Sunday roundup

In Latin America, voters appreciate the gains against inequality but are moving on from leftist governments.

Abortion restrictions in Texas are making desparate girls and women even more so.

Frank Bruni thought-experiments how we would react to Trump's antics were he a woman. A couple of commenters have thoughts about his popularity, among other things. The best comment on other things:

I see a lot of (unsurprising) comments here placing the responsibility on women to be more vigilant about possible assailants. Believe me when I tell you that we are already vigilant, we are already exhausted from being vigilant, and we are tired of telling you about how vigilant we are.

My heart goes out to this woman who wants to change herself, and although I can't fully appreciate her experience, I want to urge her to eschew the knife.

My heart goes out to Jennifer Garner--this poignant interview really gives you a sense of what she's going through.

Saturday roundup

Egypt's judiciary is a joke.

Have you been wondering whether and how IAEA can verify the nuclear provisions of the Iran agreement? Read this.

There's a way to help Flint without creating new problems from plastic bottles.

There's a way to support sustainable palm oil.

Dudes: you don't need to eat meat.

Placebos are nothing to sneeze at.

This article on the normalization of violence against women and entitlement to women's bodies is excellent overall but also reminded me of RM. Particularly how he cried when I balked at the foot massage he tried to give me, as if I was the one who was supposed to feel bad.

Oh, shirtless shamers.

It's Single Ladies' week in honor of Rebecca Traister's new book on single women. Here are some excerpts from the first column.

Today’s women are, for the most part, not abstaining from or delaying marriage to prove a point about equality. They are doing it because they have internalized assumptions that just a half-century ago would have seemed radical: that it’s okay for them not to be married; that they are whole people able to live full professional, economic, social, sexual, and parental lives on their own if they don’t happen to meet a person to whom they want to legally bind themselves. The most radical of feminist ideas—the disestablishment of marriage — has been so widely embraced as to have become habit, drained of its political intent but ever-more potent insofar as it has refashioned the course of average female life...

Remaining unmarried through some portion of early adulthood, especially for college-educated women, is intimately linked with making money. The “Knot Yet Report,” published in 2013, revealed that a college-educated woman who delays marriage until her 30s will earn $18,000 more per year than an equivalently educated woman who marries in her 20s...

The notion that what the powerful, growing population of unmarried American women needs from the government is a husband (or a gynecologist, as was the case with one horrifying 2013 Koch-funded anti-Obamacare ad that featured a grotesque Uncle Sam popping up leeringly from a pelvic exam) is of course problematic. It reduces all relationships women have to marital, sexual, hetero ones and suggests that they are, by nature, dependent beings, in search of someone—if not a ­husband then an elected official or a set of public policies — to support or care for them.

Whether or not single women are looking for government to create a “hubby state” for them, what is certainly true is that their (white) male counterparts have long enjoyed the fruits of a related “wifey state,” in which the government has supported (white) male independence in a variety of ways. It’s hard for us to recognize this, since it has been the norm for so long — and here, it’s useful to recall Elizabeth Warren’s stirring “You didn’t build that” speech, in which she pointed out that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.”

Men, especially married wealthy white men, have for generations relied on government assistance. It’s the government that has historically supported white men’s home and business ownership through grants, loans, incentives, and tax breaks. It has allowed them to accrue wealth and offered them shortcuts and bonuses for passing it down to their children. Government established white men’s right to vote, and thus exert control over the government, at the nation’s founding and has protected their enfranchisement since. It has also bolstered the economic and professional prospects of men by depressing the economic prospects of women. In other words, by failing to offer women equivalent economic and civic protections, thus helping to create conditions whereby they were forced to be dependent on those men, the government established a gendered class of laborers who took low-paying or unpaid jobs doing the domestic and child-care work that further enabled men to dominate public spheres.

 and the second:

For whatever reason, the most productive, passionate, and self-actualized people I knew (or admired from afar) had spent large portions of their lives alone. Women, in particular, seemed to blossom personally and professionally when their attentions were directed not toward their spouses or offspring, but themselves. For a certain type of creative, highly sensitive soul, I believed, singledom was a feature, not a bug.

What mustache? I don't even see a mustache, although I agree with the overall premise that women can be expected to look plastic rather than human, so much so that flickers of humanness can come through as flaws.

Humanities matter. I'm not just saying that because I took a lot of French literature and turned out okay.

Although it's hard to imagine not offering housing to a relative, Carolyn is spot on: the first rule of asking favors is being willing to take no for an answer. 

 

These pictures from space!

Projection

I made the mistake of checking Evan Marc Katz's blog and stumbled upon his post on MRAs, in which he pretty much punts to an even more offensive post on MRAs on another blog. Neither post whole-heartedly endorses MRAs, but both fail to condemn them for the dens of misogyny and entitlement that they are. I've seen men--in GQ, for example, and Dr. Nerdlove himself on his blog--condemn MRAs in no uncertain terms, while acknowledging that things can be tough for a guy but (emphasis on this part) there's no excuse to hate women, objectify them, and feel entitled to their attention or bodies. EMK and his offensive buddy--I will link to neither--reverse the emphasis and take the position that, MRAs are coming from a reasonable place but just take it too far. The buddy goes as far as to praise specific, infamous MRAs--including a proud rapist who has been banned from certain countries. He also notes--and EMK not only fails to critique this point but merely softens it--that feminists are fat and ugly. This observation wasn't just dropped in gratuitously; it was part of his analogy (i.e., MRAs are angry and misguided because they're unwilling to face certain truths--particularly about the traits that make them unattractive to women--just like feminists are angry because they're ugly and unwilling to accept the fact that it matters).
There are many potential places to take this nonsense, but most of them are not worth my time. What I'm going to do is throw his own argument back at him--in response to a different argument of his. Specifically, in several instances on his blog, this guy (and EMK on his) goes on about how men are just not interested in a woman's mind. Men do not care how smart women are; men are not the least bit interested in women's brains, at all. They. just. couldn't. care. less.

But who are these men who are so uninterested in our minds? Could it be men who are, themselves, intellectually lacking? By which I don't necessarily mean that they're unintelligent, per se; just that they're not particularly interested in intellectual things?

Because every man that I've ever dated has been super-interested in my mind. He's been more than happy to talk about ideas and discuss intellectual issues. The man I'm dating now, especially, is very interested in ideas and very much attracted to me for my intellectualism. It means a lot to both of us that we're interested in the same things and able to discuss them on a meaningful level. I don't think I could ever date someone who wasn't interested in my mind, even if that means not dating anyone at all. I fully realize how lucky I am in this respect.

Quick Wednesday roundup

Even when animal research is 'justifiable' as necessary, it doesn't make it 'ethical.'

Livestock is an environmental disaster.

Vegan food has come a long way, but in any case, if you want to reduce your participation in a cruel, unsustainable food system but you're eschewing vegan food because it's not perfect, you're just making excuses.

Valentine's Day ramble

Jumping off from this morning's roundup:

Pair all that with finding love being about luck (and not preparation for opportunities).

In any case, I wholeheartedly agree with these two pieces celebrating singledom and rejecting the myth of the other 'half,' because you're already whole.

The writer of one of the latter links--perhaps Laurie Penny--talks about how she partly felt the need to not be single before she could write what she did about celebrating singlehood. Although I've never refrained from at least accepting singlehood myself, part of that resonated. Being coupled shields you, maybe, from perceptions of defensiveness and denial/delusion on the part of people who can't appreciate singledom for itself.

Valentine's Day roundup

A heart-wrenching piece on faith--particularly the prosperity gospel--when one is dying.

Blessed is a loaded term because it blurs the distinction between two very different categories: gift and reward. It can be a term of pure gratitude. “Thank you, God. I could not have secured this for myself.” But it can also imply that it was deserved. “Thank you, me. For being the kind of person who gets it right.” It is a perfect word for an American society that says it believes the American dream is based on hard work, not luck.

If Oprah could eliminate a single word, it would be “luck.” “Nothing about my life is lucky,” she argued on her cable show. “Nothing. A lot of grace. A lot of blessings. A lot of divine order. But I don’t believe in luck. For me luck is preparation meeting the moment of opportunity.”

and

And as a scholar, I can say that our society is steeped in a culture of facile reasoning. What goes around comes around. Karma is a bitch. And God is always, for some reason, going around closing doors and opening windows. God is super into that.

Pair all that with finding love being about luck (and not preparation for opportunities).

Personally, I'm in the middle of these polar views: luck matters, but you can also (sometimes) make your own, prepare for opportunities, and position yourself for opportunities. Sometimes that doesn't get you anywhere, but sometimes it does.

In any case, I wholeheartedly agree with these two pieces celebrating singledom and rejecting the myth of the other 'half,' because you're already whole.

Last week I posted an article about another myth: that of 'the lazy girl.' Pair (or reconcile) it with this piece on 'resting on pretty.'

And in a world that increasingly values the production of beauty and the labor of beauty over beauty in and of itself—a world where a 27-minute YouTube tutorial on natural brows and contouring can rack up more than a million views—that truly is a crime.

Madeleine Albright makes some good points, including the one about how representation matters.

The French spirit of protest.

Sunday roundup

What if we wrote about male scientists the way we wrote about female scientists?

Men have bitchy resting face as much as women, but we notice it more on women because there's an expectation of smiling.

The Facebook motherhood "challenge" is the smuggest thing ever.

This is beautiful and Ask Polly is a national treasure.

But I also deserved someone who appreciated regular, flawed human beings who sometimes have jawline zits and feel unwieldy negative emotions. I could handle those things. I could handle imperfections and self-doubt and bad haircuts and financial uncertainty in someone else, so I deserved someone who wouldn't take me at my worst moment and say, "Your inability to remain the perfect, sexy badass makes me less attracted to you." I didn't know this about myself then, though. I didn't recognize that I was actually pretty forgiving and flexible with men; I was okay with the fact that all men have flaws, so I deserved the same attitude in return. BUT — important! — I wasn't okay with my own flaws, so I figured no one else should be, either...

You need to know that even if you get older and develop a love of rom-coms and a stomach problem that eliminates whiskey from your diet, even if you gain a few pounds and no longer feel motivated to entertain self-centered men, even if horror movies start to depress you and you struggle to get it up for a night on the town, even if your jawline pimples turn into a full-blown, treatment-resistant acne and your hair turns gray and you can't deliver dirty jokes to a drunk crowd the way you used to, you will still be good enough. You will still matter. You can turn into a cookie-cutter girl or even less than that — that average, lumpy, rapidly aging kind of woman who's currently beneath your contempt — and you will still be worthy of love.

Women who work hard to be better than other women suffer a lot. They don't actually need to be upbraided for it. They're already struggling enough. So I'm not saying NEVER EVER PUT YOURSELF ABOVE OTHER WOMEN, SISTER. What I'm saying is that when you try to set yourself apart from other people IN GENERAL, in your own mind, in order to soothe yourself and tell yourself that things will work out just fine for you, in order to reassure yourself that you're sexier and better than the desperate cookie-cutter girls you see out at bars, it doesn't actually make things any easier for you. It makes things harder. When you choose to love yourself for superficial reasons, you teach other people to love you for superficial reasons. And when you reject yourself and scold yourself for things that are beyond your control, you degrade your own ability to show up and enjoy your life. You hate your own humanity. You reject yourself for being a fucking mortal.

Oh I love this, too:

These Lazy Girl guides admittedly offer much the same set of lessons women's publications have been peddling for decades, and they generally follow long-established formulas: Assemble some obvious facts, add a couple genuinely insightful tidbits, lay it all out in an attractive way...

The whole thing smacks of the "cool girl,” to use Gillian Flynn’s description of conspicuous, attractive female chillness. The allure of the effortless reigns supreme online, where it’s easy to chase each other around in circles about who’s faking and who actually doesn't give a fuck (see the debate around the You Did Not Eat That Instagram account) and to applaud the occasional admission of a constructed identity. The only real conclusion that falls out of all this mess is that, still, effort is never cool.

Saturday roundup

Hi again. I got stuck in Boston through late Monday, and then had a lot of work (worked Monday from my parents' house, too, because deadlines). Anyway, here's your roundup.

It's fine not to care for the work or views or character of the departed, but you needn't vocalize your feelings on the matter immediately following their deaths.

We know that Richard Dawkins is an insufferable douche bag, so why hold him up as a moral leader? I said as much in response to a Salon article, and the writer of that article tweeted his response at me, which still doesn't address the issue.

I love not just that trees have social networks, but that lower-technology approaches can simultaneously save money, increase productivity, and conserve resources.

Barbie is now in many body types, but people are still arguing that slim people need Spanx, "too." How fucked up is it that no woman is allowed to go about in her own body as it is?

Good for their happy ending, but I can't stand small-talky texters (especially those supposedly trying to date you). I was in a week-long, intermittent text conversation with this dude I met speed-dating, and it never managed to get past 'how was your day'-level discourse.

Contrary to Tracy Moore's take on Adelle Waldman's piece on women's and men's respective value placed on the intellect of a partner--and my mother's and well-meaning friend's admonishments to me-- men absolutely do value intelligence. That is does not preclude their also valuing youth and attractiveness, even as she implies that it does. From Waldman's piece:

For as long as novels have been written, heroines in books by women have studied their beloveds’ minds with a methodical, dispassionate eye. The ideal mate, for Jane Austen’s heroines, for Charlotte Brontë’s, for George Eliot’s, is someone intelligent enough to appreciate fully and respond deeply to their own intelligence, a partner for whom they feel not only desire but a sense of kinship, of intellectual and moral equality.

Yes. And that is why women run into trouble--because of the shortage of such partners, and not, as Moore says, because dudes don't value the same. And yes, there are men out there who are intimidated by intellectual, successful women--and her example, which is Maureen Dowd's example, is more an issue of success than intellectual prowess being the intimidating factor--but that there's a shortage doesn't mean there's a generalization to be had.

I guess I see it more as 'there's a Jack for every Jill,' and there are men who could give a shit, as my well-meaning friend would say, about how smart you are--and there are women who are cool with that, regardless of how smart they are. And there are women, myself included, who absolutely need the men in my life to engage me intellectually.

Conversely--turning to social science as a supplement to the literature review linked to above--women not only don't mind, but want, to be admired for our appearance as long as that's not the only thing we're valued for. More precisely, we're okay with being objectified by committed partners, but I agree with Fusion's explanation: it's because in those cases our appearance is an aspect of our overall being, not the basis of it.

Saturday night

I snapped at mom last night and felt really, really bad about it (usually, I feel mostly justified). I've written about struggling to adjust my response to her from "stand your ground, reinforce your boundaries" to "she's old and sick, let it go." I've managed to make the adjustment in situations where I'm thinking about it, but my gut reactions have yet to adapt to the new reality.

At happy hour a week or so ago, the conversation turned to therapy, and how it matters because your past infiltrates your present. In other words, your familial history informs the way you interact with everyone else. In my case, I think I've done a pretty good job of clearing mom out of my interpersonal interactions with just about everyone, except mom (and--see my 'Gift of Fear' posts over the last couple of weeks--other people who bring it on themselves). As I said in those posts, it is the right thing to do, when someone continues to do something you have asked them not to do, to reproach them rather than thank them, even if that something was "nice." For a while, that was especially true with mom, but now it's not.

Quick Sunday roundup

The only word to describe the mismanagement and environmental racism behind the Flint water crisis is "unconscionable."

Yeah, in theory... but I already spent last weekend hunkered down in recovery (from oral surgery) so I'm happy to be free to move about this weekend.

Rest in peace, Cu Rua.

Friday night

Mom continued to rant about how we should call off the evening, since who gives a f* about dad's birthday. At his age, why even bother celebrating with friends? Luckily--because mom tends to be on her best behavior when non-family is around--one guest (who couldn't stay) showed up early, which helped distract mom from the idea that dad's birthday wasn't worth celebrating .

Mom pointed out to the friend that my stomach was enormous, the friend said not at all. Just as that first friend was leaving, another couple (i.e., Nina's parents) showed up. Dad took their coats, and I asked him, as he was going to put away those coats, to grab a chair from that room. Mom took that as an opportunity to comment on my bossiness.

Mom: There she goes, just commanding people around. It's no wonder.
Nina;'s mom: Huh?
Mom: I mean, it's no wonder she's single. Who wants to be bossed around like that? Who wants to be around someone who's always right? It breaks my heart.
Nina's mom: You're imagining things.
Mom: Listen, I know what I'm talking about.
Nina's mom: I recommend that you get off her back.
Mom: Don't tell me what to do! I know what I'm talking about.
Nina's mom: I don't think you do.

Mom settled down as we all sat down to dinner, at which point she started telling everyone about her bear cub. Occasionally, she dropped a comment about the belly I'd grown myself. Statements on either matter confused the guests equally.

Occasionally, I felt bad, as I do, about being curt with mom, but as dad said over the summer, "her biggest issue really is that she's a bitch." We both try to make allowances for the fact that she's ailing, but the bitchiness is so continuous with her pre-ailment personality and we've both had it. I made a decision to shield myself from her emotional vampire antics, and the source of those antics doesn't change that.

Mom has a very astute observation

Mom: Your butt has gotten big.
A.: [Shrug.]
Mom: Uh-huh; it has.

***
It took her 24 hours after I got here to start body-shaming, but that's mostly because she wasn't talking to me yesterday. Dad picked me up at the airport on his own, and when I said to hello to her as I walked in, she coldly said hello back. A few hours later, apparently after I didn't close the door quietly enough, she threw a fit to dad about how I'm a despicable person whom she does not want in this house. This morning, she threw a fit at dad about how her decorative pillow isn't quite right and it's all his fault. She's spent the last 20 minutes suggesting that we call everyone who plans on coming over tonight--it's dad's birthday--and give them permission to stay home because weather (there is no weather in Boston; nothing but blue skies, and the roads are clear). Apart from that, there's just running commentary about whatever's on TV, and random musings about the bear cub she sees in a tree in the back yard (she points us to her nest--she's decided that the bear cub is a her).

***
She's at it again.

Mom: Everyone knows that he was born. Big deal. We saw everyone recently. I suggest we call everyone and tell them to stay home.
A.: Mom, it's not snowing here.
Mom: You don't know about later tonight.
A.: Yes we do. It's not going to snow here. The streets are clear.
Mom: I say we call everyone and say, thank you for caring, but really, you can stay home. So he was born; big deal. I would give everyone permission to stay home.

Rinse, repeat.

Quick Friday morning roundup

In India, even sleeping on the streets has its own economy.

Parents, mind your children,

Holy crap, this PUA story:

Attempting Game techniques in the real world didn’t always go smoothly, such as the first time he attempted a neg on a date. “This woman mentioned that she was the youngest, and I said, ‘Oh, that makes sense. You are kind of entitled and princessy.’ She got very offended and it totally blew up the date, and that was that.”

Rarely does industrial waste yield beautiful things, but break-ups often do.

Monday roundup

As I've been essentially grounded this weekend--I laid low to recover from oral surgery--I managed to catch up on all the tabs I opened over the last couple of months and hadn't gotten around to reading until now. So here we go, starting with the Middle East and moving onto science and then some Carolyn, with some other stuff sprinkled in between.

Two different but not conflicting perspectives on Saudi Arabia, and one on Iran in Syria.

Take North Korea seriously.

How many more elements could there be and how should we name them?


Don't buy anything with 'quantum' in the name.

What we now know about Pluto.

The meat industry doesn't want you to know how bad it is for the planet.

A conversation between garbage humans.

Jezebel rounds up the responses to the Times article and its own response on the sulking bachelors.

We've talked about this before, but it's worth repeating: when dudes demand "no drama," they're asking you to play the undesirable role of "the cool girl."

The same concept extends beyond romantic relationships:

If you can’t say what you really feel to a friend without fear of triggering a meltdown, then you can’t conduct the essential business of that friendship... Lies and stalling are low roads masquerading as courtesy.

Carolyn appears to know my mom.

Clearly she gains attention; behold her starring role in a drama where she’s the can-do gal in a family of slackers, incompetents and ingrates.

If instead your mother builds her sense of self from the rubble of everyone else’s... Mom (or anyone else) can’t meet your needs when her every word and deed is rigged toward feeding her own needs. Hoping or expecting otherwise from such self-focused people is the source of so much pain.

Love this:

Life kicks sand in all of our faces. The face full of sand (or the dune up to your earlobes) is an invitation to be a jerk, but not a license to be one.

 

No matter how constricting your situation looks, remember you still have choices, if not the ones you’d planned on having. You can choose to be wed to your diagnosis, or you can choose to be bigger than mere physical stuff. You have no choice about being in need, but you can choose not to be needy. No matter how reduced your circumstances, you still have a responsibility to be alive.

The Blessings (a Saturday ramble)

Early on in my series of rambles over the last couple of months, I rambled about "The Blessings."

I think about how broken I was in Budapest and Prague and how my brokenness became part of the experience--it's what makes me look back on that trip as an adventure as much as a vacation, as an achievement in moving forward and persevering. I think I've quoted Dar Williams many times in reference to that trip (among other things)--in particularly, "The Easy Way," because I did keep the wine and laughter, and every path did grow up and ever after, and peaks and canyons and many great companions. I recently discovered another Dar song that's equally evocative of the same sentiment: "The Blessings": "the best ones were the ones I got to keep as I grew strong."

I'd focused then on how distant the pain looks once you're on the other side of it, how silly your then-overwhelming, intense feelings seem. But the converse is also noteworthy: "It's the things that you notice more," Dar adds. You feel the pain more intensely, but you also appreciate the little miracles that much more. I'm a pretty naturally grateful person on a good day, but I'm even more so in a rut. I was grateful--as much for the gesture as for the food itself--when my coworkers shared their garden veggies with me over the summer. I felt the same gratitude, even more intensely, when a friend shared garden veggies in January. It's not that you don't know--that the information isn't out there at any given time--that there are people in your life--who love you, who are thinking of you, who are there for you--but it's also comforting to have concrete moments to remind you.

Saturday roundup

Science isn't (mostly) about the facts. And throwing money at it isn't always helpful (stability of funding is more important than sudden, token infusions).

Cattle grazing is bad for the planet.

Oh Judith whatever, no, people shouldn't have to subsidize the lifestyle choice that is parenthood. The world does not need more people. The planet doesn't need more people.

Read this instead.

I understand that this was my female relatives’ choice. Yet I also know how infrequently you truly make the choice to sacrifice something you love; it’s more like a slow erosion. You give up one small thing, which makes it easier then to give up another, then another. After all, the men didn’t ask them to make these sacrifices — asking that would require their acknowledgment there was something of value to give up.

I'm all for no small talk. In particular with regard to dating, the more small talk, the worst the date.

Addendum to "The Gift of Fear" post

The takeaway is indeed that the social expectation that women be nice, accommodating, and receptive to interaction, is a precarious one. But I was slow to deal with those situations, and I'm not much influenced by social expectations. I maintain that, had I been under those influences, I would have gotten out worse. Even absent the social expectation, there was an interpersonal expectation: you don't need social pressures to not want to hurt someone's feelings. And manipulative people expertly exploit your very human inclinations to not confront them.
I've written about this exhaustively with regard to gifts: there's not only a social expectation to accept gifts graciously, but an interpersonal one. Nobody wants to throw a gift back in someone's face. I never thought I'd throw a gift back in someone's face, but when I did, it was the right thing to do.

Saturday roundup

I hate to do this, but we have to talk about nuclear weapons--specifically, "hydrogen bombs." The term "hydrogen bomb" most commonly refers to a two-stage thermonuclear weapon. SciAm has a decent description:

A thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb, uses a nuclear fission reaction to ignite a secondary hydrogen fusion reaction that makes greater use of the weapon’s atomic fuel, typically uranium or plutonium.

So, naturally, does The Bulletin:

A modern hydrogen bomb is a two-stage device that uses a fission bomb to drive the second stage fusion device.

As both pieces note, it is possible that what North Korea tested was a boosted fission bomb, which can be described by the term 'hydrogen bomb' but usually isn't.

Much of the media seems to be stating or implying that a thermonuclear weapon is fusion-only (making too clear-cut a distinction with a basic fission weapon) and/or stating that the difference in yield is attributable to the greater energy output from fusion versus fission, when really, it's more complicated than that.

The Post is confused, would once again benefit from turning it's fact-checking powers on itself. pic.twitter.com/dAHaeEyemY

— Rose glow barberry (@rgbrb) January 7, 2016

For reliable information on North Korea's test, consult CTBTO's page.

Moving on...

The legacy of Willie Horton is holding back criminal justice reform, although great strides in screening (among other things) have been made since.

Vanilla-ISIS is confused by its own revisionist history.

Those hippies at Johns Hopkins have found that animal agriculture is really bad for the planet.

This is in reference to Richard Dawkins, in an otherwise forgettable article:

One of the most important and destabilizing things any of us can learn from social media is that some of the most widely respected people we know are, in day-to-day online life, difficult to tell apart from the least respected — the throwaway accounts having laughably predictable arguments in forums and comments sections. NITSUH ABEBE

I don't think all stories are the same.

You almost have to admire this couple for knowing themselves and being themselves.

In this day and age, there are social and personal pressures on single men of a certain age, too.

Notes on The Gift of Fear

I'd known about Gavin de Becker's "The Gift of Fear" for a long time--I must have seen him on Oprah back when that episode aired, when I was (probably) in high school. Even then, the concepts were simultaneously eye-opening and intuitive. Over the years, various friends read it and recommended it. I wonder whether, had I read it earlier, I might have cut RM's antics off at the start. But I hadn't, and I didn't. I can say that I knew enough that I pared back RM's antics, which could have been a lot worse, and by the time I'd navigated RM's antics, I was better prepared for BE's. Even so, I didn't recognize the BE signs as early or clearly as I might have had I read the book.

You may be thinking, "neither of these guys were a danger to you," to which I say two things: (1) I don't know; RM might have been a danger to me had I been any less assertive, and (2) de Becker states explicitly that these are indicators of manipulativeness, not necessarily danger--and it's manipulativeness that can push you to ignore the instincts that might help you stay out of danger. Consider also the woman who tried to kidnap me--even she probably wasn't dangerous; she didn't intend to harm me. She merely manipulated me verbally into getting into her car, which allowed her to manipulate me physically into being her captive audience for an hour.

Sunday ramble part I: movies and customer service

I'd grown bad at watching movies; I liked them enough, but never got around to watching them. With theater, the tickets were purchased ahead of time so I had reason to go, no matter how little I felt like it; whereas you can always talk yourself out of a movie without swallowing a sunk cost. I don't have cable, so I didn't feel the need to watch TV even after I bought one last year to appease mom. But I got back into movies, starting a year ago on the way to and from Dubai and then on the way to and from Vienna (well, on the way to and from London). I even got in "Pitch Perfect 2" on the way back from Albuquerque (go Delta for having entertainment on a relatively short flight; can't say the same for either American or United, which had nothing on the way to or from San Francisco--although the lack of entertainment inspired me to read a good part of a very good short story collection). Once I got back into movies, I started taking them out of the library--and watching them on my horrible laptop, for lack of a DVD player, until I broke a month or so ago and bought one. And now I'm a regular at the library. Between in-flight entertainment and the library, I've caught up on lots of Marvel--"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is by far the best, "Ant Man" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" tied for second. "The Avengers" was an abomination.