Right Wing Rhetoric: An Analysis of "What Is A Woman" by Matt Walsh

 The right wing has decided that their ticket to control of Congress is scaring people about sex.  They're been doing this since forever, but they're nothing if not committed to the classics.  The current iteration is stoking fear of transgender people, especially those who transition from male to female.  In their fevered imaginations, women's bathrooms are places of extreme peril, with sex crazed men in dresses waiting to assault every precious and fragile white woman who needs to pee outside of her house.  Exactly what statutes are required to address this catastrophe are left to the imagination.  

One of the most recent, and worst, entries in this area is by Matt Walsh, who created a 'documentary' around him asking various people the question "What Is A Woman?" Walsh himself has a long history of hating women having any public existence.  He 

It starts with videos of little kids' birthday parties with a voice over from him talking about being a dad.  All the boys are wearing blue and all the girls are wearing pink.  The boy gets a football and the girl gets a tiara.  He states "I gave my son a BB gun and that's all the emotional support he needs.  My daughter, on the other hand . . " This is the perfect distillation of Walsh's extremely harsh gender essentialism. Men and mindless gun nuts and women are inscrutable masses of complexity.  He reinforces this with a quote from Steven Hawking, "women are a complete mystery." He follows this with clips of 50's sex education films and an uncomfortable vignette of him doing a terrible job of fishing.  

At this point he starts with the interviews.  The interviews follow a pattern: Walsh is in a room with the interviewee who is identified by text at the bottom of the screen.  That's all.  He never explains why he chose the people he interviews or provides any other context to their statements.  Are any of these people recognized experts in their fields? Have the published anything? What made him choose these people? There are no answers to that question.  They are freaks demonstrating that anyone who doesn't believe in a strict divide between men and women are gross.  Whether viewers are persuaded by his view depends entirely on whether viewers consider 'gross' a salient factor in determining public policy. 

The pro-trans side are Gert Comfrey, a family therapist licensed in Tennessee; Dr. Marci Bowers, a surgeon specializing in sex reassignment surgery; Michelle Fournie, pediatrician; Dr. Patrick Grzanka, professor of women's studies at University of Tennessee; Rodrigo-Hang Lehtinen, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality; Rep. Mark Takano, Democrat, California's 14th Congressional District.  The gist of all of these interviews is that the interviewees refused to state that being a woman is a matter of biology.  

Walsh stages his interviews with the pro-trans people in ways that emphasize the freak show aspect, especially Dr. Fournie and Mr. Lehtinen.  Each of these interviews takes place on a nearly empty set, in front of a wall with large windows.  Walsh and the interviewees sit on stools or short chairs facing each other, with a large blank wall between them.  Dr. Fournier has blue hair and wears something like a Jedi robe.  There is an electrical outlet at the end of a long piece of metal conduit on the wall behind them, clearly dividing the screen between Walsh and the doctor.  Mr. Lehtinen is wearing a poorly-fitted shirt and blazer, and sits so that his belly, and not his face, is centered in the shot.  Since Walsh never bothers to explain why he spoke to these particular people, the strong implication from the visuals is that these are weird people whose opinions can be ignored.

The 'trans advocates are freaks' aspect gets stronger with his set of 'person on the street' interviews.  He asks random people in New York and San Fransisco his title question and gets a bunch of vague answers.  At one point he asks a naked man in San Fransisco about gender and gets a hostile response.  It is never made clear why Naked Dude's opinion is important, other than as an example of the freaks in the nasty city.   

The much more revealing interviews are with the anti-trans side of things.  There are three sets of these: people presented as experts; people who have been involved in conflicts regarding trans issues; and a group of Masai.  

The first of the 'victims is Don Sucher, owner of a Star Wars store in Aberdeen, WA, famous for a confrontation with a city council member in his town over a sign in his window stating 'if you have a dick, you ain't a chick.' Sucher gets a sympathetic portrayal from Walsh.  Sucher answers Walsh who asked him how Sucher knew he was male with 'because I have a dick."  The one question Walsh doesn't ask is why Sucher put the sign up in the first place? Why was this important to him? Sucher's business is selling memorabilia from a set of space fantasy movies for kids; why would he make a point of using a slang word for male genitals in his store? Are Star Wars fans unusually attracted to retrograde gender roles? 

The second alleged victim is Scott Newgent, a transman who regrets his transition.  Newgent describes the health problems he's suffered since his transition and shows this scars on his arm resulting from phalloplasty surgery.  Newgent -- note his name, New Gent -- asserts that pharmaceutical companies make a 'million dollars' from every person who undergoes medical transition.  Walsh does not ask for or provide any support for this assertion.  He does, however, cut back to the interview with Dr. Fournier and ask her about Lupron, a transition drug.  This is the extent of his analysis or investigation of Newgent's assertion.  

The third alleged victim is an unidentified Canadian man who appears on camera as 'Unknown Caller' on an iPhone.  Unknown Caller claims to be facing trial for child abuse in British Colombia for 'misgendering' his daughter and objecting to her medical transition.  This is the most egregious example of Walsh's tendentiousness.  Because this person is anonymous, it is not possible to check anything about his statements. We are expected to take these man's assertion as truth, with no way to check it at all.  

The longest 'victim' segment concerns women athletes allegedly victimized by competing against transwomen.  He does not present anything about transmen in athletics at all.  Walsh interviews one of Lia Thomas' teammates, a Connecticut girl who lost track events to two trans girls.  Lehtinen appears in this section as an advocate for trans athletes.  Walsh puts Lehtinen's voice over a montage of Lia Thomas and various other transwomen athletes holding trophies and prizes.  (note: one of the pictures features Minna Sveard of Texas A & M Commerce, in my home town.  Minna did quite well, and is definitely not trans.)  

It is especially interesting that Walsh spent so much time on women athletes, since he has a long history of hostility to women athletes.  He does not disclose that history in this movie.  

The experts are presented in a manner similar to the trans-adovocates: interviewed in rooms or offices with their names and titles in text at the bottom of the screen.  As in the advocate interviews, he doesn't provide any context to their views or explanations of why he picked them.  He presents medical experts in the same way as a theologian and Jordan Peterson.  

What is most interesting about the experts is that all of them admit that there is a deeply subjective aspect to gender identity.  Peterson admits that there are masculine women and feminine men.  Miriam Grossman, an anti-trans advocate psychiatrist, who says that 'sex is biological,' also admits that gender is a subjective feeling.  

By far the most offensive thing in the whole presentation is Walsh's field trip to Kenya to ask the Masai his title question.  This bit starts with shots of him driving on a dirt road, big animals on the savannah and includes him trying to throw a spear.  (For those of us of a certain age, this part is especially cringey, since 'spear-chucker' is an old racist term for Black people.  I would be very surprised if Walsh didn't know that.) He then goes to interview some men dressed in plaid robes in front of a mud hut, emphasizing the 'primitive people' aspect. 

The Masai men agree that 'a man is someone who does the role of a man.' They describe the 'role of a man' as fathering and providing for children.  In case Matt didn't notice, half of that description is a social role, not a biological one.  A better interviewer might have dug further on this, but Walsh is not interested in nuance or study.  He's here to show the fancy white people in cities that even primitive tribesmen know what women do.  Had he been a little bit better researcher, he would have looked into the complexity of gender roles in traditional African societies..  He might even have interviewed someone on the street in Mombasa.  Instead, he chose to be The Great White Visitor to African Disneyland.  

He never gets an answer to his question.  He never wanted an answer.  Walsh believes in a rigid and brutally enforced gender hierarchy with men on top and women as the permanent underclass, assigned forever to domestic shit work.  Women only exist as pregnancy machines  His view of fathers is that they exist to make money.   Men and women share nothing in his world, which makes me wonder why he ever got married, requiring him to share space with something as boring as a woman. 

He could have focused on what current research says about the effects of puberty blockers, on what the medical standards for transition for children, on ways to structure athletic competitions to be fair to everyone.  Instead, he puts on a freak show for the rubes.  

Odd hobbies and the Culture War

Instead of flying cars and Star Trek replicators, the 21st century has given us mostly stupid wars, environmental collapse, economic collapse, and, now, plagues.   Worse, we do not seem to want to work together to solve any of these problems because scoring points on the Other Team is so much more fun than, say, getting a vaccine to protect oneself and everyone else from dying.  Cooperation and community is just so last century, like TV antennas and shag carpeting but without the cool retro charm.  

What did get, from the cool electronic devices that almost make up for not having flying cars, is the Culture War.  This is the set of silly 'issues' devised by our oligarchs to keep the people whose only policy is massive tax cuts in power.  And yes, this essay is going to be nakedly partisan, because whatever else it is, the Culture War is a Republican Party operation.  

This is a post written by Rod Dreher of The American Conservative freaking out about a BBC article discussing a 15-year-old drag queen.  He asserts that the existence of a kid with an unusual hobby is evidence that the West is 'declining.' 

"Cherry West is what liberals want boys to be, or at least have no objections to boys embracing this repulsive identity. Conservatives — or at least Hungarian ones, if not US Conservatism Inc. grifters— don’t believe that. Which side are you on? A lot of people — especially conservatives — want to sit this out, but that option is not available to us. The Left will not allow that. If you are not consciously and actively opposed to this stuff — and act politically and otherwise to push back, as the Hungarian ruling party is doing — then you might was well get used to the cultural castration represented by Cherry West."

He provides no evidence from any source to support his assertion that liberals want boys to be Cherry Wests.  He is correct that we don't have any objections to boys adopting drag as a hobby, any more than we object to them making model airplanes or playing Dungeons and Dragons.  This does raise the question as to why should I care about Dreher's opinion any more than I care about Cherry West? Aren't both things, like, just opinions, man? No, they are not, because Dreher wants his opinion to carry the force of law.  

I think Dreher is perfectly entitled to his opinion about Sam Carlin, the boy who plays Cherry West, and Carlin's family, but neither he nor anyone else should be able to use government authority to punish that kid or his family.  (FWIW, in the BBC article, Carlin's family refers to the boy using masculine pronouns and the character with feminine ones.)  Carlin's family supports his hobby.  There is nothing in the article to lead one to conclude that Sam Carlin is at all sexually active or even what his sexual orientation is.  He does perform at Pride parades, which is an indication but by no means conclusive.  There is just nothing in this piece to suggest that Sam Carlin is being victimized at all.  

Dreher, in fact, never discusses anything about whether Sam Carlin is being victimized.  He simply calls Cherry West 'disgusting.'  He further says that conservatives should be 'consciously and actively opposed to this stuff' and should be politically active in that opposition.  What Dreher doesn't say, and what I want to know, is what form does that political opposition take? 

He frames his condemnation of the kid, his family, the BBC, and liberals, in an article praising Victor Orban and the Fidesz Party in Hungary's policies restricting what Fidesz calls 'gay propaganda' toward children.  Hungary's law mostly bans mention of nontraditional gender roles in any media designed for kids.  The government of Hungary can, under this law, outright ban a publication, require the publisher add a disclaimer, or restrict access to the publication to anyone under 18.  Here is a link to an article discussing the law in greater detail.  Dreher supports the Hungarian law, including its penalties.  The question that this raises is: how much further does Dreher want to go with punishment? 

It is important to remember here that laws banning things don't, actually, stop anyone from doing or making those things.  Bans give the government the authority to fine or imprison people who keep doing those things.  It's one thing to dislike something or be disgusted by it.  It's another thing entirely to want the people who do that to be imprisoned.  Culture Warriors want to put people in jail for hobbies, or at least won't deny that they want to do so.  Prosecution and jail are very expensive.  To Dreher and company, that expense is justified even if it means we don't have the money to handle our other problems. I strongly disagree. 

Chapter One: How to distinguish facts from conclusions.

I wrote the original version of this four months ago, when the only serious misinformation was about a contagious and deadly disease.  Since then, things have gotten quite a bit more complicated.  In an effort to turn down the heat, I decided this post is worth publicizing.  In honor of the beginning of wall to wall political coverage, I am reposting instructions on how to analyze rhetoric: 

One statement about Covid-19 that cannot be disputed is that there is a lot of highly suspect information around about it.  Most of us are suffering from some degree or another of misery trying to sort the valid from the idiotic from the merely incorrect claims swirling about and infecting our social media.  I can't help with developing a vaccine, but I might be of some use in providing tools that everyone can use to sort the claims supported by facts from the nonsense.  Lawyers spend all our time at work not devoted to meetings to analyzing evidence.  Over centuries, the legal profession in the English-speaking world has developed a set of principles we use to distinguish useful evidence from useless.  Those rules have been codified in the US, at least, as the Federal Rules of Evidence.  Each state has a version with some small variations, but mostly following the federal version.  

The statement of purpose of the federal rules is: "to administer every proceeding fairly, eliminate unjustifiable expense and delay, and promote the development of evidence law, to the end of ascertaining the truth and securing a just determination." Here's the link to the entire set of rules, should you be curious.  If we have ever needed a tool to ascertain truth and secure a just determination, now is that time.  Let me try to demonstrate how these rules can help anyone judge the merits of any assertion.  

There are, of course, differences between a trial, with a judge and a jury, and an ordinary person reading something posted from a friend's Facebook page or Twitter account.  There's no judge, and no opposing counsel making objections.  You, Dear Reader, are going to have to be both judge and opposing counsel, objecting to irrelevant or inaccurate evidence and ruling on your own objections.  To do that, you have to understand a couple of things: 1. The difference between a fact and a conclusion; and 2. the importance of a definition. 

One thing that you have to understand that seems obvious but very much is not is: What is a fact? The Rules of Evidence don't define 'fact.' Webster's has one that takes a page or so.  The best definition that I can give you -- and I don't have authority to cite to support it, so please just take my word for this one, single thing -- is that a fact is not a conclusion.  That distinction is vital and very difficult to make.  We think in conclusions.  Let me give you an example: 

"Karen has a blue car parked in her driveway" contains both facts and conclusions: the facts: there is a car, it's blue, and it's parked in a driveway.  The conclusions: the driveway belongs to Karen.  (Lawyers will also argue that 'car' and 'blue' are too vague to be casually deemed facts.  Is an SUV a 'car?' What, exactly, is 'blue?'  We'll get to those later.) 

The reason that the bit about whether the driveway belongs to me is a conclusion is that ownership of property depends on other facts, not included in that statement.  What facts led the speaker of this terribly vague sentence to conclude that the driveway belongs to Karen (that's me, by the way)? The witness who spoke this would have to say whether she just assumed it was my driveway because she has seen me coming out of the door of the house to which the driveway leads; she's seen mail with my name on it delivered to the address of the house to which the driveway is attached, or other ordinary observations.  For most cases, that's enough.  I am connected to the driveway enough to conclude that it's mine.  It is vital to remember, however, that the witness has seen other things that led her to conclude that the driveway is mine.  

Let's stick with this fact v. conclusion bit a little longer.  "Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald" is a conclusion.  Millions of people saw Ruby shoot Oswald as Oswald was being moved from one jail to another.  Why isn't that statement just considered a fact? That's because 'murder' is a legal conclusion; concluding that something is 'murder' requires finding that several conditions existed at th time.   "Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald with a pistol on November 24, 1963" is a set of facts.  We have pictures of men identified by those names, one of who has a pistol and pulls the trigger of that pistol, firing a bullet that hits the other one on November 24, 1963.  For us to conclude that Ruby murdered Oswald, we would need evidence establishing that Ruby "intentionally or knowingly caused the death" of Oswald.  (There are some other things that qualify, but this is the main one) Did Ruby know the gun was loaded? Did he know that pulling the trigger would cause the bullet to fire? Did he know that Oswald was actually another person? The prosecuting attorney has provide evidence to the jury on all those points.  The defense then can argue, to use one example, that Ruby was in the middle of a psychotic break from reality and thought the Oswald was a werewolf whom he needed to shoot with the silver bullet to save Dallas or other evidence proving that Ruby didn't actually have the mental state necessary to be guilty of murder.  

It takes practice to make this distinction, but once you get good at it you will make it all the time, everywhere.  Also, I will remind everyone constantly during the course of all these essays.  We'll all get plenty of practice.  It is a trick used by a deceptive writer to present conclusions as facts, or to leave the concluding to the reader entirely.  I will show examples of this tactic later, but start looking for writings that advocate something and using only conclusions to support it. 

I mentioned that 'car' and 'blue' were too vague to be useful earlier.  One thing that lawsuits have over other areas where people dispute over evidence is that lawyers are constrained by statutes, rules, or caselaw as to what we can call 'blue.' As noted above, murder is a conclusion drawn from a specific set of facts.  The most important part of any rule or statute is the first bit, where the enactors define the important words used in the rest of it.  In Texas, for example, single axle trailers are 'motor vehicles' and mobility scooters are not, which sound idiotic since the second one actually has a motor and the first one doesn't.  Still, the law governing motor vehicle titles defines trailers into the law and scooters out of it.  

When evaluating whether something is true or not -- 'true' is a conclusion! -- always find out how the advocate defines significant words or phrases.  What does the writer mean by the words she uses? 

Let's use that word "blue."  Light is 'blue' at approximately 490 - 450 nanometers wavelength interval and a frequency of approximately  610 - 670 terahertz.  That's still a lot of colors that can be 'blue,' but it does allow for an objective test to see if the color observed is 'blue;' does it reflect light within those parameters? If I needed a more specific definition, I might refer to the Pantone charts and define 'blue' as Pantone 19-4052.  Any color that has a wavelength and frequency outside of those numbers, or that isn't Pantone 19-4052 isn't 'blue.'  If a writer leaves important definitions up to the reader to fill in the blanks, consider that writer either wrong or deceptive.  If the writer says ‘everyone knows,’ immediately conclude that said writer is trying to deceive you.  The writer is obligated to state openly clearly the meanings of any important words or phrases and not doing so is, to quote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, ‘the odor of mendacity.’ 

Note something else here.  Definitions can be much too narrow.  I picked one color -- Pantone 19-4052 -- and made it the standard for 'blue.' I didn't explain or provide evidence why that one color is 'blue' and nothing else is.  Excessively narrow definitions are a common rhetorical trick of deceptive writers.  The best test to see whether a definition is too narrow or not is, if possible, to ask the person proposing it about other things that could be included but aren't.  In our rather silly example, if you asked me why I didn't pick Pantone 2685 to be 'blue?' I would respond that that color is purple, and then we would argue about what 'purple' means, but at least we have some evidence on which to base the discussion.  If the author can't explain their reasons or argues about something else entirely, then it's reasonable to dismiss their assertions, at least on what 'blue' means.


Rhetorical questions: One common method advocates use to deflect people from noting that her arguments are absolute bunk is the rhetorical question. Writers use such questions to get an effect or make an assertion, not to get a  reply.  So far, so much English 301, the dreaded freshman comp.  It's a perfectly respectable tactic provided that the author then goes on to actually answer it.   If the writer has an entire paragraph of rhetorical questions, you can safely ignore everything else they say.

The most deception subset of the rhetorical question goes by the nickname "'whataboutism', which I include under rhetorical questions because that's the typical manner of phrasing such things.  As the link says, this is a way of deflecting criticism by asking about some terrible thing other people do.  Advocates for the Soviet Union usually responded to criticism of gulags by referencing Jim Crow laws.  In a trial, such tactics would draw a loud objection about relevance which would be sustained. If you're reading something in which the writer says someone can't criticize police brutality because they are also in favor of Roe v. Wade, that's a good example of 'whataboutism' and should cause you to doubt the writer's credibility.  (And to be perfectly bipartisan, if someone defends Roe by accusing opponents of being racists, that is also 'whataboutism.') Even if the whatabout is valid, using it to buttress an argument about something unrelated is deceptive and should make you doubt the person’s credibility.

There are several million other ways advocates cover for the fact that their arguments are without merit, and the next essays will go into them in more detail.  Your homework for the next few days is to look for unsupported conclusions and deceptive 'whataboutism.'  

To summarize: anyone making an argument is obligated to provide facts to support the argument.  Conclusions are not facts. 

The uses of "connected with" and evidence

The best thing about having a humanities degree is that it trained me in how to argue, and especially how to spot weak arguments.  (The ability to see through stupid arguments explains the hostility some politicians and pundits have toward the humanities.  If more people could do this, those guys would have to get a real job.)  One particularly bad one I've seen often is the assertion that some person or another is "connected" with some bad thing or another.  Syrian refugees are "connected" to Daesh or al Qaeda.  Obama is "connected" to the Weathermen.  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was "connected" to the Nazis.  The evidence supporting the connection varies, but the writer asserts a connection between Random Terrible Thing and whatever person the writer wants to discredit.  The writer isn't required to provide her evidence or state any arguments against any particular policy because the connection to random terrible thing is enough to spoil anything the person with Random Terrible Connection advocates.

Let's walk through a case study: I am connected to Charles Whitman, the guy who held the title for death toll in a school shooting for many years.  I graduated from UT Austin; Whitman attended UT Austin.  I used to work with a guy who was actually on campus during the shooting and won a bet that he couldn't run across the street and make a call from a phone booth -- for those under 40, use Google -- and run back to the dorm without getting shot.  Even more persuasive, my husband's uncle was a Justice of the Peace for that precinct in 1966 and signed the death certificates for the victims and for Whitman himself.  Thus, I am 'connected' to Charles Whitman.

Of course, these connections don't prove anything.  I had turned three years old about a month before Whitman's rampage.  I had nothing whatsoever to do with this particular tragedy other than be born before it happened.  It is possible, however, to type "Karen Cox has connections to Charles Whitman" and not be a complete filthy liar.  Thus, assertions of connections is a common rhetorical technique in mendacious and tenacious arguments.

Let's follow a real-world example, that of Benedict XVI.  Now, I have zero use for pretty much any Pope.  I'm a proud and committed Protestant and will happily explain why a belief in transubstantiation is wrong and idolatrous, should any of you be foolish enough to ask.  That said, I know that Nazi Pope assertions were, to use the technical term, bullshit.  Joseph Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth when he was a teenager in Germany.  So far, okay.  Supporting the conclusion that Ratzinger was a Nazi and therefore all of his opinions were terrible, however, requires ignoring the other facts about being a teenager in Nazi Germany, such as refusing to join meant at the very least causing his family a great deal of pain, up to and including imprisonment.  It also meant getting sent to the Eastern Front for little Josephchen.  Expecting a teenager to risk his and his family's lives just to make a point many years later is absurd.  Yes, Ratzinger was a member of a Nazi youth organization.  He probably heard many antisemitic speeches and read a lot of propaganda.  Those facts are in no way relevant to whether or not the Catholic Church should recognize second marriages or punish dissident theologians.

To use an example from Team Red, many people claim President Obama is somehow a protege of the Weather Underground -- the radicals, not the weather website -- because he and Bill Ayers both lived in the same neighborhood in Chicago.  Bill Ayers was actually involved a couple of unsuccessful bomb plots, and wrote an autobiography making, in my opinion, an unsuccessful effort to justify his actions.  He's a genuine radical, with at best a checkered legacy.  All of his violent acts, however, occurred before 1970.  He's been a boringly conventional rich guy with leftist opinions since then.  President Obama was nine years old in 1970, and living in, I think, Indonesia.  He was not at the '68 Democratic convention.  Obama may agree with Ayers on some things -- or not -- but their connection doesn't prove anything.

My point is not to defend Obamacare or the exclusion of divorced and remarried people from Catholic Communion.  If I wanted to do that, I would, for example, discuss the cost of medication and the effect on poor people of delayed or denied care, or discuss the doctrine of the sacraments and the effect of changing that doctrine.  My point is to demonstrate a particularly terrible rhetorical device, and to encourage everyone to check the evidence before repeating that Facebook or Tumblr post or forwarding that Tweet or email.  During the next election year, there will be as many opinions about candidates or policies presented as their are people with an Internet connection.  Those opinions stand or fall on the evidence presented to support them, not on what clubs the people on either side joined when they were kids or whether one person recognized another at cocktail parties.  Be careful!

Heavy Metal Summer Camp

my son Aaron is at electric guitar day camp.  I think that the time is right for a heavy metal boy band, like N'Sync with skulls.  A Disney Channel or Nick at Night sitcom as well.  More on this later.

German Travelogue Day 3

This was a bus tour in the morning with a visit to "Checkpoint Charlie" in the afternoon. We saw what's left of the Berlin Wall, which the city has turned into an outdoor art exhibit. Artists take a section of wall and paint a mural. My favorite was a picture of Leonid Breshnev and Erich Honnecker locked in an intense smooch. The end of the morning part was at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, officially known as "The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." It's across the street from the new American Embassy, and I recall the guide saying that the site was the location of the Gestapo headquarters, but I can't find anything confirming that statement. Standing on the edge of the park all of the stone blocks look about the same height. Inside, however, the floor slopes so that in the middle observers are about six feet below street level and all the blocks tower over their heads. It's designed to be disorienting and confusing, a goal at which it succeeds remarkably well. I found it very effective and appropriate. We skipped the Checkpoint Charlie museum and walked around old East Berlin. We saw a parade of Trabants, the East German horrible car, which now has quite a lot of nostalgia. They were made with a two-stroke engine, which was used in the West for things like lawn mowers and chain saws. Not very powerful. Their exhaust smells like a lawn mower and they don't go very fast, but since that was the pinnacle of consumer goods in the DDR, they were something of a status symbol. The cars in the parade had all been customized, including my favorite one, pink with Gucci stripes. We also went to a chocolate shop that has been in business since the middle of the 19th Century, although they haven't been in the same place that long. They had scale model chocolate sculptures of the Brandenburg Gate, the TV Tower, the Titanic, the Reichstag, and other Berlin sites, as well as a Berlin mascot bear wearing a gold marzipan crown.

Germany Travelogue Day 2

Arrived in Berlin. I couldn't sleep at all well on the plane -- the seats never reclined and the movies played constantly -- so I've been awake 38 hours. It's already Wednesday. We have a walking tour of the city, from our hotel in the old East Berlin, S - Bahn (surface train) to Alexanderplatz, then walk to Museum Island and the Reichstag. The one really serious regret I've got is that the tour never allowed us to go into any of the museums there. The Heinrich Schliemann Treasures of Priam, the first Neanderthal skeleton, and tons of things from Sumeria and Babylon are in those Museums, especially the Pergamon Museum and Neues (New) Museum. The Neues was founded in, I think, 1860, so "new" is relative. I wish I could say something profound about the Reichstag building, but mainly it was a really lovely place, which is no longer used for much serious business. The Bundestag does some ceremonial things in there, but mainly it's a nice backdrop to a lovely park. Berlin has lots of trees. None of them date before 1947, but they made up for lost time and planted THOUSANDS of linden and chestnuts, which now make Berlin Europe's greenest city. Since it was about 85 degrees while we were there. I really appreciated the trees. We walked about 8 miles that first day, so I really got to love the trees. There is a farmer named Karl who has set up stands all over the city to sell his strawberries. Karl's strawberries are the platonic ideal of strawberries -- huge, ripe all the way to the top, and sweet. We bought two liters and ate most of them in one night. Karl's berries are to Berlin what Cheetos in vending machines are to the US, which explains why there are no very fat Germans. There are plump, even heavy-set, but nothing like the typical Walmart shopper. Walking ten miles a day, seven miles of which are stairs, plus little junk food, keeps the citizens of Berlin fit. I made my first discovery of pay toilets today. It costs 75-Euro-cents to use the bathroom here. Charging people who have the audacity to leave home to pee cancels all the benefits from the walking, lack of junk food, and excellent public transport. Really, Europe, this is one thing that is so completely superior in the US. Have you ever thought what happens to someone who doesn't have the right change? Overall, toilets aside, I have to say Berlin is lovely. There's still a lot of Worker's Paradise grey block buildings, but in the 20 years since the Wall fell the residents have cheered the place up. Most of the grey blocks have been modified and painted, so they don't look quite so much like the set for a movie of "1984." It's still easy to see the difference between East and West, though, in that the old West Berlin has nicer mid-20th Century buildings and better restoration of the old stuff.

Germany Travelogue Day 1

A Very Long Plane Ride. We left at a little before 9 from Austin and arrived in New York at a little after noon their time. I had dreaded this part, mainly because I have had almost no good experiences with airlines, and those few were with Pan Am. We flew Delta, which has automated its ticket counters so that we got boarding passes from a computer. I put three pieces of paper into my passport, gave one to the gate clerk, and never read the others. While we were in flight to New York, I noticed that I hadn't gotten a boarding pass for the Amsterdam - Berlin leg of the trip. I would get to Europe, but that's as far as it went. I spoke to the gate clerk at Kennedy, and got the correct papers in ten minutes. So, Delta Airlines, you have my respect and admiration. United would have told me to hitchhike from Holland to Germany. We had an uneventful flight the rest of the way, including the pleasant and amazingly clean Amsterdam Airport.

Language Instruction

One of my personal crusades is the need for more language instruction in our schools. Languages are usually cut first, right up there with music and art, as "unnecessary." The chair of the University of Virginia governing board recently proposed to eliminate that school's highly-praised German department, because Germany is now a completely unimportant country with no international influence at all, like, oh, Greece. An evil combination of corporate Philistines, misguided school reformers, and legislative skin-flints work together to deprive as many students as possible of the chance to learn a second language. The foolishness of this idea is evident right now, with the US facing attacks by possibly-coordinated mobs on many of our embassies in western Asia and North Africa. We don't know about this because we have so very few Arabic - speakers who are not imported from that troubled area. We don't teach Arabic in our schools, so we don't have citizens who read Al Jazeera's website and comments. During the era of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," we fired Arabic speakers for being gay, like we had dozens of extras stored somewhere in the State Department supply cabinet. We don't do that any more, but we aren't doing anything to increase the supply, either. Arabic is a very hard language to learn, and the colloquial form spoken on the street isn't much like the formal version spoken by the upper classes. I understand from the two people I know who speak the language that there isn't anything like standard business English that most fluent speakers use. This is not an insurmountable problem, because there are a bunch of jihadi websites published in European languages, especially German and French. The 9/11 hijackers lived in Germany before moving over here, and presumably talked to other people while in Germany. More Americans speaking German might have made a difference there. This is very personal to me right now. I am learning both French and Spanish via Rosetta Stone, and my Spanish has gotten good enough for me to read CNN en español and Univision for news. Venezuela detained the captain of an American ship. American officials were attacked in Mexico. I learned of these two events from Spanish websites. I learned a lot about Latin American opinions of us from reading the comments. I am a better and more informed person from knowing this. How much more would we know about the real sources of the current rioting if more of us could read Arabic or Farsi or one of the European languages spoken by the leaders? I undertand that East Toenail, Idaho can't hire a full-time Arabic or German instructor. With the Internet, however, they can buy Rosetta Stone and allow their students one class period to complete the program. They can administer on-line tests for credit. So what if only six students are interested? The subscription is about a hundred dollars per year for an ordinary consumer; I'm sure the company would be willing to give a price break to school districts, especially if the state leg bought enough for all of its students. Bogota and Powderly, Texas -- the Prairiland Consolidated School District and a real place -- has a couple hundred students. Texas has almost seven million. Giving every student in the state the chance to learn any one of a dozen languages costs very little anymore, but has a tremendous benefit. We should do this, for all of us.

The Royal Wedding

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

"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

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

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.

"Inside Catholic" once again announces Women Stink

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

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

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.
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> Michelle Bachmann is NOT from Texas.
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> 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.
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> 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.)
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> 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

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?

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

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

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.