Response to comment

I take your point: one's appearance and one's conveyance matter everywhere--I'm not an actress, but I'd never show up to a job interview in sweatpants. But I don't live in LA, so no one would care what car I arrived in (in fact, metro would be the assumption). The thing is, there's a difference between investing in expensive things because you're in a profession and/or place where that's what your clients expect (like these New Yorkers who felt they had to shell out hundreds of dollars every two weeks for highlights). That's not the same as buying a car you can't afford or otherwise seeking out the trappings of wealth to impress people not in a position to hire you or buy from you.

DC is a solar system apart in its status culture, although the lawyers and lobbyists dress and drive flashy. The rest of us tend to keep it low-key. Tim Gunn has complained about it and Robin Givhan has made quite a career out of pointing it out (to be fair, I should say a fraction of a career). David Brooks' comment also sums it up brilliantly:

"Gail, recently I’ve become greatly disturbed by the cars that are owned by the top officials in the Obama administration. These are people who have been making serious change for many years as president of Harvard and that sort of thing. And yet according to published reports, they tend to drive 1995 Honda Civics and 1994 Ford Tauruses. In other words, they own the kind of cars that are the subject of a hundred “Car Talk” episodes because they only go into reverse when the radio is set on AM.

In my view, anybody making enough money to afford it should be driving an understated semi-luxury vehicle, like an Audi, Acura or an Infiniti. To drive less shows a lack of appreciation for the finer things in life, a lack of sensual acuteness, a certain inner drabness."

Again, none of this is to say that status doesn't matter. David Brooks has made much of a career pointing out that people will find subtler ways of signaling status.

Sunday morning roundup

Nicholas Kristof reminds us that Haiti is not the only tragedy in the world. And the Red Cross is certainly not the only organization doing something about it.

Never a dull moment in the Caucasus.

Frank Rich embraces the SOTU and calls for more in the same vein. That column goes nicely with the New Yorker's 'Tea Party' article, which basically argues that the tea partiers are not a bunch of lobbyist-led rednecks. Fair enough, but that doesn't mean that ignorance doesn't pervade their agenda. On an unrelated note, Jackson Diehl makes a good point about what wasn't said in the SOTU.

Secretary Paulson dishes on the players in the rescue of the financial system and tells Sarah Palin not to call him 'Hank.' Andrew Young dishes on the John Edwards debacle, and even though, as I've said before, I don't care, the stuff that went down is just wrong. Paul Strathern dishes on Borgia, Machiavelli and Da Vinci in what sounds like a great read.

A new book compellingly tells of a social wrong on the part of the medical establishment.

Another book celebrates chutzpah, but Zachary Goldfarb, the reviewer, is skeptical.

Michelle Singletary advises us to stop pretending that we're rich. Did you know that 86 percent of luxury vehicles are driven by non-millionaires? Whereas millionaires do go for $16 haircuts and $10 bottles of wine.

The Times articulates my thought on the choose-life Super Bowl ad: "choose life" is still pro-choice. Let it go. Writers for the Post make the same point less concisely. Here's what's not okay about CBS's ad choices.


Mmmmmm, green curry ramen.

Packer on Dresden

George Packer's must-read Dresden article is sadly subscription only. It is also excellent, and addresses a theme I've often blogged about--places, and peoples, coming to terms with their history. In this case, architecture characterizes the coming-to-terms, or lack thereof, or something in between.

I found Dresden beautiful. It was actually mom who urged me to go, if only for the Old Masters' Gallery. An acquaintance in Geneva suggested I not bother, said the city was nothing but ruins. Which isn't true, wasn't even true in 1997, but in any case, even the ruins added to the beauty. You walking across that bridge to see the beauty of the city open itself up at an ever-changing angle. Much like Porto. But I digress.

We studied the fire-bombing of Dresden in grad school, in my Just War Theory class, and Packer's analysis only illuminates the issue. Proquest it, buy it, whatever--but do read it.

New addition to the 'physical defects' bracket of Mom Madness

A.: Hello?
Mom: Where are you?
A.: Home.
Mom: Then how come your computer's off?
A.: It's on.
Mom: But you're not on Skype.
A.: No.
Mom: I want to show you a jacket--turn on Skype.

Mom: There you are! You're a little discolored. It might be the video. Do we look discolored?
A.: No.
Mom: I guess our web camera is better than your web camera.
A.: So, this jacket...
Mom: Let me go get it. Talk to dad.

Dad and I talk. Mom reemerges with the jacket.

A.: Looks awfully big, mom.
Mom: Well, it's too small for me.
A.: What material is it?
Mom: It's a good material.
A.: ??
Mom: Huh... 40 percent polyester...
A.: Eh.
Mom: It looks good.
A.: I really can't say anything without trying it on.

Mom: So you're going to keep your hair long?
A.: I guess.
Mom: I see a gray streak...
Dad: Nothing wrong with that. It's elegant.
Mom: I agree...

Mom: Eyebrows just like your dad's... hopefully they won't start curling. Something's up with your smile... it's not very full. You could use some collagen implants.
Dad: Please.
Mom: Seriously--people do it all the time. It's not even considered plastic surgery--not that there's anything wrong with that.
Dad: Her smile is fine.
Mom: But with collagen implants, it would be perfect.
Dad: It's fine.
Mom: Your skin doesn't look bad...
A.: So, what are you up to this weekend?
Mom: We're going to the opera--well, to a simulcast.
A.: Cool!

The subject changed, we managed to have an inoffensive conversation.

Response to response

Very much agreed, but advice needn't be advice. Again, I'd still steer away from unsolicited, especially in the personal realm. See this letter to Carolyn, especially her response: digging at someone is not helpful. Mom's staring at my middle, speechless, and then not speechless but fully expressive of her awe at how it's grown, has achieved nothing in the way of shrinking the offending bulge.

I'm not suggesting that you say to your sister, instead of "He didn't call you for 3 weeks after the first date, no, don't go out with him again!", "He didn't call you for 3 weeks after the first date, he's just not that into you," but that's a little bit better: it's a statement of fact rather than something she "should" do, and "should" is part of the problem. But I agree: eventually she'll figure that out for herself.

I love career advice--I don't think you're ever at a point where you can get enough--but there's as much bad advice out there as there is good. The difference is, it's not as personal and it usually is generalized into facts, rather than directives, so, for both reasons, people take it better.

Re: the gray, I completely agree. It's a part of what makes me unique, and more people--including hairstylists--have told me not to touch it. It's not that I'm "going gray"--I've had the same gray hair for over ten years. But I usually bristle when people do direct me to dye it, and yet, I didn't, because it was said in context (i.e. my friends believed that men my age would be under the impression that I was much older because of the gray), rather than as a 'you should do this.'

***
No roundup this morning--just one column worth sharing. Gail Collins expresses her frustration with politics as usual.

Response to comments

Here's an amazing misguided-overprotective parent story. Apparently, the school reconsidered.

***
The hedgehog has an official check-out date. Its handler, who had arranged that date without my input, tried to postpone it by two weeks when I told her I’d be out of town and thus have to evict it early, leaving it outside for an extra day before the UPS guy can collect it... but I would have none of it. I want that thing out of the house.

***
ETC, I’m honored to have had a positive influence on your relationship with your sister! I’ve felt strongly about unsolicited advice for a long time—I wasn’t very old before I noticed how unhelpful it was. But there are two kinds of advice, as I’d written in my original post: the ‘you should do this’ kind and the ‘be aware of this fact, think about yourself and your priorities, and integrate the two’ advice. For example, there’s ‘lower your standards if you want to meet someone’ and there’s ‘think about the extent to which it’s important for you to be in a relationship, and consider whether it’s worth changing your ways to make it happen.’

Incidentally, I met some friends for drinks last night and pointed them to our debate re: dating. They’re successful, amazing, beautiful, interesting, African-American and single. They agreed that the city sucked in general but that it was notably worse for them.

They’re also two of the few people from whom I take advice on my appearance without bristling, usually because they don’t offer it without solicitation. I generally get annoyed when people advise me to dye my gray hair—and I’m still not going to do it—but they said it in a context that was practical and non-offensive.

In case you were wondering, our recurring ‘this city sucks for dating’ conversation ended in ‘too bad. We’re not desperate, we’re not going to lower our standards, and we’re going to go on living our very full lives.’ Although we agreed that what we did need was (1) a ‘wife,’ i.e. personal assistant and (2) a boy toy, none of us felt she needed, wanted a husband. I revisited that feeling today when a coworker told me that her mother-in-law had taken to complaining over the dearth of home-cooked meals her son was getting and gave my coworker... wait for it... a gift subscription to Good Housekeeping.

***
re: family, my mother, but not my father, is the same way: the more I have my $hit together, the less she can believe it and the more she picks at me. Probably because that way she feels needed.

***
Doris Kearns Goodwin says bring on the filibuster.

Friday morning roundup

Let's talk about 'too much government intervention' for a second: in addition to the spectrum of reasonable positions on this matter, you have the two extremes, the idiots, and the hypocrites. I.e. you have the people that believe government should manage everything and those who believe that government should manage nothing; you have the people who say government should manage nothing, i.e. their medicare, and the people who say government should manage nothing (apart from women's wombs). I'm not sure where to place this horse$hit:

Massachusetts is the first state to add toothbrush time to the color-nap-snack-and-play routine of preschools, requiring that all children who eat a meal at day care, or attend for more than four hours, brush their teeth during class and be educated about oral health.

The regulations, which went into effect last week, are being praised by some parents and caregivers while causing a tempest in a toothbrush for others, according to schools and chat rooms.

“I don’t want someone’s hand in my child’s mouth,” said Sarah Brodsky, a teacher at First Path Day Care in Watertown and mother of 4-month-old Noah. “It’s a little too much” government intervention, Ms. Brodsky added.

“JG,” posting on Boston.com’s blog Moms Nation, agreed that the government might have overstepped its bounds: “We don’t need the state mandating every little thing in our lives. Let parents be parents,” adding, “The kids can’t even reach a sink.”

Now, my parents grew up in a police state. I grew up listening to their stories of having grown up in a police state. I wouldn't, for a minute, suggest there's no such thing as too much government intervention. But teaching kids to brush their teeth--in (state-funded) schools--is not the same as paying neighbor's to spy on each other and report their thoughts to the state. Right?

Maybe I'm just bitter because I wish someone had taught me to brush my teeth properly. It could have saved me a fortune in dental bills. But I'm not talking about the other reasons (logistical, hygienic, etc.) for which this might not be the best idea. I'm talking about how the public discourse on "government intervention" is losing touch with reality.

David Brooks touches on the outdated nature of the big government/small government debate.

Investing in Haiti's economy.

Samuel Pisar eloquently contemplates humanity in the face of tragedy, natural and man-made.

John Bowe's book on love looks interesting.

Not that I drive to the District if I can avoid it, but I welcome the no-quarters-needed trend.

We talked a bit over the weekend (well, blogged and commented) about sanctimommies, and Ernessa said something like she hasn't met a lot of actual sanctimommies, but the internet encourages that kind of thing. Perhaps. I do know moms who complain of sanctimommies (a friend of mine considers her sister-in-law as such). What I can say is that I've noticed that moms, like others, attack when they feel threatened. So I'm going to extend this already stretched metaphor to healthy eating, having blogged yesterday about nonjudgmental yoga and nonjudgmental eating. I'm all about not criticizing what other people eat, until (like RM) they start calling me a freak. It follows that if we must label parents weirdos based on the food choices they make on behalf of their kids, let it go to the ones that opt for the junk food. And there's nothing impossible or more expensive about mixing your own vinegar-based cleaning products.

But I will judge parents who overshelter their children and the schools that pander to them. That's just a travesty.

It's tempting to judge, as greedy, the landlords claiming ownership over a meteorite, thus keeping it out of the Smithsonian. But in the interest of intellectual honesty, I'd have to ask myself whether in a similar situation, the prospect of that much money wouldn't alter my own behavior.

I'd considered going to the farewell party but I was concerned it might be a zoo (no pun intended--really). It's also going to be very cold.

Thursday evening roundup

Were I a more thorough blogger, I'd have gone back and linked this creative post with the article on the memories associated with smell, which I posted earlier this week.

Ha. Have I been to this Tesco? I don't remember ever shopping there. I would go to Cardiff to shop at the covered market, and also in some of the smaller grocery stores to the west of the city, toward the arts center neighborhood--Chapter, is it called?

I was just thinking of Wales, as an example of how we let beauty sink in and don't notice it once we're used to it. I went to Ireland for a weekend, which was also beautiful but in a very different way, and coming back--just taking the bus back from the nearest station, I was struck by the beauty of the landscape, which I'd been observing for months but at some point it stopped being as noteworthy. I just experienced the same thing last week when I biked to work for the first time since early December--it's such a beautiful ride, but it's not as striking when I see it more regularly.

Where not to stay.

Thursday morning roundup

Lots to talk about in this article on foodie yoga, mostly the concepts of judgment and purism. My yoga teachers have always taught me that yoga is non-competitive; however, one did ban meat (and mushrooms and garlic, like one of the yogis in the article). The idea of eating during yoga grosses me out, but nothing wrong with feasting afterward, if you ask me. This is a really interesting excerpt:

And in yoga and foodie circles alike, contemplating the awesome significance of every bite taken — its flavors, its implications, its history — often seems to lead to moral judgments about others.

I mean, it doesn't have to be that way. There are, indeed, judgmental foodies, and I started to cross that line with RM only after he would constantly draw attention to the contrast in our eating habits. There's a difference between arguing that people should eat more mindfully and sustainably, and judging them.

On that topic, check out Kathleen Parker's column on hunting that I posted earlier this week (was it Sunday?) Here's a different piece on hunting, whose last paragraph elicited in me a non-judgmental 'gag me.'

While we're on the topic of meat... call me a cynic, but if the meat industry is happy with the Adminstration's food safety nomination, I'm skeptical and hoping to for a pleasant surprise, because there's no time to lose.

If you didn't watch the Daily Show clip I linked to on Tuesday, or yesterday's Colbert Report, read up on the Bauer incident here.

I've been using Rosetta Stone recently--I have free web access through work--and I've been discussing it with a couple of friends, one of whom is taking a language class and one of whom is also learned in the way of linguistics. I find RS extremely annoying, but I have to admit that it kind of works. For now. It's a good start--I've also used RS for a language in which I had more of a basis, and it was clearly an experience in diminishing returns. And still annoying. I should check out the BBC language aps.

Gail Collins cracks me up.

Pre SOTU ramble

I was talking to someone about blogging--she was considering starting one--and I said I thought the key was not getting carried away by having a medium: just because you can easily broadcast what you had for breakfast, doesn't mean people suddenly care. Now, it's not that I've never blogged about what I had for breakfast, but when I did, it was in the context of having breakfast with my parents (mom's narrating the order in which I eat the things on my plate, or overanalyzing what I put in my oatmeal, etc.).

The point is, there are tons of things, even on a given day, that are important to you. That doesn't make them worth blogging about. This, too, goes back to the Mendelsohn piece on memoirs: even before new social media, there's some $hit you just need to keep to yourself. I could have a blog solely devoted to rude people on the metro, and I have to admit, I've caved and written about people who don't cede seats to riders who obviously need them more, or who stand directly in front of the doors. I could blog about things that are mundane but quasi-intriguing, like the stuffed animal, noise-making hedgehog in my house, which I did not invite but cannot get rid of it. I could tell you about how I took my shoes to the cobbler, and the guy at the counter recoiled. And when he took them into the workroom to check on the price--because he'd apparently never seen such worn shoes--I could hear the woman gasp when she saw them. I took them in on Saturday and only got them back today. At first I tried to wear skirts every day, so I could wear boots with them, but that lasted *a day.* Yesterday and today, I just wore pumps. Glad that's over. But see how quickly that got boring?

Okay, State of the Union's on. Ciao.

No emperor-clothes pun here

David Brooks and Tom Friedman both annoy me sometimes but have a way of being right when they're right. But here's the thing about what Brooks said--quoting someone else--about how government shouldn't be transparent for the same reason middle-aged people should wear clothes. I'm not going to say there's nothing to that, but I also agree with Gail Collins' retort. I mean, even Madonna needs to wear clothes (as does Angus Young), but so does Lady Gaga.

This is the kind of debate over the D.C. bag tax I like to see.

Wednesday morning roundup

In appreciation of Senator Mathias.

Remember the Telescope Effect article that I posted two Sundays ago, about the issue of disproportionate compassion for individual people vs. masses? Here's a compelling argument for at least caring about individuals:

It also shows how impossible it is not to get caught up in the fate of individuals even when confronted with mass casualties.

"You know, we talk about and teach the 'most good for the most people' approach," Redmond said. "But if you are presented with a problem of one particular person, and you think you can do something about it, give it a shot."

That article also speaks to the magnitude of the survivors' needs in Haiti.

Maureen Dowd.

The Times samples some State-of-the-Union-like addresses. Check out the word counts as well as the themes.

This is why I'd never make AVD a potluck. I'm not averse to potlucks for lesser occasions--picnics, etc. But I strongly believe that when you invite people to celebrate something, you're responsible for the celebration. And yes, I have taken to having annual birthday parties for myself (Miss Manners wouldn't suggest, I'm sure, that since I've no significant other, or nearby family, to arrange such a party for me, I should just let my birthday go.) Across Eastern Europe, you throw your own party. But you don't invite people and then expect them to do the work/foot the bill. Moving on, the second letter in the above link represents a truly horrific lapse in judgment and taste.

Lotus. Flower.

Jay: What about Hotel Rose Garden? It's $123 for a double bed, good reviews, etc... Southern Tower looks very nice (I'd even say "hot"). I think I never want to book another hotel again in my life...
me: I don't give a f*. Let's just book something. My mind is mush, am going to bed.
Can book tomorrow. but yes Rose Garden looks good.
Jason: k, richard's good with southern tower
me: ok
whatever then
And by whatever
I mean whatever
in a way I've never meant whatever in my life
Jason: i'll book that, and then do you mind getting villa fontaine
I hear that!!
me: no, I'm not dealing with agoda again
Jason: or we can just leave the reservation
we can pay $30 more a night thru the hotel and not prepay, which I half think is easier.
me: either way
I don't want to deal with Agoda but you can if you want, and I can book the other place
or the other way around
I don't care.
Have I mentioned that I don't care?
Jason: I feel your pain. Don't worry--I'll sort it tonight.
and then we're done for real.
me: okay, cool, thanks!!
Jason: no worries.

Tuesday evening roundup

Mostly a New Yorker roundup--it's a good issue.

This cryonics article is crazy. Apparently, the cryonics pioneers haven't seen "Idiocracy."

When I first saw this article on the association of smells I thought back to "Remembrance of Things Past" and how much I hated the first French lit class I took in college.

Hendrik Hertzberg reviews "Game Change."

From the Daily Show and an overall worthwhile episode of the Colbert Report.

How fat am I? Let mom count the ways.

As I "dialed" my parents' number last night--there's no sleek way of saying 'as I hit redial on my cell and waited,' but dialed is like saying "rolling down" a car window, which, by the way, I still do, because my car has power-nothing, but I realize that almost no one else does--but I digress.

Anyway, you know how you develop defense mechanisms, and one of mine is not quite registering the horror of a situation until it's over? Like with RM? But then, you realize how traumatized you are, because you keep thinking about it? Even over the last few weeks, especially when I've had an especially long day, and I was just sitting down to some 'me' time after a day of work/volunteering/cleaning/other errands, I've thought, 'why do I just know he's going to aggressive-talk to me tonight?' And then I breathe a huge sigh of relief because I realize that's no longer possible.

Although I had a moment of panic last night when Marcela e-mailed me with a subject line that asked about a spare bedroom--I was worried that she knew someone who was looking for a room. Which is ironic, because I told her that her mother and/or partner were welcome to stay with me for as long as they needed to while she was settling back in--and I meant/mean it--but I'm not going to live with random people I don't know. But again, I digress.

Just as, sitting down after a long day, I sometimes experience a momentary fear of RM conversational offensive, I've taken to experiencing my own, individual Mom Madness. Now, I often play mental Mom Madness before visits home, but it's recently hit me before phone calls. I'm not sure why this is just happening now--after all, mom was comparatively laid back over the holidays; she only told me I was fat every other day, and only dwelled on it for a few minutes at a time. At the same time, however, she's gotten more creative over the last few months: she's started talking about my weight without having to see me, so distance no longer confers any protection. She can now launch a "you're fat" monologue over the phone. I half expect her to say, "I can tell from the sound of your voice that you've gained weight. There's a different echo to it."

Not only has she crossed that line--she's managed to badger me about my girth without actually having my allegedly gargantuan gut within sight for inspiration--but she's also expanded her repertoire of weight comments, such that I could probably come up with a Mom Madness bracket for weight comments alone. Here are some [actually spoken] themes:

-You've gained weight. [Five minutes later] You've gained weight. [Repeat several times]

-What was I saying? I got distracted by your massive gut. Wow, that thing is HUGE! I completely lost my train of thought. Seriously, that is some stomach you've grown yourself!

-[Enter item of clothing] makes you look fat/makes your butt look big/is too tight.

-Why are you fat? Genetically, you have no reason to be fat. Seriously, why are you fat?

-Lay off the soup/no I will not pass you the bread/you've had enough grapes.

-Have I mentioned that you've gained weight?

Tuesday morning roundup

Haiti is starving. An etiquette of sharing what little there is has taken hold.

As I was flipping through a "Fitness" magazine yesterday I came across an add for Hostess 100-calorie cupcake snacks. No sense of irony.

I was also flipping though a Travel Tips for Women booklet that a tour company sent me. I didn't look at it in detail, but few of the tips were women-specific. I stumbled on a tip about Russia that really threw me: don't expect American-sized portions, savor the smaller dishes. Um, Russian portions are gynormous. My parents and their friends are not an anomaly. I don't know what those people are talking about. Occasionally, I come across blanket statements about Russian culture, as observed by foreigners, that are amazingly spot on. And occasionally, native Russians pull nonsensical ideas out of their a$$es.

Tea Party "idealism" meets reality. Richard Cohen explains, while David Brooks writes on the limits of populism. Elsewhere, Richard Cohen parses the significance of John Edwards' brush with presidency.

This is going to be a trial week for going Postless. I put my subscription on hold because I thought I'd be business-traveling, but our trip got postponed, and I forgot to cancel the hold. Which is just as well in terms of my information overload, but it will make for less comprehensive roundups.

Phone call

The battery on my cell phone was running very low so I turned off the phone. I only remembered to turn it on half an hour or so ago, and when I did, three messages were waiting for me:

(1) Dad: Hi! Sorry we missed your call last night, we were out. We'll call again, or call us.

(2) Mom: Where are you? I don't get it. Call us.

(3) Mom: Where could you possibly be in this weather? I mean, really? It's getting late. And the weather! Look, call us.

***
Mom: Hello?
A.: Hi, Mom.
Mom: [V.!]
A.: Mom, could you not scream into the earpiece, please?
Mom: Could you not use that tone with me, please?

Mom, holding the phone away: V.!!!
A.: That's better, thanks.

***
Nothing more to see, people. It wasn't a Skype call, so "why are you fat?" and "what's wrong with your hair?" would have been especially gratuitous (which is not to say that that's much of an impediment, but mom wasn't in an especially gratuitous mood. Rest assured, though, that I'll keep you posted in the event of future verbal carnage.

Monday evening roundup

I love it! I may have to read this book. I've always been frustrated when languages I'm learning don't have a good word for boredom. To my knowledge, there's not one in Spanish. In French it's context-dependent rather than unique--the concept of 'ennui' is there, but 'ennuyer' is 'to bother' as well as 'to bore.' In Russian it's a bit more clear, although it can share the term with 'to miss.' I could go on, but the point is, I wonder why English is the only language I know with a strong, unmistakable term for the concept of boredom.

And you thought I was clumsy.

The Times rounds up the Alpha Wives debate. None of the contributions are earth shattering, but the links in the introductory paragraph may be worth checking out.

And now for the mommy wars: on shared-not-divided parenting; the overparenting backlash; and whether parenting lessens one's capacity for adult conversation.

With all due respect to the original J.Lo, this is awesome. As is last Thursday's Word:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Two-Faced
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Monday morning roundup

Sounds reasonable. I wonder if he'll get crap for it nonetheless. On a more substantive note, Fareed Zakaria's wisdom always deserves attention.

Immigration and organized crime clash in Naples.

Unsurprisingly, botox is dual-use.

Credible opposition begets increased transparency in Sri Lanka.

Is authoritarian populism in Latin America on its way out?



Ross Douthat makes some reasonable points but I don't buy the argument that we can go without comprehensive reform. It's not just about the uninsured and the pre-existing conditioned; it's about the system, the cost structure of that system, and how that cost structure is bankrupting the nation as a whole (as well as harming the uninsured and pre-existing conditioned).

Being cerebral is an underrated quality, especially in a President.

Sunday morning roundup

Long, scary article on when radiation therapy goes wrong. Here's another 'feeling lucky to be alive (and healthy)' article.

It pains me to say this, and you can probably guess how I would have voted, but Massachusetts democrats have tended to take voters for granted. Frank Rich parses the election results. Meanwhile, contributors to "On Leadership" agree that the Administration must regain message control, as presidential speechwriters share some interesting insights on the State of the Union address.

Jennifer Garner slams sanctimommies. Another woman writes about her need for a proverbial wife--not an actual one--a concept all the more ironic with the latest women-out-earn-their-husbands studies. And even though she admits to oversimplifying 'the good old days,' I still fault her for oversimplifying to the point that her argument is useless (not the part about needing a proverbial wife, but the part about how people were happier when roles were more clearly delineated). On a happier note, here's a realistic but inspiring portrait of a timeworn marriage.

I want to keep an extra $.18/month as much as the next taxpayer, but when I consider the big picture, it's a small price to pay for health benefits for the families of police officers and firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty. Similarly, I'd hate to make the homebuying process any more expensive, but I'd be willing to cough up an extra $10 for environmentally friendly farming once every real estate transaction.

Kathleen Parker eloquently verbalizes my feelings about hunting (which, in the column, is part of a political-imagery analogy).

Listen up, millennials: having your mom or dad call potential employers to advocate on your behalf calls your maturity into question. Parents were among those that complained to the Post over graphic earthquake images. This is one of those tricky 'I'm not a parent so can I really say' things, but if I were to be so bold, I'd say, 'get over it.' Also on the theme of the potential harm of overprotective parenting: it's admirable that parents acknowledge the dangers of driving, but sheltering their kids from the seriousness of the responsibility means forgoing a teaching opportunity:

It has become harder for teens to grow up, Allen says in a recent book, "Escaping the Endless Adolescence," because parents too often try to eliminate risks and obstacles rather than teaching teens to manage them safely. "Parents are scared to death about their teens driving," he said. "But they won't grow up if we just lock them in a room to keep them safe."

I feel compelled to pass along the Post's high recommendation of Jane Bryant Quinn's "Making the Most of Your Money Now", but I can't tell you that I'm going to buy or read it (yet). According to its review, "Remembering Survival" is excellent. The review itself is a bit blah, but it's interesting from the perspective of the Mendelsohn piece I linked to the other day. Also recommended are "Daring Young Men" by Richard Reeves and Solzhenitsyn's In the First Circle. On a trivial note, I'd be interested in why the author's last name was transliterated as it was: the last three vowel sounds are not exactly interchangeable in Russian, nor are they especially well distinguished by the letters chosen for them.

It's great that Laura Linney is getting the recognition she deserves. Reading that reminded me of what a great movie "The Truman Show" was.

Robin Givhan on fashion and size. An excerpt:

Just how big does a model have to be before folks are satisfied that she represents some ever-shifting vision of what a "real" woman looks like? Must she be precisely 5-feet-4 and a size 14, which is the fashion industry's accepted stats for the average woman? And if she is, will that transform the fantasy photographs in fashion magazines into the equivalent of catalogues? After all, a large part of our fascination with Hollywood is because it's populated with absurdly stunning men and women who are so far from average they ignite our wildest desires and persuade us to pay good money to go to bad movies.

The Post's travel section is only occasionally useful, so I was delighted to find a guide to what the TSA allows as carry-on food. Pies, in case you were wondering, are "allowed and subjected to additional screenings if need be." See also some tips on protecting your valuables from the likes of Cybill Shepherd's son.

I haven't faulted the Travel Section on inspiration; on that note, Burundi and Montreal beckon.

Biology may be the deciding factor in why I'm hardly attracted to Jewish men.