Random Scratches

Ack!!!

2011-07-09T06:18:00.000-07:00

I need to post something just to keep signed in, so here's something. I keep getting inspired during times of the day when I can't write anything, but I'll try to take notes.

The Royal Wedding

2011-04-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

30 years ago in late July I got up at truly horrid hour to watch William's parents get married. Diana was lovely, Charles was actually rather appealing, and I got to hear Jeremiah Clarke's "Trumpet Voluntary." Of course, their relationship didn't quite work out, but at least the beginning was lovely. I watched Andrew and Fergie, Edward and Sophie, too. I have to work tomorrow so getting up at 3 a.m. isn't really an option, but I will watch the recap.

Many people wonder why a committed Democrat likes to watch royal weddings. I don't secretly believe that monarchy is a great form of government. What I do think, however, is that modern life could do with more formality. We need pomp. The problem with hierarchies of birth is that it eliminated huge numbers of people from participating in the beauty of ceremonies in any manner other than observers. Instead of my lefty friends' habit of eliminating ceremonial and formality, we need to find ways of getting more people to dress up. After all, the best way to eliminate the class structure is to make it impossible to tell the peasants from the nobles, and not because everyone looks like a slob.

Bodily autonomy vs. the rights of property

2011-04-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

"What's Wrong With The World" is the most ironically perfect name for a blog in the entire electronic world. This post, by Lydia McGrew, is an excellent example of their poorly-analyzed, pretentiously written, and thoroughly mean-spirited output. For those without the stomach to read it, Ms. M takes the position that liberals only advocate for laws requiring accommodations for the disabled because we like to mess with businessmen. (Oh, and she means businessMEN, too. WWWTW's vicious misogyny is, however, the subject for another post.)

Ms. M and her commenters spend many pixels wondering why liberals favor both wheelchair-access laws and support a woman's right to abort a disabled fetus. They believe that compassion for disabled people requires putting the rights of a disabled fetus over and above the woman pregnant with it. She describes the current legal status of abortion as a "search and destroy mission for which the most important thing is that we not miss one, that we decrease the number of babies born with birth defects, which has about the same relation to "eliminating birth defects" that a can of Raid has to eliminating mosquito bites." In her interpretation, the fact that the state does not prevent women from aborting a pregnancy when the fetus has serious abnormalities constitutes an organized campaign. Francis Beckwith, another writer for the site, comments "the fetus is sequestered from personhood because it has diminished capacities as a consequence of immaturity, whereas the postnatal handicapped person has diminished capacities as a consequence of illness." Based on this comment, I conclude that liberals base the existence of rights on, well, something.

Neither the writer nor the commenters ever discuss the real reason liberals support both abortion rights and laws requiring accommodations for disabilities: everyone has a right to bodily autonomy. No one may use another person's body without the second person's consent. (There are a very few exceptions to this, all contained within the criminal law.) Each person's mind is part of the body for purposes of this principle. Fetuses, before about the 26th week of pregnancy, can't exist outside the body of the pregnant woman. The pregnant woman, who already exists, has a right to evict the unwelcome tenant fetus. Once born, however, the child has the same rights to bodily autonomy which much be recognized. Thus, she has the right to be able to use public buildings without requiring assistance from random strangers, which is the preferred solution of Kevin J. Jones in the first comment.

The principle of bodily autonomy for people trumps in all circumstances rights related to property. Owning property automatically makes the owner privileged, and with privileges come responsibilities. Society, using the means of the state's legal authority, is obligated to use its power to ensure that as many people as possible have the ability to exercise their bodily autonomy. (Any commenter who can think of a shorter way to express the idea "exercise their bodily autonomy" wins a prize of my choosing.) Therefore, the state can require developers to build shopping centers with wheelchair parking and accessible bathrooms. The public schools should have to provide classes for students with learning disabilities or neurological defects, so that those students can live as independent lives as possible. The families of the disabled deserve payments from the public purse to support caring for their disabled members with as little inconvenience as possible.

Conservatives of the WWWTW stripe, however, put the rights that come with property ownership and traditional hierarchy over those of individual people. The misery of an abused wife counts little so long as the privileges of husbands are preserved. The fact that being carried up stairs is thoroughly humiliating matters little, so long as the able-bodied carrier gets to feel noble. The fact that the disabled person may be never chance on the random person willing or able to haul him upstairs is never acknowledged.

It is important to note that the principle of bodily autonomy only restricts the government. The state can restrict a person's activities only when those activities constitute an obvious threat of harm to others. Being a drunk adult at home may be stupid, but in and of itself doesn't hurt anyone else. Therefore, the state should not restrict the sale of alcohol to adults in most circumstances. Most intoxicants fall into this category. Non-coercive sex poses no threat to anyone but the participants, so of course the state should stay out of it. In contrast, mountaintop removal mining causes immediate and observable damage to neighboring landowners and people using the area's water. The state, therefore, has a right to prohibit it to protect those neighbors.

It is important to understand that an essential element of bodily autonomy is the capacity to give consent. Children and people with serious cognitive impairments do not have this capacity. Thus, the state should intercede on their behalf to protect them. Age of consent laws are one obvious example. In most cases, however, the best people to make decisions for those without the capacity to make their own are family members. Supporting the family members and eliminating as much hassle as possible is the best way to ensure that those family members make decisions in the best interests of their dependents.

What Women Should Be Allowed To Do

2011-02-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

I have spent years trying to get conservatives to provide a checklist stating what activities and traits women are supposed to have and which ones we're supposed to avoid. I want a concrete definition of "feminine," straight from the self-described experts on the subject. Mostly what I get are Potter Stewart blathers about, well, stuff. So, I'm going to ask the Internet for help on this subject. I've learned from one John C. Wright that that being taller than a man isn't feminine. All women really long for someone taller, which would surprise a number of Hollywood starlets who married short and ugly producers, but maybe starlets aren't good study subjects.

The Wright article is one giant pile of fail, which deserves a longer take-down, but I'm slowing returning to blogging so this is just the beginning.

Eating the seed corn

2011-02-14T16:03:00.000-08:00

The Austin school district administration has in its very finite wisdom decided to balance its budge by firing teachers, especially foreign language, music, and art teachers. Bowie High School is eliminating German, meaning 135 students will be stranded for their REQUIRED foreign language credit. 135 is too many kids for the existing teachers to absorb, so the school will probably have to hire another teacher anyway. The feeder middle schools will probably eliminate German as well and won't replace it with another language, so I suppose that will save some money.

Now, this might be defensible in other places, but Austin pays its superintendent nearly $250,000 per year, plus another godawful amount in allowances, perks, and benefits. Maria Castarphen, the current bench-warmer in the office, is therefore among the top 5% earners in the country, in the same leagues as big-deal CEO, and the same sort of vampire on society. Cutting her salary in half still puts her in the top 10% earners in the country and would save the salaries of at least three experienced teachers. That, of course, is not an option, apparently because paying boatloads of money ensures us of, well, something.

Then there's the whole bit where Governor Hairball rejected $32 BILLION dollars in school assistance because Congress pegged it to classroom instruction. Our schools are going broke but we're not going to take the extra cash because Perry can't use it for things other than classroom instruction. Danke schoen, Governor. You'll have to ask my son to translate that though. He did get that far in the class he can't take anymore thanks to you.

I honestly cannot understand why some groups in this country have such a loathing of public education. Religious conservatives especially hate it, mostly based on their own idiot myths about what gets taught in schools. Do schools waste money? Sure, but so does every other entity that ever spends money, including the people who complain about schools.

Schools do something that a certain type of conservative really hates: they produce upward mobility. Not only do they provide knowledge and skills for making a living, but schools also provide information that allows students to improve their tastes and habits, mimicking the upper class. (Actually, given the behavior of today's moron socialites, the students have better taste and behavior.) Kids from the projects can learn Shakespeare; kids from the trailer park learn about Beethoven. Even if very few of these kids keep up the study for a lifetime, that's a few more than would have without the public schools. Those kids lives are immeasurably better for attending school.

That, in the minds of the current crop of Republicans is exactly the problem. They've been fighting a war against upward mobility for decades, by undermining unions, public benefits, college grants and funds, and especially public education. If the Unwashed Masses can get a good education and then go on to college, we UM's will displace their spoiled brats who then will have to distasteful things like study instead of get drunk or stoned on the weekends. Further, an educated populace isn't going to continue to consume the smelly dreck the Overlords spew as popular culture. No one who's ever read Shakespeare will buy Dan Brown or "Left Behind" novels. Listening to a good performance of the Brandenburg Concertos precludes listening to whatever crud Clear Channel's selling this week. If the populace develops good taste, then the Overlords will have to pay actual competent people to produce things, meaning less insane profit margins.

There aren't enough members of the Overlord class, however, to explain the hostility to public schools these days. There is something much more sinister afoot here: envy. Actually, the Latin word "invidia," which literally means "evil looks," is a better word for this attitude. "Invidia" was used by the early Christians who defined the 7 Deadly Sins to refer to the attitude of resenting another's good fortune or rejoicing in another's misery. This means more than being less-than-pleased when a friend gets a big promotion or buys a house or car. Invidia constantly tells us that its objects don't deserve those nice things and shouldn't have them, even when the envious person doesn't want or can't use what she envies.

How does invidia connect to a rejection of public schools? Easy. Some people are smarter than others, and some are more energetic than others. Stupid, lazy people find it uncomfortable to know that smart and energetic people exist, because the contrast between the smart and energetic and the lazy and stupid themselves makes the lazy and stupid look bad. The only place where the stupid and lazy can't escape the smart and energetic is the classroom. The stupid and lazy resent anything that shows that improvement is possible. If schools don't exist, then nothing would ever confront the stupid and lazy with their own deficiencies and failures. They're perfectly happy to make better people miserable if it makes themselves happy.

It's been a really long time

2011-02-13T06:42:00.000-08:00

Since I've posted anything.

"Inside Catholic" once again announces Women Stink

2009-12-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

Once again "Inside Catholic" publishes an article devoted to the most important element in Christianity -- the idea that Women Suck.

In this article, the writer discusses how she learned to submit to her husband's desire to own a motorcycle and take it on an extremely dangerous drive. Now, please note that this isn't part of Superhubby's job, it's just something the old boy does for fun. Several thousand dollars worth of fun, but just fun. The writer learns that her husband needs to spend thousands of dollars and risk his life because, well, he's man and men need this.

Now, I have no real issue with people who have expensive hobbies, but Hubby here ignores his wife's pleas and quite legitimate concerns about his safety for his own recreation. Because the author is a Catholic, she submits to Hubby's idiocy with zero expectation that she'll get anything in return. This is the most perfect explanation of why complementarianism is an evil doctrine. She'll never get to spend that much money on herself; she'll never get to indulge her desire for, well, anything.

Complementarians assert that women get as much out of their deal as men do, but they lie. This woman's husband is never going to allow her to have an expensive hobby. Her desires will never be considered; it's always his. He gets his motorcycle and she gets nada, because she's a woman and no man could possibly be expected to listen to her useless babble. No woman ever says anything interesting; her interests are worthless hobbies far less significant that televised sports or expensive motorcycles. Men just have to learn to endure women.

Why I Hate Complementarianism

2009-10-11T06:43:00.000-07:00

This article from Inside Cathloic attempts to present a particularly toxic doctrine called "complementarianism" as a form of humor. The writer goes to the hardware store to buy an extension cord and fails miserably because she's a silly girl and can't be expected to understand the Einsteinian complexities of extension cords. Apparently she also can't read or write, and therefore is excused from writing down the specifications and taking the note to the store with her. This is all supposed to be a real laugh riot.

The philosophy she demonstrates is called "complementarianism" which teaches that men and women are completely, utterly, and irreconcilably different, and men are supposed to be in charge of everything. The advocates of this view sugarcoat their doctrine by claiming that men and women are equal in dignity but unequal in roles. Men are supposed to be "active" and women are "receptive." Men and women do different things, but they're supposed to be equally useful. In practice, it never works that way.

This article from the same website discusses "Catholic maniliness," but the same arguments apply to other faiths as well. What interests men is important and what interests women isn't. The writer of this article blames feminists for all sorts of horrors inflicted in a church that has no women whatsoever in its hierarchy. Felt banners and bad music are somehow uniquely a female vice, not simply bad taste demonstrated frequently by both sexes. If men were in charge, all this long list of horrible things wouldn't have happened.

The original linked article is the same way. The "I'm a complete idiot who can't make a shopping list, and all women are exactlyl as stupid as I am" is the only subject the writer, one Danielle Bean, ever publishes. She's actually written for a number of magazines but apparently never gets paid for it because . . . . No, of course she gets paid. She gets paid for presenting herself as a perfect epitome of Womanhood, all members of whom are morons. The skills she uses to make this case -- a command of language, organization, the ability to make time to write the article -- are the precise opposite of the dimwitted persona she presents in all her articles, but no reader would ever get that message. That women have to hide their talents even as they express them is the poison of "complementarianism."

Complementarians claim that the only want to support long-term happy marriages, but they do that by positing that men and women really have nothing in common. What they really want is for men to feel superior to women. Men and women have different interests. Men are bored by what interests women and women are baffled -- too stupid to appreciate -- by anything that interests men. This dynamic appears over and over again. When women demonstrate a skill, it's always ascribed to some natural, accidental or unintentional ability, never to logic, effort, or hard work. Men are masters of linear logic; women just sort of pop up with stuff. Somehow, men will enjoy a lifetime with a boring nitwit. Women don't have the mental capacity to enjoy anything.

The worst idea complementarians peddle stems for their idea of men as logical and women as illogical; that men need respect in a relationship and women don't. They don't phrase it that way. The usually say that women need love and men need respect, but what kind of love doesn't have respect as a component? It does not speak well of complementarians that they believe women don't need anyone to acknowledge their accomplishments. My interpretation of this is that they believe they don't believe women HAVE any accomplishments. It's one more way of telling women we're dim. Don't attempt to think, dear, it'll hurt your pretty head.

Things for which I'm grateful

2009-04-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

In a year in which the country has been visited by three of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse -- War, in Iraq and Afghanistan; Famine, in the form of 9% unemployment and the first actual GDP contraction of my adult life; Plague, swine flu -- and in which my governor has announced his desire to secede to avoid a 2% increase in the top marginal tax rate, it's sometimes really hard to find reasons to be grateful. This morning I found one.
>
> Michelle Bachmann is NOT from Texas.
>
> Michelle Bachmann is a member of Congress from Minnesota, a state generally not known for electing crazies. Granted, Jesse Ventura was unusual, but he was only annoying, not actually certifiable. One can't really say that about Representative Bachmann. If it were only her wackjob opinions, I might be inclined to ignore her and continue being envious of Minnesota's record of electing bland, inoffensive and ineffective lawmakers. But in this case, she's not only crazy, she is willing to admit publicly that she lives in an alternate universe.
>
> Yesterday, on C-SPAN, she noted that the last swine flu outbreak occurred under a Democratic president. Both Representative Bachmann and I were alive then and old enough to know who was the President. In my world, that president was Gerald Ford, but apparently in Representative Bachman's Earth 2, Jimmy Carter was Richard Nixon's VP and took office in 1974. (Being something of a DC comics geek, I have to wonder if Representative Bachmann will use her Canary Cry on the floor of the House someday to get a bill passed.)
>
> Today was even better. I remember discussions of the Smoot Hawley tariff both from high school, and from Ben Stein's scene in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." (Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?) This was enacted in 1929, sponsored by two Republicans, and signed by Herbert Hoover, who was not a Democrat. On Earth 2, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Hoot - Smalley tariff, which led immediately to Al Franken becoming Representative Bachmann's Senator. I presume this bill restricted the import of British comedies, causing the pound to plummet and PBS to wait until the 1960's to be invented. The tariff wasn't good enough, smart enough, and nobody liked it, so Earth 2 experienced the Great Depression.

President Obama's Mother - in - Law

2009-01-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

This guy has a problem with the new President's mother-in-law living in the White House. Apparently, this means the President is going to be henpecked because of all the old lady cooties spewing about the place with his wife's mother present. Now, why does a guy who describes himself as a 'caveman' have a problem with someone living with his wife's mother? I can only presume it's because Mr. Caveman doesn't treat his wife all that well, and really objects to anyone else's wife having an advocate close by?

2009-01-02T17:25:00.000-08:00

New Year's Resolutions:

1. Finish one knitting project per month, and one needlepoint or cross stitch project every two months.

2. Pay off the revolving Amex and pay considerably down on the other big credit card.

3. Cook something at least three nights per week and take my lunch four days per week.

Thoughts about Rick Warren

2008-12-29T18:27:00.000-08:00

Most lefty bloggers object strongly to Rick Warren speaking at the inauguration. While I have no use for Rev. Warren's views on, well, much of anything, I think their objections are a serious mistake.

It's important to remember that "Gay Rights" dates only back to the 1970's. The changes in the acceptances of women, gays, and lesbians in my lifetime is phenomenal, and actually speaks well of humanity, which is saying a lot. This means that many, many people have changed their minds on the issue in what is by historical standards an eyeblink.

What does this have to do with Rick Warren? He is, among leaders of the religious right, one of the most moderate, and easily the most moderate person one with a big following. Many of his followers are likely to be even more reasonable than he is, and will be important allies on environmental and economic issues. If they can be persuaded to work with progressives on those issues, especially if they work alongside feminists and gays and people they won't know otherwise, they are more likely to change their opinion on the issues where we disagree. In order to get to that spot, though, we can't demonize them on that issue now. We have to give them space to change their minds.

There is much good to gain from allowing people to change their minds, and using persuasion rather than anger. The Right is forever pointing out that the Democrats never kicked out Robert Byrd, even though the senior senator from West Virginia was a Klansman in his youth. This is a silly argument on their part, in that there is no evidence that Byrd is still a racist. Byrd's legacy in the Senate is principally protecting the coal industry and hauling back as much highway money for his home state as possible, but the man has genuinely changed his views on African Americans. He doesn't and didn't oppose civil rights legislation, he doesn't make speeches about black inferiority, he just plasters his name on every scrap of concrete in West Virginia. Civil rights leaders understood that vilifying Byrd for what he used to think wasn't going to do any good, and accepted that he really had changed.

Rigid sex roles were typical through the 1960's. Lots of people who grew up even through the 1980's will have said stupid things about gays and women, and many of those things will have been published. Allowing Warren to speak without interruption will win many more converts than a pointless protest.

King's X

2008-12-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

My mother had emergency surgery this week. Now, had things not gone well, I would not be writing this post, but I have to say that "My mother is in the hospital" is the ultimate "Get Out Of Jail Free" card. Want to evade any responsibility? Drop that phrase and you're free as a bird. Break in line at the grocery store on Christmas Eve? "My Mom is in the hospital." Christmas dinner has only one side dish? "Well, Mom was in the hospital." Avoid a dull party? "My mother is in the hospital." I managed to get out of doing something for Cub Scouts, having someone else over for Christmas dinner, got my mother-in-law to cook my side dishes, and even got my sons to help me clean house. Now, I'm not so awful as to suggest that my relatives start routinely scheduling surgery on major holidays, but I do encourage you to use this as the silver lining to this kind of cloud. I mean, it sucks to have close relatives get sick, but if it happens, use the advantage it gives you.

More on the primaries

2008-05-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me last night that I had omitted an extremely important point in my previous essay. Neither Obama nor Clinton did anything to invite people to apply those odd sexist labels. Obama is not an effeminate person. He's thin, and likes waffles. Clinton is not particularly masculine, unless someone defines "masculine" as "intelligent, courageous, and ambitious."

Which is, rather, the point. For nearly ever, "female" has been a synonym for "dimitted, cowardly, weakling." Masculinity and feminity aren't primary sexual characteristics like testes or ovaries. Males possessed strength, courage, intelligence, and ambition. Women were passive, stupid, weak, and cowardly. Male = good, female = bad. A man could become woman by being weak or passive or just by being of slender build or short. Women could never become male, and any woman who demonstrated strength or courage or intelligence was playacting or dangerous. A woman's "virtue" was only between her legs, as explained quite well in the last speech in Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie." Kim Novak says that she's a liar, a thief, a con artist, but because she was a virgin on her wedding night, she was still a lady.

In this race, Obama has to be portrayed as less than male, while Clinton is still just a girl playing dress-up in man's clothes. Because being female is always bad. Feminists are always accused of wanting to eliminate differences between the sexes. To the extent that those differences apply bad traits to women and good ones only to men, yes, we do. Women can be strong, brave, and smart. Men are capable of keeping their pants zipped and restraining their fists and matching colors on their own. Laundry detergent doesn't make the penis fall off. If the 2008 election can make the point that women are just as good as men, and that men don't have to be brutes, then it will really have been historic.

2008-05-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Peace Patroller, also known as an anti-war liberal or neo-hippie. You believe in putting an end to American imperial conquest, stopping wars that have already been lost, and supporting our troops by bringing them home.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Thoughts on the primary

2008-05-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

It's all but official that Obama will be the Democratic nomimee for President. There are many reasons to be happy at this result, but also many reasons to be happy about the legnth of the primary itself. I know many Obama supporters have been proclaiming that Senator Clinton should withdraw since the middle of March. Now that the nomination really is out of reach, they are getting even more insistent. Let me say that she should withdraw before the convention, but there's no good reason to leave before the end of May. The main thing I want to mention in the post is the reasons to celebrate:

1. 2008 saw the first major primary victory by an African American.
2. 2008 saw the first major primary victory by a woman.
3. The candidates established highly effective organizations in all the states. This will be important in November.
4. John McCain is polling less than 80% in the last few primaries despite running against NO ONE. That is, 20% of the Republican primary voters have been rejecting their presumptive nominee.

Most blogging recently has been about Senator Clinton's remarks regarding her appeal to "hard-working, white voters," and whether this is racist. It's certainly a very poor way of phrasing the idea, what with the implication that people who aren't white don't work hard. I'm certain that Senator Clinton is not a racist. Nothing in her history supports that conclusion. She still said something in a very stupid way. So, what's the proper response?

I think this is part of what Senator Obama meant when he referred to the need for a "dialogue on race." And sex, for that matter. We've established that ascribing bad traits to people based on epidermal melanin is a bad thing. What we have not figured out is how to convince people who think in this way to change their minds. It feels really good to berate people for being wrong on something, but that rarely changes their behavior. If there are a large number of white people who can't bring themselves to vote for an African American, I want to know why and see what we can do to change their minds. For one thing, I want to change their minds because thinking bad things about people based on skin color is a really bad idea. Also, I don't want to give up on any voters that have interests aligned with the Democrats. There are plenty of people who actually think having an aristocracy and an Inquisition is a good idea for this country, since that worked so well for 17th C. Europe. We Dems need to find every vote we can.

Right now, Senator Clinton's supporters are not feeling so great, and I wish Senator Obama's crowd would leave them alone. Hillary Clinton is not killing the party, and in fact the Governor of Montana wants her to stay in the race until his state's primary. I know there are lots of people making stupid blog comments at the moment, but that's mostly an effect of the fact that both Clinton and Obama had lots of really loyal supporters. In any large group, some of its members will have established residence in the tonier neighborhoods of Outer Crazyville. (Liberals live in the nice parts of Outer Crazyville. The trailer parks contain commenters for Michelle Malkin, Redstate, and VDare.)

It doesn't help that Senator Clinton was subjected to really astonishing sexism from her own party, and liberals in it. Kos was so awful I quit reading it. Shakespeare's Sister had NINETY entries in its Hillary Clinton sexism watch. Nine --Zero.

I really don't think Obama faced anything like that on his race. What he did face was, oddly, sexism. The Austin American - Statesman ran an editorial today by Kathleen Parker in which she referred to Senator Obama as "lithe," as in slender, as in girly. Isn't that what all the "latte-sipping" crap is about? Obama is feminine, and being feminine is the worst thing imaginable. Of course, if Obama were heavy-set and didn't wear nice suits, he'd be portrayed as a Scary Thug. As a black man, he's either threatening or feminine.

Clinton, by contrast, is portrayed as an ex-linebacker in drag. She's Tough and Mean and Ambitious and all sorts of other big male things. Maureen Dowd is the worst at this one. Had Clinton had played up her health care and education plans extensively, and worn more pink eyelet, then she would have been too girly to be elected.

Thing is, we have no mental template for powerful people who aren't white and male. Both Democratic candidates are from traditionally powerless groups, and the Punditocracy wants to keep reminding us of this fact. They don't do it in the good, "ain't it great to be an American?" sense. They go out of their way to mention, over and over, that lots of people have a hard time supporting people for high office who aren't white and male. This doesn't get us anywhere. We've been all those places before and left. Now, how do we get to a new place?

I'm an herb

2008-03-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

You Are Basil

You are quite popular and loved by post people.
You have a mild temperament, but your style is definitely distinctive.
You are sweet, attractive, and you often smell good.

http://www.blogthings.com/whatspiceareyouquiz/">What Spice Are You?

Okay, so these things are sorta silly. As it happens, I love basil and grow tons of it.

Back Again

2008-03-15T11:48:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I haven't posted anything for nearly 18 months. Oh, well, I'll be back at it frequently very soon, with more and better content, and maybe even a blogroll or a link or two. Later, dudes.

Made-up holiday

2006-09-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

Today be "International Talk Like a Pirate Day." Me pirate name be

My pirate name is:

Iron Mary Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Seriously, I love this kind of totally fake celebration. No Hallmark cards, no Nutrasweet sentimentality, just lots of excuses for being silly. There is, for example, an Austin band playing tonight called "The Jolly Garogers." They play heavy metal in pirate costumes. Is this a great country or what?

2006-09-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 28, 2006

The most significant thing that happened this week was that Andy was denied admission to the AISD Gifted and Talented program. This was important to me because I think he's bored in class, and next year is the God !$%^&&!!! TAKS exam. He's the best reader in his class, meaning he will get completely ignored in a regular classroom while the teacher spends all of her time working with the two or three totally helpless kids. At least Mills is a good school, with a really good student body, so the peer pressure works in favor of academics rather than against it. I have to say after speaking to the counselor, I'm convinced AISD hasn't been sued enough. The admission program in more litigious school districts seems to be based entirely on taking a test. Here, however, there's a whole bunch of subjectivity in the process. I talked to the counselor, and she said that he lost out in two areas: his "academic scale" (I presume this means grades, but PhD's in education don't speak standard English) and, God forbid, his parent nomination wasn't high enough. The parent nomination is the form I filed out. I, HIS MOTHER, cost him admission to the gifted program. Now, after hearing from some friends on this one, I have grave doubts about a program for gifted students that relies at all on parent input. What difference does it make if I'm an idiot? For that matter, and more related to the litigation thing, why does the district care whether or not I'm brilliant, so long as Andy has the mental capacity for the work he'll be expected to do? A friend of mine analyzed this as a test for the parents, as in trying to find out just how much of a monster I'm willing to be to make sure Andy does his work. My mother-in-law, a former elementary school teacher, suggested that this was a way to eliminate gifted students with bad parents, which then makes life just a whole lot easier for the teacher. I agree with both suggestions.The most disturbing thing about requiring parental application is that it automatically excludes gifted kids from any background below middle class, and quite a few of the middle-middles as well. Think for a minute: how many parents who themselves didn't finish high school, or don't speak English, or work two jobs so that their family can both eat and get vaccinations and antibiotics when necessary are going to complete a two-page form to get their child in a class with more homework? This is a nice way of avoiding the problems of really smart kids in bad schools. Having been a really smart kid in a less-than-stellar school, during the 1970's, heyday of dumbass "reforms" designed to allow us to express our creativity but not necessarily to impart nasty old facts to us, my sympathies are entirely with the kids here. (And yes, that was an extremely long and complicated sentence. $50 fine from the Grammar Police.) There is nothing worse than being a bright kid from a bad school. Within the school, your choices are to be picked on by lackwit bullies for showing an interest in class work, or become a discipline problem and win status with brains by creatively solving the problem of how many ways one can drive a teacher insane. Outside of the school, everyone assumes you're a moron because that's all that school generally produces. No wonder these kids become problems. The average kid stuck there is bad, but losing brilliant kids to boredom and bad habits costs us so much, when saving them costs us so little. In this case, just the price of a test. The form itself was laughable. I can imagine the average Joe Sixpack father of a bright kid reading it and finding confirmation for every public school horror story every reported on talk radio. A couple of the sample questions will demonstrate:
Does your child use adult words? Yeah, and you should how well he does the hand gestures!!
Is your child interested in adult problems and issues, like political issues or pollution?
(This is my real answer, not the snarky one about how much they liked him at the Davos summit in April.) I am very careful to avoid exposing Andy to very much in the way of adult problems, because I don't believe that a seven-year-old is emotionally prepared to think about thinks like global warming or the Iraq war. He does have a strong interest in learning about the past, as in knights and heroes, and information about his ancestors and their lives. I believe it's more important for him to develop ethics and empathy before he starts applying himself to his duties as a citizen.
There were other questions about his desire to solve problems creatively and some such. How much I longed for a question about his hobbies or pets. Something normal. But no. Apparently if he hasn't rewired the cars to run on eggshells and coffee grounds, he's not GT material. The rest of the process was more objective. She said his IQ was tested at 110, which is the high end of average, defined as 100 +/- 10 points. Why they can't say 90 - 110 she didn't explain, but he's at the higher end of average. He did much better on the math part of the testing * 114, well withing qualification range * than he did on the verbal part. In fact, he got a perfect score on one component of that, only missing out on the part of the test designed for 5th graders. This rather amazes me, given that Steve and I think mathmetics is a plot by the aliens to distract us so they can invade. Andy and Aaron are products of a devious breeding experiment in verbal ability, but math just wasn't in there. More to the point, Andy makes bad grades in math, "adequate," instead of the "skilled" and "advanced" in all his other subjects. This is either proof that the school got the wrong set of test scores, or further evidence that he belongs in the gifted program because he's so bored in regular class. He didn't do so well on the "traits, applications and behaviors" and on the portfolio of class work. Personally, I think this is too subjective for them to consider, since boredom, dislike of classmates, or other emotional traits can obscure the results. While I'm thinking about it, this part of the test is vulnerable to a Title VII challenge. I don't have a hard time believing that, say, black or Hispanic boys would never pass it. Think about this for a minute. You're a teacher, with a budding Will Smith in your class, who is clearly gifted but also a major pain in the butt. How easy it will be to call the kid "unmotivated" and keep him in boring regular classes, reserving the coveted gifted program for dimmer but harder working kids. Now, I have no problem with rewarding hard work, but not by confusing it with better mental wiring. Give that kid an accelerated class, but put Will in the gifted progam where he can learn to like school. Andy lost out because he isn't very good at "applying himself." Gee, thaaaat's a shock. A seven or eight year old boy doesn't like to work hard and only does what he needs to get by. Never occured to them that at least one solution is to give him MORE stuff that he needs to get by on. Finally, they consider creativity and memory. Andy did really well on memory, which is no surprise, but not so well on creativity. I don't know how you make a kid more creative, or for that matter how you could tell such a thing in one morning's test, but I'm not going to hire consultants to improve this. For that matter, I think they're wrong, but, again, how is it possible to argue against something so fluid? I am generally very happy with AISD, and it really surprised me that they came up with a policy this lame. Andy has had good teachers at Mills, who have allowed him to read books more advanced than his grade level, and have put him in faster reading groups and other more enriched areas. The problem is that there's only so much the regular teacher can do. I'm now going to try and get him in something called a "cluster class," which is somewhat accelerated beyond the regular material, and with more emphasis on one or two subject areas. I'll report on my success later.
posted by Kitty 6:29 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, May 23, 2006

I'm going to have to figure out in the next few days how to post pictures. My tomato plants have begun to produce, and the fruit is gorgeous. I planted four heirloom varieties: an orange and red striped one called "Mr. Stripey," a green one called "Green Zebra," a beefsteak, and a brandywine. The brandywine has me worried because the first three or four blossoms fell off without setting fruit. Brandywine is one of the world's most beautiful tomato varieties, dark plummy red and almost fluted. Just gorgeous.
posted by Kitty 6:55 PM 2 comments
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The baby wrens have fledged and flown, which makes me both sad and yet amazed. They went from eggs to avian teenagers in 24 days. And I think Andy's growth is quick. We survived the sleepover. Four eight-year-old boys. I liked all of 'em. I'm sure I've made myself hated among parents for providing my son with an X-box, which all of the boys adored. I actually hated the idea of video games before we got this one, and now, of course, I'm converted. Now, not all games are welcome in my home. No "first person shooter," nothing involving evading the police or committing crimes. Same rules as movies: no on-screen blood and the good guys have to win. Within those guidelines, however, X-box has lots of nice stuff. Most Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks movies now have associated games, which is kind of fun. Andy is particularly fond of "The Incredibles" and "Chicken Little." His all-time favorite, however, is Lego "Star Wars." This is the familiar movies acted out by Lego dolls on Lego sets. It includes the parody movie "Revenge of the Brick," adapted from the last movie. I have to say Lucasfilm's masterwork is better done with small plastic figures than with live actors. Inspired by the "Da Vinci Code," the lastest wretched piece of dreck to make the best-seller lists, I have been thinking about bad books I liked. I'm a real novel snob, so other than paperback mysteries, I don't have a lot of fiction to confess. My real failing is celebrity biographies, especially autobiographies. If the celebrity is a movie star from a family of European aristocrats, that's the best. I had load of fun last year reading Christopher Lee's autobiography. His grandfather was an Italian marchese and his mother a countess. Gramps escaped from Italy, where his support for Garabaldi had made life uncomfortable to Australia, where he became part of a travelling theater company. Gramps was, in addition to being from the oldest of European noble families, an accomplished operatic tenor. Still, it must have been something to go from a palazzo in Rome to outback shantytowns. I'd love to read a book about him. More on this later, when I have some time.
posted by Kitty 5:46 PM 0 comments
Saturday, May 13, 2006

Wow, three posts in two days!! I'll never keep this up. I just found the following website: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/13.html, which I highly recommend. I learned from this site that one of my obsessions has a name: caconomenology. Caconomenology is the study of ugly names. For years I've kept an informal list of some of the horrors inflicted on innocent babies by their presumably stoned parents. I had no idea that anyone else shared my hobby, but apparently there is a growing set of people appalled by idiotic monikers. Please, visit, and I hope sincerely that none of you had parents that did anything this bad to you.
posted by Kitty 1:07 PM 0 comments

In further honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd add a post about our newest houseguests. We have a pair of Carolina wrens and their four hatchlings living on our back porch. I can't get a picture, because their corner is too dark, and because I don't want to scare the kids or the parents by hovering over their nest. Here's a link for information about Carolina wrens: http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/Infocenter/i7180id.html They have pictures, song recordings, and general information about habits and such. Why did I pick this for Mother's Day, when yesterday I complained about housework? Well, it seems that Carolina wrens are the perfect example of daddy sharing housework. The wrens mate for life, quite faithfully. They are resident year-round in one territory, established the first time they mate. The interesting thing is that Pops is an extremely involved parent. In fact, he'll take over childrearing once the little darlings are avian first-graders, so Mom can go have another clutch of eggs at another place in the territory. Judging from this pair, Dad takes over a ton of drudge-work. From shortly after dawn until sunset, the adult bird flits around the yard, catching yummy bogs -- spiders, mostly -- and hauling them back to the nest for the babies. Thanks to this devotion, we have four hatchlings peeking their tiny feathered heads out of the nest. Dad's involvement in the icky part of childrearing means he had more offspring going into the next generation. Thus, we have natural selection supporting the idea that Dad ought to pull his own domestic weight. More dishes washed, more genes going out into the future. Happy Mother's Day.
posted by Kitty 6:33 AM 1 comments
Friday, May 12, 2006

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd write something about the new Caitlin Flanagan book, "To Hell With All That." Ms. Flanagan has said that she wants her book to be a Valentine to the Fifties housewife, whose domestic skills brought order and civilization to her unruly brood. If only. Ms. Flanagan is a skilled writer, finding absurdity in almost any situation. The much-described scene in which she screams for the nannie Paloma to come and clean up her son's vomit is worth the price of the book. It is, however, one of the few times Ms. F. actually manages to make fun at her own expense. That is the great flaw in her work; she doesn't really see the irony in her own position as a writer with a household staff who nevertheless posits the superiority of domestic life for women. That brings me to the other great problem with her work. She has expressed a desire to honor housewives - she wrote an essay for the Atlantic Monthly complaining that women no longer describe themselves as housewives, they are "stay-at-home Moms," shifting the emphasis from wifehood to motherhood. Ms. F. does not consider that shift a good thing. Her most controversial paragraph, judging from the number of times its been cited in blog posts and reviews, describes the dismay of the modern husband at the thought of talking his wife, who, among other problems, is "economically independent of him" into having sex. He decides instead to watch ESPN. It isn't clear why her economic indepence would make him prefer Stanley Cup highlights to intimacy, but it bothers Ms. F. A lot. I think one can find some enlightenment on this point in the response Ms. F. made to a letter writer who suggested that Ms. Flanagan's husband should help with the housework. The response is the letters to the editor section of the June 2004 Atlantic. Ms. Flanagan states, "Why would I want to? [make hubby share housework] He is the head of the household, and I treat him as such." ARRRRGGH!! Having done the world the enormous favor of being born male, hubby is forever exempt from doing anything unpleasant. Of course, Ms. F. doesn't do any of it either, so I suppose she's being fair. Still, the implication is that the rest of us should give our husbands clean houses, hot food, sex, and never insist he tear himself away from SportsCenter to wash dishes. If she wants to lionize domestic work, this is NOT the way to go about it. Assigning icky chores to women alone doesn't raise their status. We've been stuck with icky stuff for thousands of years because women were, presumably, too stupid to do anything else. Keeping it that way just means that domestic chores continue to demand scant respect. This makes me sad, because I agree with Ms. F. that most of civilization takes place at home. If we don't mind living in chaotic hovels about to be seized by the health department, wear ratty, dirty clothes, and eat entirely from McDonald's, well then, by all means ignore domestic life. But for the overwhelming majority of us, that live without servants, one of the two adults in the house will have to cook and clean. Even if we're lucky enough, as Steve and I are, to be able to hire a cleaning service regularly, someone has to manage the daily spiffing up or the place becomes unbearable during the two weeks between visits. Also, the maids don't cook, do dishes, or make the place orderly enough for their cleaning to be effective. I want dishwashing and laundry to be regarded as the necessary tasks they are, not as punishment for the sins of Eve, which is what Ms. Flanagan makes it. It would not be fair for me to rag on Caitlin Flanagan and her gendered vision of cleaning and to fail to address the leftist variant of her idea. A number of feminists, most notably Barbara Ehrenreich, have expressed the opinion that it is exploitive for middle-class households to hire someone to clean up. I do not understand why paying someone to vacuum is so much worse than paying someone to, say, repair the roof, mow the lawn, or unclog the drains. Hiring work is hiring work. The implication in Ms. Eherenreich's stance is the same as Ms. Flanagan's: domestic work is worse than any other kind. It is my personal opinion that regaining private life, including establishing some dignity to housework, will be one of the issues dominating the 21st century. We settled the public life questions in the 20th century. No one much argues in favor of any other form of government besides full-sufferage democracy. We fought two world wars and spent fifty years in an almost-war over the question of who has the right to govern or choose those who govern. Now, we need to settle the question of who provides the civilized citizens to establish that liberal democracy. We could have a worse start than to decide that housework doesn't come with a chromosome assignment.
posted by Kitty 6:14 PM 0 comments

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd write something about the new Caitlin Flanagan book, "To Hell With All That." Ms. Flanagan has said that she wants her book to be a Valentine to the Fifties housewife, whose domestic skills brought order and civilization to her unruly brood. If only. Ms. Flanagan is a skilled writer, finding absurdity in almost any situation. The much-described scene in which she screams for the nannie Paloma to come and clean up her son's vomit is worth the price of the book. It is, however, one of the few times Ms. F. actually manages to make fun at her own expense. That is the great flaw in her work; she doesn't really see the irony in her own position as a writer with a household staff who nevertheless posits the superiority of domestic life for women. That brings me to the other great problem with her work. She has expressed a desire to honor housewives - she wrote an essay for the Atlantic Monthly complaining that women no longer describe themselves as housewives, they are "stay-at-home Moms," shifting the emphasis from wifehood to motherhood. Ms. F. does not consider that shift a good thing. Her most controversial paragraph, judging from the number of times its been cited in blog posts and reviews, describes the dismay of the modern husband at the thought of talking his wife, who, among other problems, is "economically independent of him" into having sex. He decides instead to watch ESPN. It isn't clear why her economic indepence would make him prefer Stanley Cup highlights to intimacy, but it bothers Ms. F. A lot. I think one can find some enlightenment on this point in the response Ms. F. made to a letter writer who suggested that Ms. Flanagan's husband should help with the housework. The response is the letters to the editor section of the June 2004 Atlantic. Ms. Flanagan states, "Why would I want to? [make hubby share housework] He is the head of the household, and I treat him as such." ARRRRGGH!! Having done the world the enormous favor of being born male, hubby is forever exempt from doing anything unpleasant. Of course, Ms. F. doesn't do any of it either, so I suppose she's being fair. Still, the implication is that the rest of us should give our husbands clean houses, hot food, sex, and never insist he tear himself away from SportsCenter to wash dishes. If she wants to lionize domestic work, this is NOT the way to go about it. Assigning icky chores to women alone doesn't raise their status. We've been stuck with icky stuff for thousands of years because women were, presumably, too stupid to do anything else. Keeping it that way just means that domestic chores continue to demand scant respect. This makes me sad, because I agree with Ms. F. that most of civilization takes place at home. If we don't mind living in chaotic hovels about to be seized by the health department, wear ratty, dirty clothes, and eat entirely from McDonald's, well then, by all means ignore domestic life. But for the overwhelming majority of us, that live without servants, one of the two adults in the house will have to cook and clean. Even if we're lucky enough, as Steve and I are, to be able to hire a cleaning service regularly, someone has to manage the daily spiffing up or the place becomes unbearable during the two weeks between visits. Also, the maids don't cook, do dishes, or make the place orderly enough for their cleaning to be effective. I want dishwashing and laundry to be regarded as the necessary tasks they are, not as punishment for the sins of Eve, which is what Ms. Flanagan makes it. It would not be fair for me to rag on Caitlin Flanagan and her gendered vision of cleaning and to fail to address the leftist variant of her idea. A number of feminists, most notably Barbara Ehrenreich, have expressed the opinion that it is exploitive for middle-class households to hire someone to clean up. I do not understand why paying someone to vacuum is so much worse than paying someone to, say, repair the roof, mow the lawn, or unclog the drains. Hiring work is hiring work. The implication in Ms. Eherenreich's stance is the same as Ms. Flanagan's: domestic work is worse than any other kind. It is my personal opinion that regaining private life, including establishing some dignity to housework, will be one of the issues dominating the 21st century. We settled the public life questions in the 20th century. No one much argues in favor of any other form of government besides full-sufferage democracy. We fought two world wars and spent fifty years in an almost-war over the question of who has the right to govern or choose those who govern. Now, we need to settle the question of who provides the civilized citizens to establish that liberal democracy. We could have a worse start than to decide that housework doesn't come with a chromosome assignment.
posted by Kitty 6:14 PM 1 comments

2006-09-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

I'm just making a short post to make sure the blog doesn't expire. I promise more this weekend. Love to all
posted by Kitty 5:53 PM 1 comments
Friday, July 14, 2006

Caleb Stegall wrote this a few days ago for the Dallas News. He dislikes the national and the worldwide, and much prefers the local or particular. He calls for a third party, a "vibrant regionalism" that seeks to permit regional cultural and religious particularities to emerge from the fog of federalized regulation and be made manifest in our schools, courthouses, businesses and civic organizations. And it would provide incentives to keep cultural capital local. It would encourage people to work, study and raise families close to where they grew up. It would seek ways to promote local culture and would cultivate loyalty to our neighbors and a fierce love for our own places. Am I the only one who reads "cultural and religious particularities" and immediately thinks of Jim Crow laws and polygamous Mormons? The reasons for those hated federal intrusions was because those local "particularities" inflicted rather intense pain on one or another disinfranchised local group, usually women or an unpopular racial group. I can't see how we can protect unpopular groups from bad "particularities" while permitting too many good ones. In fact, I find it rather easy to imagine a vibrant Jihadist madrassa growing up under Mr. Stegall's regime. Certainly the federal government is a very blunt instrument, but quite often such bluntness is necessary. I can't imagine Mr. Stegall federalizing the Alabama National Guard to enforce integration. But perhaps more troubling is this paragraph: There's an irony inherent in a system like our own that identifies the individual as the fundamental unit of political, social and economic order. Because it shears the individual of the republican virtues cultivated within communities of tradition in the name of empowering him, it actually makes the individual subject to tyranny. Limitless emancipation in the name of progress is, it turns out, the final and most binding mechanism of control. If the individual isn't the "fundamental unit of political, social, and economic order" who is? How do you have elections if voting isn't done by individuals? Just what does get rights and privileges? Mr. Stegall mentions "communities of tradition," which supposedly cultivate virtues. Do the communties get to vote? If rights and privileges don't stay at the individual level, they must migrate up to those communities he likes so much. Communities are groups, and groups have hierarchies. So, by locating social power in "communities of tradition," Mr. Stegall effectively empowers the leaders of those hierarchies -- the heads of the communties -- with the ability to veto the decisions of everyone below him. (The head will always be a "him," too.) How is this NOT tyranny? Is it any less tyrannical to have the tyrant nearby? Mr. Stegall has an admirable distrust of utopianism, at least as practiced by progressives. When the oldest sources of order – which are at root religious – are abandoned along with their traditions and taboos, the resulting void of meaning is by necessity filled with some ideology promising one form or another of perfect happiness in the here and now. And these systems of self-salvation creep not toward liberation, but toward total control. This would be more persuasive if he himself were not such a utopian. He offers vague plans for devolving authority down from the feds and up from the individual, all the time assuming that the people who finally get to run things will be never, ever misuse their authority. This, even though those people have no checks or balances. Just because the geographical limits of their absolute power are narrow is no reason to presume that it's not absolute or absolutely corrupting.
posted by Kitty 7:52 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, July 04, 2006

"The Devil Wears Prada" inspired a few more thoughts, related to the relationship between fashion and feminism. Now, many people will, quite reasonably, say that there is none. Many of those people will themselves be feminists. We're suppose to be above all that frivolous nonsense, designed to divert female energy from changing the world to worrying about acquiring this season's must-have handbag. Don't get us started on high heels, either. Many others stay away from the women's movement because of the Andrea Dworkin - image: ratty hair, obese, clad in deliberately ugly clothes. I never found the words to explain what bugged me so much about that early 70's attitude until I saw a documentary on Afghan women after the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban forbade all forms of cosmetics, yet many women risked painful and severe punishments to smuggle in mascara and blush. Make-up was sexual and Western, and therefore evil. Ms. Dworkin and her philosophical sisters never lived in the Bible Belt. The current face of conservative Protestantism is the suburban megachurch, with its coiffed and polished Republicans, but when I was growing up, there were still a lot of old-fashioned Pentacostals, who held the same view of cosmetics and fashion as the Taliban. My family wasn't in that group, but there were enough of 'em to make their attitude influential. Make-up and fashion were still somewhat forbidden, racy, and, consequently, the perfect emblem of freedom. My mother and I went to Dallas every six weeks to restock the Clinique supply. To us, the Nieman-Marcus cosmetics department was rather like a cathedral -- it's magnificence transcended reality. We were really Someplace. We'd get a 1/4 pound of Godiva chocolate and a coke at the snack bar, and we were in heaven. We knew it wasn't reality, but man was it ever fun. Too many of my liberal friends will read that sentence and immediately conclude I'm a shallow nitwit. My experience wasn't "authentic." It was too dependent on Nieman's status-symbol image; too 'consumerist,' not enough odor of sweat and soil. I think the leftists, the Pentacostals, and the Taliban all have something in common, and it's closely related to the idea of "authenticity" that fashion somehow denies. The fashion industry thrives on the imitation of status. I can't be Audrey Hepburn, but I can buy her scarf. Because there's no way to determine whether I got the money from a trust fund, a successful real-estate sale, a theft, or just loaded up the VISA, possession of the scarf really doesn't convey any information about my place in society. Also, because anyone with a credit card can have one, the original scarf itself actually loses a lot of its status-symbol worth. (By the way, none of these thoughts are original with me. Adam Smith said a lot of the same things.) The fashion industry, more than any other aspect of industrialism, corroded the supports of the old hierarchies. You can't tell how important anyone is just by looking anymore. Fundamentalists are the original literalists, but fashion, and its cousins in art and entertainment, is all about image and metaphor. As the make-up artist Way Bandy said, "beneath the surface, there's more surface." The fundies are terrified of being wrong, but fashion depends on planned obsolescence. This year's right is next year's dreadful. Boatloads of quite unfrivolous cash depend on making us prefer cerulean to turquoise next year. (For the uninitiated, cerulean is bluer than turquoise. And no, you can't just say "light blue.") Certainty isn't possible. If one's entire personality depends on certainty, this is deeply offensive and must be stopped. Thus, Communists, Pentacostals, and the Taliban all agree that this must be stopped. You will have noticed by now that I never once mentioned sex. Everyone thinks fashion is all about being sexually attractive, but I don't think the evidence supports that. One look at a six -foot tall size 4 should have stopped that argument. For historical support, note that foot-binding, white lead face powder, tight corsets, and belladonna eyedrops have all been the peak of fashion, and are all either quite unhealthy or actually poisonous. If sexually attractiveness is about reproductive fitness, how on Earth can it require poison? The one thing all of those traits, and Hermes Kelly bags, Jimmy Choo stilletto heals, and powdered wigs have in common is that costliness. Until the industrial revolution, fashion was the exclusive province of the upper classes. It only spread downward when factories started producing lots of the required products. Humans are hierarchical, but the fashion industry makes that much harder. While the ambitious and clever betas and downward love this, the ones comfortable in their places really lose, since now, not only are they lower in the pack anyway, but they lose relative status since their position is no longer easily perceived. They have to do something to show their importance, which means they risk being wrong. Wow, I never really meant to spend multiple paragraphs on something quite this pretentious. Oh, well. Next one will be really silly. Promise.
posted by Kitty 8:12 PM 0 comments
Saturday, July 01, 2006

I saw "The Devil Wears Prada" tonight. Definitely a chick flick, but not as much as, say, "Bridget Jones' Diary." Anyone who's ever worked for a sadist lunatic can appreciate the movie. I've worked for three sadistic lunatics, two of whom were incompetent as well as sadistic. In that spirit, I invite anyone who wishes to post a comment describing your most horrible boss story.
posted by Kitty 8:30 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

I just heard that J. K. Rowling has given an interview in which she confirms that two main characters die in the final Harry Potter book. I do hate to hear that she's planning on offing one of the three principals though. I had rather hoped she'd relent. She also implied that she might kill Harry so that no one else could ever use the character. I have a pretty good track record guessing who dies. I figured out Sirius Black -- only main character with nothing to add to the story, and his death left Harry in possession of lots of useful things, not least of which is the house itself. Thus, he was the obvious one to buy it. Dumbledore's death was foretold a million times, and the Authority Figure -- think Merlin, Gandalf, Obi Wan -- pretty much has to die for the main character to take over. Basic Fantasy World Plot 101 stuff. Now that the obvious ones have gone, however, what happens next? So, here's my guess for who dies in the next book:1. Arthur Weasley, and at least one and possibly two of his chilren. Arthur has an ongoing personal feud with Lucius Malfoy. The feud wasn't emphasized enough in the movies, but is a big part of "Chamber of Secrets" and "Goblet of Fire." Arthur has long been an effective opponent of the Death Eaters, and is now highly influential in the ministry. Finally, and most important, he's the most important adult male in Harry's life now, and killing him will appear to Voldemort like killing Harry's father again. I don't think Molly is going to die, because, among other things, she's actually related to the Blacks and the Malfoys, and I think that relationship will be detailed in the next book. She has to be alive for that bit of the plot. 2. Hagrid. He's an object of contempt to the Death Eaters, but he is also physically powerful and immensely loyal to Dumbledore. Getting rid of him will appear to Voldemort as weakening Dumbledore's influence and threatening Harry. I think he's going to die to protect his brother, who won't deserve or appreciated it. Also, there is something of a pattern in her killing off characters with color names. "Albus," meaning "White," Dumbledore, Sirius Black, and Rubeous, i.e. Red, Hagrid. She likes patterns and word games, and I think she'll stick with this one. 3. Narcissa Malfoy. Dies at the hand of her sister protecting Draco, who then benefits from the protective effect of her love. I'm not sure if Draco dies before he gets redeemed, but I'm perfectly sure he does get redeemed. He'll either die or live out his life in poverty and insignificance to make up for the crimes of his family. Lucius dies too, but he's too repulsive to merit his own paragraph. 4. Severus Snape. I don't think Harry kills him, but I do think he's a double agent. The combination of him having taken the Unbreakable Oath to protect Draco and Dumbledore's lastwords being "Please, Severus," clearly indicate that he killed Dumbledore at D.'s own direction to prevent Draco from becoming a killer. Snape is the one person other than Neville who has a chance to kill Voldemort. 5. Ron. I really, really want to be wrong about this, but if either Ron or Hermione buys it I'm going to bet on Ron. For one thing, there are such a large number of Weasleys they make rather good expendables. Always another one for vengence later. Also, Ron has a serious weakness in that he feels overshadowed by Harry, Hermione, and his brothers. Ron's sin is envy, and Voldemort works very well with envy. I see V. exploiting Ron's deeply submerged envy at Harry and Hermione's skill, in such a way as to allow either one of them, probably Hermione, to end up in danger. Ron sacrifices himself when he sees what he caused. 5. Neville. I really, really, really, really want to be wrong on this count because Neville is my favorite character. I also am less convinced of this one than the other four. Neville could easily have been the boy in the prophecy. Voldemort and the Death Eaters hold him in contempt, and she likes to make small and weak things be the means of ending big and powerful ones. I see Neville actually being the one who takes out Voldemort, and the LeStranges who tortured his parents, and Voldemort's utter astonishment that something he thought of as weak could destroy him. She uses lots of Christian images and tropes in the other books, and the idea of the weak and powerless vanquishing the big and strong is the most important Christian plotline there is. Voldemort respects Harry's skill and strength, which means he'll be on guard for Harry. He dismisses Neville, so Neville is going to be able to sneak up on him. The question is whether Neville dies or not. Given the Christian themes, I think Neville almost has to. Self-sacrifice to defeat the ultimate evil. There is plenty of evidence that I'm wrong, however. The biggest bit is that Neville and Luna are now a couple. She doesn't like to kill off love interests, and if Neville survives, it's so he can marry Luna. I don't think Harry dies. For one thing, Scholastic Press is a business, and whatever she might think as an artist, money talks. Parents are not going to shell out $25 for a book once they know the main character dies in the end. These are still children's books and children like happy endings. Also, it works against the overriding theme of the books -- Love Wins Out. If Harry -- The Boy Who Lived -- dies, then Lily's self - sacrifice was meaningless and the whole story arc was pointless. I think Harry lives, marries Ginny, and becomes the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts. On some peripheral points, Dumbledore comes back through Draco's Hand of Glory. Remember that Dumbledore's hand suffered from some awful rotting disease. Somehow, D. changed his own live hand for Draco's corpse one. The corpse hand poisoned him. I also wonder whether Voldemort experiences redemption before he dies. In Dracula, Bram Stoker writes of the relief and happiness on the vampire's face when he finally dies. Ms. R is a well-read and thoughtful woman, and she might want to mimic that scene at the end. Also, it makes a nice, round plot if Ultimate Evil achieves some understanding of his sins at the end of his life. Finally, McGonigle becomes the new Hogwarts headmistress.
posted by Kitty 5:39 PM 1 comments
Saturday, June 24, 2006

As promised, here are some pictures of Steve, Andy, and Aaron. Since I'm in charge here, there will be no pictures of me. Ever. This is Steve on Father's Day, sitting in a deck chair grooving to his iPod and sleeping.
This is, of course, Andy and Aaron in the Eastside "Y" pool. The pool has a couple of water slides and few other attractions of that sort, meaning we're here pretty much every weekend in the summer if it's not raining, which it pretty much doesn't do anymore, so this is a major hangout. Since blogger is being picky about images this afternoon, I can't post the pictures I took of the pool -- actually, it's two pools, this one and a lap pool -- today. Maybe later. Anyway, enjoy the pics and comment freely.
posted by Kitty 2:14 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

My sons share a bedroom, which makes for some very interesting bedtime conversations. Tonight, for example:Aaron: Mommy, I'm going to marry Kathryn, Ellie, and Maggie. (three classmates at preschool.)Andy: Aaron, you can't do that. Some of them have to be your ex-wives!Me: Well, you can't marry more than one person at one time, but you don't have to have an ex-wife. Daddy doesn't have any. Aaron: Can I marry you, then? Daddy can marry Grandmother Tess. At that point, I decided it was time for lights out.
posted by Kitty 8:28 PM 2 comments

Why I'm not bipartisan

2006-08-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

It's been an energetic couple of weeks for us advocates for women's rights. To mention only the biggest deal, Forbes published one of the stupidest articles in the history of the World Wide Web about the perils of marrying a woman with a job and an education, and one of the lamer replies. Gag. Other people have addressed the substance better than I can, especially since I make my blog entries at night, usually while cooking dinner or giving Aaron a bath. However, the article did make me think about why I value my career, and, tangentially, why I can never be a conservative.

There was a short post at First Things today which specifically inspired this rant. Joseph Bottom complains that abortion politics prevents him from ever being a Democrat. He has a problem with the fact that abortion has become so important to the D's, such that the party has lost most religious people in this country. Now, I'm rather odd because I support the right to abortion and I'm religious, and I think there's a relationship between the two.

First of all, believing in abortion rights is a good proxy for believing in women's rights and autonomy. I need to specify what I mean here: I believe that each woman has a right to obtaining however much she wants of the goodies of this life as she is capable of and desires to obtain. By "goodies," I mean specifically education and property, because they are tangible and measurable. Happiness is nice, but until there's a blood test for it, it can't be measured to my satisfaction. Home ownership, accumulated wealth, number of iPods, and graduation rates, however, can be verified. So, to the extent that a policy gets more stuff into the hands of more women, I approve of it.

I can't go on without mentioning health, by which I mean optimally nourished and exercised and able to obtain treatment for any illnesses that the person might suffer. No policy that makes women sicker is going to get my approval.

So, I approve of policies that get more women more stuff, and maintain our health. Conservatives don't.

The Journey of a 1,000 Posts

2006-04-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

begins with a single sentence. I have tried blogging in the past and abandoned it, due to a vicious combination of laziness and business. Somehow, after a full day's work, I didn't feel like spending my evenings locked away from the family conversing with total strangers about the horrors of the current administration or whatever else it would have been. I've gotten over that now.

My hope with this blog is that I cause lots of people to have to clean their computer screens, due to having snorted soda out the nose from laughing. Laughter may not replace chemotherapy, but it certainly cures the blues. I'll be seeing you, in all the old familar places . . . .