Summer solstice roundup

Reading this lament of the conflation of in-your-face sexuality with feminism made me wish someone had written it better, until I remembered that Ariel Levy had done just that.

Speaking of feminism, Lori Gottlieb says it ruined her life. It's ironic that Sixth and I is hosting her--though I love Express Night Out's take:

Her book, "Marry Him," tells women that if they want to get married, they should settle for someone who's not perfect — balding, overweight, too old, too boring — while they're still young and desirable in order to ensure that they don't wind up alone.

You should go her talk at 6th and I, if only to ask Gottlieb why ending up single is so much worse than ending up in an unhappy marriage and see her dodge the question.

--but it's ironic because Sixth and I recently hosted the anti-Gottlieb: Michelle Cove, filmmaker behind "Seeking Happily Ever After." There's a written and video description at the last link, and the trailer is here.

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Some friends and I were just talking about the phenomenon Stanley Fish calls anosognosia: why is it that people who are horrendous at something tend to also be horrendous at self-awareness, such that they have no idea they're horrendous? Some choice excerpts:

Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”

It became known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect — our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence.

and

One could argue that evolution suggests we’re not idiots, but I would say, “Well, no. Evolution just makes sure we’re not blithering idiots. But, we could be idiots in a lot of different ways and still make it through the day.”

We can take this one step further in applying it to BP execs--it goes all the more for the rich and let-them-eat-cake clueless, who have no idea how out of touch they are.

By the way, here are some apt apologies to BP.

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For not the first time--although I can't find the other one--I want to say "congratulations" to these parents whose child refuses to eat meat. But I also roll my eyes at the question, "how on earth can one get adequate nutrients without meat?" Hint: it's easier to do that than get adequate nutrients with meat.