The Art of Doubt

OK, stop.

Last night at dinner, I was informed that women aren't capable of being president. They're too emotional, I was told. They're too compassionate.

No, I wasn't trapped in a wrinkle in time. I checked, and it was still 2009. Now, from certain underdeveloped ignoramuses, all of them under the age of 18 and male, I expect this sort of thing. I do have two teenage boys, after all, and know how their little brains work.

But this was my 15-year-old stepdaughter, reporting out on a debate she'd just had in her social studies class. As noted, she assumed the "we gals are just too weak and emotional to be in charge of anything really important" position, while another girl - "a wicked feminist" - refused to budge from on her position that women can be just as sensible as men. Remembering this girl's words, my stepdaughter rolled her eyes.

When I could speak again, I asked how she could possibly feel this way. She is, after all, one of the most defiant individuals on the planet, as her teachers constantly tell us. "Look at Nancy Pelosi!" she practically shouted.

Huh? I told her Nancy Pelosi was tough as nails and I'd hate to meet her in a dark alley. Her father said he's always admired Margaret Thatcher. I brought up Indira Gandhi. He mentioned Benazir Bhutto. I threw in Hillary Clinton and, digging down a little, Kay Bailey Hutchinson. But our little pumpkin remained unconvinced.

So my question remains: Where is this coming from? Are we as humans destined to relive all the turgid social arguments of the past, ad infinitum, until the sun explodes?

Unfortunately, having seen how children develop their views, I already know the answer to this. And the answer is yes. Teen boys are all bluster, and, though annoying, perhaps it's a good thing. Why wave a white flag of personal weakness in front of friends and enemies alike? Self-understanding can come later; teen and young adulthood is a time for courage.

But teen girls dabble in the art of doubt and self-effacement, sometimes for effect, but often times as a strategy for life. Admit what I can't do, and no one will expect me do it.

Sad.

The Hater-Entertainment Complex

Tell me: is there any way - any freakin' way - to slow down and maybe even stop altogether the Radical Hate Train that pulls out of Fox News headquarters every day? Conspiracy? Facism? Nazism? Murder, mayhem, mass hysteria, totalitarianism? It's all there, piled high in big manure mountains, waiting to be tossed, shovelful by shovelful, to the sad, gullible masses. How easily those poor little impoverished souls can be manipulated. Me, me, me; I want more, more, more, and I don't care about anyone else. If you tell me I can't have more, I'll call you a villain and throw you out of office. If you tell me we can't go on spending this way, I'll call you Hitler and say you're trying to squirm out of what you owe me. If you tell me that as Americans, it's only right that we should talk about creating a sustainable system that's good for everyone, I'll say you're a socialist. If you say let's figure out a better way, you'll say government can't do anything right.

And politicians are the problem? How about the immature voter? And the hater-entertainers who feed them? What could be their rationale? What visceral fear motivates them? Terrorists outside the U.S. don't scare me half as much as the terrorists within.

Health is the Problem, not the Solution

A newsletter I get, from Join Together, recently posted this article, about how some people think that the issue of personal responsibility should play a bigger role in the health care debate. Predictably - since this organization focuses on substance abuse and addiction - many readers cried foul, pointing out that addiction is a disease for which people can't be held responsible, at least not in the conventional way.

That question doesn't interest me near so much as the larger one of whether (or not) we're finally coming to understand that, in one way or another, we ALL pay for one another's health care. Yes, we're socialists, folks, whether we like it or not, whether or not the word makes us rip our eyes out and wail into the dark night. Therefore - because we're all unfortunately in it together - it would make sense for us to take some simple measures to keep ourselves healthy, not just for our own sake, but for society's sake as well. We can't avoid this distasteful financial intimacy, given that that's what insurance (public or private) is. Sorry, I'm just saying. It's not who issues the insurance. It's the very concept of insurance. You pay for mine, I pay for yours, and we all pay for the sickest. That's the way it is.

Anyway, in responding to the article, a woman named Carole points out that we're all just a bunch of goodie-two-shoers. It turns out that we can natter on about "prevention" and "responsibility" all we want, parrotting back the conventional wisdom about how health care reform will make everyone healthier and thus save us all a big pile of money. But NONE OF THAT'S TRUE, I now find out. Not seeing how it's healthy people (yes, HEALTHY people) who end up consuming the most medical care over a lifetime. It seems that, on the way to their high-cost nursing homes, they wheel their walkers over the corpses of those who died early from obesity or smoking - people who, in dying so prematurely, thoughtfully saved us a lot of dough.

So it's our relative health and lengthening lifespans that's the problem, eh? What do we do with this perhaps obvious bit of information? Encourage smoking and the consumption of trunk-loads of junk food? Well, maybe not. But since we've been hurtling toward this point for at least a century, it seems time that somebody dare utter it: we can't afford the long (and at the end, unhealthy and costly) lives we've granted ourselves. And making ourselves still MORE healthy isn't going to help; quite the opposite, conceivably. (Yes, I know. Healthy people are productive and pay taxes. Sick people on disability don't. That's another discussion). What now?

A New Job for Sarah

I hate people. No, it's not the first time it's occurred to me. It's just that this summer has been so completely depressing. I'm actually beginning to develop a conservative-like disdain of the Ideas of Others. Blah, blah, blah, they say. Blah, blah, blah. I'm supposed to be open-minded and patient; such are perhaps the only true virtues of the more liberal-minded. But, I'm tired of it all. Euthanize? There are several subpopulations of our society I'd love to euthanize, and whose timely death would, I think, only enhance our social discourse (not to mention our balance sheet). So run, ignoramuses, run. Sarah Palin, grab your high-powered, antelope-size rifle, board your helicopter, and turn your hand to the really important work of America. Come on, I know you can do it.

Whoa. Stop Right There.

Ah, so Sarah Palin's a hockey mom, is she? Just a good ole down-to-earth everyday gal who, like all us average gals, is completely prepared, in her new tour of duty, to broker deals with bad guys with bombs, keep us safe for democracy and protect, that's right protect, the right of her own sex to decide whether or not to have children. I feel so lucky. And honored too. Because every once in a while I need a reminder that the conservative political establishment thinks women are so rock-dumb that we'll vote for anybody with a vagina. And that anyone with a passing interest in Jesus will vote for a politican who says - as this nitwit did - that the Iraq war is 'God's task.' No, no, no. Not again.

Regular Janes & Joes Learn About Spam

Now this seems like quite an interesting experiment. Is spam really so bad after all? Well, let's think about it. Spam is mostly an attempt to sell us things we don't need or want, and to the extent that those pesky, excited little messages clog our email boxes and force us to cower behind firewalls, deflecting message from people we actually do want to hear from, it seems that yes, spam is pretty bad. Is it "bad" in some other way? Some spam is scam-mail, and that seems bad. Other spam sells penile enlargement devices, faux vitamins and growth hormones, questionable weight-loss therapies, and "hot, wet girls," and those things just seem more stupid than bad. And then the phishing sort of spam, which is actually criminal in addition to being pathetic.

I hope McAffee tells us what it finds out. One thing its testers better have is credit cards. They're going to need them.

Link: http://www.mcafeespamexperiment.com/us/

"For the month of April, participants of McAfee's Global S.P.A.M. (Spammed Persistently All Month) Experiment will be intentionally clicking on spam messages to surf these sites, to make purchases and to register for promotions in order to see what the consequence of their actions will lead to.

"We invest a lot of time and money in fighting spam and the message has always been that spam is bad and don't click on it. We really wanted to show what happens if they clicked on it and do it in a reality TV kind of format," said Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager with McAfee's Avert Labs.

The Global S.P.A.M. Experiment has 50 participants around 10 geographical locations with five in each global region in countries like Germany, Australia, Brazil, the United States and the United Kingdom. "[Participants] are a cross section of regular Joes and Janes just like you and me," said Marcus. "You got retired teachers, accounts, musicians and writers that will cruise the Internet."

Each participant has been provided with a clean laptop without spam protection and a new e-mail address that shields their identity. After the experiment is over, participants get to keep the laptop once McAfee has cleaned them again.

"We wanted people to see what happens to other people who actually digest the spam and use the spam and follow through what the spam is actually asking them to do. We want them to order the watches, order the e-pharmacy stuff. We want to graphically show what actually happens when you live on diet of spam," Marcus said.

He added that one person per geography has been tasked to buy from spam sites using a pre-paid card so their identity and personal information will not be compromised.

The experiences of each participant are being blogged at the experiment's website.

Spending Our Way Out of Debt

What a bad idea - money back, when we're drowning in debt as it is? Maybe I'll take this dough and spend it on an economics tutor for Congress. Brought down to a personal level, this is like Macy's sending me a kickback, even though I owe them $10,000 and am in bankruptcy. Like, what's the point? And doesn't it just makes things sort of ... worse? I don't take any responsibility for the country's overspending, but cashing this particular check seems like hurling back another drink to cure a hangover, as Michael Kingsley pointed out. Hardly a cure, as it turns out.

Arguing Some More About Health Care

E-mails between myself and my beloved Republican mate. This kind of bickering is what mixed marriages are all about (at least when the partners are thoughtful, and you want the whole thing to last). What I've concluded: conservatives don't believe problems can be solved - not necessarily, at least. Life is messy, they say, and some people are just going to get the short of the stick. Can't buy your insulin? Well, that's a bummer, but what can anyone do? The thing is, I don't entirely disagree - just mostly.

READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP

From me back to him:

Thu 3/6/2008 8:08 AM
Subject: re: our great system

Are you actually insane? ????? If we didn’t pour our money into middlemen’s pockets (i.e., the insurance industry), we’d be just fine. The point is, you dope, that here, in America, we have to have LOTTERIES for health care??? What is this, Calcutta?

From him back to me:

Thursday, March 06, 2008 7:40 AM
Subject: Re: our great system

"At its peak in 1995, the program covered 132,000 Oregonians. State budget cuts forced the program to close to newcomers by 2004, but it now has several thousand openings." Proving once again that we can't afford a government health care system.

Forwarded from me to him:

03/06/2008 07:33 AM
Subject: our great system

Oregon Holds Health Insurance Lottery
BYLINE: Sarah Skidmore; Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon is conducting a one-of-a-kind lottery, and the prize is health insurance.
The state will start drawing names this week for the chance to enroll in a health care program designed for people not poor enough for Medicaid but too cash-strapped to buy their own insurance.

More than 80,000 people have signed up since registration for the lottery opened in January. Only a few thousand will be chosen for the program.
"It's better than nothing, it's at least a hope," said Shirley Krueger, 61, who signed up the first day.

It's been more than six months since she could afford to take insulin regularly for her diabetes. That puts her at higher risk for a number of complications, such as kidney failure, heart disease and blindness.

Her part-time job leaves her ineligible for her employer's insurance plan and with too little income to buy her own.

"I'm worried about it. I know it's a death sentence," Krueger said.

An estimated 600,000 people in Oregon are uninsured, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services.

Those selected in the lottery will be eligible for a standard benefit program, which was once a heralded highlight of the Oregon Health Plan.

At its peak in 1995, the program covered 132,000 Oregonians. State budget cuts forced the program to close to newcomers by 2004, but it now has several thousand openings.

The program covers their most basic health services, medications and limited dental, hospital and vision services at little or no cost.

Dinner, Wednesday Night

broccoli, carrots, parsnips, tempeh, udon noodles, ginger, garlic, red cabbage

Dinner, Thursday Night

I had an idea, to take my mind off election season, which is already breaking my heart (though as usual I'm not sure why). If I had to guess, I'd say this: there's an abundance of vision of one side, a paucity of vision on the other, and neither may mean anything at all push-come-to-shove. In office, everybody's something of a disappointment, and as often as not, it's our fault, not theirs. So if the end is uncertain, the means won't be: there's some terrible ugliness to come, and we all know it. Will Obama be Swift-boated by God-fearing Americans who discover his middle name is Hussein? Will Ann Coulter tear John McCain apart limb from leathery limb? And will we cheer mindlessly on?

So back to my idea: dinner, in photographs. Surely we can all agree on that.

Jeans, Teens, and the Coupon.

So here's the thing. Aeropostale, a store I hate on principle, is running this campaign called "Teens for Jeans," where it asks teenagers to turn in their "gently worn" jeans in exchange for a 20%-off coupon for a new pair of pants. The used jeans go to a local homeless shelter, which, almost anywhere you are, you can assume will be bulging, and especially now, when so many "submprime borrowers," i.e., people, are being tossed out of their houses.

So okay. Because I care so damned much about everything, and feel everyone's pain so acutely, I say, Hey, kids, let's respond. Let's tote our old pants to Aeropostale, a store as I've pointed out I'd normally circumnaviate the globe to avoid, and clothe the poor local teenagers who are stuck in homeless shelters and probably wishing they were dead about now. (Have you ever actually been in homeless shelter? I have, many times. So trust me on this one.) Anyway, we've got a chance to give these poor kids our used pants. That in itself is kind of icky, when you think about, but the brands are cool and kids will at least be able to hold up their heads in school, maybe for the first time in their wretched lives.

Of course, two of the children in my house don't care about this campaign. My son pats me on the shoulder and tells me I'm cute. The other one can't be pried away from his video game long enough to recognize that he's being spoken to. Now, my lip-glossed step-daughter, she cares, but only because there's a coupon attached. No coupon, no action, it's that simple. Why bother otherwise? And that's the problem - one of the problems - with all such"we care" marketing ploys. They just underscores what the stylish 13-year-olds amongst have always known: if you're going to give, you'd better be getting even more in return. Otherwise ... puh-leeze. If the poor have to hang around smelling bad and whining, we should at least profit from them.

The Karamazovs and the Glasses

Two good things in this blighted political season: Bee Season, the recent movie based on the novel; and The Brothers Karamazov, which I read for the first time last month and am now reading through again. Both are about our highly individual and idiosyncratic searches for God, and the inevitable compromises that we all, saint and sinner alike, must make in the end. Add a third book about religious quests, and an old favorite: Franny and Zooey, which I'm having the pleasure of watching my 18-year-old son tackle right now. Indeed, we just got off the phone, where he complained to me from his dorm room about Salinger's high-flown vocabulary. What's a "Bennington type," or a "Sarah Lawrence type," he wanted to know, except maybe artifacts from a long-dead cultural landscape somehow associated with girls in religious crisis travelling on trains? I told him to stick with it; it'll be worth it. And so it will: indeed, is there a better book for an 18-year-old? If so, tell me. I'm listening.

Four Days to NH

It's 7 degrees in New Hampshire this morning and on the way to school to drop off one of the kids, I see two John McCain supporters, holding giant signs and hopping around in the snow trying to stay warm. The 13-year-old beside me pulls out one of her iPod earbuds and says, "They're here."

I say yes, indeed they are. They've been here for a year, of course, but now they're standing outside trying to avoid frostbite.

Obama's people keep on calling. His is the most persistent campaign, hands down. I expect we'll be seeing his people any time, along with Hillary's and Edward's, fighting for prime locations at the same intersection.

"I don't think they ever change anybody's mind," the 13-year-old said, reinserting her earbud.

"Maybe it's the enthusiasm that counts," I mutter. But she's probably right.

In New Hampshire with the Candidates

I grew up in Indiana, which never received any attention in presidential elections because everyone knew the state would always go Republican, no matter what. Any lame-brained Republican could win there. My family always voted for the Democrats, and thus my family was always disappointed. But it was never ever surprised.

When I lived in Massachusetts, it was the same thing, only reversed. We got no attention in presidential elections because we were always going to vote for the Democrat, and everyone knew it. A Democratic corpse would've gotten more votes than a Republican in Massachusetts, and to my way of thinking, after wandering in the cultural and political wasteland of Indiana, that was just fine. In fact, I loved it.

Now I live in New Hampshire, and my license plate says "Live Free or Die." (I dislike this quite a bit, but never mind that.) New Hampshire likes to think of itself as flinty and independent, a state where high-minded ideals never get in the way of practical, cheapskate decisions. It's a state on the fence - Democratic in the last election, but Republican in the more general sense. Contrarian, difficult. If you were in a fight with New Hampshire, it would definitely aim low.

So this is what it's like in New Hampshire right now: Obama for President calls twice a night and leaves messages. Hillary Clinton for President calls every three days to poll me again. John Edwards calls once a week just to let me know he's still thinking about me. In today's mail, we got two identical fliers from Obama, one from Rudy Guiliani, and one from John McCain. Two weeks ago we got a annual-report sized piece from John Edward (who looked very fetching, by the way, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, ready to physically attack the deficit, slay the corporate elites and slug it out for the poor.)

The desperation is mounting. Who will I vote for? Who, who, who? I've got an idea, but the truth is, I've wanted to delay all this anxiety until the very end - like worrying about a particularly nasty outpatient procedure that comes every few years like clockwork. It won't kill you, but it will be painful. And a little humiliating, for all concerned.

Socialism in the Bible, and Britney. Again.

Does God want us to be socialists? Well, I'm beginning to wonder, what with this passage from the Bible - that's right, the Bible - that Sojourners recently emailed out. Wonder what religious fundamentalist, so philosophically averse to "communism," make of it?

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

- Acts 4:32-35

I'm Like So Totally Shocked ...

On another topic, Britney Spears and her now-pregnant 16-year-old sister are making themselves useful in one area: being negative object lessons for pubescent girls. Yes, I know - they're sort of victims. But they're sort of perpetrators, too, and that's where their saga needs to end. Our already hyper-sexualized teen girls don't need any more examples of empty-headed and pathetic female behavior. What I hope girls learn? How's this: Put on a tube top and lip gloss, warm up the flashbulbs, and suddenly you're ... nowhere at all. Look at the Spears' girls.

More on Russia's Slide

From a Wall Street Journal article about a Russian Orthodox priest who was defrocked because of his support for an opponent of Putin. Miracle of miracles - he saw his errors, repented, and now he's back in his robes.

Mr. Taratukhin's repentance reinforces what has become a pillar of Mr. Putin's Russia: an intimate alliance between the Orthodox Church and the Kremlin reminiscent of czarist days. Rigidly hierarchical, intolerant of dissent and wary of competition, both share a vision of Russia's future -- rooted in robust nationalism and at odds with Western-style liberal democracy.

In recent months, Orthodox priests have sprinkled holy water on a new Russian surface-to-air-missile system called Triumph and blessed a Dec. 2 parliamentary election condemned by European observers as neither free nor fair. When the Kremlin last week unveiled its plan to effectively keep Mr. Putin in charge after his time as president ends, the head of the church, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II, went on TV to laud the scheme as a "great blessing for Russia."

Who's watching all this unfold? Why aren't more people talking about it?

Russia, Once and Future

I've been reading "The Whisperers," Orlando Figes' truly stunning account of private life in the Soviet Union under Stalin. It's a profoundly disquieting book not because the basic facts weren't known before; everyone knows about the insidious NKVD, the purges, the Terror, the Gulag. What's remarkable about this work is how Figes has collected literally hundreds of stories, some already extant in memoirs, many others the product of personal interviews, and woven them into a many-layered political and social history of almost overwhelming sadness. The stories here, though familiar in outline, still have the power to shock, and far more so because they follow breathlessly one on another.

The effect is almost claustrophobic. One after another we see bureaucrats, Party officials, factory workers, artists and peasants brutalized almost beyond comprehension, one family at a time, one career at a time, one prison term and exile at a time. Hearing the story told this way, one wonders if it's possible for an entire country to suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome (or battered-wife syndrome, as the case may be), and if that accounts for why Russians have never gained a sense of true perspective or even moral clarity about what happened to them in the 20's, '30s, '40s' and '50s. So amnesiac is the country that reportedly some Russians, bemoaning their lack of national self-discipline, remember Stalin and his iron fist fondly, longing for his equal today. How terribly disturbing, especially given the country's slow slide into what one Russian historian calls "mild authoritarianism."

It's not entirely surprising that Vladimir Putin calls the Soviet Union's disintegration a terrible mistake, or that the Russian secret police seem to be reopening their old bag of tricks, squashing opponents and critics with impunity. What's surprising is that everyone seems so willing to forgive and forget. Russians and everyone else in the immediate post-Soviet orb needs to read this book to remind themselves what happened, and why it really, really shouldn't happen again.

Faboprahlous and Photos

I like Oprah as much as anyone else, but does anyone imagine that a white Obama would excite her quite as much as the black one? I don't exactly blame her for wanting to promote a smart, electable black guy, but the obvious racial dimension here gives the lie to her insistence that she's being objective. She's not. (By the way, I happen to think Obama is a smart, sexy, cool guy who could be just what we need ... but I'm not willing to take Oprah's word for it, and anybody who is probably shouldn't be allowed to vote. Do you think?)

On another topic, two cool photos I took with my new Canon Powershot S31S.

Going to Baltimore, Wrecking the Planet

Oh, we're living in a green time alright. Which is why I'd like to know why one of the very best things we could all do to promote greenness can't seem to get any traction. I'm talking about this nonsense whereby we all fly around the country to sit at meetings where our presence isn't truly required - where we smile at all the right times, make a few pertinent remarks, and otherwise sit pondering the only question we really care about, which is how soon we can get back to the airport and then back home.

According to Native Energy, a website that calculates the amount of greenhouse gases various kinds of travel emit, a flight I took this week from Boston to Baltimore contributed, if that's the word, .288 tons of C02 to the atmosphere.

This is how the site says it calculates this number:

Shorter flights are more fuel intensive because of the significant amount of altitude gain relative to the length of the flight itself. On a short trip, a large portion of the energy per mile is devoted to climbing and landing, compared to cruising. That means shorter trips are more carbon intensive.

Depending on whether your travel fits into the short, medium or long haul category, we apply a CO 2 emissions factor of 0.64, 0.44 or 0.40 lbs of CO 2 per passenger mile, respectively. This gives us the direct CO 2 emissions from your flight. [These factors are from the GHG Protocol Commuting Emissions Tool v 1.2]

In addition, we apply an RFI (radiative forcing index) of 2.0 to the direct CO 2 emissions from air travel, resulting in total CO 2 equivalent emission factors of 1.28, 0.88 or 0.8 for short, medium and long haul flight segments. By doubling the direct CO 2 emissions, our goal is to account for the overall global warming impact of air travel for all air emissions - not just the CO 2 - such as the warming effect of contrails.

I don't fly all that much, but even so, a "carbon footprint" quiz I took recently tells me that if everyone on earth lived the way I did, we'd need four and a half planets to sequester all the C02 we'd produce.

So why in the world aren't we simply talking on the phone with one another instead of rushing compulsively to these face-to-face meetings that cost us a fortune, exhaust us, eat up productive work hours at our offices, and - this is the kicker - ruin the planet? Anyone? Chime in. I'd love to hear.

The Ears Have It

I just took the 10-year-old daughter of a friend to see "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium." It was slight but sweet, with an especially charming performance by Dustin Hoffman (though as an aside, I do wish he'd return to material that's really worthy of him).

But my real interest in the movie concerns Zach Mills, who plays Mr. Magorium's eccentric young friend. Is there an unwritten but ironclad rule in Hollywood that all precocious little boys MUST have gigantic ears? The kind you're always staring at, because they're so freakish? (Remember the kid in 'Witness'?) This seems to me a rare form of exploitation. "Casting, get me a boy. I don't care who, just so his ears are huge. Like Spock, or one of the Seven Dwarfs. That way he'll be cute, and the audience will feel a little sorry for him. It'll also make him look smart, because with ears like that, you'd damn well better be smart." I imagine an audition room crowded with hundreds of big-eared boys, each one accompanied by a stage mother who is grateful that her boy's Dumbo-like appendages might finally come in handy.

As I'm typing this I'm wondering if this prejudice toward outfitting smart, socially inept boys with huge ears is a nod to the vulnerability all of us feel as kids. In some ways, I suppose we all had monstrous ears attached to our heads, if only metaphorically.

Still, I say enough. No more funny ears. It's a form of child abuse. Worse, like any cliche, it's so unimaginative.