors on the multiracial council. Our boys played with black kids who lived down the block. The Latino guy across the street repaired our car. We sat on the front stoop on summer evenings and sipped Chardonnay while the world cruised by.

And now, I had raced out into those same streets and knocked a man down with a baseball bat. I had demonized the muggers and the burglars who were preying on our neighborhood, and now I had descended to their level. Or worse. Doubts welled up in my mind. Did I really understand what it means to live in a diverse neighborhood? Or did I just want cosmetic diversity as a backdrop for imposing my white, professional-class ways? Was our experimental elementary school serving the kids from the housing projects as well as it served the kids from the townhouses? When we celebrated the opening of a new trattoria around the corner, did we mourn for the bodega it displaced? Did we really appreciate the smell from the all-day backyard pig roast next door and the salsa music blaring from open car windows?

I looked at the splintered shank end of my Little League bat. This is what it means, I thought, to try to impose your will, your ways. If you really care about diversity, embrace it. And change.

What's the "change" that should have taken place? Calling the police (we've already heard that this is a swipply thing to do)? Ignoring the screams of your neighbors?

Game night, anyone?

Weekend Plans - watch more funny videos

Random Roundup

Tell your guy that you think he's hot.

The spectrum of online friendship.

Kindle book pricing. I admit that I am much more likely to buy a book if it is less than $9.99, and almost certain to buy it if it's less than the paperback price. Those things make me feel like I'm getting a deal. Oh, and the most deadly thing Amazon is doing is to make the first book in a series $0-1. The $1 Robin Hobb book ended up costing me about $50.

Relatedly, Amazon should pay me to read my Kindle on Amtrak. I think at least three people are buying Kindles after seeing and talking to me during one ride, and I wasn't even trying.

El Presidente goes to my local burger joint.