Stress is optional, or how to be happy; oh, and I'm on vacation

As I left work an hour or two after I would have liked to, and then, again, as I got into my car to run an errand for a friend who's in Africa finalizing her adoption, I caught myself starting to get stressed out and pointed out to myself that the stress was optional. Sure, I had an early flight the following morning and I hadn't packed, and I had a number of my own errands that I just couldn't fit in over the weekend and that I needed to take care of before I left. And I was almost out of gas, and so was my car. But I shrugged off the stress because I didn't need it.

I shrugged off any stress that tried to creep in as the first half of the errand took two or three times as long as I thought it would, and again as my phone froze just as I was leaving the first stop to get to the second. Mercifully, a long light just before the ramp to 395 gave me a chance to take out the battery, restart the phone, and get the GPS going again before I had to move. I did not, for a second, feel put upon; I only felt that it was a privilege to be in a position to help this friend, especially to do what she was doing. And this was not an engineered perspective; it was genuinely how I felt.

I made it from point A to point B, and then home, without running out of gas. I packed, watered the plants, and tied up a bunch of loose ends around the house. I crashed completely exhausted but ready to go. I have a few more to tie up before the bathtub-refinishing guy gets here, which will be minutes before I'll need to leave for the airport. And then I'm on vacation.

Tuesday roundup

Italy grapples with its epidemic of violence against women, including police who tell victims to cook up some pasta and make up.

Rail for fossil fuels threatens the Northwest's identity as well as its environment.

This is the Times' quote of the day? They needed an expert to offer up the following wisdom?

"The Saudi monarchy is absolutely afraid of an Islamist-based democracy movement."

AMANDA E. ROGERS, a lecturer in Arabic at Emory University in Atlanta, on the Saudi government's pledge to support the military rulers of Egypt.

No matter the circumstances, there's always a place for poetry. It's not even that; it's that poetry just is. People naturally become creative in their language. Take the case of beggars' cant.

Carolyn rightly points out that the LR has taken to feeling guilty and demanding about her own very legitimate feelings and needs. Amazing how that happens.

Sunday morning roundup

There's a way to do industrial food right.

Eat meat at your own risk.

The earth is looking stressed.

A look at what believers believe.

OMG I want a backyard bocce court (PDF, pages 18 and 24).

Saturday morning roundup

Good governance in Egypt is going to have to develop from the ground up.

Shocking! A man who married KLS has exceptionally tacky taste. Okay, that was glib, but I couldn't resist; you should read the more topical critique at the link.

When is a religious name too religious? What this world needs more of is naming in honor of the ancient gods, amirite? Bring on the Persephones and Ishtars, if you ask me.

Gay insect sex

Another douche-bag physicist goes on--ramblingly and incoherently--that social science isn't science because it's not physics.

The Onion nails it (it being much political discourse around here).

Now that we've all had a good laugh at Bryan Goldberg it's time to move on and forgive.

Carolyn artfully responds to a LR who thinks that men who take interest in their pregnant wives' medical appointments are "humoring" them. Before that, she emphasized focusing on the person, not the potential.

Do I love pasta enough to buy this chart? Not really, and I don't have room in my kitchen for it, but it's a good idea.

Ha!

The Elon Musk Center for Kids Who Can't Speed Good.
— Bored Elon Musk (@BoredElonMusk) August 16, 2013

Thursday evening roundup

Look, a new species!

Goddammit NPR: tofu, tempeh and seitan are not "fake meat." They are foods that can be made to look and feel like meat, but hell, so is a lot of $hit that passes for real food.

Speaking of meat, my coworker and her friends tried Society Fair and hated it: really overpriced and mediocre food, and truly horrendous food. Just sayin'.


Science: aging is awesome.


Strong is good for you; forget the "new skinny."

Thursday roundup

Chinese oil company f*s up Chad's forests even to the shock of the oil industry.

Germany vilifies working mothers, suffers the demographic consequences.

Is North Carolina dead to moderates?

How is this journalism? They didn't even report on the size and shape of their calves!

Was Jefferson overrated? Pauline Maier's obituary hardly answers the question so you'll have to read her book to find out.

Sleeping pills will f* you up.

Is it really that subversive for women to talk about what they find attractive?

Carolyn's tips for handling bossy in-laws.

Mike Huckabee and Tucker Carlson think childless lives are meaningless:

The most terrifying thing about the article, according to Huckabee was that it might send the (obviously wrong) message that it was actually possible for people who didn't have children to lead a fulfilling life. (Imagine the horror if childless women started to believe that their lives were still worthwhile.) As far as Huckabee is concerned, reproducing is "the highest particular calling that I think we can have as human beings" and anyone who rejects that calling must be in some way lacking. One of the co-hosts, Tucker Carlson, was even more direct in his criticism of the childfree:

Having children means less time for vacations and spin class, where the real meaning in life resides, right? I mean, have you ever seen anything more selfish, decadent and stupid?

Take that ye clever women who choose decadence over duty.

***
We've talked about this fascinating phenomenon of people's assuming that their limitations are just universal limitations. The other day I blogged about it with regard to language, and I think I also extended the analogy with regard to science (i.e., physicists arguing that psychology is not science) and humor (boorish dudes stating that women "cannot be" funny). What Elizabeth Spiers here dubs "Lazy Entrepreneur Solipsism" is a similar phenomenon:

It goes something like this:

I, entrepreneur, have never heard of a product like the one I am producing (largely because I did no research, which I don’t need to do, because if there were such a product, surely I would already know about it!), therefore said product must not exist. And I do not personally know anyone addressing this market, therefore this market must be new and fundamentally under-served!

It should be noted that Lazy Entrepreneur Solipsism is a close cousin to Venture Investor Market Viability Irrationality, which dictates that an investor make a funding decision based on whether his wife or kid likes the product. A sample size of one is fine as long as they’re related to me, and I will then extrapolate an entire market from that very special one-person sample. So I’m guessing someone’s wife or kid liked the idea of Bustle.

On the topic of laziness, Sean Carroll calls out people like me for using "scientism" (for example, to describe physicists who don't think psychology is science). I sort-of see his point, but we need to be able to talk about scientific narrow-mindedness.

Tuesday roundup

Russia mismanages immigration.

What kind of religious community leader thinks it's appropriate to preach hate at memorial services?

Most of the stars you see are alive and well, even though they did send that light a long time ago.

What can we learn from monkey sex?

Measurement is always messy and psychology is a science. Flawed analogy, but physical scientists going on about how psychology is not a science--or magnanimously acknowledging its value even if they don't think it is--reminds me of the late Christopher Hitchens going on about how women aren't funny.

Speaking of social science, here's an interesting study.

Yes, swimsuits are expensive! But I just ordered a couple in an end-of-season sale. Which was necessary because one of my favorites is failing and because I'm going to the beach next week.

Monday roundup

This country is wasting a lot of medical talent.

The southwest has given up on lawns.

You don't want to know what ticks find to be a hospitable environment. Also, watch out for peckish fish.

Two sets of spot-on insights about relating to other people, centered on the basis of validating the other person and ensuring that he/she feels "heard, seen, and understood" while maintaining yours. Actually, it's the same insight from opposite perspectives:

Your job is to acknowledge their reality — which is critical to maintaining the relationship. As Ken described it to me: "If someone's reality, as they see it, is negated, what motivation do they have to stay in the relationship?"

That works the other way, too: if someone else is treating you poorly, that is unacceptable, no matter his or her perspective. It doesn't matter what the intentions are. As Carolyn puts it,

The line belongs right between what is your business and what is his.

His business: How he treats you (and how he consents to be treated).

Your business: How you consent to be treated (and how you treat him).

If you don’t like the way he is treating you, then you articulate how you feel and what changes you would like to see.

If he doesn’t make the changes, then you get to decide whether you want to stay in the relationship as-is or whether you would rather break up. No trying to change someone: Not only is it not your place to decide who and how someone should be, but that also encourages you to imagine what you want instead of seeing what you have.

You're responsible for you--for your own happiness--and for respecting the people whom you want in your life. And if the people in your life aren't respecting you and aren't about to start, it's up to you to get out.

Wanna date someone with a mullet? The internet is here for you. But be aware of its limitations in that regard.

For reasons not explored here, I'm not interested in dating Russian men, but she makes some good points as well as some BS ones (to be honest, I got bored long before the end). But yes, I was raised with the idea that a woman never pours her own wine.

I'm one of those people who believe that dudes should pay for the first date (but definitely not every or even most dates thereafter). Here's why: as we've established, men will f* anything and will try to f* everything. Having them pay for the first date puts a natural brake on the tendency to hit on everything that moves. It's an entry barrier, if you will. If they're expected to pay, they'll be more selective about whom they hit on, and I think we can all agree that that's a good thing. Once there have been several dates, however, it's up to each couple to figure out an arrangement that's satisfactory to everyone.

Is lab meat kosher? Who cares? But what did I tell you about people waking up to sentiments regarding “the urgent need to find a sustainable solution to food production.”

I wouldn't want any part of a God who thinks cutting an animal's throat is OK while cruelty-free lab meat isn't.
— Vegan (@vegan) August 11, 2013

Why does Google hate cats? Just kidding, but here's a conceptually cruelty-free option for challenging the Copenhagen interpretation.

Wait, what?? Deaf people do use language, even if they don't hear it. Apart from that dip into cluelessness, the first paragraph here is worthwhile:

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said that, "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world," meaning that we can only understand the world through the language we use, and that if our language does not include words for some particular idea or concept, then that concept cannot exist for us. The relationship between language and thought is complex, which researchers continue to debate. Some, like Wittgenstein, argue that thought is dependent on language.

A friend and I were recently having that conversation about foreign languages: I've heard more than one person complain about how another language was so limited in vocabulary and not as expressive as their native language. Specifically, I've heard Russian- and French-speakers say that about English. Um, no, sparky, it's your competence in that language that's limited. But it's an interesting bias.

Neuroscience doesn't explain everything that goes on in your mind.

How am I supposed to practice non-judgment when people give us these reactions to Onion articles?

On a related note, is it shadenfreude if I can't help but be amused at the absurdity of this situation? I'm not taking pleasure in the LR's misfortune, but c'mon, you have to laugh.

Sigh

Dad asked if he could set me up with the son of friends of friends. He doesn't know anything about the guy, but he's the son of friends of friends, so he must be alright. Oh, also, he lives in the Midwest. But, you know, he really wants to meet someone.

Dad's not the only person who's tried to set me up with someone who lives in the Midwest. But the other people at least know the guy. And it's not like no one local is interested in me. Someone asked me out last week.

Yeah, I know, first-world problem, having suitors. But if I'm not interested, I'm not interested. I like my life and I'm only going to allow someone into it if I really like him. I "duty dated" for years--went out with people I wasn't so sure about because you never know. But I did know, and I only knew more definitively if it ever got to another date (or two or three). It didn't make me better at dating; if anything, it made me worse at it: when I did go out with someone I really liked, I didn't know how to be.

So that makes me single-by-choice, I guess. I'm the woman trolls love to hate: too picky for my own good. Too happy with my life to settle for the sake of settling. I know myself well enough that I know I can only be around people whom I actually want to be around. I'll date when I want to date.

Sunday evening roundup

Not that this is the point, but the woman is beautiful even post-acid attack, which is just another way her assailant failed.

Orphanages can be really $hitty places.

I'm going to have to partially disagree with Michelle Singletary: yes, don't borrow everything your lender tries to convince you to borrow (you'd be amazed at what some lenders tried to convince me to borrow), but, realistically, in this area your monthly payment is probably gonna end up being over half of your net income. Think about the trade-offs, such as hours of your life spent commuting. My monthly payment is well over half my net income (yes, I have a 15-year mortgage, but my monthly payment on that mortgage is similar to the monthly payment on the two mortgages I started out with when I bought my house nearly five years ago, so same thing. Only then, more of it was tax-deductible). Oh, and as I mentioned, some of the lenders I spoke with insisted on pointing out that I could get away with borrowing more.

Would it be rude to suggest that Kathleen Parker is smoking something, because holy $hit, it's an incoherent column whether or not you agree with anything she says, but there's also this stuff:

Here’s another: Whatever else we choose to do, creation is what we were meant to do.

Sometimes creation takes other forms than parenthood. Would we have a Sistine Chapel if Michelangelo had been distracted by a half-dozen hungry mouths? On the other hand, would we have had Michelangelo if abortion had been available to his mother?

What the f***??

Sunday morning roundup

India's woman problem.

John Grisham shares a Gitmo story.

Two pipeline spill stories.

Bots are expanding their grip on social media.

Tipping is a flawed system.

Is Sean Carroll an exception?

...most experts in any one academic field don’t know very much about many other fields. This ignorance manifests itself in a couple of ways. First, a lot of scientists are quite comfortable with simplistic philosophy of science. This usually doesn’t matter, but there are cases where good philosophy has something to offer, and scientists rarely put in the work necessary to understand what that good philosophy has to say. Second, scientists tend to think of philosophy as a service discipline – what good does it do for my practice of science? The answer is almost always “no good at all,” which they then translate into thinking that philosophy has no real purpose. The truth is that almost all scientific work can proceed quite happily without philosophy – you can be very good at driving a car without knowing how an engine works. But when it’s important, philosophy very important indeed...

My own default position is that respectable people in other academic fields probably have something interesting to say, even if I don’t immediately understand it. Not always true, of course – there are pockets of nonsense within every discipline. But the less I understand about the basics of some field, the less likely I am to start declaring it to be useless and antiquated.

 On scientism (though he doesn't use the word):

...I think it’s useful to think about the whole spectrum of pseudo-scientific ideas (creationism, climate denialism, the anti-vaccination movement) that stem from ultimately non-epistemic concerns, whether they be religion or politics or personal empowerment. No doubt, the experience of fighting against these ideas has inculcated a bad habit in some scientists and philosophers: to ask of a new idea not simply “Is this true?”, but also “How might this be used against us in the court of public opinion?” But when we get down to brass tacks, most scientists and philosophers care about what is true more than they care about anything else.

Saturday morning roundup

Not that much has changed in Russia in the way of rule of law since Stalin's day.

China tries cap and trade.

Poaching is evil regardless of the other evils it may fund.

Another excellent point about the humanities: they make you good at life as well as good at your career.

If you only click on one link, make it Tom Philpott's review of "Denialism," the author of which is apparently guilty of some really egregious scientism. It's as bad as telling someone who disagrees with you that he/she hates god, to tell someone who disagrees with you (about GMOs, for example) that they're anti-science.

The short answer is because it's just a big mindf*. Could someone who has his or her head around that mindf* explain to me how that second article distinguishes particles of matter from particles of radiation, because I thought the same thing becomes radiation when it radiates. But what the f* do I know, in spite of how much I have to read about this $hit for work.

Human males lack a baculum.

Actually, if you only read one thing, read about this crazy way to conceive (which I don't recommend).

The more I read about Austen-Twittergate, the more appalling information I come across. Then again, there's the "Slapping Hillary" game. Classy.

Is The Best not the best role model?

Woman tries, fails to intimidate nursing mom.

I never got what the big deal was supposed to be about wearing the same outfit as someone else.

Look, these cheetah cubs have Bitchy Resting Face and Gracie's doppelganger is a kori bustard chick.

Self-esteem means that when your spouse tells you he cheated because "you're not pretty enough," you realize you're beautiful just the way you are and that the actual issue is that your spouse is a douche-bag. So I suppose self-esteem could be an ego trap but the real issue is how Scientific American is defining (or failing to define, until late in the article, "self-esteem." Superficially-focused, achievement-driven self-worth is not what I'd call self-esteem. Self-esteem is valuing yourself and respecting yourself no matter what. The article says,

If you are wondering, “Do I have worth?” “Do I have value?” the answer is not yes, no or maybe. The answer is simpler: change the subject.

Partly true. The answer is simpler: "of course I have value." And then change the subject. Of course we've all come across people like this:

People focused on boosting their own self-esteem tend to put their own needs before those of others. Because they are preoccupied with questions about their own value, their friends, family and acquaintances serve mainly as potential sources of validation or invalidation, making their interactions with others ultimately all about themselves.

But isn't the issue there that those people lack intrinsic self-esteem? But what I really have a hard time with is this:

High self-esteem seems to have at least one serious drawback: difficulty in seeing your own shortcomings. A great deal of research conducted for several decades shows that people with high self-esteem tend to have unrealistically positive views of themselves. They think they are more attractive, successful, likable, smart and moral than others do—and are unaware of their deficits or incompetence. When they get negative feedback, they tend to be defensive, blaming the test or the messenger, rather than owning up to a mistake or deficiency. In this way, high self-esteem can impede learning and growth and impair personal relationships.

The first person that comes to mind is RM, so yes, there are people like that. But this, again, is a different concept than the very basic idea of "I'm worthy of love and respect just because I'm here." Which can come with, "and oh, by the way, I want to be as good a human being as possible." This issue is not self esteem, but achievement-oriented self-worth:

The hunt for self-esteem through a focus on achievement makes us emotionally vulnerable to life's inevitable travails and disappointments. It also causes us to engage in behaviors that can actually harm our chances of success, our competence and our personal relationships. A far better way to bolster your sense of self-worth is, ironically, to think about yourself less. Compassion toward others and yourself, along with a less self-centered perspective on your situation, can motivate you to achieve your goals while helping you weather bad news, learn from your mistakes and fortify your friendships.

Thursday roundup

Julia Ioffe explains Russia (actually, she explains how she tried to explain it to Lawrence O'Donnell).

Xinua falls for a Borowitz story about the Post's acquisition.

Larium could make you crazy, and for a very long time. But there's hope for a vaccine.

It's apparently news that pollution kills.

Using land for grain to feed people is (yawn) more efficient than using land for grain to feed animals to feed people. How many times do we have to go over this?

Were you wondering what I thought about the waffle taco? I'll let you guess. Then guess what I think of this culinary innovation.

You can now shop at MOM's in bare feet.

High-energy physicists are taking credit for the quality of our chocolate.

If this is what it takes to "keep" a man, I'm already disqualified. Among other things, I'm not getting back into my kitchen (until I feel like it). And this (modern-day!) study is ridiculous in so many ways. Of course if you over-engineer your study to point to a narrow hypothesis, and then interpret the results according to said hypothesis, you're going to find what you want to find, but why would a serious biology journal publish your work? I guess I'm not the best judge of these things, since I neither buy luxury goods nor expect anyone else to buy me luxury goods, and I generally don't sport status symbols, and I couldn't care less about ring size. And I guess some people do, even though it's obvious and now sciency that material things won't make you happy. But still, that ladies like stuff does not prove the researchers' point that they like blingier stuff because it signals to other ladies that "their" men are off-limits. I mean, that's just some convoluted bullshit.

Don't be afraid to be single until you actually meet someone who inspires you otherwise.

Wednesday roundup

Hell is the Central African Republic.

Child prostitution is rampant in Egypt and elsewhere.

Clothing-based explosives are pretty impractical. Also, if your siblings are sticking explosives up your rectum, you might want to rethink your family dynamics.

Judith Warner's piece on post-opt-out women is fascinating and a must-read. In the case of the first profile, the trolls may--or have, I haven't checked--run with the fact that the woman's (second) career ended her marriage, but Ms. Warner makes a very good point of showing that the marriage was broken, and so couldn't survive an increase in the wife's mental health. Some of the other relationship dynamics were also disturbing--I can't believe the guy who thinks his family would be better of if his wife spent more time shining the sink rather than finding herself, even if he has to pick up more of the slack.

Ladies, another reason you can't afford low self-esteem is, douche-bags like this guy will use it against you. Also, flirting at work gets you nowhere, and, OMG, this book is your how-not-to guide. I can't exaggerate how sick I am of advice to women, be it career or relationship, based on the premise of "boys will be boys and you're deluded if you don't accommodate these boys."

Dr. Who missed an opportunity.

While I won't claim that I try to keep it classy on these pages, I rarely see a reason to embrace the very crass. But sometimes the very crass is just too good to pass up (including, on this one, the comments).

Our sun is so cool-looking (not literally).

Two takes on fatberg.

Tuesday evening roundup

Egypt's got some creative conspiracy theories going.

The Frisky once again calls out other feminist media for reading too much into an ambiguous image.

Wow, that woman should run far away from a man with no balls and his shallow family.

You'd think that Richard Cohen's poignant column about being cuckolded would have inspired compassion, and it did, until the "but I get it because, I mean, she is hot" part.

Oh, contrary to what my mom and one of my friends continuously tried to beat into my head last year, guys apparently do care how smart you are (and I agree, it's about intellectual curiosity, not 'plain' knowledge).

American Airlines flight attendant makes a big, unnecessary deal out of nursing on account of another passenger who didn't seem to care. Maybe flight attendants could turn their attention to calling out parents who don't try to shut up their screaming kids, rather than the parents who are actively working on keeping them quiet?

If you're a lazy drunk, go with whiskey; it takes less energy.

Bitchy Resting Face has gone even more mainstream! (Hat tip to Jay.) And OMG I hate "are you okay? why are you so quiet?" Shut the f* up.

I can't wait until this lab-meat thing dies down because I'm already sick of it, but I know (all three of) you expect me to keep covering it, so here it is:

• This is what I was talking about yesterday--no matter what some people think of lab-grown meat, its invention brings them to discuss the apparently "obvious" problems with traditional meat:

There’s no question that our current system of industrial animal agriculture is damaging to the environment, harmful to animals, dangerous for workers, and creating a potential crisis for public health.

•  Tom Philpott's take:

I don't care if tech barons lavish their cash on grand, unlikely techno-fixes. I just hope the effort doesn't distract from the necessary, difficult task of convincing people to eat much less meat—and when we do eat meat, to relying on meat from animals that feed on stuff we can't eat directly, like cows that live and munch on well-managed grasslands.

This is kind-of revolutionary, at least to me: people are talking about our "current system of industrial agriculture" as a clear-cut, unambiguous debacle.

Meanwhile, in Germany, some people think it's crazy to go a day without meat.

Oh, and this comment pretty much sums up my take on vegan purity contests, as discussed yesterday, but here's a more reasoned approach to the issue.

On the claim that gluten-free solves everything:

The problem with this premise is that there’s little evidence to support it.

“It’s really a small group of people who have a pathological response to gluten,” Cheskin says. “And for them it’s absolutely essential to eat a gluten-free diet. Everyone else may be limiting their choices unnecessarily.”

Limiting those choices may not always be a bad thing, however, Katz says. “If you cut out crackers and cookies and cakes, you’re taking in a lot fewer calories, and you may lose weight,” he says, “but it has nothing to do with the gluten.”

The article goes on to say that paleo is not a bad diet if done right, but note that if you look closely, that's centered around its elimination of processed foods, which is the key throughout the assessments of all the diets. 

Tuesday morning roundup

Turkey's dictatorial turn.

Hemp is an excellent source of vegan protein and fat. We should be growing it domestically.

Technically but apparently not legally, your devices can be stalked.

Monday evening roundup

You guessed it: I'm going to talk about lab-grown meat. In a minute.  Let's start with international news. Actually, I only have one thing on that: Is Putin marginalizing himself out of relevance? Now, onto science.

Satan planted a 15-million year-old whale skull on the banks of the Potomac to test our faith. I'm not sure whether he also gets credit for the wild rice growing along the Anacostia.

Eggplant seeds are the bane of my existence, so I'm all over Japanese eggplant.

Some dude in a plane is keeping track of pollution on the ground (spoiler alert: coal sucks; but that's not all he's watching for).

The downside to having a brain is that you're difficult to teleport on account of it.

I did not initially want to get into the should-scientists-advocate debate, at first because I found the first volley neither sophisticated, nor applicable in the U.S. (it was written in Britain, about Britain). I've since seen some very decent rebuttals and a really bizarre, confused post that was specifically about science-based advocacy in the U.S.

I question the quality of science in this study on narcissism, for the same doubts expressed in the article (assertiveness is narcissism?), but I took the quiz. I'm somewhat less narcissistic than the mean, but more vain (and yet, less exhibitionist--how does that work?). So much of these things strike me as personality differences that carry little pathology unless taken to extremes.

Speaking of (alleged) vanity, do you love clothes as much as I do but want more sustainable and ethical consumption?

Remember that talking Barbie in the 80s whose lines including "math is hard! let's go shopping!"? Well, The Children's Place decided to resurrect that theme.

Room for Debate is a pathetic waste of time as usual, but I feel the need to comment on this one because I wish my friends had been more willing to point out that I was dating an asshole. Then again, (1) he had them fooled as well and (2) I probably needed to see it for myself. But there were specific concerns that I brought up (with certain friends) and looking back on it, they saw them as red flags even then, even though their responses to me were that those issues were surmountable.

Oh, while we're (kind-of) on gender issues, I want to say that not for the first time, a nice man offered me his seat on the metro. I--and the next woman to whom he offered his seat--said "no, thank you," with an emphasis on the "thank you," in that we both made clear that although we didn't need to sit, we thought it was great that he asked.

Now then, what do you want to discuss about fake meat? Some of the questions that have popped up are, "is it okay?" and "is it vegan?" Let me start with a step back: whether or not the lab-grown meat is good, the debate over it is great because it draws people's attention to the consequences of farmed meat. Even calling into question, in the public discourse, the longterm sustainability of the way we eat now, is a step forward. The default position is reflected in the cluelessness of this post (in Scientific American, no less): but the lab meat has antibiotics! but it's expensive! Um, you won't need to search far on this blog or on the internet as a whole to find out about the debacle of antibiotics in farmed meat. And if you factored into farmed meat its actual cost--take away subsidies, add in environmental damage--it would cost quite a bit. As for "is it vegan?" I'll defer that debate to Erik Marcus, who is handling it very competently:

@vegan @apersonalvegan here we go.Bickering amongst eachother a/ a hypoth product.I understand #culturedbeef as a mind shift away from meat
— Michael Knaepen (@michaelknaepen) August 5, 2013

I'll also refer you to this morning's link to his take on honey, because it's the same argument: let's pick our battles. You can grasp at ideological purity, or you can make more of a difference for animal rights, the environment, and public health.

Monday morning roundup

Where throwing stones is a sport... and it's not even Gaza. 

Korea's government is tackling declining marriage rates with matchmaking parties. Which reminds me of this article about Japanese women opting out of marriage because the dudes on the market are mere man-children.

Don't get butt injections, especially potentially fatal ones. 

Erik Marcus on why all-or-nothing veganism (by way of the honey question) serves no one.

George Saunders makes the case for kindness.

I'm all over putting beauty in its place, but you also have to realize that commenting on a child's beauty often implies "inside and out." I doubt that most people who call a child beautiful are rating the kid on a scale from one to ten; it's more a general statement about the child's being. 

On a related note, I guess, I was hoping for so much more from this: what does a woman owe a guy that she rejects? But the post doesn't address the question. And I have to say in defense of "short, geeky men," I'm a short, geeky woman who's attracted to such men. But seriously: do I have to go out of my way to make the guys I reject feel comfortable? (The answer is, depends on how pushy/polite they are). And politeness is all you owe someone; an explanation isn't part of the deal.

Sunday roundup

The CCP can't shut up the internet so it has to listen.

Mohamed ElBaradei says reconciliation is the way forward.

Jamaica's investing in home-grown food.


What's in your chicken? [Unsurprisingly, you don't want to know.]

In another (men-behaving-badly) shocker, professor accused of harassment emphatically believes in the innocence of his sexual banter toward a student.


The latest political sex scandals are, among other things, making the Jews look bad.

Feel better about today's state of affairs by reading up on the Plantagenets, courtesy of Dan Jones.

Wow, joint replacements here are crazy overpriced.

Secret-keepers may be depressed or just cagey in their use of pronouns.
I'd still lean toward asking questions in private (in fields where my expertise is lacking), but I'd agree it's unhealthy for academic cultures to discourage "stupid" questions.

Suburbs are evolving (or devolving).

Maybe it was a rabbit that dug up and absconded with my lantana.

Check out this week's cutest mixed-species family.

Pay attention to this map for the category labels, and only for the category labels.

Saturday morning roundup

Winnie Mandela is working on another comeback.

Thank factory farming (and its abuse of antibiotics) for the spread of MRSA.

Quinn on Aslan. On a related note, i.e., that of the apparent ban on non-Christians talking about Jesus, I'm going to go out on a limb as to who's getting Jesus right by helping people not die in the desert.

How to have a baby shower without being tacky.