Me and Dorian Gray

So it's Inauguration Day, and I'm really, deliriously happy. I'm not really going to write about my joy though, because I am finding that my muse prefers to sing when I am cranky. It is as if I don't possess the vocabulary to write about joyful things. I barely have the words to speak of them, and thus it has been a largely silent day.

In particular though, I'm so sceptical about people and life that I have a hard time living in the moment. Yes, it is slightly happy-making that a Democrat won this time instead of a Republican. Yes, it is utterly dumbfounding that we have elected someone who is not white, with an immigrant for a father, so young, so audacious, so relatively untried (actually that last bit is not quite so happy). I live in a country that has moved from widespread segregation and vote suppression to electing a black man in 40 years, and I've watched the inauguration next to the man I wouldn't have been allowed to marry back then. That is just... cool. But tomorrow, real life resumes, and I just don't know if any of us, much less the politicians that we routinely twist into farcical distortions of human beings, can work for something better.

Like I said, my eloquence has left me for the day (speaking of which, does anyone else fall into a flaming rage when a highly educated and/or accomplished black person is described as articulate? Of course they are articulate, you...) (Of course, I'll fall into a flaming rage if I'm stuck behind someone driving 64mph on a 65mph highway, so I may not be the best gauge of intolerable behavior). I perceive myself as a beautiful, rotund (the diet? not working) version of Dorian Gray, radiant and youthful on the outside, with a wizened little nut on the inside where a sentimental heart should be. Perhaps my refusal to fully engage with my "feelings" (cue Yentl) will keep my face young without resorting to surgery and chemicals. The upside here is that my lovely, incredibly unhealthy husband will find himself with a trophy wife in just 10 years or so, without going through the expense and bother of finding a new woman! Now that's change I can believe in.

Quotidienne

Just a quick post to note that I have nothing to say at the moment. The small details of daily life are grinding me into low-quality, grad-school grade flour, and absolutely nothing exciting or even enraging is happening in my life right now.

We started the South Beach Diet again, which is one of my favorite diets ever, for the fact that I really don't have to change the way I eat. I don't care for bread much, am not a big pasta eater, and can ignore rice when necessary. Of course, this means that the diet doesn't actually help me lose much weight, but that's ok at the moment. What it might help me do is kick the pregnancy related sweet tooth. Before Schuyler, sweets were an occasional (and relished) treat. In the last trimester or so, the Man was sent out 4 times a week for dessert. I thought that was pretty crazy, but that things would settle down after the kid was born. Sadly, the bricks of chocolate that have parked themselves on my caboose have shown that this is not the case. So I am undertaking a serious effort to rein in the sweet tooth. To put a cap on it, as it were.

The Christmas decorations were packed away while I was working on the dissertation this weekend. I was glad not to participate, because it always makes me melancholy to dismantle holiday decorations (especially without cookies and alcohol to add cheer). Anyway, as I was up in my fastness trying to wring another sentence out of my dry sponge of a mind, I heard a cry, a thump, a silence, and a loud "What did you do that for?" from the husband. Seems a fly (common house, not rampaging vampiric) had buzzed by my son, who reacted by trying to kill it. Normal enough, I suppose, even if somewhat bloodthirsty. So he threw something at it- the first thing that came to hand: a Christmas snowglobe. Not normal. I can't even express how not normal I find this. Thankfully, three seasons of baseball have left the boy with a throw only his mother could love, and the snowglobe failed to go through a window. It did not fail to break.

So like I said, not much happening on the ranch lately. Just two adults going through bad food withdrawal and a kid who is competing with my cousin for the WTF medal of honor.

Bah * Humbug

This post will be like a Madlib. Whereever I put an asterisk, you put the appropriate participle of f**k. I would just write it, but then I'd have to admit to taking the low road. This way, I can keep in sight of the high road.

This untethered rant comes to you courtesy of the Giant grocery store around the corner from my house. I went there for flour and dutch process cocoa, so I can complete the Great Baking Project of 2008. Flour was easy to find, and I looked carefully on the baking aisle for the cocoa, but there was none to be found. I checked the coffee, tea and cocoa aisle, just in case someone had put the baking cocoa over there, but no * luck. In the meantime, at least 6 store employees walked past me, but none of them could stop to answer my question, because they were too * busy talking to each other. Instead of wasting my time further, I went to customer service to ask for the cocoa. This is a pretty common baking item, mind you, and is chemically different from natural cocoa, so I can't just substitute one for the other. I stood in line waiting for the lottery junkies to conclude their business, and ask the clerk for the cocoa. "What?" she says, dully. *, I think to myself. I repeated it louder and slower (instantly transforming myself into some * version of a * tourist without a grasp of the local lingo), and she repeated it after me. "Oh, that will be either in aisle 6 or aisle 10." Well, I know it's not in 6, because I just spent 5 minutes examining every * box of flavored chemical cake mix and * esoteric flour variety and didn't find it. So I wander over to aisle 10 to look for the * cocoa and lose my tenuous grip on my * mind because aisle 10 is the * INTERNATIONAL FOOD AISLE. Apparently, Little Miss Clerk assumed that "Dutch process" means * foreign, because she sent me to international food to look for it. Is this where she sends people looking for French Roast Coffee, German Potato Salad, or Hawaian Punch? This is what happens when the * grocery store hires * sullen people who can't take the time to look for an item in an index so that they can render something * approaching customer service. *. While I'm being sent all over the durned store looking for this basic baking supply, I've picked up 10 things I didn't come in for, so I can have eggnog and taboule while typing this, thus earning what will no doubt be a * epic attack of dyspepsia. Also took a detour to the produce section to find out that there are no cranberries. What kind of store in America doesn't have cranberries 3 days before Christmas? *. *. Seriously.

Books I Shall Write

1. The Truth About Pregnancy: a comparison of what obstetricians around the world tell women to do, and how (un)connected these commandments are to science. Nonfiction.

2. Non-alcoholic Cocktails: a recipe collection for non-alcoholic drinks, for those who want something to drink besides water, soda, or caffeinated drinks. Nonfiction.

3. How to Pump Breast Milk with Dignity: including a chapter on how to muffle the incredibly loud sound of a breastpump while at work. Fairy Tale.

Glass House Broken, Resident Fails to Notice

When I'm sick, I get stupid (handy excuse, really).

I was at the gas station yesterday, having coasted in on the last fumes. Was standing idly, waiting for full to happen when I noticed the price of $2.15/gallon. Whoa, why does the gas cost so much! (Incredible, when 3 months ago I would have been gloating over that low price) Turns out that I had started to pump high octane instead of regular. So I stopped and attempted to restart with the cheaper fuel. At this point I had a little song and dance with my debit card and the pump, with some apparent silicon confusion over my double purchase. I finally had to go inside and (gasp) speak to an attendant to get the pump turned on. Let's not dwell on how long it took me to identify the pump number, since I haven't had to look for one since 1998.

Came back out, resumed my idle stance waiting for the tank to fill. Noted that the woman in front of me was cleaning her windshield, but had taken the squeegee closest to MY car. "Geez," I thought, "that woman is dumb. Why didn't she just take the one closest to her?" So I decide that I should clean my windshield, and stroll over to get the squeegee closest to HER car. Very slow and deliberate movements, so she can understand the extra steps that she'll never get back into her life. Cleaned my windshield, but not fast enough, because she finished first, and put her squeegee back into the bucket closest to me! What a maroon! How could she fail to notice my elaborate and graceful kabuki meant entirely to educate her? What kind of person takes the extra steps to put the squeegee back into the wrong place? How on earth did she start this ridiculousness in the first place?

I can only imagine that when she got home, she confessed all to the first person she spoke to: "Some bitch tried to start something with me at the gas station, but I decided not to engage, because she was clearly out of her mind."

I'm Sick, and You Should Care

The title says it all really. If I weren't a total baby when I get sick, then I wouldn't be compelled to foist this information upon you, but that would be a different universe, with different constants (a little reference to the Anthropomorphic Universe, which theory totally annoys me).

Anywho, this stupid virus descended upon me at least a week ago, and had taken a leisurely migration from the back of my throat down to my upper chest. This means I am now wracked with coughing spasms several times a day, and continuously at night. What's amusing about this is that I am now coughing so much that I am also tossing up my food. That's right, these coughs come in color. That Devil Baby sure was surprised last night when she threw up on me and I promptly returned the favor. Bet that stops her excessive spitting up. Now she knows if she throws up, I'm going to give her something to throw up about. Or something like that.

So anyway, I dragged my very sorry butt into work today, and have been coughing all over the office. This has not helped my popularity, but has raised my spirits at the thought of all the people who may shortly be joining me in my misery. How sick am I? I'm so sick that I have on my desk a jar of Indian Ayurvedic medicine, provided by the research scientist who works next door. He explained that this medicine was concocted in Bangalore, and is based on the theory of the four humours. This one targets phlegm, with which I am currently well provided (you could say I'm quite phlegmatic, if you wanted to be a giant dork). Did I laugh at him for buying medicine based on philosophies that were obsolete 300 years ago? No! I thanked him humbly and fully plan to take this Bangalore-produced, phlegm-reducing compound.

At least my coughs will taste like spice, instead of 5 day old mashed potatoes.

No Wine for You

Actually, there's plenty of wine for you, if you'd like a white or a red that compliments turkey. We had 10 adults and 6 bottles of wine for 2 days, which I thought would be terribly insufficient. With 4 bottles remaining, it looks like I was wrong. I have strong memories of merry family holidays where the adults got slightly tipsy and stayed up late every night talking and playing games. Well now that my kids are the only ones too young to drink, most of the rest of the crew has gotten too old! The worst part is that everyone can give a litany of pills and conditions that make wine drinking inadvisable, so they have not only gotten old, but they are falling apart, too :(

Still, even without the social lubricant, my highly opinionated and aggressive family managed to enjoy the dinner and the company without cross words: a miracle when all of us are absolute experts (!) about everything (it's them really, I'm very laid back and easy to get along with).

Where's the Balance?

We have my family coming in today for the holiday. This should be a simple, happy thing to look forward to, because I really enjoy all my relatives individually. But because I'm mildly neurotic and they are extremely neurotic, I've got a little tension going. Firstly, I'm low energy because of my 4th cold since Baby Devil was born 3 months ago; the house is even less tidy than usual. This is really saying something, and can't possibly go unnoticed by the Fam. The thing is that we have a slightly strange group dynamic sometimes, where we are all so busy trying to impress each other with our virtues (I keep my house really clean, I work extra hard at my job, I've got more degrees than I have fingers, I have more energy than you and I'm 60 years older), that we forget to just relax and enjoy each other. So I know that even though there may not be much said, at least two people are going to walk into my house and wonder how their virtues failed to come down to me.

The upside is that I have a haircut scheduled for this afternoon, so at least the unspoken criticism hanging in the air won't apply to my grooming, as it did for at least the first 25 years of my life (this may have been justified, as I went through extended periods of very low maintenance and a strange insistence on wearing clothing and shoes until the cloth wore thin and the soles disintegrated).

So why write about it? Because I'm going to take my hostessing duties seriously, and try to keep my guests happy and entertained. I have games (with all the pieces and directions!), I have snacks (sweet and salty, healthy and fatty. Remind me to mention the sweet and salty again*), newspapers, and a little list of current events that might be interesting to discuss without leading to acrimonious arguments. The piece de resistance of course, is Baby Devil, who will smile and spit alternately, thus allowing everyone to be charmed and to indulge in extended conversations about what I am doing to cause all the spitting. The current frontrunner over the phone is that she is probably allergic to breastmilk- convenient theory, given the general familial opposition to breastfeeding... Anyway, I'll even suffer that with a smile, as long as it helps everyone enjoy the holiday. This is a bit of a new venture for me, as most entertainment events in our house involve inviting people over, giving them a bit of food and as much wine as they want, and chatting about whatever occurs. I'm even going to try the major sacrifice of not cracking on my favorite little cousin (who's taller than me, damn her), no matter how easy she makes it. If she talks about going to the tanning salon, I will not laugh (hello, you're black!), if she complains about having no money, but has new tatoos and her fourth hair color since July, I will take a minute to remember how much I love this kid before I wisecrack. Plus, by restraining myself now and not laughing at her right away, I can save up any truly memorable bits to write about later.

So now off to the train station to begin the madness. The order of the day is to enjoy the people I love, without getting caught in the death spiral of mad family competition. No showing off the sharp wit (well, only a little bit), no snark, no secret longing to get back to the dissertation. This is going to be a slightly delicate walk, but I am filled with optimism.

*My grandmother (94) is the Queen of Sweet and Salty. She'll eat a meal and then say she has a taste for something sweet. Normal, right? After the sweet though, she'll have a taste for something salty. You know the next bit- it isn't long before she'll have a taste for something sweet. I remember a time when she could go through 3 or 4 iterations. Just a bite of each, but it would get funnier every time. Her pantry and refrigerator were filled with little snacks and sauces on either end of the spectrum, for when she got a "taste" for something.

**Anyone looking in my pantry might be able to find the same sort of pattern, without trying too hard.

Oh My

Haven't wanted to write about politics, for fear of jinxing things. Now that it looks like the election is decided, I'm overwhelmed. Are you? We could have 4 years of the most ordinary presidency (which could happen, all you left wingnuts out there), and I'll still think this is an amazing moment for us, one that I didn't think was very likely. I'm taking 5 minutes to taste the magic, so I don't forget how this feels.

Back to regular skepticism about politics and people tomorrow.

Twofer Thursday

Mooning about Brad Pitt reminds me of another favorite actor: Keanu Reeves. I think I might have a unique standard of what constitutes good acting because I rarely find anyone who agrees with me about Pitt or Reeves. My favorite movies from these two are those where the characters are sort of... blank. I think Keanu delivers this sort of performance so well that he achieves a Zen state, and I can see through him to the meaning of the whole story. There is no distracting involvement with the character, just lots of head space to think about the story being told and to develop deep thoughts about the themes. The Matrix is his masterpiece in this genre. Can the viewer become emotionally involved with Neo? No, the viewer cannot! Instead, on the surface you can appreciate the visual, but the remaining 99% of your brain can wrestle with the meaning of the matrix, and all the different philosophical ramifications. Pure bliss. A thinking person's movie.

Similarly for Maestro Pitt. He excels with the blank character that draws you deeper into the movie than you otherwise might go. His only real problem is fabulous good looks that tempt the viewer to stay on the surface of the movie. This can be a serious problem, as there is frequently insufficient surface tension to support sustained interest. It is only by going deeper that the reward can be obtained. A River Runs Through It is supposedly about the relationship between a father and his sons. In reality (or my reality, which is close enough for current purposes), it is a meditation piece on the beauty of nature, and the moral necessity of protecting our environment. To access this deeper truth, just stare at Le Pitt as the sun shines through his golden locks: deep contemplation will result in correspondingly deep thoughts. (Seriously. I defy you to try to actually follow the plot. You are obviously meant to be thinking, not listening.) (Legends of the Fall is for advanced masters of this technique. More beautiful, less plot coherence, requiring more discipline to achieve the zen state.)

You can have your method actors and whatnot. All I ask for is an actor who can give me the room to think during the movie and come to my own conclusions. And make up my own story, for that matter. That's way more than two hours of entertainment.

Guilty Pleasures

I'm finding that part of growing old for me is losing that sense that the bad things I do are actually bad. I mean, I'm so obsessed by my weight and unfitness that drinking a milkshake feels earthshakingly awful, but in reality, only a newspaper reporter with nothing better to do would act like a milkshake might cause the end of the world. So there are two things bothering me on this front:

1. The milkshake. I took Hunter to McD the other day, and I ordered a small pumpkin milkshake. Ordinarily, there is nothing at that place I will eat, but add a little flavor to a soy(lent-green) shake and I'm all over it. I saved it for lunch the next day and it was sweet. I figured it would be another year or so before I had another. But then I posted about it on Facebook, and my sweet Sweetness bought me another one! Which I also enjoyed with complete gusto. The "problem" is that I have this feeling of doom now, like I will gain 100 pounds and die of organ failure or something. This seems like an overreaction, right? I attribute this to all of the media stories about fat people ruining the world, and the immediate death that results from eating fast food.

2. I'm going out with friends tomorrow. We have planned for ourselves an exciting evening out without kids or husbands. Is there drinking? Dancing? Half-dressed boys trying not to look obviously gay while we wave dollar bills at them? Not so much. We are going out for dinner and a movie. The thing is that I'm really looking forward to it with as much excitement as I would have for gay dancing boys. Just a nice, suburban night featuring other adults and a movie that isn't for kids.

So here's the problem: I feel like our culture can distort both good and bad things until it is hard to tell which is which. I have overwhelming guilt about two milkshakes, when I shouldn't have thought about them at all once they were in my gullet, because I've been told over and over that only self-indulgent Fatty McMuffins are so sinful as to drink milkshakes. Second, I feel funny about looking forward to a pleasant evening because the plans aren't filled with drama and excitement. It's as if I'm comparing my fun times to some sort of celebrity meter, and because there is no space in my life for Brad Pitt and bright lights, I'm almost embarrassed that such a tame night could cause such anticipation.

Does anyone else ever have this sort of cognitive dissonance?

Anyway, my mid-October resolutions are to not ruin a guilty pleasure by over-indulging in the guilt part, and to enjoy to the full even the mildest, most ordinary social occasions, without worrying about insufficient glamour. And to make more room in my life for Brad Pitt.*


*For the Brad Pitt skeptics, I say only this: Legends of the Fall, A River Runs Through It, etc. Movies that are just as good without sound as with are true masterpieces.

Sarah Palin meets Fargo

Yah... Super..

Perspective

As I was walking from my Siberian parking lot to my office this morning, I was stewing on the day's injustices: creaky knees, infuriatingly painful heel spur, cut off by four different drivers on the road, stuck behind someone driving 30 mph on the bridge who sped up to 60 mph when I tried to pass him. The usual. As I creaked along thinking my grumpy thoughts, I saw ahead of me 3 nasty little coeds completely blocking the sidewalk. "What is wrong with these spoiled brats with their too short skirts and huge senses of entitlement? Why do they think they need to block this SIDEWALK with their inconsequential conversation about their boyfriends and their upcoming winter vacactions in St. Moritz?" As I came closer to them I started to power up my hairy eyeball, the one that can make a grown man cringe in fear and abject apology. Just as I was about to give them a good lasering, I heard the phrase "x-axis", and then I saw that they were all giving each other a hand gesture. Yes, it was the international sign for geek (right-hand), and they were proudly displaying 3 stiff fingers and rolling their wrists around. In that moment, I suddenly saw not 3 nasty little coeds, but instead a group of dedicated scholars discussing fundamental concepts in the lovely autumn sunshine. It was such a sudden shift in perspective that my grumpiness fell away and I glided away to my office with lighter feet. I suppose if I want to find some useless little kids to glare at, I should wander over to the other (liberal arts!) side of campus.

Their skirts were still way too short though. A couple semesters of vector calc, accompanied by weeks of pizza and beer, should take care of that problem.

Low-level Angst: DEFCON 2

Because I'm not ready for a full freak-out, but am definitely gearing up.

As we are living in interesting times, I am finding that very small things are assuming disproportionate weight. On Friday, I hurt myself. I was running up the stairs to help Hunter with his computer game, and I was already feeling low-level guilt for letting him play on the computer instead of trying to have a conversation or card game with him. Schuyler was downstairs, doing some low-level complaining about being hungry or gassy or something more existential- who knows? As I ran up the stairs, I tripped, and caught my foot in the hem of my pants, which is incredibly ironic since I had spent the entire day feeling a low-level embarrassment about the short length of these pants, and had just about decided I should never wear them again. The nail of my big toe, which has been incubating a big-time fungus infection for the last 10 months, caught in the hem of my pants and ripped most of the way off. This led to serious suppression of swearing (of which I am really proud) as I hopped over to the computer to help with the computer game. Then I hopped back to the linen closet to get a towel so the blood streaming from my toe wouldn't make a huge mess. Wrapped the whole thing up in a handkerchief that I cut into a bandage (because my stock of muslin petticoats seems to have run out), and went back down to deal with the baby and my suddenly less appetizing dinner (seafood, since the man is out of town).

So a ripped toenail is cringeworthy, but just a small thing, right? But I can't get over it. I went to the podiatrist yesterday to have the nail removed the rest of the way, and had to practice my best yoga breathing to not pass out. There is something deeply squicky about having my feet interfered with, even worse than my teeth. At the dentist, my second best yoga breathing is usually sufficient to keep me from trying to bite people (I usually think about being a wolf, and convince myself that the hygienist or dentist torturing me would taste too much of minty toothpaste to be worth the effort, and then I start wondering about the mechanics of running with 4 legs and a tail, which usually leads to further wonderings about wolf-food, and if they enjoy eating deerhide and such, or just eat what is available, and then the dental-prey leaning over me is generally finished, having kept their lives without knowing how close they were to experiencing a little Call of the Wild). But the podiatrist is probably 10 times worse. The most painful part was having my foot numbed, which may have involved a needle. I don't know for sure, because I was fully reclined at the time, having warned the doctor/victim that I was likely to pass out. He was quick and expeditious, wrapped me up in a huge bandage, and I was out of there.

I was ready to let all the angst go, and managed to proceed with routine (soccer practice, McD's for Hunter, liberal suburban guilt about the McD's, mild glee that Mom paid for it (a whole 5 bucks, score!)). Then while I'm sitting around imitating a milk truck, the dog walks into the room, moves to the back of her crate, and pukes up a huge pile of half-digested dog food. Staring at the huge pile of stinky vomitus while continuing to imitate the milk truck helped to ratchet the angst back up above mild. I started to hope that trusty Mom would take care of it, but I had 25 minutes to realize that allowing my aged parent with the two gimpy knees and recently repaired eyes to clean the mess would plunge me into a pit of guilt from which I might take hours to recover (yes, hours. I'm not that deep, emotionally). But this is where the toe comes back in, because climbing into the crate to swab up the mess was a bit awkward, what with the throbbing, the bandages, and my general fear of causing myself any further pain.

You'd never know I just had a baby, right? You should see me perform when I get paper cuts.

After all that, Mom and I and whinging baby settled down to watch Olberman (who had us screaming at the television) and all the business news we could find, which led us to conclude that our finances are going to hell, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Thus the Defcon 2 of angst: an accumulation of small things on top of a big thing I can't control left me feeling like a high-water wearing, mediocre parent with a hat made out of dog vomit. If only our politicians felt the same.

Beached Whale

The Smirking Chimp - "Gidget address[es] the Reichstag"

The scariest thing about Sarah Palin isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America The Smirking Chimp

Trying to kill 8 hours in Gatwick airport, London, I picked up a copy of the latest Rolling Stone magazine not expecting to end up reading on of the most scathing commentaries on Sarah Palin I've seen anywhere. Written by Matt Taibbi, a political columnist for rolling stone, author of a couple of best selling books and serial guest on "The Daily Show". The piece from Rolling Stone magazine was just mosted on his blog http://www.smirkingchimp.com. Many reviewers have hailed him as the next Hunter S. Thompson and after reading this piece I think that is a fair comparison. His turn of phrase is witty, scathing and some might say more than a little cynical. e.g. - "Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV -and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way"...

Check it out..

Crazy Talk

There is one more day of public comment allowed on the federal regulation that allows medical and pharmaceutical personnel to not dispense family planning services on the grounds of religious objection. Not content to continue the neverending skirmish over abortion, this regulation specifically covers sterilization also, meaning you could find yourself arguing with a doctor or nurse over getting your tubes tied or clipped (that means you're affected too, guys!). Time was, only the Catholic hospitals did this sort of nonsense, making women get permission from their husbands for all sorts of procedures, but that just meant that determined people could avoid Catholic hospitals. Now getting fixed could be like running a maze, starting with your GP, and continuing through every level until you get to the OR. Then heaven help you if a nurse decides she can't be part of such a sin mid-way through your procedure, and the Keystone Kops have to run around looking for a less sanctimonious person.

The bitterly funny part about this is that the fundies have overlooked some things, and deliberately slipped others in without thinking of the wider consequences. First off, the reg has been written loosely enough that contraceptives can easily be included. Thus, your doctor or pharmacist can easily refuse to prescribe, dispense, or even inform you about the pill, IUDs, etc. The horrible part here is that some medical professionals believe that the pill is equivalent to abortion by preventing implantation of fertilized eggs, when as far as I can tell from reading about it, the pill prevents ovulation, so no conception can occur at all. Have they read something different, or do they not bother to research at all before taking their stand? Also, there are a number of maladies that are treated with daily hormone therapy, aka, the pill. First among these is endometriosis, which is terribly painful and incurable. Do the people pushing this idea not know about the non-contraceptive uses of contraceptives, or do they just not care? Since only women are affected directly, is our health being trashed for the sake of other people's religious notions?

Secondly, how long until the protection of religious conscience extends beyond family planning? I can imagine doctors refusing to give blood transfusions, alcohol based medicines and medicines or medical supplies derived from animal products or proven with animal testing. I'm sure there are many more plausible examples you can think of based on religious grounds or moral convictions.

Anyway, if you think this sort of protection ought to be extended to conscientious objectors in medicine, then do nothing, and Good Luck to you in future. If you think this is a terrible idea, let the feds know by submitting a comment: consciencecomment@hhs.gov

If this thing goes through, I'm going to propose regulation that allows me to avoid equations in my engineering work, because they just confuse the measurements I get direct from G-d.

Filthy Lucre

So we seem to be in the middle of a financial scandal so juicy that the news reports read more like Hollywood tabloids than the Wall Street Journal. This stuff is so ripe that even the Wall Street Journal has been turned into a sensational scandal rag. The condemnation and shame are pretty tightly tied to politics at the moment, as somewhat impartial observers are noting that the lack of regulation on the part of government has enabled the current market meltdown. "Hurray!" the Democrats yell, as they sharpen their pitchforks. "We always knew those dirty Republicans were letting their fatcat friends do wrong. Now we are going to firmly affix blame with our freshly sharpened implements!" (Because even in the heat of the moment, they have rehearsed their comments.)

But here is a little question for you: during the last major financial fiasco, the Savings and Loan crisis of the 80s, to which party did the senators of the Keating Five belong? Here's a hint: McCain was the exception, not the rule.

Looks like the rest of us can't assume anything about which party is more likely to maintain strong (and honest) government oversight of the markets.

None of this is to contradict earlier comments that we should be less cynical about politicians and public servants. I just wanted to note that scoundrels come in all flavors, and it's downright dangerous to assume that your favored party is always squeaky clean and the opposition is always dirty.

Sciencedebate 2008

Sciencedebate 2008
One of my biggest concerns over the last 8 years has been the degradation of the value of science in policy development and political discourse in this country. Too often it seems legislation is passed without serious consideration or understanding of the underlying scientific of physical phenomena at work. In many cases, the present administration has censored or controlled government agency developed scientific research to further their political agendas.

For me this is a very important issue that has implications on every level of policy from climate change and environmental concerns to education and immigration policy yet somehow, amongst all the accusations of sexism, patriotism, experience and porcine cosmetics, the course of the current presidential campaign has managed to avoid any detailed discussion about the role science will play in the administrations of Senator's Obama or McCain.

Head to the Sciencedebate 2008 link above to read side-by-side answers to 14 enlighting questions from Senators' Obama and McCain specifically. Unfortunately, there is no way of telling which advisors wrote these pieces or advised the candidates on their answers but its interesting none-the-less.

In Praise of Elitism

Well, I'm back at work, plodding away at the helicopter, and I had to share a question that has been growing in strength all day: What is wrong with being one of the elite?

Specifically, it seems the national consensus has defined "elite" as educated (self or formally), knowledgeable, or intellectually curious. You may also be vulnerable to the "elite" tag if you earn an income that is significantly above the poverty line or if you appreciate nice things. If you know the difference between brie and bleu, ale and lager, latte and cappucino, and worse, care about the difference, you are elite. If you have the nerve to work hard to advance in your field, to earn a degree or certification, to get promotions, to get ahead for the benefit of yourself and your family, you are elite (By the way, somebody should have told me that I would automatically become one of the elite upon attaining my first degree. I could have quit this nonsense 13 years ago). And being elite, you are disqualified from participating in the national political dialog, or from being taken seriously if you speak up. Somehow, we are idealizing mediocrity, insisting that a politician has to be Just Folks to be considered sincere. This is utter insanity. The first part of the crazy happened long ago, when we lost our faith in the notion of public service and started to assume that every politician is selfish, deceptive and disconnected from the rest of us. The current part of the crazy is forcing politicians (who we have already condemned in crazy part 1) to pretend to be no better than anyone else. Our entire political system (probably most systems) is predicated on the notion that a person thinks they have something to contribute to the community, and can do it so much better than other people that they deserve the votes of other citizens. If you don't think you are better (or can do better), and aren't interested in giving your time to the effort, then you don't run for office. If no one runs for office, our society as we know it collapses, from town to county to state to nation.

Right now, we are in the final weeks of a presidential campaign, yet we seem to be stuck discussing the personal lives of the candidates, rather than their politics. I resisted writing about Gov. Palin because I had nothing nice to say about her personal life, and didn't know anything about her politics. Honestly, I don't want to know the details of a candidate's child-rearing practices, or their religious practices, or their commute to work, or their marital history. I want to know their thoughts on important public policies, foreign and domestic, how they would or wouldn't change our country's current stance, and how they envision the future. Where are they going to lead us, how do they expect us to contribute to the greater good, and what will we all get from it. Most of all, I want to believe that the person I am electing is intelligent and capable of navigating us through present difficulty and conflict toward a future as good as or better than now. (Insofar as possible. If the future must be worse than now, than I'd like the softest possible descent.) What I don't want is a leader who is better at pretending to be ordinary than at leading.

This is mostly our fault, not the politicians. The artificial "they" is reflecting what "we" want to hear. Instead of deriding each other for being elite, can we not acknowledge that success is a suitable reward for hard work? Education is not a liability, and knowledge of the world is not shameful. Being successful, educated and knowledgeable are not signs of elitism, snobbery, or classism, they are badges of honor.