Sum of the Parts

So as is obvious...

2008-08-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

...this blog is on an indefinite hiatus since I'm now blogging regularly for work. But feel free to stay in touch by other means,.

A New Idea: Journalistic Leverage

2008-08-06T17:47:00.001-07:00

Another day, another disaster.

Today the New York Times, quixotic but perhaps misinformed, attempts to make like the government and hold someone accountable for the disaster brewing at Freddie.

For sure, whoever vetted the Times’ spreadsheets did a great job. Numbers abound! But it seems as if their sources, much like a hot football player on senior prom night, have been trying to exploit the Times’ naivete.

There are a few doozies in this story. First off, all those unnamed sources?

Financial mavens chide banks for excessive leverage, so let’s practice a little position trimming of our own, here. There should be some sort of margin requirement for ratio of unnamed to named sources. Maybe there is. This story definitely doesn’t meet it. I counted. There are four named sources, not counting publicly released statements by the Fed and a few press relations peons who probably haven’t slept since last quarter.

There’s one mysterious screaming Democrat, hordes of attacking shareholders (attacking with what? Pens? Swords? Plowshares?) and 5 sources who said thanks but no thanks.

Not to mention the two dozen “officials” who, fearing reprisal (or, perhaps, are still piqued that they lost to CEO Syron in last month’s Irish Golf Classic) get top billing but not by name.

So that puts the ratio of anonymous to “mous” sources at: 17:4, not counting the spokesmen, the abstentions and the horde (because how does one count a horde?)

In other words, this entire story is massively leveraged, exposing the Times to a perhaps unprecedented but entirely predictable loss…of credibility.

Ignoring whether Syron’s ex-mistresses, former schoolmates and general haters-on have been using the Times as a convenient mouthpiece, there’s the fact that some of these quotes appear to have fallen upon the ears of babes.

One unknown but high-ranking Freddie Mac official tells the Times “It basically worked exactly as everyone expected — when things got bad, the government came to the rescue. But we didn’t expect it would come at the cost of a new regulator who now has the power to burrow into our business forever.”

They didn’t expect that?? Even though historically bailouts come at the cost of a regulator?

At the end, Syron adds with Napoleonic charm that his main concern is for #1: He wants to “save [his] reputation.” All right then. I shudder to think what his priorities were before this last-ditch, stop-gap, into-the-breach, insert-awful-metaphor-here moment, the type that really separates the boys from the traders.

Reading this story is like playing “Where’s Waldo” only instead of Waldo, we’re searching for the idiot. Was it the official? The writer? Syron? At the end of it all, I’m just not sure.

And also, to be blunt, this whole mess could have been avoided. If banks hadn’t been lulled by easy money and higher collateral value, but instead sat out the subprime siren song, or at least hedged a bit better against losses in home value. If a few people back in 2004 had read a few memos. But honestly. Whoever reads memos?

(Also: I’m not the only one who thought this story smelled off. Arrow over to Calculated Risk, where blogger Tanta politely refers to the article as a “Hit Job.”)

The Genie in the Bond Market

2008-08-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

Economists and insurers like mathematical models. Nothing gets their glee going like predictability. People, on the other hand, are to math what ice dancing is to show ponies. (Don't look for a relationship, because there isn't one.)

In college, I - along with other aspiring financiers, arbitrageurs and general good for nothings - learned about moral hazard. To wit: the idea that a person who has bought insurance will behave more riskily than he otherwise would because he has insurance. It's a common problem in insurance circles.

Oddly enough, it's also a common problem in life. Once you buy into the system and stand to make a profit if you cheat the system, why not cheat? (Maybe you have ethical qualms about cheating. That's why you don't work in finance.)

Back in the late 1990s, a group of itinerant Harvard professors and a few Nobel laureates came up with the "Efficient Market Hypothesis." EMH was just about the worst thing to come out of Chicago since the winter weather report. The economists could hardly have been more excited than if they'd gotten elephants to tap dance, which in fact might have been less risky than what they proceeded to do. Several prominent economists left academia (and there's a reason that UChicago squirrels these folks away far, far from the real world) and started managing billions and billions of dollars using EMH.

The greatest drawback to EMH was that it was didn't work in the real world. The economists found this out to their chagrin when they started a hedge fund, made spectacular returns, leveraged themselves into the year 2050, and lost their shirts (as well as the shirts of everyone else involved.)

At the time, the Fed organized a bailout worth about $3 billion, which while staggering doesn't even approximate the current U.S. debt. But this was during the Clinton adminstration, salad years for the national account. The only real problem was the risk of moral hazard. After all, if the Fed started bailing out hedge funds, where would the trail end? And what, oh what, about moral hazard, the tragic effluvium of human nature injected into this otherwise perfect soup?

Why does this matter now that Long Term Capital Management (the failed hedge fund) has come and gone? Here's a fun fact. After engaging in some of the riskiest behavior in the (admittedly short!) memory of modern finance, one would expect the partners from LTCM to go into quiet retirement, perhaps give up a golf membership or two to show solidarity with the people they let down.

Ha! Promptly on the heels of liquidating one near national disaster, the partners at Long Term went onto to start another hedge fund, identical to the first. All the same people signed up as partners, they even kept their fancy Greenwich offices. Now, JWM Partners manages nearly $3 billion in assets, roughly the amount of the bailout less than a decade ago. Sure, somewhere, someone went crying into a world of pain. But it certainly wasn't the traders at Long Term, even though their failure was (odd as this may sound) their own fault.

But why pick at these bones? I say this on the eve of another momentous bailout, the Treasury bailout of Fannie and Freddie, those twins of leveraged tragedy. The fears are the same: letting Fannie and Freddie bite the dust will send the entire housing sector and indeed the entire American economy and then the world economy and then the known universe into a blazing nova.

Pardon. But. Remember how, at the bottom of it all, these things are always someone's fault? And the heads at Fan and Fred will go blue in the face talking about how they they didn't take on unnecessary risk, and how it wasn't their fault that short-term money failed, and that they had no one to unload their long securitions upon. They might even tell you that they weren't trading subprime securities, and maybe they weren't.

But somebody was. Where is that somebody now? Greenwich? New York? Where will that somebody be in ten years, when the US capital account has gone the way of a deflated Whoopie cushion?

Moral hazard, indeed.

Pounds of Flesh

2008-07-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman, over at conscience of a liberal, drew attention to this very funny airport sign the other day.

Airports are, of course, the last bastion of spontaneous humor – perhaps because there’s something so hideous about squeezing into a cramped metal compartment with your fellow man, cheek by jowl, noses inhaling the same recycled air for several hours while you contemplate how a terrorist win could hardly be more awful than the indignity of removing first your hat, then your shoes, then your pants in airport security until you wondered if you’d walked unwitting into an audition for a Vegas show. Nor for that matter could it be so much more terrible than the temperature of the plane itself, which has all the tropical warmth of winter in the Kremlin, which exacerbates the growling in your stomach as you behold the usurious prices the blonde, be-hatted, matching airline attendants demand for peanuts, water, and even trips to the toilet.

Yes, a flight resembles nothing so much as a prison where you’re not even granted the solace of a phone call. Which is why the suggestion at the Princeton airport is either genius marketing or the slow fade of our last vestiges of national self-respect, depending on how you look at it.

Imagine, if you will, that airlines did charge by the pound. Not 20 cents, not at these gas prices – let’s say $1.75. After all, a pound is a pound in the impersonal eyes of thrust and lift. In this world of peak load pricing, Eva Longoria would pay a mere $157.50 to jet across country. On the other hand, her hulking husband would pay the prince’s ransom of $437.50. Between them, the Longoria-Parkers would net an airline $297.50 a piece. Not bad.

In this new world, people who like to fill up, work out or even wear extensive fleece will have to pony up. And if they think to complain at the unfairness of it all, the wise man’s response would be “is this economy fair? Is joblessness fair? Is terrorism fair?”

And if anyone fears climbing aboard that communal scale, perhaps even dreads facing the number they would be forced, by law, to confront – remember this much: sans keys, sans belt, sans shoes, clothes and basic dignity – well, you’ll have very little left to lose. Your weight might even reflect that.

More Gripes About Other People's Writing

2008-07-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows, I had a problem with “Eat, Pray, Love.” I tell people I didn’t like Gilbert’s voice, but what really goaded me was her premise. To wit: that somehow, travel can be extrapolated into memoir.

The best bit of travel writing I ever read was this, culled off a B-grade MySpace page one depressing evening: “No matter how far we travel, we stay in the same place, unless we are willing to change.”

There is a part of me that refuses to accept that people who explore the world are doing anything other than exploring the far reaches of themselves. And perhaps travel is an impetus to change, but it’s probably even more the other way around. Feel free to take a walk on the wild side of your personality, but why should that be the wild side of the world? And then, what sublime foolishness to think that somehow, the little corner of your brain you’ve carved out and mapped is the world!

But most of all, it’s the well-wishers who peeve me. The “you must do x before you die”-ers, the Bucket List-ers, you know the type I mean. The ones who wear you down with the insidious suggestion that if you’ve never stood before the bleached face of the Taj Mahal in the waning light of the moon you’ve never known love or beauty, the ones who assume that if you’ve never rafted the roaring Mekong you’ve never known breathlessness or adventure.

Maybe I’m bitter, and a little jealous. The truth is that I started traveling to escape the world I knew, which I later realized was myself, which I later realized would never happen.

Here’s another excellent bit of advice I once got about travel, from my seventh grade English teacher: “you don’t have to leave your home to do it.” I believe this. For that assignment I read “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” which may be one of the best adventure novels of all time.

This, the inward travel, is both difficult to know and probably impossible to master. I know I’m not far along that path. I also know that I could never teach or preach the way to the trailhead to anyone else. And perhaps it’s true that other authors – the infamous and insufferable Elizabeth Gilbert, for one – acknowledge that they don’t know the whole truth either. But doesn’t the very act of writing a book suggest you should be listened to, that you feel you hold some perspective other people don’t? (For that matter, doesn’t a blog? Yes, ok, you may have me there…)

The point is, in adapting the world for our own enlightenment, don’t we leach it of its complexity? Isn’t that process abrasive and wrong? The great yogis of Hindu tradition achieved enlightenment without moving. They sat in the snowmelt, or under spindly trees, or in the middle of a cattle fair – wherever, really – and in the moment between closing and opening their eyes their brains managed to span the cosmos.

That would make for one hell of a travel memoir. The rest of us, I think, should stick to plain old travel writing.

First Generation Blues

2008-07-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

I have a problem with people who write about India. I realized it today while reading AA Gill’s “A Short Walk in the Hindu Crush” which is perhaps the best travel essay I’ve ever read about India, and a great travel essay to begin with.

I have a problem perhaps because I feel as if India sleeps in my bones, a latent tiger, or at least a chemical reaction I can neither predict nor control. It irks me because all my life people here have said to me “You’re Indian” and what do they know about that? “Foreign-ness” is a mantle that doesn’t sit easy on anyone, and when I meet other first generation children I’m drawn to them for this reason. Whether they’re from Cuba or China or Guatemala, it doesn’t matter. We have that same energy, that same sense of waste-not inherited from parents who had nothing to waste. We’ve been called something, whatever it is, but not American. We’ve been called it for so long that we’ve begun to believe it’s true. The most interesting thing I realized while in India was that I was, in fact, American.

And to some people this will seem naïve, but my question is, how can you sit around a table with friends you’ve known for years, and listen to them talk about the post-9/11 world and the general justifiability of racial profiling, and not feel like the Other? How can you ignore the elephant in the room, the elephant in the form of you? How can everyone else ignore it, is the question. And then, they write about India as if they know what it means.

Well, I have news for you Tigger, you can’t have it both ways.

Obama Earns A Living, Too

2008-07-16T18:05:00.000-07:00

Ryan Lizza has a long article about Barack Obama in The New Yorker. You can read the full 15 pages if you like, but his opening interview with longtime Illinois Alderman Toni Preckwinkle seems to be the scoop. Preckwinkle, who’s known Obama for years, seems shocked by the guy’s meteoric political rise, and she goes so far as to suggest Obama has lost his personal integrity.

I know. Some friend.

But Lizza’s article exposes a fundamental Orwellianism that we need to get straight. Despite the fact that he is running for President, there still seem to be people out there who are shocked – shocked! – that Obama behaves like a politician.

People, the man is a politician. As a very wise columnist once wrote, “they’re not like the rest of us.”

Of course, Obama is not entirely clean himself. (And no, I’m not referring to that misfit moment in his autobiography when he admitted he’d done cocaine.) If anyone is responsible for this “Obama is not a politician” belief, it’s Obama himself. In that galvanizing speech, the one that launched the Obama cult of personality, he said, “If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work.”

It’s still one of the greatest speeches in modern history. It ranks up there with MLK’s “I Have A Dream,” and the similarities are not to be discounted.

Why is it so heartbreaking to accept that those words came out of the mouth of a politician? The difference between Obama and every other politician we have isn’t that Obama claims to be a different breed (normally, they all do) but that many of us believed him (normally, we never do).

But maybe that exposes a deeper cultural insecurity, a “Politician-Human” complex along the lines of the “Virgin-Whore” complex that stymied feminism. The Politician-Human complex might have evolved when we trusted the promises of politicians only to be painfully misled.

But it runs deeper than that. It hearkens back to the Founding Fathers. Nothing put George Washington’s wig in a knot like politicians, whom he described in his famous farewell letter as “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men…enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”

Which is a shame, since Washington, in addition to being our first President, was also our first politician.

Merriam-Webster defines a politician as: “a person experienced in the art or science of government; especially: one actively engaged in conducting the business of a government.”

Meanwhile, the most popular definition on Urban Dictionary has a different take: “A person who practices politics. "Politics" is derived from the words "poly" meaning "many", and "tics" meaning "blood-sucking parasites."” Incidentally, this is also the politest definition on the page.

Our nation’s bizarre love-hate relationship with its elected polity is more than I can unpack in a blog post, even one as irresponsibly long as this one. Suffice it to say that being a politician has, over the course of history, taken on many associated meanings, whether justified or not. We consider politicians selfish and utilitarian, or dishonest and insensitive. We consider “politician” to be a mindset, a personality and a social class.

But at the end of the day, it’s also a job. Obama’s job.

The (Underestimated?) Genius of Gamers

2008-07-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

In the course of work I came across this quote about science education in America:

"Even those classrooms that do engage in inquiry typically provide in "simple inquiry tasks" rather than inquiry activities where the outcome is in genuine doubt, a hallmark of authentic inquiry (Chinn and Malhotra, 2002).

It comes from a study of – of all things – role playing games, by Kurt Squire and Mingfong Jan.

Reading the quote brought me to a strange realization. In order to graduate high school, I had to do a lot of things. But what about the things I didn't have to do? For example, not once did I engage in a scientific inquiry where the outcome was in genuine doubt.

I engaged in plenty where my competence was in genuine doubt, which led to a whole host of dubious outcomes. But even in in the depths of the darkest Methyl Blue haze, I knew what was supposed to happen.

But of course I didn’t design experiments, you’re all thinking. Hell, if I did things like that I would be Einstein! Newton! Confucius! (Maybe not Confucius…) That guy who won the Nobel Prize recently because he did something with something and now other scientists can do something else with something!

The thing is, the way those experiments worked, the entire experimental process was redundant.

When I was a kid, the opposite was true. I started life knowing nothing. If I came up with a plan involving my little sister and a sled made from a box, and the plan didn't work, then I had to come up with a new plan involving a trash can lid and a box, and if that didn’t work, then I had to find a new hill altogether, and so on.

If this is also how scientists learn, that explains why so many of the world’s greatest inventions have been mistakes. Invention isn’t what happens when you go to the drawing board, it’s what happens when you go back to the drawing board.

But wait, you’re thinking. Most schools don’t have the facilities to support higher-order scientific inquiry.

This might not the case. One of my most interesting high school experiments involved dropping an egg from a great height. In order to determine how impact acted upon the fragile egg, my partner and I had to make some diagrams, come up with an impulse estimate, and then design a little “egg-carrier.” The egg, ensconced in carrier, was ceremoniously dropped two stories.

Our egg survived. Others were not so lucky.

But what if all those people who weren’t so lucky had to go back and re-design their egg carriers? What if we all had to do that when one of our experiments didn’t work?

The reason role playing games reflect this process so well is because they offer no guides or guarantees. Playing one is like stepping into a new world. It’s like the day you were born. You don’t know the rules. You can only experiment, and through experimentation, survive.

Philosophers, as any good IB knows, recognize two forms of knowledge. Knowledge gained through being told (don’t touch the electrical outlet) and knowledge gained through experience (really, don’t touch it).

Is knowledge gained through experimentation different? Does it fall under experiential knowledge, or is it something else altogether? A fusion of those two forms? I’m sure the pros (Plato? Mill? Aristotle? That guy who said something about something?) have tacked this one. I’m just bringing it up.

And here’s my other question: remember all those computer and science nerds people made fun of in high school for their gaming ways? What if all that time, all those kids were learning how to think? What if some people have a gift for original inquiry, and those people are drawn to gaming, with its complex world of unintelligible rules?

I, for one, have never played an alternate reality or role playing game. But maybe I should start.

2008-07-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

I don't like Jhumpa Lahiri. Actually, it's her writing I don't like. Everything else is (probably!) fine.

Now that I've gotten that monkey off my back.

I've read every one of her books. I've given nearly $100 to her publishers' children's college funds.

But that charity appeal no longer moves me, because the truth is I don't think she's very good. If the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Pulitzer Committee don't know good writing, what the hell do I know?

Good question. Here's what I do know: reading Interpreter of Maladies reminded me of seeing the "Mona Lisa." I nearly broke my neck staring up at the Sistine ceiling of Renaissance fame, and at no point was I disappointed. But some things are almost too famous for their own good. If I'd come to Interpreter tabula rasa, I might have felt I'd found a diamond in the rough. As it was, I felt I'd unearthed copper ore - during the Gold Rush.

The Namesake, plot of which boasted more whimsical turns than a country lane, ran long, but at least the destination was interesting.

But in her new collection, four "No Longer a Short Story, not Quite a Novel" types, what was once fresh has started to go stale. Her characters, much like married couples who have been friends for years, have started to resemble each other more than is entirely permissible.

Lahiri describes the same family over and over in (too) spacious prose. They're all Bengali, the mothers wear saris, the fathers seem a bit befuddled, the children speak English and marry WASP's, despite their parents' chagrin.

This may seem like a lot. But it actually gets quite predictable. I'm not saying Lahiri must speak for an entire diaspora, but she could do a better job capturing diversity even within the slice of Indian-Americana that she's cut for herself. And because the characters are flat, the stories themselves don't have much lift or heart.

With some writers, the whole story is much more than the sum of its words. Whereas with Lahiri's writing, the whole has somehow become less.

Mugabe in the Lurch

2008-06-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

"The end of hyperinflation is always and everywhere a fiscal phenomenon."

This statement is true - or so I learned in econ class. So the government can end a hyperinflation, but what begins one?

I remembered this lesson when I read about the recent election woes in Zimbabwe, a nation previously infamous for its record-breaking inflations.

Many hyperinflations start when hard currency grows faster than real output - which means that a dollar today is much, much more than a dollar tomorrow. Needless to say, people start to expect that their money will be worthless in the future, which means it is (by a vicious feedback cycle) worth less today.

The fact that there is excess liquidity in the economy (think the opposite of the liquidity crunch recently experienced in the United States) means that money markets fall out of equilibrium, and an unstable market is nobody's friend.

But MORE simply put, hyperinflations start when a military leader (Mugabe?) prints cash to pay soldiers. He prints too much cash, prices start to go up, suddenly everything's awhirl. And yes, chaos breaks out of confinement that easily.

Now, of course, Mugabe's up a real creek. He's wrecked the economy (and let's not mince words: the recent troubles have as much to do with him as anyone) and his friends want to call in their debts. He's unpopular at home and abroad.

But short of matriculating at the George W. Bush Center for Men Who Can't Lead Good, what options does he have? And what option does Zimbabwe have? Regardless of whom they elect, they face a terrible and uphill battle. The climb down from an inflationary spiral is often more torturous than the ascent, and involves recessions so deep they feel endless. (See Argentina in 2001. Ending hyperinflation there resulted in a poverty rate over 50%.)

The problem with political upheaval is always one and the same. A constantly changing and ineffective civil service in turn leads to poor administration and enforcement. Production declines when regular citizens live in fear and the absence of opportunity, and eventually, the government in power attempts to pay its cronies through seignorage. Hence: hyperinflation.

This timeline does not absolutely apply: there must be exceptions. But the link can't be denied. A government facing a fiscal deficit can only finance itself through one of two options: seignorage or borrowing.

Governments that cannot borrow (poor credit, instability) resort to seignorage. Governments with an excellent credit rating (the United States) choose to borrow.

In fact we might have more in common with Zimbabwe than we realize. The United States, too, fights an uphill battle in Iraq, and our government faces mounting unpopularity at home and abroad. And we've mortgaged ourselves to the hilt. Meanwhile, Mugabe has leveraged himself past the point of no return in order to pay for his war.

I wonder how it'll all end up?

The Things We Do Not Know

2008-06-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

I shouldn't be posting this.

Today I learned that a friend of a friend of mine was court martialled and released from the Army for the alleged torture of Iraqis.

I'm not close with this person, it would be safe to say that we met once, very briefly, and exchanged maybe five words the entire time. I can't say much more than that.

The legal documents are accessible online, but out of a (passing) respect for the privacy of the situation, I won't link to them. There were so many US soldiers found guilty in those trials that it doesn't give much away to admit to this acquaintance.

Let me be brief. It's shocking - and uncomfortable - to be in the presence of someone even dimly associated with this. The pictures of prisoner abuse horrified America, but what was worse was that we most likely didn't see the worst.

Looking through the trial documents of multiple soldiers online, however, what emerges is a more fragmented and difficult picture: a portrait of the moral no-man's-land of war. There are several facts that, by virtue of their historical persistence, we can accept for the truth.

1) Some of the US soldiers who were punished were innocent.
2) Some of the guilty soldiers went free.
3) Some of the torture incidents were exaggerated in later reports.
4) Some of the torture incidents were underexaggerated, brushed under the rug, or never reported at all.

But the question that remains, long after perusing the online archive, is this: was this part of the general hideousness of war, which permits abuse in a world where the consequences of someone's actions depend on national or ethnic origin rather than on absolute morality? Was it a systematic element of US operations in Iraq, an element implicitly encouraged by Pentagon higher-ups as a method of demoralizing a difficult enemy? Was it a demonstration of the ugliness of the race and class barriers that lurk within all people? Was it Heart of Darkness?

These are all things that, years later, we do not definitively know. They are things that some people would say do not matter. Except that war has an aftermath. Iraqi memories are going to be longer than ours, perhaps because their innocents suffered in this war even more than ours did (after all, the war took place on their soil. Saddam, for all the rumors, did not launch an official attack on the United States).

What this all boils down to is that years from now, some Americans will be scratching their heads, wondering "Why do they hate us?" A lot of the media like to mock these Americans. Who is "they" ask the mockers. Do those poor shmucks even know?

But we know who "they" are. Do we know who "we" are? Do we know, any of us, what exactly has or hasn't been done in our name? Is it easy to be moral when you don't have to fight for your life? Or is it harder?

A nation should be aware that its conduct in wartime is a part of its spirit. In a few short years, we squandered a (perhaps mistaken) reputation built on years of staunch advocacy of certain "universal rights." Wars, by their nature, erode those rights.

What I am saying, of course, is that the toll on all concerned is almost too vast to comprehend. The United States has paid for Iraq in the lives of US soldiers (those who died, those who lost their reputations, those who were rightly or wrongly accused, those who served and were injured), the lives of Iraqi civilians, the lives of Iraqi soldiers, its international reputation for human rights and the massive opportunity cost (education, scientific research, Social Security) of the billions and billions of dollars we've spent on it.

We've paid a lot. That kid I met once, briefly, has paid a lot. And by extension, so have most of us. What did any of us get out of it? That's another thing we might never exactly know.

Chastity Makes the News

2008-06-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

The New York Times is clearly one of those well-intentioned newsrooms where senior editors encourage their hordes of minion writers to get "the scoop" on minority communities.

I really wish they wouldn't. The result is pieces like "In Europe, Debate over Islam and Chastity."

It's true that nothing whets the American news appetite like a) Muslims and b) virgins, two demographic groups the average American finds incredibly weird. The Times batted a hit with the mainstream, since this piece of fluff is now the most email-ed article on NYTimes.com.

And with care and the proper attention, this story might have been great. Instead, it's a mess. First off, the author cites no stats on grounds that there are none. In journalism classes we're taught that it's really a sellout for a writer to resort to the vague "a small but growing number" when trying to justify a trend. This writer not only resorts to it, she offers a lame, one-line excuse as to why she did so. She says that hymen reconstruction surgery is so deeply personal there are no stats available. I find this hard to believe. We're talking about a cosmetic procedure, performed by licensed doctors, in hospitals. I'm sure she could have dug up some numbers.

Second, the article frames the question in light of Muslim "culture." I'm not sure that Elaine Sciolino is an expert on Muslim culture, assuming she even wants to be. Witness the fact that most of the people in her article, the ones having the "debate" over Islam and chastity, are not Muslim.

In fact, she waits until the end of the piece to cite the viewpoint of a lone Muslim dissident, who actually (haha!) turns out to be vice president of a large Muslim Cultural Center. So he's not just some man she grabbed on his way home from the mosque. He says "The man was the biggest donkey of all" but we have to wait until the end of page 2 before we hear someone in the Muslim community call this "small but growing trend" for the absurdity it is?

This story could have been one of several things. It could have been "Among Muslim immigrants to France/England/etc, surgery narrows gap between permissive Western values and religious tradition" or it could have been "In England, hot debate over woman whose marriage was annulled because she was not a virgin." But these better stories would have required more research and better knowledge of the communities into which Sciolino was delving. She could have discussed honestly the difficulties of many European governments in dealing with new immigrants, particularly Muslims. She could have talked about differences between Muslim immigrant communities. She could have researched attitudes towards virginity as expressed by prominent Muslim clerics and scholars in the West. (And to be honest, a real delve might have unearthed the fact that traditional Muslims are really very similar to all those chastity ball dads and "Silver Ring Thing"-ers we've seen before.)

Instead, Sciolino and her faithful "native" sidekick traverse Europe, find a few African women who have had the surgery (and never mind, here, the vast difference between religious and cultural practices of African, Arab, Turkish and American Muslims, never mind the variety to be found in the vast diaspora of the world's third-largest religion) and file this sucker before the Wednesday deadline.

It comes off as what it is: a cliche-ridden, cobbled-together, inadequately-sourced and (worst of all!) misleading piece of tripe.

The real difference between McCain and Obama

2008-06-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Much has been made of the differences between McCain and Obama, differences in rhetorical style, personal history, professional qualifications. But the real difference between them only becomes obvious in their AIPAC speeches.

Both politicians tried last week to forge a personal connection with one of Washington's strongest lobbies. Each brought up what he believed to be the strongest moment in America's relationship with the Jewish world.

McCain said, "When President Truman recognized the new State of Israel sixty years ago, he acted on the highest ideals and best instincts of our country." He also referred to the Holocaust, saying "And today, when we join in saying "never again," that is not a wish, a request, or a plea to the enemies of Israel." He played on the most critical and obvious fear of Jews in America: that the Holocaust will be repeated, and that the ugliness of the past doesn't go away.

Obama, on the other hand, chose a very different historical moment to analyze: " In the great social movements in our country’s history, Jewish and African Americans have stood shoulder to shoulder. " Of the future, he said, "Their legacy is our inheritance. "

Both men toed the party line, saying that they would never discount military force as an option when dealing with Israel's enemies. Obama also said, "I also believe that the United States has a responsibility to support Israel’s efforts to renew peace talks with the Syrians." And he spoke to one of my (pet) concerns when he said "Israel can also advance the cause of peace by taking appropriate steps - consistent with its security - to ease the freedom of movement for Palestinians, improve economic conditions in the West Bank, and to refrain from building new settlements - as it agreed to with the Bush Administration at Annapolis."

But ultimately, the difference between the two men came down to this. McCain said, "The threats to Israel's security are large and growing, and America's commitment must grow as well." Obama said, "I deeply understood the Zionist idea - that there is always a homeland at the center of our story."

And if McCain did well to capitalize on fear, Obama may have done better to talk about home. The truth is, Jews in America are just that: Jews in America. My many Jewish friends can criticize and commend Israel in equal measure. They are the recipients of a dual legacy: that of the Holocaust, yes, but also that of the people who realized that "never again" meant standing up against bigotry in all its forms, across nations and cultures.

This legacy is something that McCain, the torture survivor, could also have cited. Because McCain knows, just as Obama does, that fear can inspire strength. What is telling is that McCain chose not to talk about that. Instead, he talked about the foundation of Israel, which was, in many ways, not America's strongest moment. After treating the Jews of the world abominably, the US joined Europe in creating a nation where none existed, without consulting the people there or considering the consequences. Instead of offering refuge to Jews fleeing the European death camps, America preferred to send them far, far away.

That, in McCain's opinion, was one of our moments of greatest national strength.

I Cry Over Milk That Has Yet to be Spilled

2008-06-03T14:29:00.000-07:00

My first mistake was buying the planner.

It was bright pink, and obscenely cheery and compact, and it had space in it for 1.5 years. It seemed perfect. It wasn't until today that I realized I'd made a terrible error.

See, I was flipping through the pages to write in my graduation date - which by the way, is in three weeks. And suddenly I realized: after graduation, there are 12 more months for me to fill in this little planner (assuming I don't lose it, which the odds are against). There will come a time a year from now when I'll be able to flip through to the beginning, and I'll notice the little notes I made "DZ Cubs Game" and "Brings Props and Costumes for Castle" and "Hindi midterm 3" and "Dillo Day Shindig" and I'll have to accept that an era in my life actually ended, somewhere between pages 60 and page 63.

This may sound melodramatic, and it is, but it reminds me of this heroine I read about in sixth grade, who wrote letters to herself. Every year on her birthday she wrote herself a letter, and she opened the letter she'd written the year before. I tried this, but before the first year was up I'd forgotten where it was, and I found it by accident years later, and it was about halfway through (where I wrote "let's be honest, M-- is the only guy in our sixth grade class whom I'd even consider dating" that I was so horrified I burned it)

Anyway, that experiment failed, and thank God, because what an exercise in misery. I hate looking back because to me, nostalgia is more terrifying than heights. I realize, of course, that life is not in fact a vast funnel narrowing inexorably into Death, but I'd still rather not contemplate the infinite.

Because what frightened me earlier is not that one day I'll look back and realize what time has gone by, but that today, here and now, I have no idea what lies ahead. The thought of the entire universe that goes by in a year is so frightening. I've always been unnecessarily frightened by this, and for years after something ends I spend far too much time feeling belatedly bereft, just to avoid feeling presently confused.

This is a bad strategy. So now I'm of two minds: either destroy the damn planner and get a new one when my new life starts, or keep it as a test of my character. After all, there might come a day when the phrase "Hindi midterm 3" makes me want to cringe just as badly as my sixth grade flames do now. Or when I don't really care at all.

He with the loudest voice...

2008-06-02T21:17:00.001-07:00

I often hear educated people in the United States excuse their anti-Muslim views by saying "if the majority of the world's Muslims don't support terrorism, why don't they step up to condemn it?" This argument is bigotry masquerading as reason. Plenty of Muslims condemn terrorism - today I picked up a copy of Al bayan, the newsletter for our university's Muslim Cultural Students Association. At the risk of being ridiculed by their peers, the editors write that they chose to distribute Al Bayan campuswide because they wanted "to give our voice a public position and the power to inform."

What about Asra Nomani, who went to the front of the mosque and for her trouble received threats against her life (in addition to a lucrative career as a writer).

What about Mukhtar Mai?

What about the Iraqi Muslims who hide their Jewish neighbors from state reprisal?

Is this not moral courage? In standing up to the doctrines that insist women belong in the back of the mosque, that Muslims should stay silent, that rape victims should kill themselves, and that Muslims should terrorize Jews, these people resist. In doing so they risk their lives. Men called Mukhtar in the middle of the night threatening to repeat the gang-rape that devastated her life. Others told Nomani they would slaughter her "halal-styl e."

Do these acts of moral courage count for nothing? In resisting the terrorism that controls their daily lives, aren't these people defying terrorism? Aren't they attempting to recreate a peaceful Islam in the modern world?

If all commentators who said "Muslims should speak up" got a midnight call threatening to slit their throats as thanks for expressing their beliefs, how many would still speak up?

By making those comments, we demean the bravery of Muslims all over the world, every day, who risk everything they have and more to make the world better for all of us.

Education: the Only Human Necessity

2008-06-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

I had no words for this. In fact, I'd planned on leaving it as a testament to the consummate and obvious folly of the Bush administration, but in the interest of honesty I should add that the Fulbrights were reinstated.

But here's what I can't let go of: the Defense Ministry kook who justified Israel's first decision not to let the students leave Gaza said "Education is not a humanitarian necessity."

Whoa. It kind of makes you wonder: what else doesn't qualify as a humanitarian necessity? Israel's strategy of "isolating" Gaza reminds me eerily of the US internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It was a shame for our nation, one that we seem to skip over in history class perhaps because there's just no way to excuse it. If education doesn't qualify as a humanitarian necessity, what does?

The largely innocent people of Gaza are suffering for the crimes of their extremists. This may satisfy some Israelis' desire for revenge, but how does it help anyone else? The Palestinians cannot leave to attend university, to visit dying relatives in the West Bank, or to assume any of the apparatus of a free existence.

Before people say that it's extreme to compare Gaza to an internment camp, remember that part of Israel's strategy is to strictly control the flow of supplies into Gaza. Who knows what that supply is, if the people in charge of enforcing the blockade think education is not a humanitarian necessity?

A comparable strategy would be if the United States fenced off Texas and allowed no one in or out in order to solve the problem of illegal immigrants moving from Texas to other states. (Wait...)

Israel's line seems to be "until they behave, they get nothing." But who's 'they?' If there wasn't a 'they' before there will certainly be one now.

Do the innocent people of Gaza deserve to suffer for the crime of being Palestinian? Because it seems like that's what's happening.

Who's Your Uncle?

2008-05-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

Another spring, another political scandal. I don't know enough about Ehud Olmert to pass judgment on his leadership in Israel, although I admire anyone who makes a reasonable go of the job.

I do find the NY Times story on Olmert's possible regisnation to be very interesting. Halfway down the page, author Isabel Kershner refers to one of the participants in a legal deposition as "avuncular" and "unassuming." In so saying, Kershner runs, colors flying, across the hard line between fact and opinion. In the breakdown of literary boundaries that has accompanied the information age, journalists might feel the need to 'paint a picture' for readers at least as compelling as that offered by novelists or memoirists. Nonetheless, it was not the best choice of words.

Speaking of journalism, Fareed Zakaria once more asserted the self that made me so fond of him in this fantastic piece about terrorism, where he debunked the meme that has taken hold in the popular press that terrorism shows no sign of fading. (In fact, I said this just yesterday.)

Zakaria titled his piece "The Only Thing We Have to Fear" a phrase so entrenched in our cultural consciousness that it's now a cliche. The sentence reminded me of another adage, dusted off and presented to me in my first year of journalism school. We must "speak truth to power" suggested the earnest journalistic manifesto I signed my freshman year. At the time I thought that phrase belonged to journalists, although in fact it started with the Quakers.

Zakaria, more than most journalists I've read, makes a living off "speaking truth to power." He picks a wide-ranging power as his audience. Sometimes it's corporate America, sometimes the Bush administration, more often it's the universe of editors and advertisers who direct American publishing.

"Speak Truth to Power" sums up the presidential race. The thing is this: I'm reading Obama's "Dreams from my Father" right now, and I've started to realize. This man might not be presidential material. Not because he'd be a bad commander-in-chief, but because Obama has his roots on the South Side. He used to pick do-nothing teens off the streets past Ninety-Fifth (yikes, say I, being from the Windy City). He knew where it was at.

Obama is a man in his element when he's "speaking truth to power." He's not so hot at being the power himself. He might do okay, but in terms of best allocation, he'd be better off as a rogue U.N. inspector, a Mohamed ElBaradei character, a thorn in the feathers of doves and hawks alike. To a degree, the same can be said of John McCain. McCain is on the wagon at last, but I wish he were off. Sometimes it seem s he's lost himself in the make-believe land of Bushisms, paying no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Hillary, well, now there was a candidate. Forget about speaking truth to power. Hill was at her best with her arm across the windpipe of the opposition. Her forte was a fuerte unmatched in the present field. But due to the way the political winds have huffed and puffed, it seems this outcome (where Hillary becomes President and Obama and McCain take turns heckling her from the floor) is the only one we shall not have. Too bad, really.

The Immigration Conundrum

2008-05-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

A court in Iowa recently sent 270 illegal Guatemalan immigrants to federal prison. The judge who pronounced the sentences said to the group, "I don't doubt for a moment that you are good, hard-working people...unfortunately, you committed a violation of federal law."

Unfortunately, the decision in Iowa could shape the emerging debate over illegal immigration, and set a precedent that might ultimately undermine rather than help the American economy.

We live in difficult times. Debate over the U.S.-Mexico fence has bogged down in disputes over Native American land claims. Terrorism shows little sign of abating. The job market is projected to weaken across all sectors.

And there are problems on a local level. Despite their contribution to local economies, illegal immigrants don't pay taxes. And the public services they use - education, hospitals - are funded through tax revenues. With the Bush stimulus plan in full swing, and the government running a deficit due (in part) to a big defense budget, there's just no money to be given in the form of federal tax relief to underfunded school districts. Districts that lean on federal funding (typically ones that underperform, a relationship which may or may not imply causality) have to do something. But so do states where education funding comes from local revenues (Iowa falls into this category, with 42.5% of expenditure coming from local sources.)

Gone are the days when INS - now ICE - might turn the other cheek.

But what is the solution? Economic analysis shows immigrants - even illegal ones - are a net benefit to the national economy. (A consensus among numerous studies I looked at) Nonetheless, the taxpayers of California (for example) can hardly afford the emergency room operations given out by law to all comers, regardless of immigration status. (The other option, which is to let illegal immigrants and their children suffer on the street, is even more unpalatable, as well as inconsistent with our national values)

Meanwhile, what happens to industries where much of the labor force comprises illegal immigrants? 20% of illegal immigrants work in construction, but a disproportion number also work in agriculture and fast food preparation. Right now, there is no action pending against Agriprocessors, the company that employed all 270 of the illegal immigrants. Regardless of the justice of this situation, to lock up the immigrants and let the company go free is to get the leaf of the problem without even touching the root.

The fence will not keep people out. After all, Iowa's immigrants came from Guatemala.

To be more utilitarian: what is the optimal allocation of illegal immigrants in our economy such that it will function most efficiently? The politician's answer: 0. The economist's answer: not 0. The ethical American's answer: ?

Some action might have been necessary in Iowa. But the action the court took was wrong on almost every level. And the entire United States will have to make immigration decisions in the aftermath of that precedent.

Off to See the Wizard

2008-05-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

There was much hullaballoo when George Bush popped up in Saudi last week, palm out, hoping for a free pass to the end of his presidency. In other words, for a promise to pump more oil. The Saudis, conventional in their capriciousness, turned him down.

But let's not forget the ridiculousness of this situation. The United States is first in the world for oil consumption, with about 25.2% of world demand originating between sea and shining sea. We're headed, according to all predictions, for a serious crisis, considering as this pit is hardly bottomless. Meanwhile, our President is playing the mendicant in a country famous for its oppressive and unpredictable politics, and incidentally, one whose extreme Wahhabi sect has known connections to many of the world's deadliest terrorists (the rest, of course, were once the toast of Reagan's Rose Garden). Sometimes, there is no difference between sleeping with the enemy and being the enemy. Or, in the case of the Saudi royal family, failing to control the enemy and being the enemy.

Nonetheless, assuming that all the reports are true, and we are facing the so-called "end of oil," and that future predictions by IEA and EIA continue to be gloomy (and how exactly is it that in the case of a commodity with a fixed supply we have up until now only modeled based on demand?) In the words of the Godfather, "'What can I do?' What is that nonsense?"

Hence all the hand-wringing. If production peaks before demand, we are in for a serious catastrophe, the proportions of which will dwarf the economic credit crunch and the physical water shortage.

Let me be blunt: my grandparents live in a prosperous suburb of Mumbai, where for the past several months now they get two hours of water a day. Note I did not say clean water, note I did not say drinkable. I said, Two hours of water a day.

Meanwhile, I use more water in two hours than they use in two weeks. To return to the Godfather, an epic that for some reason seems so applicable to the oil crunch, "That is not justice." In another ten years, assuming demand has outstripped production, it will be my grandparents who get two gallons of gas a week, whereas I'll still be eating food that has a negative energy output ratio.

A utilitarian might wash his hands of the whole affair on the grounds that it's working out for the best. Assuming Americans are the most efficient people on earth (a faulty assumption to begin with, for reasons of energy usage and, on a financial level, market failures) then who cares about global access? I, for one, have trouble accepting that one life is worth more than another, but I admit that's how the world works.

Nonetheless, people talk about energy efficiency as if it's a jaunt, or a philanthropy, but Al Gore (not the Godfather) may be right that there is a moral dimension to this whole situation. It is not just a matter of dollars and cents and futures traded on commodities exchanges the world over.

When one person uses a lot of oil, someone else has to go without. That someone else has a face and a name and a life. What does he deserve? It is interesting that Americans, not God, will be deciding the answer to this very difficult question.

Double Standard

2008-05-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

You can now watch the trailers for "You Don't Mess with the Zohan." It looks bad. It looks very, very bad. But it also makes me realize that we still operate in the existence of a double standard.

I'm not talking about gender. If Tina Fey is any example, female comedians can make bad movies with the same lack of talent as any late-night stand-up on Comedy Central. (And Baby Mama was bad. It was catastrophically bad. The premise was banal, the jokes were predictable. Hiring a surrogate mother for a 30-something woman whose career consumed her life? How Lifetime. Tina Fey should do something very weird - like build a space station out of pretzel sticks and the hair of llamas. She could make a great movie about that.)

At any rate, I'm not talking about that double standard. I'm talking about Zohan. An Israeli "anti-terrorist" agent. We can laugh comfortably about a man whose mission and training is to eliminate suspected terrorists Bond-style.

Who is Zohan's Palestinian counterpart? Wait, you'll say, there are no Israeli terrorists. There are certain people within Israel who believe that there should be one state, and that state should be Israel, and the Palestinian Arabs who have lived in the region for years should suck it up and become Jordanian citizens (because, you know, it's merely a hop, skip and a jump to Jordan on election day and therefore, at least, a Palestinian vote will count for something even if this system is not, strictly speaking, the most democratic). There are people who believe this. Some of these people train other young people to create settlements beyond Israel's political boundaries for the express purpose of building Israel, while perhaps deliberately antagonizing the Palestinians. But it's a stretch - naturally - to call these people terrorists. After all, they haven't bombed anybody.

And anyway, even if they had, even if the Israeli government of 1948 had followed an ethnic cleansing policy that left 800,000 Arabs as homeless refugees (or dead!), even if the United Nations had issued a report condemning paramilitary settlers responsible for multiple Palestinian deaths in the West Bank and Gaza, even if Palestinians were routinely treated up to the present day with such brutality by Israeli checkpoint soldiers that even President George W Bush felt compelled to weigh in: even if these absurd hypotheticals were true,

Who would make a movie called "Don't Mess with the Abu Bakr?" Who would laugh at it the way they laughed at "Borat"?

Let me be clear - I have no reason to side with Islamic militants. As a first generation American whose parents and grandparents grew up in majority-Hindu India, members of my family and friends have lost their property and sometimes their lives to religious extremism. But for me, my family, or the Indian government to suggest that the Hindus and Muslims did not each play an equal part in antagonizing the other would not just be naive - it would be criminal.

But the violence in the Middle East ebbs and flows, while Hollywood endures.

Sweet Home Anywhere But West Virginia

2008-05-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

In much the same way that Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jews (say some!) and Palestine is the ancestral homeland of the Palestinians (hmm...say others...), and Georgia is the ancestral homeland of felons, West Virgina is the ancestral homeland of the idiots. It is their Promised Land. It is the place where they can go when no other state in the Union will have them.

I realize that is an offensive generalization. Not everyone in West Virginia is unintelligent. In fact, some West Virginians are quite smart, and also not married to their immediate relatives. And also probably do not keep assault weapons in their homes.

But I digress. People from Maryland may subscribe to unfortunate stereotypes where their Southwestern neighbors are concerned, but every so often, I read an article like this. In general, I approach political journalism warily, maybe because it's so prone to sensationalism. In fact, the real story might not be the fact that West Virginia's voters went against Obama, but the fact that Pat Healy waits until halfway down page two to mention that those who did so also felt, in large part, that the economic slowdown had affected them. West Virginia, unlike Maryland (a state with which it shares almost nothing except a slave-owning past) is not a rich state. West Virginia may be the whitest state in the nation, but blaming that for the entirety of their prejudices may not be fair.

Then again, I may just feel guilty that West Virginia ranks behind every other state and all US territories when it comes to places I'd want to live.

109.

2008-05-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

I noticed something about the Democratic nomination race while looking through the Financial Times' interactive delegate map.

From state to state, region to region, the race between Clinton and Obama has been far from close on the local level.

In New Hampshire, Clinton beat Obama by 3%. Same story in Texas. But except for those two states, the votes have been sharply divided. It's common for the winner to have scored in the 50's or 60's, with the opponent trailing scores of points behind. Such was the story in Washington (68-31 Obama), Wyoming (61-38 Obama), Arkansas (69-27 Clinton), and Maine (59-40 Obama). Even Maryland - my home state - went for a Obama by a whopping 22% over Clinton.

What does this mean? Well on the surface, of course, it suggests that Clinton and Obama are not interchangeable. In past elections, I've heard voters moan that the candidates all bear an eerie resemblance to each other, even across party lines. One of the reasons may be the median voter theorem (as any adequate political science student knows) but the other may just be that politics is a factory from which everyone emerges looking roughly the same. (Or did I just say the same thing twice?)

Nonetheless, it seems that the states that want Obama really want Obama, whereas the states that want Hillary will brook no opposition either. This could be a problem for the Democrats when the time rolls around for a national election. By then, unlikely as it seems, the Dems will have one candidate, who will face the unpleasant task of quelling the dissent in his own ranks long after McCain has quelled the dissent in his. Of course pundits are calling on Dems to unite behind their man/woman/etc, but the question is, do they know if they even can? Maybe the differential between Clinton and Obama suggests vastly divergent opinions on where America should head, or what it should look like, or any other irreconcilable difference. Since the days of FDR, the party has specialized in covering as many people as possible with its vast and growing umbrella. After all, how could progressives turn anyone away? How could the people not be heard?

Well, they've been heard. And they don't all want the same thing.

Of course, one could argue that Reagan and to a greater extent W have turned conservatism into a populist - even revolutionary - movement, and that inclusivity is no longer a purely Democratic problem.

108.

2008-05-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

On the bleary morning-after Clinton's campaign unofficially bit the dust, I've been pondering the significance of a female president of the United States. I realize I'm late to the game. It was Betsy Reed who introduced me to the history of the "Clinton as feminist icon" debate with her piece in the Nation, and that was about two hours ago.

Which reminds me of the infamous line from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, when Shylock the Jew says of his people, "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" It seems the question Clinton has been forced to answer on behalf of all women with political aspirations is, "if you elect us, do we not lead?"

But why was this ever in doubt? A quick search through history reveals that the US would hardly be the first nation to offer its highest office to someone who has two X-chromosomes. In fact, among the G8 nations, we join Russia, Italy and Japan as the nations which haven't. Considering that Russia's recent democratic history has been none too impressive, and that the last two countries are known for their more rigidly patriarchal cultures, what does that say about the United States?

The British elected Margaret "if you want something done, ask a woman" Thatcher in 1979. The Canadians had Kim Campbell for all of five months in 1993. Edith Cresson served the French for barely a year, although her career was far from distinguished, and Angela Merkel still holds power in Germany.

Among the rest of the world, India (Gandhi), Israel (Meir), the Philippines (Arroyo), Nicaragua (Chamorro, in between various juntas) and numerous other nations have had female leaders.

Against this background, what's more startling is the fact that the United States hasn't elected a female president. The exclusion seems deliberate. Interestingly, none of the G8 nations have had a recent president from a "racial minority" group, an omission that has been deliberate. On this front, at least, the US need have no qualms: Barack's half-black half-white half-Arab half-blue half-red half-Moses half-Carter all-American style has struck a chord with us.

Hurray.

I also wonder how much of the pandering that has gone on in the press over Clinton's gender might have been much, much better applied to other issues and concerns. There has been much debate recently over the decline of the dollar and the end of the so-called "American empire." Although these terms are simplistic at best and useless at worst, looking at the hash that's been made of Clinton's candidacy reveals a depressing tendency among all parties to look at the issues of the day on the most superficial level possible.

Since when is "black" "white" "man" "woman" a stand? Since when is it anything besides an observation of fact?

In adapting Hillary for The Hills generation, we've lost something. And I don't just mean the chance to finally elect a female President.

107.

2008-05-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

So Obama finally condemned Rev. Wright. I'm not surprised he did it, I'm just sad. I thought a man like Obama, who not only confronts but seems to thrive on ambiguity, would be able to straddle the fine line. I cheered a little when I read his speech on race. I thought, here's a guy who understands the need to understand.

Well, too much too soon, it seems. Yes, so Wright seems to be a bit of a firebrand - but the course of true faith has never run smooth, as demonstrated just this month by the visit of another dignitary - the Pope. Americans fell all over the pontiff, in spite of the fact that this Nazi-turned-cardinal once referred to all of Mohammed's teachings as "evil and inhuman." It's true he apologized, and I'm not trying to knock the Pope.

My question is, if respect for the office means that in spite of his intolerant history Benedict warrants a presidential airport pickup and a White House dinner, why can't the world step back a little from Rev. Wright? Yes, he's a man of God, but since when does that mean he is perfect? And why does Wright have to be perfect, when so many other religious figures aren't?

I don't blame him for saying that an attack on him is an attack on the black church - after all, isn't it his right to speak up for the institution he serves, regardless of whether or not I agree with him? Inasmuch as it is the Pope's job to condemn abortion and birth control, isn't it also Rev. Wright's job to condemn injustices faced by minorities in America?

Yes, he said the government spread AIDS as a way of getting rid of black people. Believe me, Wright is not the first to think these thoughts. Perhaps a black American, familiar with the history of white scientific "interventions" as the mainstream is not, would not find Wright's theory so hard to believe.

I'm not trying to say that the man is an angel, or even that I agree with him. I'm asking why Wright doesn't get the same right to disagree as the Pope? Why is it that Benedict nee Ratzinger recently spoke at Nationals Park, while Wright faced a rescinded degree offer from Northwestern? (Clearly the fight has left these Methodists)

Is it just that the majority of Americans, in their hearts, believe what the Pope said about Islam? Or is that we've had a Catholic president, you know, but it's still a big deal that Obama is running for the highest office in the land?

105.

2008-04-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

The WSJ has this to say about our generation: "A lot of today's young adults feel insecure if they're not regularly complimented."

Let's be honest, WSJ: this is hardly a social insight on the level of...well, actually, from the beer-goggled Lolitas of the hookup generation to the Ivy League virgins who just say no to Oxytocin, it seems like no one over the age of 30 knows jack about our generation. Certainly not the press. Any day now I expect Men's Health to win a Pulitzer for "Dorm Room Confidential" the last line of which reads (I am not making this up) "Remember, college is something you outgrow. College sex is not." Sounds like the sequel to "The Game."

And now the WSJ wants a piece.

So they say we need constant praise. And I'm gonna be honest: this may actually be the truth. The other day I went out with some friends to a bar, and one of my friends hit it off with this one guy, who apparently told her (I know this through hearsay) that she was "intimidatingly beautiful."

Instead of spotting this ass for the Mystery wannabe that he is, I was jealous of my friend's compliment. I wanted it. Seriously, is this what a college education does, turn you into a neurotic, praise-dependent hack?

Then I wondered how long it had been since anyone had said I looked good, and when I realized it was almost three years, I nearly had to seal myself in the ladies' for a self-indulgent sobfest. Ridiculous.

When I was in seventh grade, I went to nerd camp. I loved it. I learned how to pipe genetic code into blue gel and read it, which is, for a seventh grader, a little like conquering Everest. So there I was, one of seven girls in a class of 18. And one night after lights out, my roomie and I are lying on our bunks, and roomie starts complaining about how it annoys her that all the guys in our class are attracted to this one girl. Let's call her Joy, because that was her name. Well, Joy was cute. I did not need menthol blue to show me that.

But then, Roomie starts talking about how said boys had, in fact, made up a numbered list of the girls in our class. Can you imagine what the numbers corresponded to? At any rate, the tragedy of Roomie's hours was that she was ranked #6 on this list, whereas Joy was #1. The other girls, she said, were somewhere in between. She did not say (and did not need to) who was last. Can you guess who was last? I could.

And while this sounds really sad, I can honestly say I did not give a flying fuck at the time. I mean, I had just sequenced DNA! Pile on the haters, as far as I was concerned.

But at my three serious internships, I can recall every compliment I got for my work. They were not effusive, and they came towards the middle or end. I remember when my first boss told me I was a very good writer. I remember when the second told me I did excellent work. I remember when the third told me I had the makings of a great journalist. These compliments came towards the end of the term, and it's true, they resolved whatever performance anxiety I might have felt.

But the thing is: why do I need compliments from anyone? And this is what the WSJ article doesn't really touch on at all. What are compliments? Why was praise invented? I suspect that praise is a form of "social glue." We like people who say good things about us, even things that we know (on our better days) are untrue or grossly exaggerated. If someone said to me that I was "intimidatingly beautiful" or a "phenomenal editor" I would be simultaneously thrilled and weirded out. I know the first is simply not true, and I know the second absolutely is. But to hear it...somehow, it has reached the point where what is said about you is more important than who you are.

But even more importantly, praise is the social network of superficial people. Today I met a girl in the cafeteria. We used to be friends. I'll call her Joy, because although that wasn't her name, she's virtually the same girl I knew a decade ago. The first thing she said to me, after "hello," was "Oh, I like your shoes!"

Did she? Will I ever know? But at that moment I saw through her praise to a cold, hard truth. This girl and I would never like each other. She treated my feelings harshly back when we were friends, and what the hell were shoes when compared to that?

But nonetheless, meaningless praise has become a form of social coin for us, particularly women (I don't know about men). I often praise people I care about. I praise someone when I realize how hard they try to be a good person (a boss who always gives his employees the benefit of the doubt, a friend who bothers to understand your feelings, a professor who tries to keep lectures interesting). But here's one thing I realize, at the end of this article: praise is important. But the people who give it out for no good reason, and the people who rely on it to shore themselves up: well, we're the problem.

103.

2008-02-25T12:06:00.001-08:00

At first, Brown University students might be proud that their school has eliminated tuition altogether for students whose families earn less than $60k a year. Diversity! Inclusivity! Other 'ities' that universities fell affinities for!

But wait until you get a little further down the press release, because this is where you learn Brown is raising tuition for everyone else, by a whopping 3.9%. The new cost of a Brown undergraduate degree: nearly $50k per annum.

But it's ok, you think, because poor(er!) people no longer have to pay it! In fact, this is correct. The people who must pay are American middle and upper-earners. And that's all part of a process by which America's middle class is becoming its new lower-class.

Many studies have decried that the gap between America's rich and poor is growing, and they're right. The reasons are manifold: immigration, education, outsourcing, global warming, El Nino, the list goes on. But the fine people over at Brown aren't just kicking the dying middle class, they're pre-emptively building it a coffin.

I'd like to get more technical. Economics who look at public goods (and in this case we're treating financial aid like a public good because it's being provided by a single source to a heterogeneous community through an income-based charge roughly comparable to a tax abatement program) have found that when people's preference for a good increases with income (think of the standard Demand curve rising up, up and away) the voter whose opinions win out is the median voter.

Political scientists call this the median voter theorem, and it has a lot of applications.

But what people are now beginning to realize is that the standard Demand curve for a public good doesn't work. In fact, people may have a U-shaped preference curve for a public good. Look at financial aid. The people who want more of it are the upper and lower-income earners. Not the middle class. Why? The lower-income earners want it because they get the benefits without paying the cost. The upper-income earners support it because of humanitarian reasons, but really because for the Hiltons and Ambanis of the world an extra 3.9% of $27k is so much chaff in the wind.

The people who bear the burden of the increase are the middle-earners. People who went to college, who make between $100- and $250,000 a year, who support 2 or more children through college, and who almost invariably pay the entire cost of tuition out-of-pocket. The sort of person the average humanities/communications/etc college graduate can look to become in the next few years.

What are they going to do about the extra 3.9%??

What's most likely is that they're going to start sending their kids to state colleges, a trend that's already begun but is very likely to continue. Even among the very smart kids I went to high school with (#11 in the US, yeah) many went to University of Maryland for free. Their parents simply couldn't afford private school.

The reason they couldn't afford it is because they were too rich for financial aid, too poor for tuition.

This may seem like a bogus dilemma. After all, the wealth of nations is meant to be recycled, even Adam Smith knew that. But in the meantime, what happens to America's middle class? The progressives, the taxpayers, the median voters, the so-called dreamers and occasional achievers of the American Dream? Is their economic relevance dying away? Are we going to become a nation of short order cooks and hedge fund managers, with little middle ground?

102.

2008-02-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

Does anyone remember, back in the sixth grade, when Bath & Body Works had just opened? And the idea of putting a scent - cucumber, melon, cucumber & melon - into everything from soap to candles was revolutionary and new?

Now, the homeless guy on the street outside my window wears chocolate pomade.

I, for one, hate the smell of these cheap perfumes. Making a good perfume is an art, and with the success of B&BW, all kinds of charlatans got in on the act. The result was the cheap over-odorification of all forms of public space. These scents were poorly conceived, poorly executed and - surprise, surprise - poorly received.

People hate , schmaltz-y sweet scents. I hate them. I hate walking past a girl who smells like a Starbucks Latte, one of those tweed-y haired teens who thinks her milkshake smell brings all the boys to the yard.

But unlike an (apparently) growing number of women, I don't think the answer is to step away from the spritzer altogether. After all, when worn properly, a good perfume can be lingering, beguiling, and - yes - seductive. It's the difference between smelling a Cinnabon from across the street and remembering, vaguely, a garden you passed years ago when you were walking from one place to another.

If sight is the sense that begets attraction, then smell is the sense that creates memory. I still remember when Scarlett's mother died, in Gone With the Wind, and for months afterward Scarlett couldn't shake the smell of "lemon verbena satchet" from her mind. I remember when I was little, my sister and I would remember the smell of some of my mother's silk saris - the smell of India is what we called it. A mix of spices and the strong starch that the tailors of her youth used to press in by hand.

Even now, the smell of a strong perfume I wore in Italy reminds me of that trip. And the smell of a particular hand sanitizer I took to Costa Rica reminds me of that trip. It's a subtle, beneath-the-skin reminder. It takes me a moment to remember what, exactly, I'm remembering.

And that's what a good perfume should be like. A memory before it even fades.
Something that works with and enhances someone's natural skin. Theirs, but also different. An olfactory signature.

101.

2008-02-12T18:45:00.001-08:00

Former Federal Reserve Chairman and all-around economics guy Alan Greenspan recently suggested that the United States declared war on Iraq not because of WMD, but because of oil.

Of course, underage hippies have been shouting the same thing at the White House steps for years (I should know, I did it) but of course, it's news when Greenspan says it.

There's a lot of economic reasoning supporting this argument, and I think most economists would agree that oil had as much to do with the war as WMD (if it's not one three-letter word, it's another) Just like most economists would agree that the invisible hand is not (surprise!) self-regulating in the real world, and that the minimum wage encourages unemployment. These are facts, if you define facts as: something a lot of well-read people with a penchant for numbers either agree on or fight like horny cats about.

The moral is: is it wrong for the United States to invade a sovereign nation just to get our paws on its wells? Umm...ok, assuming this is not wrong, is it wrong to ask hundreds of thousands of American citizens to give up their lives because it's too damn difficult to conserve energy? Well, let's assume that it's inevitable. And it is, as anyone who's familiar with Marx will tell you. The "Old Kritz" was right about one thing: it is inevitable that the world will sing to the tune of money.

Put another way: today, I was walking down the street when I saw a guy in a massive SUV with about twenty yellow "Support Our Troops" stickers stuck to his bumper. And I thought to myself, If you really supported our troops, you'd be riding a bike.

And then I thought, If I really gave a damn about the troops, I wouldn't be invoking the phrase 'support our troops' to guzzle gas, lie about the war, or make a point on an untrafficked blog page.

But then again, if I really gave a damn about the troops, I wouldn't be much of an American.

100.

2008-02-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

Hmm. So I thought that after my Human Sex lecture on Thursday, I'd scraped the bottom of the "weird psychological disorders" barrel. But then I heard about Caligynephobia. Apparently, this disorder is the reason that the hottest women in bars almost never get hit on (really? I think this depends on how much alcohol has been served) and also the reason that beautiful German women (Heidi Klum) invariably end up married to foreigners (Seal.)

The symptoms: "breathlessness, dizziness, dry mouth, excessive sweating, nausea, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of becoming mad or losing control, a sensation of detachment from reality or a full blown anxiety attack" in the presence of attractive women.

Urban Dictionary has a slightly different term for the same condition.

The causes vary, of course. For borderline sufferers, they arise from the fact that "a beautiful woman undermines the illusion that one is leading a happy life" but for others, the roots run into the murky past, when one had an experience that "linked beautiful women and emotional trauma."

At the risk of sounding like an asshole: doesn't extreme attraction sometimes feel like an emotional trauma? I'm sure for some people this is a legitimate disorder, but do you notice there's no accompanying "Adonisophobia" or whatever you might call it?

I think it's pretty normal to be uncomfortable - and in some people's cases, catastrophically physically uncomfortable - around people you're attracted to. The solution, of course, is to hit on them constantly until you're immune.

Or at least, that's what I imagine the solution would be. The other solution is to date unattractive women until one day you catch sight of a gorgeous girl on the street and your whole life falls apart at the seams.

And I suppose this goes for both sexes.

98.

2008-01-30T22:35:00.000-08:00

It often happens that I'm wrong. It happened with Shaha Ali Riza (not the man-baiting monetary policy minx I painted her to be), it happened recently with rape (turns out that does occur in the animal kingdom but that's not my point) and it happened even more recently when I wrote about men being more visual than women. I was obviously talking about sex, not fashion.

Turns out, there might be some truth to this theory. I use the word "truth" because what I mean is...

I had the chance today to hear a speech by transsexual researcher Anne Lawrence (not to be mistaken, as I first did, for Anne Summers, manufacturer of the infamous "rabbit" vibrator which I find, actually, somewhat intimidating but that's not relevant). In addition to being incredibly honest and personable, Lawrence painted her transsexuality as what it is: a disorienting form of mental illness. (I know people elsewhere might go apeshit over this, but let's not split hairs: when you pay a doctor the equivalent of a Gambian village's annual wages to slice open your genitals, you're not a happy camper. And there are different forms of transsexuality, not all of which constitute an illness). Not to be confused with transvestitism, which is a lifestyle choice.

Lawrence's description of being unable to achieve real intimacy with sexual partners was heartbreaking, and in a way rang strangely true. I think one symptom that is constant across mental disorders is this feeling of "separation" - of distance from and disappointment in other people, particularly intimate partners. I've seen this distance portrayed so well in Ernest Hemingway's short story "Up in Michigan" and I know that Hemingway was an alcoholic, severely depressed, and a lifelong cross-dresser. I saw this distance again in Lawrence.

It surprises me how many normal people have problems being close to other people. It doesn't matter how much you want it - your own chemistry/history can stop you. It's sad, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But all this is not my point.

My point is a little lighter, so I'm going to shift gears. Lawrence said that she misses only two things about being a man. The first is having effortless strength - she can't run a mile as fast, she can't lift heavy things, she can't do things that her body previously took for granted.

The second is her sex drive. As a natal man with no male organs, Lawrence has less testosterone than the average woman, and she said, "I didn't realize until my surgery how much testosterone is the hormone that drives lust." She said she missed her instinctive physical reactions when attractive women walked by (she's still attracted to women, although not as strongly) and what she referred to as her "constant, easy physical drive" and her "desperate need to have orgasms."

Ok. So. I'm not trying to generalize here. Obviously not everyone feels they have a "constant, easy physical drive": and if all sexuality were this angst-free, Portnoy would have had nothing to complain about. But I do think that being able to want other people - on a visceral level - is a marker of being alive.

Also, I think these two things that Lawrence named are things that women - whether we admit it or not - like about men, maybe because we realize that they're different.

95.

2008-01-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

The problem with taking a class on human sexuality isn't that it's awkward. It's that sometimes, you will read things that, for whatever reason, seem intrinsically wrong.

For example, in the introduction to my textbook, the author cites a study that concludes, "By committing rape, men could have extra offspring at little cost, thus perpetuating more copies of their genes. Women, on the other hand, were limited in the total number of offspring they could have and could easily reach that number without engaging in rape. Therefore, the thinking goes, genes conferring the capacity for rape on men (and men only) spread throughout the human species."

How can someone apologize for rape on the basis of biology? But more importantly, how can they be so wrong? I feel that sometimes people refer to their "animal instincts" when they mean "my worse self." But in most species, females are the sexual decision-makers. I'm thinking about all those Animal Planet videos where a male lion tries to get it on with a female lion, and she doesn't dig it, so she claws him in the face and he skulks off. Something like that. The point is, rape does not exist in the animal kingdom.

This isn't a matter of opinion. It's a fact. And if rape were an evolutionary advantage, why wouldn't it be the norm? After all, many species are better at reproducing than humans (humans, in fact, reproduce poorly. What we do well is eliminate predators.) Why is this? Lots of theories might exist, but the most obvious is that it's not always advantageous for a female to be pregnant. The other might be that rape - overall, a violent act - is both physically and mentally damaging. Not only is it less likely to produce offspring, it's more likely to leave damages that will complicate pregnancy, etc, etc, etc.

And it's not as if most rapes progress like normal sex, anyway. In general, in fact, rape prevents pregnancy by damaging the woman. And I'm not just talking about the Congo, either. At the risk of being really indelicate, it seems that in most species males are conditioned to respond to signs of a female being "in heat" (not a charming expression) but, anyway, she'll enjoy it.

Why am I even bothering with all this, since the majority of people aren't rapists and the few who are can't be reasoned out of it? And why does any of it matter? I guess because rape is already such a loaded term on most college campuses, and I wonder sometimes if it doesn't do more harm than good to expose people to science based on faulty assumptions (women can have all the offspring they want without resorting to rape? Maybe some women can, just like some men, but how can someone make such a sensitive conclusion based on such a broad generalization?)

But, in the grander scheme of things, what is becoming far too clear is that most studies about human sexuality are "quack science" - hopelessly lopsided, poorly executed, and inconsistently robust in their conclusions. Not once have we come across results that, examined in the light of statistics, come up significant time after time.

What a raft of bullshit this class is turning out to be.

92. Who Wears Short Pants?

2008-01-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

So Times writer Caitlin Moran wrote a very entertaining piece the other day about "pantorexia:" which she terms women's addiction to tiny and impractical underpants. (Imagine this entire post being read in a British accent, that will make the subject sound much less indelicate.)

Moran is a "woman of a certain age" which is the Edwardian way of saying "older than me." I find that despite their arguments in favor of practicality, safety, etc, women like Moran see the whole dental-floss-thong phenomenon as part of the Britnification of pop culture. In other words, as a cultural scourge. Victoria may once have had a secret, but she certainly doesn't anymore.

I've been doing my own laundry since I was 15, but not because I'm all that industrious. I started doing my own laundry around the time I started buying my own underwear, and the two were not unrelated. Even now, if for any reason (packing, unpacking, carrying laundry into the basement) my mother catches sight of some of the things I've bought lately, she makes a funny little face. The other day, when we were discussing how some of my laundry had ended up mixed with hers and my sisters, she deadpanned, "it's not like I'd get confused what belonged to whom. Anything smaller than 4 centimeters is yours."

She's wrong of course - it's more like 8 centimeters.

She cites the same argument as Moran, which is that "tiny knickers" are impractical. But I think it's more than that. In her steadfastly conservative heart (and it is conservative, in spite of all her attempts to appear very liberal) my mother thinks pretty underwear is morally wrong. Or at least, indicates a lax attitude towards morality.

Meanwhile, my philosophy was: take advantage of those golden years when your ass supports itself.

But as time goes by, I've changed my mind. My interest in nice underwear - and in general, in nice clothes - has waned a lot this year. If before I viewed shopping with fanatical, frothing-at-the-wallet enthusiasm, this year I'm a lot more restrained. I walk by stores and don't go in.

And the underwear is the same. Maybe my market is saturated. I have so many damn clothes that I no longer have space or energy to acquire something new. Or maybe it's something else. I wouldn't call it maturity, but maybe it's the passing of a phase.

In high school, I was content with two pairs of shoes, both of them sneakers, which I wore everyday in the belief that should terrorists/lunatics/dogs attack me, I'd better be ready to run. I also owned several skirts so short I can't look at them - much less wear them - ever again. And a whole lot of random T-shirts. One of my best friends once called me "fashion challenged," and she was being kind.

So for me, I figured this whole "buying cute crap" thing was a phase I'd eventually outgrow. I wonder if it's happening. Or maybe I'm just feeling more responsible, since a lingerie habit can leave a girl broke.

91.

2007-12-20T09:26:00.001-08:00

I was looking at my high school graduation pictures the other day, and I realized that I look older. At first, I thought maybe it was wrinkles or pouches or some awful thing like that. My mother said it probably was. (She's very supportive.)

But then, over coffee, when I asked a friend if I looked older, she also said yes. And I asked, "Well, in a bad way?" And she answered, "God no, you're more experienced and intelligent now!"

I don't know whether either of those last things are true, but I prefer "experienced and intelligent" to "wrinkled and stooped"- and since neither is under par for reality, I'll go with the former.

My point is, there are all these articles about how women reach their "sexual peak" in their 30's, whereas men hit it in their late teens, and the general takeaway from all this overanalysis is not a clear definition of what that ridiculous phrase even means but the sad conclusion that what is sauce for the goose will never be sauce for the gander.

Meanwhile, plenty of columnists (and by "plenty" I mean, that chimera of the NYTimes, Maureen Dowd) lament that women get worse-looking with age, whereas men only get better. But I think the more enlightening comment in this whole debate comes halfway down Dowd's column, where one Democratic aide says, "we've been staring at aging white men since the beginning of the democracy."

To get more equal opportunity about it, if we start staring at aging white women (and then, whoa, aging women of color and then, you know, whatever frontier could possibly exist after that) I suspect this attitude will go the way of the Whig Party. After all, in scientific theory, men are as likely as women to get less viable over time. (Or at least, to produce aneuploid offspring, aneuploid being a fancy term for "chromosomally abnormal" which is a fancy term for "special" which is a condescending term for...well, there's really no good way to say it, but if you've ever witnessed/borne/been the child of an older man you might know what I mean.) And of course, my favorite blog has a whole 'nother reason for why women prefer older men.

In an old interview with Cosmopolitan, Eva Longoria said that she felt more confident as a woman in her thirties than a woman in her twenties, and it extended to her sex life (I'm actually classing up Cosmo's dialogue - this is obviously a world of class away from the interview where she told Rolling Stone that the best sex she'd had all year was with her vibrator.) And this is no doubt because in her thirties Eva was starring in a hit prime-time drama, whereas in her twenties she was...even Imdb doesn't know what she was doing. And the two are not unrelated.

Meanwhile, on my favorite prime-time drama, the main character (with whom I uncomfortably identify) is a former conservative talk show host turned campaign advisor who just married a Senator. In the most recent episode, it comes out that her three brothers were betting on when she would get married, and the earliest estimate was 35. "Let's be honest - no one ever thought this would happen," is the common refrain, which makes sense to everyone, including the viewer.

Age carries a physical stigma for women because it degrades our most valuable resource. But I wonder if that matters anymore. I wonder if, in a mere fifty years, it will matter at all. In Ocean's 13, Matt Damon's character tries to seduce Ellen Barkin's older 'cougar' character. The days of older women lacking power, personality and opportunity are over. And I think the days of older women having no appeal of their own - no growing individuality, no keener sense of their place in the world as time goes by - are ending also.

Maureen Dowd, who for all her fire-haired feminist enthusiasm is still a conventionally pretty woman (and always has been) probably has trouble understanding this second, more Michelle-Obama-type allure. But Michelle - who seduced and married Barack back when he was just the office skintern - is not an example to ignore. Until he ran for the presidency, she almost overshadowed her husband, and reporters the country over have been salivating after her since she first appeared on the candidate's arm. She has a magnetism reflected not in what people write about her, but the fact that they do it so often, and with such enthusiasm (and I'm including myself, here.)

Nice teeth, nice skin, nice hair, these are all great. But there is no attractive power on earth that is greater (in my opinion) than intellectual force. And we're fortunate that we no longer live in an environment where women can't develop that.

90.

2007-12-18T12:43:00.000-08:00

In the course of my day (which includes: eating, visiting with friends, sleeping, reading, job searching, editing and yoga - this list makes me sound far more productive than I am) I found this amazing website. It's like Photoshop, for people who have no fucking clue how to use Photoshop (Don't be ashamed if you're one of these people. I still have trouble with 'layers.'). I gave myself various makeovers, which I can't post in the website's gallery (one of the conditions of posting there is that these not be facetious, and mine are, ahem, facetious) but which are still frightening.

Here I am:
Looking like Lance Bass (or, Sanjaya, once he figures out how to grow facial hair and chops off those Hanson-esque locks)(Ignore that weird hair boa around my neck - it's a remnant of the shot I originally cropped.)

Here I am, channeling Mary Jane Watson.

Yikes. And finally here I am, as a stylish Communist sympathizer, or a French exchange student with an accessories fetish.

And that's enough time wasted. The most amusing part of this entire episode is how the photos capture "before and after" shots. The Flash technology is pretty sophisticated, but I can't imagine how anyone could benefit from this kind of impersonal online butchering.

On another note, though, I think I have my holiday cards for this year. I am thinking of replacing the message on the little note with something like:

"Dear XXX,

I know it's been a while since we last met, but I wanted to let you know that I've undergone sex reassignment/assumed a fake identity/joined the People's Movement. I thought it was time for a change. Hope to see you soon, and please drop me a line if you're ever in Vegas/incarcerated/atop the Great Wall. It'd be great to catch up!

Happy Holidays!

Your friend,
A.

P.S. Let's not lose touch again!"

89.

2007-12-17T20:14:00.000-08:00

So. There I was, in a stranger's house, speaking a foreign language, wearing unfamiliar clothes, and in general trying not to make an ass of myself. The subject of conversation - which I could barely follow, anyway - turned to Indian history. People were debating what point in time, exactly, could be considered the beginning of the Indian Independence Movement.

"A lot of scholars trace the Indian Independence Movement to the Sepoy Mutiny," I said knowledgeably, in "Hindi." (Something like, "Indian Independence Movement vo Sepoy Mutiny se shuru hua) The conversation ground to a halt. For the third time that day (the first being when I tripped on my chuni and nearly brained myself, the second when I refused a second cup of tea) people looked at me as if I were a specimen from another planet.

I couldn't speak to my parents over the phone (no connection) but much later on I told my uncle this story. He started laughing uproariously. "You said that?" he demanded, wiping tears from his eyes. I bristled at the suggestion that I'd done something wrong. "In general," he informed me, "Indian people think 'Sepoy Mutiny' is a denigrating, racist and colonialist term." I gathered that in some academic circles, saying 'sepoy' is akin to using the n-word. "How could I have known that?" I protested.

How, indeed.

After all, I learned this term in IB World History. Shouldn't that count for something? As it turns out, it counts for squat. I still remember the first time I made a mistake like this. I was standing beneath a statue of Cervantes in the middle of Madrid. Our tour guide was talking - in Spanish, because I can't humiliate myself enough in my native tongue - about how Cervantes was one of Spain's greatest heroes.

"Yes, but he was a raving lunatic," I opined. I was repeating, word for word, a remark an English teacher had made to me in years past.

People might suggest that I run into these difficulties because I can't resist the urge to run my mouth, and they'd be right. But on the other hand, what's an education for, if you can't share it with others?

I mean, if someone showed up in my neighborhood and said, casually, that Abraham Lincoln was an illiterate, godless hick, I might be annoyed. (And if you're going to argue any of these points, remember that great story we learned as kids about how Honest Abe taught himself to read and write with a shovel and a piece of coal? How far can a man get with a shovel and a piece of coal? Exactly. Also, he never belonged to any religion. And in 1809, everyone was a hick.) But anyway - I'd be offended to hear it said.

I ran into these difficulties, ultimately, because I was speaking a language I didn't perfectly understand and repeating ideas taught to me by people who had a) never lived in the country b) didn't speak the language c) had no friends who grew up in that country d) had never read an entire book about the country and e) still felt qualified to teach about it.

I still remember my seventh grade Hinduism unit. My well-intentioned teacher taught us numerous fun facts about the religion. Upon later examination of the Gita and Vedas, almost every one of these facts turned out to be wrong.

But I'm making two separate points. The first is that not every word has the same weight everywhere, and this is especially true when dealing with history. And the other is that sometimes, the things we we are taught (particularly about small countries or unfamiliar religions) are just plain incorrect.

By the time I went to Italy, of course, I adopted a mandate I picked up in IB Philosophy: like Socrates, I decided that "all I knew was that I knew nothing." When the conversation around bars turned to great writers of modern Italy, I merely said, "How about that Umberto Eco?" with the best possible accent and a mysterious smile. Soon enough the expats and lit profs in the audience would be going at each other with salad forks. Afterwards the survivors (because believe me, these duels sometimes went to the death) said to me, "God, you're so smart for an American."

"We're a pretty smart people," I replied, and left it at that.

88.

2007-12-16T21:35:00.000-08:00

Last night I found out my cousin is engaged. She's my age, and when we were kids she was the one who hung out with me and my sister in Hyderabad, she was the one who talked to cab drivers and tour givers, she was the one who haggled with cotton merchants and jewelry vendors. Thanks to her I got great deals on custom salwar kameezes, and thanks to her I had a friend when I went to India.

She's exactly my age - maybe a month older. Even though plenty of my girlfriends (read: sorority sisters) plan to get married right out of college, my cousin's announcement shook me in a way none of theirs did.

She met the boy through her family. She's probably talked to him for a total of an hour, he's older than she is, and he's a little bit bald. In spite of all this, I know for a fact it's what she wants. I know, also, that she'll be happy (because she's like that).

I dashed off a congratulatory email and then wandered up to my bedroom to try and concentrate on other things. But the truth is this: hearing about her decision made me question all of mine.

Everyone says she's being smart. Girls in our community marry young (20-24). They always have children before they're 30 (a goal many of my classmates claim but I suspect few will meet). My cousin has never traveled more than 50 miles from her hometown, she has an undergraduate degree, she's always lived at home.

But in the eyes of everyone I know, she's making the right choice. She'll get married, she'll get to know her husband for a few years, they'll have children, she'll be satisfied. The truth is that the old ideals of marriage and motherhood hold strong sway for all my relatives: even if she designed clothes for the Queen of England, if she was unmarried, everyone would assume she was unhappy.

All my cousins are getting married. And I wonder, as this happens, if there will come a point when I'll have nothing in common with them. When I'll stop seeing them to avoid inevitable conversations that lead nowhere good. When I'll think they did it right, and like everyone else I know, I should have lived life with a bit more of a plan. I've always been close to my family, and the thought is unpleasant.

But beyond my near-sighted self-pity (which I'll get over in a minute) it is true that it's getting harder to laugh and change the subject when my family members bring this up to me (and they do, a little too often.) I realize this is how most American woman feel, although maybe not when they're as young as me, and I also realize that...well, I'll say this in one breath - moving to Illinois was a bit of a romantic nonstarter for me.

There are a lot of reasons things worked out like this. I don't like living my life according to a predetermined set of rules, and of all the injunctions I disliked, the one I thought the most idiotic and small-minded was the recommendation that young Indians should only marry inside their community. (I won't say "race" since anyone with eyes and an encyclopedia will know that Indians are not, in any biological sense, a "race." Not that anyone is, in a biological sense, a race.) Returning to the main point, if I can belabor it: humans share 99.2 % of their genes with chimps. Considering this, I think we're all well enough off so long as we marry within our species.

I realize not everyone feels this way. But until I went to school, I assumed the only people who didn't feel this way were at least 80 years old, and born to an America before Brown vs. Board of Education.

Was I in for an awakening, or what.

I'll spare everyone the stories of the times I hauled my slack jaw off the floor when classmates casually - casually! - expressed the view that they only want mates of their own religion, class or creed. They must be joking, I thought. And went on my way.

I'll blame my parents for this. In spite of many, many opportunities, they never saw the need to tell me about the narrowness of the wider world. And this is all well and good, and not even a mistake.

By and large, the men I've been involved with at school are either black, Hispanic or South Asian. And when I say "by and large" I mean "exclusively," although this was not true before. The men I've met in bars and clubs - too many of those! - are the same. This was also not true before. Have I changed?

I'll confess something else unfashionable, and probably paranoid: when I meet white guys from the Midwest nowadays, I almost always write them off as not attracted to nonwhite women, unless they visibly demonstrate otherwise. It's self-limiting, I know. And I hate that I do it, even though plenty of other people would say it's not a bad strategy. It's not how I want to live my life.

Race blogger Candace Miller writes "I suspect that deep down many African American women don't believe that non-black men find them attractive." And her comment cuts to the heart of the 'marriage squeeze' question. It relates to the reason I gave up on buying fashion magazines. The international requirements for a model are that she be at least 5'10", an arbitration that means more than 99% of the world's Asian and Latina women will never participate in the industry. I grew tired of flipping through those pages in vain search of someone with my height, shape or coloring. Once, passing through Ohio, I saw a church bulletin board on which was written, "God doesn't believe in atheists." To which I could add, "Fashion magazines do not believe in Asian women." After a while, I started to feel entirely invisible.

Miller says the many African American women don't look outside the race because they're afraid of rejection. I know I am. And I also know that I'll get over this attitude. Leopards can't change their spots, I can't go from believing one thing (that people are similar) to another (people are fundamentally different based on their background.)

In the Bhagavad Gita, the battlefield revelations of Lord Krishna to the archer Arjuna, God identifies many ways in which men and women should be matched to each other. He says they should share their sense of dharma, a word that encompasses everything from service to others to physical health. In the Upanishads it is written, "Your soul is the whole world." Your soul, not your body.

When the Inupiat people of Barrow, Alaska, go out on a whale hunt, they don't ask God for success. They ask for strength for whatever lies ahead. When Arjuna went out to fight the Pandavas, he didn't ask to win. He asked only for justice, whatever that might be.

If all this amounts to, stems from, or relates to a crisis of faith, I want to adopt the attitude of the Inupiat. Unlike my cousin, who is marrying a nice boy of her own community chosen by her family at the age deemed most appropriate for marriage, I don't ask for success, and I don't want my life to be easy.

I only want greater wisdom to understand it, and greater courage (because I'm not proud of the attitude I've adopted here) for when it is not.

87.

2007-12-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

I. Corn

It seems as if, nowadays, you can't throw a stick without hitting someone who believes that nonrenewable resource use is going to end the world, possibly in the next few years. I did a paper on this recently, looking at ethanol - which seems to be the Bush administration's answer to the problem, in as much as they have an answer - and using various stats available online and math familiar to fifth graders everywhere found that there's just no possible way there is enough corn on earth for this to make sense.

Which does make me wonder: am I the only one who feels like there are so many fucking elephants in the room as far as the ethanol debate is concerned? Is replacing one ridiculously subsidized resource with another really the solution to this problem? Does anyone else care besides deadbeat economists?

II. Perverts

I know people who are addicted to Facebook, Match.com and MySpace, but I can't get enough of Craiglist.

Every time I go on there I get sucked into hours-long searches that take me, if not closer to a well-paying job, closer to the bizarre heart of humankind. Or so it seems.

I'll usually start out in Writing, go into Talent, hunt through Furniture, and wind up in Personals. Today, I was browsing through Miscellaneous Romance (more miscellaneous than romance) and I realized something: contrary to Hallmark cards the world over, we are not all looking for the same thing. Not even close.

Dispatches from Another Planet

2007-11-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

So, according to a scientific study mentioned on my favorite blog, men act less intelligently around blondes. This is yawn yawn yawn, and reminds me of the time a bunch of "researchers" (ie, the cast of Superbad) came out with the findings that women prefer to have sex with men who have large muscles.

Whatever that means for the human race. Perhaps our children - and I say "our" in the loosest sense possible since my genes obviously won't make it - will all be platinum-tressed bodybuilders. Or, the world according to Sweden.

The interesting part of this study comes in the comments, where one reader reveals that as a social science experiment she once dyed her hair blonde and strapped on a pair of massive fake tits in order to go a party. Her "new look" flabbergasted her male friends (probably would've done the same thing to me, honestly). Apparently,

"Some of the guys I knew seemed to be convincing themselves they had somehow simply managed to forget until now that I had double G breasts. That is, after I got them to look at my face and see it was me. Others saw it was me and relaxed, but I think those guys got laid more often."

Ah. So that's how you cure your boyfriend of ogling other women on the street.

The experimenter's ultimate conclusion is that "Women with tits and blonde hair walk on a very different planet."

This may be true, but - and I'm trying my damnedest to be fair about this - is it a planet populated by people they really want to meet? Back when I was a barista, I worked at a Cafe with some incredibly gorgeous women. Incredibly. One, in particular, was so beautiful that it hurt my eyes to look at her.

She was always fending off men's advances, but the sort of men that no sane woman would ever want hitting on her. Not just horny UPS guys, taxicab drivers, bartenders, waiters, etc, but bosses and co-workers and 5o-year-old divorcees with three children and six ex-wives. Arab sheikhs, professional athletes, you get my drift. Once in a while, I was jealous of the fact that she could blink her eyes and some other guy would pop up to take the place of the last one. But most of the time, I realized what an incredibly mixed blessing it was.

Even if I were so lovely, I would not be more happy, or more loved. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Not because I am so happy now, or so loved, but because people are themselves. It's just a fundamental truth. There are no guarantees.

After the Lives of Others

2007-11-17T17:23:00.001-08:00

So the final scene in "The Lives of Others" (a beautiful movie one should never watch alone) takes place around 1993, four years after the Berlin Wall came down and three years after German reunification finished.

It's a picture of an interesting moment in history: the complicated one in which Communism for once and for all became a thing of the past. (With the notable exception of China, which grows less communist with every passing year.) But I think it also marks another moment in history.

1993 was four years before "My Best Friend's Wedding," the movie that planted Julia Roberts in the American consciousness. Roberts was the first big movie star of my time. She was the first person whose intrigues and affairs were noteworthy enough to warrant around-the-clock paparazzi attention.

It was four years before said paparazzi allegedly chased Princess Diana to her death.

It was five years before Google, six years before Blogger, and twelve years before YouTube.

In the final scene of "The Lives of Others," a prominent East German author discovers, while researching his own files in the newly-opened state archives, that a sympathetic Stasi officer monitored his house in the years before the Wall fell. Because of the officer's subtle interventions, no one ever learned of the author's subversive activities.

When he realizes that he owes his life and livelihood to a man he has never seen, the author chases down the former Stasi officer, who is now a mailman. But at the last minute, the author can't bring himself to jump out of the car and ask, "why did you do this for me?" As the audience, we never know it either. Instead, the author dedicates his next book to the officer by his Stasi code name, and the officer sees it, and feels thanked.

To someone who hasn't seen the film, my next point might not make sense. But I also think "The Lives of Others" marks one of the last times when the inevitable conclusion to this story would not have been that Oprah read the book and made it part of her book circle, leading Good Morning America to exile its harem of overworked, unpaid interns to the vast Stasi archive, where one of them uncovered the officer's real identity, which led producers to broadcast a special segment on him, therefore ending his anonymity. The public's appetite for the story meant both the author and the officer got booked as special guests on a marathon episode of 60 Minutes that was later excerpted onto YouTube and in which the two bantered back-and-forth about why they did it, how they did it, and whether anyone currently running in the presidential election would have done it. The officer got a multi-million dollar advance for his tell-all novel "Behind Closed Doors: My Life as a Police Subversive" and gained recognition as a blogger and motivational speaker who raked in speakers' fees only a notch below Bill Clinton's.

In other words: the last moment in which the lives of others could still be secret, mysterious and inexplicable.

"I Know It When I See It"

2007-11-14T20:39:00.000-08:00

Am I the only person confused by the Tom Ford ads that caused the big pornography stir recently? (Click "enter" at the screen that says "Sexually Explicit Images." And don't pretend this is your first time.)

People say that Ford's ads ripped off YSL's M7 ads. My first thought when I saw the YSL ad was, wow, that must be from the European editions.

After watching Ford's photo montage a few too many times, I've decided it needs a marketing blurb to run beneath, because otherwise it makes no sense. In honor of the fact that the original ad is a form of theft, I've ripped off other, more talented copywriters to humbly suggest these one-liners from the past :

Option 1. Tom Ford for Men. Good to the last drop.

Option 2. Tom Ford. It's everywhere you want to be.

Option 3. It takes a tough man to wear a tender fragrance.

Option 4. Does she...or doesn't she? (In reference to my outstanding question: does that woman actually have sexual organs?)

It is interesting - although not really worthy of note - that when the Ford ads came out, some people were very concerned that they were derogatory towards women. But no matter how many scent-mongers Photoshop perfume bottles over naked men, no one will ever ask the same question. Why is that? Do men have rights? Do I care?

Dangerous keys

2007-11-11T20:37:00.000-08:00

The Internet is a great place. It's where I spend most of my time.

So it's no surprise that I found the Shakespeare Quote Generator. In an effort to put off my upcoming exams (and to celebrate the fact that I miraculously solved a price discrimination problem involving not one, not two, but multiple derivatives) I decided to spend some time fiddling with the Bard.

The gist is this: the page substitutes your word or phrase into classical Shakespeare. Here, my attempts to apply a long-dead writer to the vexing issues of the day. (Or, a random mashup of news headlines and iambic pentameter.)

Which yields:"

"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever. One foot in Craig's bathroom stall and one on shore, to one thing constant never."

"How now, you secret, black and midnight Osama in Waziristan!"

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have thankless Iranian nukes!"

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind as a Cowboys Super Bowl bid."

"Falling US Dollar, Falling US Dollar! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say falling US dollar till it be morrow."

"To be or not to be: that is Senator Vitter's small penis."

I can't really end on a more positive note than that.

Awkward

2007-10-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

So I'm taking one of those well-meaning but bone-headed surveys about interactions with people of different religious and cultural groups. Midway through, I get this star: "I often give positive responses to my culturally different counterpart during our interaction."

Shortly thereafter, this one: "I have a feeling of enjoyment toward differences between my culturally distinct counterpart and me."

I'm supposed to rate whether or not I agree or disagree with these statements. Dear God. The questions sound like they were written by a fourth-grader doing a vocab assignment. The survey-makers couldn't come up with a more honest and authentic way to ask about relationships across cultural groups?

Also, does anyone else find these surveys to be utterly bogus? First off, I have friends whom I know are uncomfortable discussing issues of culture and race with people from "different backgrounds." I know, because they squirm on the rare occasion that I talk about it (and I do mean, rare). But I guarantee that these kids aren't going to write "I do not have a feeling of enjoyment" on that last statement.

At heart, people befriend other people with whom they feel they have something in common. If this survey wants to get at the heart of the matter, they need to ask questions like: "of my close friends, I feel a majority are the same race as me." Ask the same thing about religion and culture, see what comes up.

They'll find that people hang out with others who share their background and interests, for the most part. The question isn't whether we avoid people of other backgrounds - although many do - but how comfortable people are, within those similar networks, talking about their small but obvious differences.

I can walk down the street with a good (white) friend of mine from high school, and we can both know that we're not the same race, but neither of us is comfortable talking about it. Why is that? Aren't we friends? As time goes by, I'm a lot less uncomfortable talking about these things, but I'm constantly surprised by how rarely other people (particularly white people) are comfortable talking about it.

Just the other day I bonded with a bank teller over the fact that she was Mexican and I was Indian. We talked for at least half an hour about our families, where they lived ,what our food was like, etc. And this isn't a unique experience: all of my friends who are black, Hispanic, and Asian ask, "so, where's your family from?" and they want to know the answer. They want to talk about it, they want to hear about it. It saddens me - I can't pretend it doesn't - that none of my white friends ever ask me this. And on the rare occasions that I bring it up, many of them shut the conversation down. (Not all, but many do. And I wonder why. I honestly want to know why.) My interactions with these white friends, many of whom are very close, are limited to superficial observations like, "Well, you must love spicy food" or "so, your parents planning to marry you off?" Which, while amusing, is hardly the stuff friends are made of.

For example, I read the Gita almost every night. Its teachings have had a huge impact on how I live my life. But no one has ever asked me about my religious background. Keep in mind that I have talked with Christian friends about their church services, up to and including quoting from the Bible and attending Christian services, and not once has anyone expressed interest in being accorded that honor on my end.

But then, in general it's surprising to me how eager people are to talk about themselves ad nauseum without ever returning the favor.

What I loved more than anything about my roommates in New York was how freely we shared our differences. We had this colossal thing in common - we were young Northwestern magazine students studying in NYC - and everything else seemed trivial. That between us we were a Catholic, a Protestant, two Hindus and a Muslim (almost sounds like a joke!), or Asian, black, Indian and Pakistani - these things paled. The fact that in a single quarter I could pray in Arabic, attend Bible study, discuss conversion to Catholicism, talk about my own background - without feeling ashamed or like I was infringing on someone else's time - it was a small miracle.

Of my four best friends from home, we are a Muslim, a Catholic, a Hindu and a Jew. But the strange thing is that I didn't realize this until I went to college. I didn't realize that it was rare. At the same time, I regret that we didn't take more advantage of those differences. I wish we had talked about it with each other more than we did. As we get older, we have all moved deeper into those cultural identities. My Muslim friend is spending the year in Syria studying Arabic, my Jewish friend spent her summer studying Jewish history and practice all across Europe and working at a Jewish history museum, I myself am reading the Gita and taking Hindi and plan to work in India when I graduate.

I hope, as we get older, that these things continue to enrich us. As people who have a lot in common. And the fact that we have strong ties to our separate communities - that's a commonality as well.

Ultimately, they're my friends, and we still have a lot in common. We have a shared history.

Adventures in the Harry S. Butt Auditorium

2007-10-23T21:43:00.000-07:00

So I used to be a dancer. And I often performed (with friends!) at the local community college theater. Needless to say, the first time my dance teacher told me to report to the Harry S. Butt Auditorium, I thought it was some kind of practical joke.

It was not. Over the years, I got so used to it that I'd casually drop the name while telling other friends where to catch my latest show. Led to conversations like:
Me: So, I'm in a show this weekend.
Friend: Cool, where's it at? I might come.
Me: MC. The Harry S. Butt Auditorium.
Friend: (awkward pause)
Me: What?

For years, I thought Harry was the unexpected tenth child in a very Catholic family, or the result of 72 hours of excruciating labor, or the child of a crack addict. Anything that would warrant inflicting punishment like that on a child. But a friend of mine suggested a far more likely scenario: perhaps Harry really was a joke.

She asked me: If, in years to come, you made millions of dollars and lost all touch with reality, wouldn't you consider donating money for an auditorium at your local community college?
Me: Sure.
Her: And wouldn't you, out of perversity and meanness, be tempted to call it the Crystal Chanda Lear Auditorium, or the Uranus Auditorium, or even the Harry S. Butt Auditorium?
Me: Theoretically, won't I be more mature by then?
Her: (awkward pause) Even so.

So perhaps there is no Harry S. Butt. Perhaps he's the vindictive dream of a wealthy madman with a penchant for potty humor. Strangely, I don't know which is worse: a world in which this kind of man exists, or a world in which parents would inflict such a name on an innocent child.

Men and their Money

2007-10-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

So as I was browsing through the endless archive of trash that is CW programming (and remember this is the network that dishes out our weekly dose of Top Model, that pioneered Girlfriends and continues to perpetrate Gossip Girl) I came across a snotty little segment on Gossip Girls fashion. Remember that this show is the later brainchild of the OC masterminds. Whatever that says for it.

Well, Gossip Girls - the series - targets an audience of middle school, high school and young college-age women. The characters - high schoolers - love fashion. They have the bohemian joie de vivre of people with trust funds and too many magazine subscriptions. In the segment above, a well-meaning stylist instructs average girls on how to copy the sexy styles onscreen, complete with a well-orchestrated nod to Victoria's Secret.

I recently read another article in the WSJ that mentioned that young women were less likely than young men to have significant stock market investments, or even to save at all.
They can work for twenty years and have nothing to show for it. Which is ironic, because young women now surpass men as wage earners in many urban markets. (Although not nationally...)

The point is, when a 15-year-old girl drops $60 of Daddy's plastic on this (the bra you can wear 100 ways, none of which would be 'under clothes') is anyone surprised that she's terminally broke ten years down the road?

Not to say I haven't hit up that sale section a few too many times. But then, I've been through the fire.

Working Hard for the Man

2007-10-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

So the other day I'm in the airport and I see a copy of the #1 New York Times bestseller "Eat, Pray, Love." And I think, well, everyone likes this, it must be good! So I buy it, and start to read.

Well. The author finds "God" in Chapter Two, and considering as the memoir's subtitle is "One Woman's Search for Everything" it's almost sad that she hits the major plot point by the 10,000 word mark. But why doesn't she end it there? Good question. In search of the answer, I struggled on through another 10,000 words, until I couldn't tell whether my headache was airplane nausea or sympathetic nausea. My thoughts varied: they ranged from 'why would anyone read this' to 'why does this person have any friends?' Because I can honestly say that in all my years of reading magazines, memoirs, novels, etc, I have never come across a book where the author seemed like such a boring, self-absorbed, faux-inspired narcissist that I actually had to put it down.

And yet that happened. Keep in mind that I slogged through all of Tale of Two Cities and almost all of Lady Chatterley's Lover. As well as Wonkette. And then I thought: perhaps she had a different audience in mind. You know, another demographic. Maybe she was writing to an audience.

Maybe, when she "realized" that she didn't want to be married anymore, what she meant was that she was experiencing genuine feelings of pain and loss. Not that any of this came across in words, per se. Oh, and there was that affair.

But whatever. Far be it from me to judge.

Then I came across this article, written by the same author several years prior. I immediately recognized the smug, self-absorbed tone, the faux-inspiration, the Yoga Lite approach to eternity. And then I thought: wow, this isn't an act. This is what she is actually like. Both of these pieces contain a self-satisfied edge of "this is hard, but wouldn't it be harder if I weren't very attractive, white and upper-class? Eat your hearts out at my flame-breathing, man-baiting, home-wrecking style, bitches!"

But maybe I'm just getting too worked up.

Flimsy Pretext

2007-10-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

So...in my defense...I only found this because I was following a link on a blog that I read. Of course, once I found it, I couldn't look away (it's for charity! And gay rights!) Somehow, knowing gay men as I do (not that I do, but I can imagine) charity seems like a flimsy, flimsy pretext for ogling half-naked dudes. But then, God is a flimsy pretext for donating to church (when you get right down to it) so let's say faith. What would life be without faith in things unseen? Staring at these men, I had great faith in their cause, even though I couldn't technically see it. I also had faith in what I could see, which by the way wasn't much when compared to, say, this.

And, as Sir Winston Churchill would say, if you can't save the world doing what you love, why the fuck would you bother saving it at all? (And then he'd light one cigar off the end of the previous and resume reading "The Hard, Manly Thrust of the Axe into the Soft Cavern of the Surrendering Colonies" - just one selection from his Nobel winning ouevre - to a roomful of naked 15-year-old girls.)

So, now that I've made a feeble charge towards the high ground, let me shoutout to Texas, where fundraising drives still look like this, which might explain why homosexuality has more appeal than Southern Living, except in the conflicted hearts of men like Larry Craig, where the two are just about even.

But returning to the parenthetical subject of naked 15-year-old girls ("I swear, Your Honor, I had no idea the SafeSearch was off"). When I was 15, I did not waltz around mailing naked photos of myself to rock stars. I once sent a fan letter to an actor whom I shall never name, and rest assured that should I ever be famous (unlikely) I will be motivated to change my name strictly on the possibility that that letter might still be lying around somewhere.

Vanessa Hudgens, on the other hand, seems to have gone shutter-happy in the nude, which confirms my suspicion that there was something off about her. She has sneaky eyes.

And on the other hand, aren't our kids tech-savvy nowadays?

Guys and Dolls

2007-08-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

I watch movies, so I've come across a new type of film that, by virtue of being prolific, deserves its own genre. For lack of anything better, I'll call it the dick flick.

A dick flick is the dude’s companion to a chick flick. The hero is some stammering, video-game-playing, public-restroom-masturbating schlob (Jack Black, Vince Vaughn, more recently Jonah Hill). These antiheroes have one thing in common: they’re in love with a girl. She’s incredibly hot, incredibly sweet, occasionally smart – and she doesn’t give a damn about him. Whereas he has her home address programmed in Google Earth, she doesn’t even know they go to the same high school.

Also: the mere presence of the girl reduces the hero to an inarticulate, rambling freak who accidentally says “suck my cock” when what he really wants to say is “you’re the most beautiful girl in the world and I want to lovingly insert my penis into your mouth.” Ok.

The movie begins. Schlob is hanging out with his friends, whom we’ll call C++, Han Solo, and BJ, each named for his favorite conversational subject. They’re talking about how they all got pants-ed in elementary school, and their assailants are all guys who now play lacrosse/football/beer pong with women far more attractive than Schlob and Co. will ever talk to. Boohoo. Well, along comes the girl. We’ll call her Hot, because that’s all we ever know about her.

“Hey Hot,” says Schlob helplessly, “maybe we can hang out some time and do our homework together.” She glances at him. Encouraged, he blurts out, “Penis.” Oops. Anyway, Hot moves on. The Company all take a moment to appreciate Hot’s…well…Hotness. “If she were an equation, she’d be perfectly balanced on both sides,” says C++. “If she were a lightsaber, she’d be green,” says Han Solo, inexplicably. “I whacked it to her facebook picture last week!” shouts BJ, triumphantly. “You guys, we’re such losers, and girls will never want us,” says Schlob. The audience, uncomfortably relating to their plight, can’t help but agree.

Fast forward 1.5 hours. By this point, Schlob has done all kinds of things to get Hot’s attention. They include: buying her alcohol, cracking jokes, babysitting her little sister so she can have sex with her lacrosse player boyfriend, etc. His ventures have fallen hilariously flat – witness the time he tried to get her drunk but ended up puking on her himself, the time he tried to send her flowers online but accidentally sent her a year’s worth of porn, the time he told her “I'd rate you so much higher than any girl who’s ever been in Playboy. I mean it. It’s all in the face for me.” Hot thinks that he’s an uncultured buffoon, although she probably doesn’t use those words in her head.

By the end of the film, however, God seems to have realized that he’s dealt Schlob a raw deal, and makes up for it by having Hot love/date/blow him, depending on the film’s rating and intended audience.

I just saw Superbad, one of those films. And while I laughed my ass off, I also feel like this storyline is a little played out. I mean, here’s how Seth (Schlob) “gets” Jules (Hot). He mimes jerking off all over her, asks her to scratch his cock, tries to get her drunk because in his opinion she’s too hot for him and won’t blow him while she’s sober, and then he punches her in the face.

In Will Smith’s Hitch, we laugh at the subplot where Kevin James falls in love with gorgeous heiress Amber Valletta. What does he see in her? Her incredible hotness. What does she see in him? A talentless slob. However, by the end of the film he charms her tiny leopard-print pants off. Despite the coy sweetness of the ending, I was left asking, wait, this movie is so awesome because Amber falls for his dorky cute-on-the-inside moves whereas all he cares about is her ass?

There are more mature variations. Witness Jack Black using his “original” (read: canned) sense of humor to win Kate Winslet’s heart in The Holiday.

Is there a cult of girl dorkiness? Can you imagine a movie in which Kelly Osbourne, despite her lack of ambition or talent, spends 2 hours cracking jokes about Pi only to get head from Jason Lewis in the end?

I guess there’s always Bridget Jones. If for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, then for every Matthew McConaughey lookalike who runs after a departing plane shouting “the thing is, Loralei, I can’t live without you because you make me a better man” there’s a Schlob who vomits into Jessica Alba’s lap but still gets love.

The dick flick. It’s a little emo, it’s a little ‘revenge of the geek’ but really it's about a flawed person with flawed standards shouting at their beloved's departing back, "Why don't you take me as I am? Believe me, you're getting an incredible deal..."

Is this a public service announcement?

2007-08-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

According to official documents, Congressional pages spend their junior year of high school ferrying messages back and forth for members of Congress. They make the eyepopping (for a high schooler) wage of 18-20k a year. They have their own school and dorm! What could go wrong with this arrangement? It sounds even cooler than Hogwarts!

Sadly, the age of page innocence has come to an end. Sen. Larry Craig, recently arrested for doing a gay tap dance next to a police officer in Minneapolis Airport (not exactly sure what said gay tap dance entailed, the officer said that Craig tapped his feet on the bathroom floor in a way that suggested the Senator wanted sex. Again, not exactly sure how you communicate a message like that by foot-tapping. Perhaps Morse Code? Maybe ask Craig's wife if this is common foreplay for him?) Anyway, Craig is also famous for a big scandal back in 1982, when he - this is just so awful - got several Congressional pages drunk and tapped a real long message (if you get my meaning, dot-dash-dot) on their helpless schoolboy asses.

And then there's the now-defunct Rep. Mark Foley, who used the Internet (that bastion of sodomy) to have cybersex with former male pages.

So all in all, it seems "messenger" is no longer a Congressional page's only duty. Little Republican boys beware.

Gwen Stefani makes an effort, makes the news?

2007-08-22T20:45:00.001-07:00

So I always thought Malaysia was one of those free-love tropical paradise-type nations (even after a quarter of intensive Southeast Asian history, even after learning what utter crackpot dictators they've been under, etc.) So of course, I was surprised to hear that Gwen Stefani was performing there, and that, in order to prepare for her arrival, the nation instituted a new dress code.

Any female performer must be covered from her shoulders to her knees while performing. Obviously, this puts a kink in Stefani's plans, because the biggest part of any Gwen performance is not the music but the nudity. Apparently adapting to the Malaysian dress code required "a major sacrifice" on Gwen's part. Seriously? Major sacrifice? To put on a pair of pants?

Personally, I don't think of Gwen Stefani as the single-handed destroyer of Malaysian purity that this article paints her to be. (cf. The political authorities "blamed her for promoting promiscuity and corrupting the nation's youth.")

Don't get me wrong, I think free love is great. I think if you can't get it for free, you might as well pay for it. (You might as well - but I'll still judge you for it.) So I have no love in my heart for the Bible-thumping, burka-pushing, female-infant-killing protectors of women's virtue who ply the nasty religious backwaters.

Nonetheless, every time an item like this surfaces, the author of the article relies on some stock assumption that the more conservative culture comprises female-empowerment-hating fuddy-duddies who still haven't cottoned on to "moving pictures" and live lives of miserable sexual repression.

I know, I know. I'm talking about an article in People magazine. But the same article appears in multiple respected newspapers, with everyone making the grand point that Gwen Stefani, poor thing, is some great Western cultural scapegoat who has to take the heat for our enlightened ways.

I take offense. First off, why is it empowering for a female artist's bare ass to be part of her "image"? Why is Gwen's midriff okay but Britney's bare crotch or Janet's naked tit a no-no? Talk about a culture that gives with one hand but takes away with the other. Second, why do people who dress modestly automatically have crappy sex lives? If Adriana Lima can be a virgin (not saying I believe that or not) then why can't a girl in a headscarf be a freak between the sheets if she wants? Okay, maybe between the sheets of her marriage bed, I get it, but so what? Thirdly, how long can Gwen Stefani dress like she does (or any girl pop star, for that matter) and claim that somehow she doesn't represent promiscuity, that the bad-girl sexual allure of her outfits is part of her routine, and indeed her appeal derives partly from her attracting our feelings of a) lust and b) rebellion.

Don't blame the Malaysians for seeing with their eyes. Gwen Stefani is a cultural ambassador, she makes millions as such, and she's definitely encouraging promiscuity. Maybe not in words, but she's putting the image of it in their faces. Do they have to love it? No. Should they try to ban it? Frankly, I think they're exacerbating the problem. Also, I think they're disrespecting her style. But her style is a function of her background, just like the Malaysians is. Just like we prefer our pop stars in pearl bikinis, Malaysians prefer theirs in full-length leotards.

No getting around that fact. No getting around the fact that that's why Gwen came under fire. And no getting around the fact that it was entirely fair that she come under it. Because ultimately she's the one who chooses her clothes, not the other way around, and because she does represent the United States. And the other way around.

Asians: Not Getting Our Skank On?

2007-08-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

I swear, if I see one more study about American teenage life that compares “whites” and “minorities” and defines “whites” as whites but “minorities” as black-and-Hispanic, I will throw up all over myself.

I still remember having detention once with the bizarre and entertaining Ms. Bryant and talking about race. She said, “it’s hard being black,” I said, “you sure about that? Because so far it’s all right being Indian.” And she gave me this look like I was from another planet. As if only someone from another planet would compare the black and Indian experience alongside each other. “You’re not part of a minority that enjoys a lot of negative stereotypes.”

Actually, there are plenty of negative stereotypes about Indians, just visit England, the land where Winston Churchill once referred to Gandhi as “a dirty little man in a loincloth” and yet still counts as a national hero. Fuck you too, Churchill. However, this is America, so we’re all in the “Fuck Churchill” boat together.

Nonetheless, Ms. Bryant had a valid point. I was hanging out in college with a bunch of kids once. And we were chilling and talking about race (by the way, I chill and talk about race all the time with nonwhite friends. In case anyone’s wondering) And one of the kids made a comment about how a lot of kids who were white just didn’t get it sometimes, and one of the others said, “Chill out, there aren’t any white people here – just an Italian and an Indian.” Guess which one I was (there were about twenty of us hanging around). The point is, sure, these folks didn’t consider me white, but it’s not like I was in the great big black-and-Hispanic boat either. It’s not even like there is such a boat, as anyone who hangs out in Chicago’s gang-controlled neighborhoods can probably tell you (I haven’t, so I can’t tell you.)

My point is personal. I want to see separate stats for “non-white, non-black, non-Hispanic” populations because I think those stats would be very different. And let me present a case study, where I contrast my experiences with those of that arbiter of teenage behavior, the CDC. The CDC recently released a “landmark” report about teen sex and drug use. Although in general I think people who use the phrase “teen sex and drug use” are not teenagers (since the most common teen term for “sex and drug use” is “party”) I also think they erred by presenting the entire population as a breakdown of “black, Hispanic and white.” In other words, the CDC simply ignored everyone else.

Which is fine, except that I think the behavior of Asian Americans is different from that of several other ethnic groups. At the risk of playing to type, while the average kid may define “party” as “teen sex and drug use,” most of the Asian kids I know (I’m kinda including myself in this sample) spent their formative years with a very different definition. It probably involved textbooks.

I know. How sad. But the thing is, the culture is so overwhelmingly different. We’re talking arranged marriage different. We’re talking when I was twelve, my aunt sat me down on the couch after a NickKids video and said, “These films you see, they show all these kids holding hands and things like that before marriage. Indian girls don’t do that.” My cousin’s parents told her she couldn’t date until her junior and senior year of college, and then too only guys she was interested in marrying. (This was a bad parenting strategy for several reasons I probably don’t need to explain to anyone who remembers being a teenager.) I have dozens of these stories I can tell you. I remember talking to a friend I met in college who’d been dating the same guy since she was twelve, and my first thought wasn’t, “Wow, you could be getting so much more variety out of your young years” it was “Wait, how do your parents feel about this?” And on that note, I’m going to stop sharing stories.

Anyway, my point. I suspect – in fact, I am pretty much positive – that the sex stats, like many other stats, would be different. Remember that condom manufacturer who couldn’t turn a profit in China because unmarried people weren’t having enough sex? That’s what I’m talking about. That is no accident.

So on to the second part of my argument. Which is: why do expanded, more inclusive studies matter? I’m not sure they do. Perhaps Asians don’t get that much action because, as Jezebel kindly suggested, they’re spending too much time with World of Warcraft and not enough with Jim Beam. This is the saddest but most likely cause.

However, as this other study suggests, maybe there is another reason. A reason rooted in biology and environment, a reason related both to culture and to varying development of sexual maturity.

A reason not related (let me establish this for the record, and contravene Walling’s study) to the absence of attractive Asian men, or the un-impressiveness of their “swords” as the green swordtails would put it.

(Although we here are big believers in Walling’s theory. Definite believers. In fact, we have spent long, painful afternoons believing in Walling’s theory long before we knew who the hell Walling was. But I’m not going to tell any more personal stories.)

Poor Moves

2007-08-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

So the first time I heard Maroon 5's This Love (incidentally, not sung by the band), I thought the lyrics were...well, inappropriate. Also a little ungenerous, considering that the singer seems to be complaining about how demanding his girlfriend is in bed. But what do I know about it? Nothing!

Then along came Kiwi. After I first heard it, my friend turned to me and asked, "Was that about..." The answer, I later discovered, was yes. It was about. That. But also, in a way, kinda hot, especially since most oral sex songs since Leonard Cohen tend to focus on, well, not the girl. "Here's a guy who wants to go down on you!" says Kiwi. "How great!" (There are some songs by women MCs but let's be honest, those raps sound like something you'd hear from the Head Warden in prison when she catches you stealing cigarettes out of her back pocket.)

Anyway, my point is, TMI has always been Maroon 5's style and it was ok, because they were kinda dorky and energetic and overall good for you, like musical vitamins. But now here's Adam Levine (and let's be honest, he was always a little too into those girls in the videos considering as they were paid models) complaining about Maria Sharapova's sexual habits. No offense, but it's not so endearing when the names haven't been changed and he's clearly nursing a grudge over the breakup.

I feel as if - and I may be wrong - guys often worry whether girls are discussing their sexual behavior behind their back. And although we do, it's usually in a complimentary or advice-seeking way. Bitching about your ex's lack of talent, in any department, may be a part of breaking up, but I always thought it was in really bad taste. Especially when you live in the public eye. Also, it's a poor strategy if he ever wants to have a girlfriend again. I won't suggest, although Jezebel does, that Maria's lack of enthusiasm had anything to do with Levine's lousiness as a lover. He may be awful, he may be great, what's more likely is that they were just a poor combination.

But also, Maria's only 19 years old!! Maybe she's no porn-stunt-performing Paris Hilton, but what does he expect from someone who's only been above the age of legal consent for 3 years??? He's 27, which means he's been disappointing groupies and girlfriends for a decade, and he has the balls to insult some young girl? In the newspaper?

It takes some shine off Kiwi, that's for sure.

Stocking stuffer?

2007-08-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

So here’s an exciting Christmas gift tip for all those people who shop obscenely early! Sadly, I don’t celebrate Christmas, or I would definitely have the iPod vibrator on my list. And by “on my list” I mean it would be the only thing on the list. Haha.

I don’t see how this vibrator – or any vibrator – is particularly empowering, unless the thought of getting off to your “recently played” list is empowering (and it isn’t, to me, since most of my recently played list consists of gym songs like Kylie Minogue’s “Fever.” Eek.)

And now, a look at what is on my iPod…Beach Song?

Woke up this morning it was 1969 and I was tangled up
like Christmas lights around an old girlfriend of mine
We'd watch the east bring up the dawn, race west and drink
our kisses as the sun sank down to drown within the sea.

Seasons came and seasons went, love got made and love got meant
Wake up late to pass out spent, play all day and pay the rent
And things were finally starting to make sense, the world was ours to save
And every day it seemed like it could last forever”

Except for that part about you’re pretty good but you’re not great…that’s no good.

Before He Cheats?

Right now he's probably slow dancing with a beach blond tramp,
and she's probably getting frisky...
right now, he's probably buying her some fruity little drink cause she can't shoot whiskey…

Hmm, this song kinda gets to the heart of why anyone would be using a vibrator in the first place, which is to say, again, a strike.

There’s 50 Cent getting his jealous groove on in Best Friend, assuming you want 50’s voice in your ear ever…

Maybe Don’t Stop? Who can say it better than the Brazilian Girls, don’t stop, don’t stop, just keep on going until I…yeah, well.

Endless Summer Nights? And I remember how you loved me, time was all we had…I remember every moment of those endless summer nights…which is also sort of depressing, actually.

ESPN Radio? Why the hell do I have this podcast?

The Jailbait Game

2007-08-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

So, how old is this girl? If you can't tell, look at her again, here. If you still can't tell, you're not alone. If you got a little...umm...distracted...by her hotness, you're gearing up for a career in the clink, as she's a mere 15.

Which makes her yet another exhibit in the "I can't believe it's not legal!" gallery of fashion models. The most famous models in the world are probably those Victoria's Secret girls, who manage to look both vapid and mysterious at the same time, and also signify the tense relationship between celebrity and product, between endorser and endorsee. Most are Brazilian, which means they're at once Brazil's most famous citizens and its most profitable export. In a sense, they are the product, which is good, because most of them are probably too old to get work as actual models anymore.

I'm not trying to be mean, I swear! My point is, the modeling industry is a little crappy, but I normally wouldn't care - except in the case of 13-year-olds passing themselves off as sexually mature adult women. It kind of blurs the distinction for most of us as to what an adult woman actually looks like, and tacitly promotes barely-pubescent teenagers as a sexual ideal. (And for all the dudes out there who say they can't help what they're attracted to, the New York Times would like a word.) I don't know if models were always so young, but I wasn't always alive to comment on it, so again, I don't care.

The moral is: at the risk of whining, it does seem like a symptom of serious malaise that the "hottest women in the world" (isn't that what models are supposed to be, eh?) are not, in most nations on earth, above the age of legal consent.

That time of the...life

2007-08-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

So the crazy-sexy bloggers over at Jezebel got kinda pissy about this study, which shows that all women feel bad about their bodies after viewing advertisements featuring models. "Wake up!" they said to the women leading fashion magazines. "Doesn't this study prove that you're doing the wrong thing?"

Au contraire, femmes. The study proves that these ads are doing the right thing! Click over to this absurdly hot Guess ad. Will I ever look so glowy and skinny and full of hipbones wandering around in no shirt on a tropical island surrounded by glowy, skinny men with removable tattoos?
(That may have been a gratuitous number of links...) AH...no. Will I ever look this artfully disheveled and nakedly happy? Ah...probably not. Will I live out my dumpy, unadorned life far from the happiest place on Earth? AH...maybe.

But will I ever purchase a pair of Guess Jeans, which for the modest price of $170 will let me believe, in my own fantasy life, that I am not this but this? Really, nearly $200 is not that much to ask. It's almost nothing!

The point of these ads is to make people feel bad and, to compensate, purchase whatever the undernourished Estonian 15-year-old in the ad is schilling for at the moment. Do I feel bad? Sometimes. But that is the point. And, in the case of all those ads featuring people making out, I also feel, well...never mind.

Let's just say I might be taking my lunch break in the bathroom today. (Which kinds leads to my other, more important, question - does anyone else think Guess ads are a little like porn? I guess it makes sense, because of course sex sells, because it's the one thing we all want...ok. Really. Time for a break.)

---

Oh, and, Maryland is great! I can honestly say that I had the best sex education of anyone I know, and that the teacher never shied away from awkward questions (Condoms? Great. Gay sex? No problem. "Can a woman get sick from swallowing too much semen..." Uh...yeah, thanks for that charming memory, 13-year-old boy in sex ed class.)

The Carne Conundrum

2007-08-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

A humorous excerpt from America’s tax code:

“It is important to emphasize that IRS estimates of the tax gap are associated with the legal sector of the economy only. Although tax is due on income from whatever source derived, legal or illegal, the tax attributable to income earned from illegal activities is extremely difficult to estimate. Moreover, the government’s interest in pursuing this type of noncompliance is, ultimately, to stop the illegal activity, not to tax it.”

I realize, in putting this up, that I’m losing my mind. First, I thought a section of the tax code was funny. Then, I admitted it. Which reminds of the time I told a roomful of people that my first crush was Peter Jennings. They laughed, but in the way of people who have just realized I might be truly ill. The laugh of denial.

But I have no dignity. Which brings me to my main point: women who have no dignity. Apparently, according to the New York Times, women have now resorted to eating steak in order to lure men into marriage.

The article tells the story of a diehard vegetarian, a skinny woman who once wore a “Meat is Murder” T-shirt. Around the age of 30, depressed that she was socially responsible and yet single, she swallowed her scruples and posted on Match.com that she loved steak. She immediately got asked out. A year of burgers and beef fajitas later, she is engaged. She had her rehearsal dinner in a steakhouse. If she has sons, she plans to name them Chuck and Shank. What if she has girls? Please. Not with all that USDA-approved hormone in her bloodstream.

According to the article, the next red-hot dating tip for women is to start chowing down on burgers. Women who eat beef are unneurotic and don’t have issues with food. They don’t worry about their weight! They’re “guys’ girls,” they play video games, watch sports, shoot Jager, hunt moose and drive sport utility vehicles even though, let’s be honest, the closest they come to ‘sporting utility’ is tossing a basketball in the trunk and forgetting about it! They get misty-eyed over Brian’s Song. And by misty-eyed, I mean, something got in their eyes. That’s all. So shut up, all right?

“Hey guys!” they shout subtly, cutting across the noise and clutter of a crowded bar, “We’re just like you, but with breasts! And vaginas! Best of both worlds, really!”

Ok. I’m done. Clearly, these are not the days when high heels were an excuse to lean on some strong man’s arm. Haha. In fact, why wear high heels at all, except on the off-chance that one encounters a stray bison and needs to stab it and harvest its meat mass?

Now I’m really done.

The reason I’m being so judgmental is because I always secretly admired vegetarians. I believe all those arguments: animals aren’t treated humanely, it’s more sustainable for people to eat veggies now that the population is massive, meat has a lot of fat in it, and it isn’t a primary source of energy.

Considering I’m so thoroughly convinced, why haven’t I converted? Well, let me explain. My parents and grand-parents are all vegetarians. So is my entire extended family (vegetarianism is very common in certain Indian communities). And they’re a royal pain in my ass. I remember once, when I bought lunchmeat to put in a sandwich. My aunt, who was visiting at the time, held out the packet between the tip of her index finger and thumb, like it might bear cooties or some other hideous illness. “Are you going to eat this?” she asked, looking as if she might faint.

Or. When I was four years old, my doctor recommended that I eat an egg everyday. A regular, unfertilized egg. I had to wake up early and do this in secret, because my vegetarian grandmother was living with us. Well, my grandmother came into the kitchen one morning, saw the eggshell on the counter, screeched and refused to eat in our house until the entire kitchen was disinfected.

Or. When my father, who by the way ate meat I saw it happen with my own eyes! converted to vegetarianism and told me he could no longer man the grill at cookouts because he “can’t touch that stuff.”

Or. My other grandmother, who averts her eyes if I ever eat meat because she can’t stand watching me violate my Hindu dharma.

Am I sensitive? Well, I was always a rebellious kid, and my crush on carne only intensified in proportion to everyone else’s aversion to it. So you could say what I really fed on was my delight at pissing my relatives off.

Ignoring any character flaws that admission might reveal, I’ve recently gone one step further. I have all but given up chicken in favor of pork and beef. As a chicken girl, I thought I could regain some of the moral cachet I secretly desired. But the other day, sitting in a substandard Chinese restaurant and savoring the gooey, gummy texture of the no-man’s-meat they referred to as chicken, I thought, “Since when is cardboard the other white meat?”

I finally had to admit it. I love red meat. I can’t resist it. But that doesn’t mean, in a corner of my heart, I’m not a little bit ashamed of myself. That doesn’t mean I don’t keep my feelings hidden. That doesn’t mean, once in a while, I don’t feel like an irresponsible baby animal killer whose veins are filling up with cholesterol.

So you see, when some vegetarian suddenly cops to loving meat simply to get a guy, I feel pretty conflicted. I have a long and contentious personal history of meat-eating. I have heard my relatives condemn it, I have weathered their scorn, I have defended my decisions, I have tried to reform. But in the end, all this did was lead me further down the same damn road.

Try to get a guy with that line, fakers.

2007-08-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

Last year, right after her daughter passed away, Ms. Gesterling came over to our house for coffee. It was strange to see my old math teacher - the one so many kids had chortled about, convinced she was a horseback-riding lesbian - sitting at my breakfast table. The memory of her story, which started out about the funeral but ended up an account of how her daughter fell down dead in the halls of her own high school, is one I can't dwell on. Back then, very few things made me cry, but the things that did managed to do so every time (the choice paragraph from Sophie's Choice, for example). So with that afternoon, a story I've never spoken aloud but which I mentioned in this space.

I was eating lunch alone at the counter today, reading Empire Falls. (I wonder, now, if in years past I ever read books to avoid looking like I was eating by myself...at any rate, these days, it's a choice I don't regret) I didn't notice the man in the all-cream suit until he leaned over and asked, "Do you know how much tuition costs at GW?" I stuttered. I wondered if it was a pick up, but he must have been at least 55.

"Probably about 40,000 a year," I said, although I honestly had no idea. Partly I wanted him to stop talking, partly I was curious. So I kept my book propped open with a finger and paid lazy attention.

"See, my son, he's looking into college here." The man shifted, smiled, looked away and back again. "My wife, you know, she likes this area. She - " he paused. "You know, actually, she passed away in April. She had cancer, it was very unexpected." He paused, not for tears, for thought. I waited for the rest of the story.

Which, once it started, was actually about his family, not about GW’s tuition rates. He’d moved from [Iran] as a boy, intent on studying in the United States. He’d met his wife in college – she was “my best friend, my partner in life, my sweetheart, everything” (it’s strange how some people can say things like this without making me cringe, but maybe I cut him slack because, after all, the lady in question was dead) and they’d had both a Christian and an Islamic wedding. The family moved from [California] so he could work for [a government group]. They had two sons, one of whom was in the [Navy], the other of whom had just been arrested. “He’s in jail, he killed someone, believe it or not, I’m ashamed to say it.” The killing took place just two months before his wife died. The man and his wife had purchased a huge new house, their dream house, “she was going to decorate it, everything” and their younger son had brought his pregnant mistress to the place when no one else was there. (The man says the family knew nothing about the mistress, since the son was married) The son and the mistress fought about the baby, next thing anyone knew, the woman was dead at the bottom of the stairs.

“It was an accident. He’s not a murderer, for God’s sake,” said the man, tucking photos of his wife and kids back into his wallet after showing them to me. The man’s organization paid for the son’s lawyers, but the man himself had trouble. “When I told my wife, I couldn’t not tell her even though I didn’t know how, I’d never seen her yell like that.” He said, sadly enough, that he partly blamed his son for his wife’s demise. When he returned to the house without her for the first time, he “collapsed – I woke up [15] hours later and the doctors thought I might die. They still don’t know what it was.”

He said his colleagues didn’t understand how bad it was – many of them were also [Iranian] and didn’t “understand how marriage is in this country, an equal partnership.” They advised him to marry again. “But,” he reflected, “it wouldn’t be fair to the woman.”

At the end of the conversation, wherein he just talked and I listened, I went back to my desk but had trouble concentrating. I don’t know how much of this story is true, although I changed the identifying details just in case, but I realized that I was momentarily cured of my own misery.

Recently, I have been having some issues with an individual. He was born fifty years ago in a reactionary country where women had few rights, and he’s spent most of his life abusing his wife and kids. Also, the past three books I’ve read all feature wife-beaters in prominent roles (Empire Falls, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the Virgin Blue). Imagine how surprised I was to find that a man born in a reactionary country can get a scholarship to the United States, marry a woman of a different faith, and genuinely mourn her unexpected death. Maybe this happens all the time. Maybe he made her miserable while she was alive. I don’t know. I’m just saying that maybe some people do love each other. Maybe it can happen, without being twisted.

Bad Places to Get Sex Advice

2007-07-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Apparently men's magazines are obsessed with the question of why women cheat, which would be offensive except that women's magazines are obsessed with how to find out whether your man is one of the millions who are, in fact, already cheating.

So, another dispatch in the adultery wars from the magazine Details, which found (through some means or other) that 41% of women who cheat think the person they're cheating with is sexier than their primary partner.

Their question is: 41% of women think their primary partner isn't sexy? My question is: What the hell motivates the other 59%?

On another (only tangentially related) note, I recently found a book of book recommendations titled "Book Lust" in a giftstore. It's gimmicky, but how many times have I picked up a book, read the first two hundred pages, and realized that it's not going to get good. I am, in fact, reading a bad book. Can I describe the pain of realizing I spent good money and time on what will, in effect, always be a mediocre experience? It's almost unAmerican.

So I understand the point of books like "Book Lust." I was flipping through it when I came across a section titled Sex and the Single Reader. The title says it all, but on the short list that followed I came across "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

I have a long history with this book. It started in fourth grade, when my Mom told me that it (along with the Bible and Gone With the Wind!) was on a short list of books I was still too young to read. Obviously, I had to read it right away. But, being 8, I had to wait for a good opportunity. When I was 10 I finally got it. I was in India for my cousin's wedding, and my cousin had a dog-eared copy lying around (along with the many Mills & Boon romance novels she kept for rainy days). With her eventual permission, I snuck the book around in my bag for a week and a half. When I did start reading it, I found the opening boring and verbose. I flipped through for good parts, realized there were none, and put it back on her shelf. Maybe they only print a censored copy in India, I thought, wondering why it had been banned in my house.

I forgot all about it for two years, until I saw the movie "Pleasantville." In this film, everyone in a black-and-white TV town gains their colors when they break out of their cherished routines. The main character's sister doesn't get her colors until she reads her first book. What does she choose? D.H. Lawrence, because "it seems sexy." "It is," says her brother (Was that Tobey Maguire?)

Anyway, the movie rekindled my interest. I'd only read about 30 pages of the book before, I thought I'd give it another shot. I bought a used copy (probably a bad move with erotic fiction) but didn't crack it open until this summer. I settled down, expecting a steamy, enthralling read. The back of the book called it an "ode to spiritual regeneration through sexual love" which sounds like something I would enjoy.

Sadly, it was not. After years of building up my expectations, I found myself mired in a predictable and irritating romance between two predictable and irritating characters. Sure, there are long descriptions of sexual idylls, useful for anyone who wants to talk dirty in turn-of-the-century English. There are occasional portions where Mellors, one of the lovers, enthuses about the joys of "fucking" (Lawrence's word, not mine, I should attribute it since it almost sent his publishers to jail) but my tolerance finally broke when he went on a long rant about the four types of women in the world.

According to Mellors, all women fall into several distressing sexual categories. 1) Women who hate sex. 2) Women who love it and want to be in charge (which he finds an insult to his masculinity. He says this) 3) Lesbians (all women who require clitoral stimulation to get off. The unfortunate Mellors has slept with a lot of "lesbians") and 4) Black women, who are "a little bit like mud."

How am I supposed to have any sympathy for this misogynistic, racist ball of crap? Did I mention he doesn't like children, not even his own daughter? Meanwhile, his so-called "lover" is a bored Madame Bovary-type whose disabled husband can no longer get it up. Frustration drives her into the arms of the gamekeeper (gamekeeper is an old-fashioned way of saying 'gardener') which makes this story (minus the Freudian sexual psychoanalysis) feel like a Desperate Housewives rerun.

According to Wikipedia (bastion of great literary minds), Lady Chatterley's Lover follows a relationship based on "tenderness, physical passion and mutual respect." Lady Chatterley "learns that sex is more than a shameful and disappointing act" and Mellors "learns about the spiritual challenges that come from physical love."

I don't think anyone on Wikipedia has read this novel. Basically, it's a collection of mangled class criticisms and sexual stereotypes that, much like the Freudian theories about female orgasm (which appear throughout!) may once have been intriguing but now just seem dated.

Satire Only Hurts if You Mean It

2007-07-28T02:18:00.000-07:00

I've come back from the literary dead for several reasons. First, I'm on vacation, and taking a break from my regular writing job means I have time for this. Second, it's late at night, and I'd rather not sleep. Third, I'm so tired of the bullshit that passes for humor in college newspapers that I have to complain about it to the 0 people who read this blog. It'll make me feel better about myself, and that's all I care about.

I recently read an article that caused a furor at Central Connecticut State University (and to those of us far from Connecticut, remember the adage: if a butterfly flaps its wings in Alaska, a college newspaper columnist will one day write a jackass column about it that will offend neoNazis, foreign exchange students and feminists alike). I'm not usually amused by jokes about rape, but this article had real gems buried in the sludge. For example: the "quick reach-around?" Funny. The "sway you towards a darkened alley"? Cringe-worthy.

I've also been to every one of our school's annual "Take Back the Night" marches, and I've always known one of the speakers. I admire these girls' courage, and I would be upset on their behalf to see this article in the paper. Obviously, rape is not funny to people who have experienced it. Much like famine, dictatorship, deportation and cannibalism are not funny to their victims. The reason jokes about these last four subjects are 'appropriate' is because the vast majority of Americans feel pretty distant from them. And humor depends on a particular cultural moment.

Ever since Jon Swift suggested that poor Irish people eat their babies, newspaper columnists have been searching for the next big offensive joke. It if offends people, writers argue, it must be satire. Actually, there was a time (in the golden age of humor) when the reverse was true. Swift's satire was brutal, simple and true. Petroski's jokes are none of these things. They rely not on reality, but on hyperbolic history. The rape of the Sabine women? Not the reason Western civilization began. Excessively large families? Definitely part of the reason Irish people used to be poor.

Before defending a piece as satire, editors should understand what satire is. Petroski's column wasn't satire - it was a cheap shot. It was a frat-house joke dressed up in pretentious academic allusions, which pretty much sums up the yuppie college existence. Not that I have anything against the yuppies, or want to deny their right to higher education. I mean, I am not that far from a yuppie myself, although far enough that I can look down with a bit of detachment.

Point is: is this article funny? Only in places. Is it satire? No. Is it kind? Obviously not. Was it intended that way? No. But none of that means that Petroski is a bad person, or even a bad writer. Even the best humorist lays a turd now and again. The question is: can he recover with grace? Can he capture some original voice and unique subject? Or is he going to keep rehashing the same thesis purely for shock value?

Why Are Kids Getting Left Behind?

2007-07-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

Richard Cohen (whom I don't always like, but whom I usually read) makes an interesting point in his recent column. Despite all the money being tossed down the drain of DC's public school system, kids aren't getting any better-educated.

We can blame all this on institutional factors, but only up to a point. The problem with public education, and indeed with any education, is that in the absence of locks, chains and other illegal restraints, it's impossible to keep students in a building they are determined to leave. It's impossible - in the absence of laws allowing teachers to cane students - to force students to do their homework. It's impossible to prop kids' eyelids open with toothpicks during lectures. The results of an education depend on a student's desire to be educated.

Therefore, whence comes the desire? What inspired Abraham Lincoln to walk 20 miles to borrow a book, assuming that in fact he did? Why are some people insatiably motivated to learn, while others skip out of class to chain-smoke behind the bleachers? Because I have seen this same effect take place in the classroom. Having been through an IB program in a regular high school, I was occasionally (rarely, but occasionally) in mixed classes, and I can tell you that the IB students came to class every day and always set the grading curve. Meanwhile, plenty of other kids just didn't show up. Ever.

Here are the factors we've looked at for the disparity: race, wealth, parental education, parental involvement, early intervention, etc. And with the exception of race, I think these are only somewhat important factors (race being important only in as much as it is correlated with wealth or family influences). In terms of wealth, it's true that richer parents have access to greater resources. But plenty of rich kids pay poor kids to do their homework, plenty of other rich kids snort coke in their best friend's Maserati in the high school parking lot. (It's true, if you don't believe me, ask the CDC) Money doesn't change a student's desire to learn.

What about early intervention? Studies show that programs like Head Start can work, but that in certain students, early gains dissipate with time.

Which leaves parents, the anti-drug but also, in so many ways, the great unknown. There is no scientific consensus on exactly how parents affect student behavior. What we can all accept is that those of us with great parents know how lucky we are, and so my evidence is going to be anecdotal. Yes, I think my parents pushed me on to great academic success. I chose all kinds of magnet and GT programs, I spent hours holed up in my study with books and magazines. But my sister - equally brilliant - did none of those things. And the pressure fell equally on both of us. My dad grew up poor in a poor country. His parents had no money and no schooling. But he has been an educational success. Meanwhile, his siblings - many of whom had much greater opportunity - chose not to educate themselves.

The theory that we have trouble accepting, liberals and conservatives alike, because we are Americans and it's against our American ideals, is that some students are born behind. They don't get left there. Not everyone has the "Abe Lincoln" factor. I'm not saying the "Abe Lincoln" factor correlates with professional or emotional success. But it rules the classroom.

The question that remains is, why doesn't the "Abe Lincoln" factor occur equally in students of all races and classes, in all locales? Why are the poor black kids of DC less likely to succeed in the classroom than the upper-class Asians of suburban Montgomery County, or the rich white kids of Laguna Beach? The CDC has no answer - they didn't even include Asians in their so-called 'landmark' study. This is where we turn to cultural and institutional factors, because we know - in our hearts and our educated heads - that we are all genetically the same. The "Abe Lincoln" factor is a learned behavior. Maybe it has something to do with how we measure our success when we're young. Maybe it has to do with role models, with access, with histories of oppression.

And maybe - and I say this as someone who did face unpleasantness when she was younger - we just have to accept that the future is the only territory we can rule. The past is not our country, and we can't always claim it. It comes down to, in my opinion, a teacher who at some moment actually convinced you that you could achieve something. But this moment wasn't about the past. It was always about the future. And anyway, how can it be recreated on a mass scale? That is the question. You can't force students to prop their eyes open during a bad lecture. And you can't force the lecturer to care that somewhere, in his classroom, students are falling asleep. And this is the institutional cycle that matters. The continuing whirl of people not caring to be taught by people who don't actually care to be teaching.

Searching for the Perfect Man

2007-06-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

In a recent column, Matt Feeney complains about how macho movies like 300 come under fire for being, of all things, “homoerotic.”

Feeney goes on at length about how sad the gay-calling is, but he doesn’t really ask why it happens. Here are my thoughts. These movies hark back to a heroic tradition that has, in modern times, become somewhat confused. It was Aristotle who first catalogued the “tragic hero’s” traits. The tragic hero was strong, intelligent and, under the right circumstances, emotive. His life had a pattern and purpose. He couldn’t just get run over by a truck. He was always the golden boy, the sensitive strong man who took enemy fire to save the life of a friend, or who rescued some helpless woman from rape and dismemberment by cannibals – only to be fried up and eaten himself. He got scant reward. He was brought low by his own physical and mental perfection. He was better than the rest of us.

The tragic hero reflects the Greek philosophers’ obsession with the “perfect man.” The Greek ideal of the perfect man was aesthetic as well as psychological – to be fair, the Greeks were big believers in premarital homosexuality. They weren’t alone. The perfect man became the David of Michelangelo’s sculpture, the Vitruvian man in da Vinci’s sketches. (Both of these artists, incidentally, were gay.)

However, over the years, the archetypal male hero has lost his way. With the onset of equality, we’ve separated certain qualities and assigned them to one or the other of the sexes. Men got physical strength, spatial reasoning, and calm in situations of crisis. Women, on the other hand, got good looks, tenderness, sensitivity and emotion. Nowadays, we tend to think of the ideal body as feminine. Men are just a walking aesthetic disaster.

The problem with the Greek martial hero in this context is that he was a physical ideal, and society has trouble separating physical beauty from sexual attraction. In the more permissive environment of prehistoric Athens, this conflict was no problem. Nowadays, in order to appreciate beautiful men, you have to be gay. In order to appreciate beautiful women, you just need to have eyes.

But even more problematically, the tragic hero was often brought low by his high-minded respect for higher-order feelings. He prominently displayed some of the emotions we nowadays assign solely to women. I have often thought, perhaps incorrectly, that as a society we have evolved to the point where we respect everyone’s emotions, “everyone” being defined as all woman and occasional gay men. To be an emotional straight man is just plain gay.

I’m guilty of this labeling myself. I remember once meeting some guy who made the mistake of confiding to me – perhaps because I seemed more mature than I was – that he really liked certain country love songs. I hiccupped uncomfortably and told him to “be a man.” Also, that I was more of a Leonard Cohen girl myself, Leonard Cohen whose lyrics tend towards the cynical “Shit, I’m fucked up and getting blown by a stranger” theme more than the “Thank God, I love my wife” theme. If I could do this encounter over, I would probably do it differently.

The ultimate point, however, is that the perfect man didn’t need a woman to be complete. And therein lay the problem. What did he need? If he found his match only in other men, and he wasn’t gay, then what was he? An egalitarian, modern civil society has no ready answer to this question.

The bygone greatness of email spam

2007-06-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

Today I clicked open my inbox (at work, no less!) and found a letter from Madam Beatrice Elubo. The message had been shipped to the trashbox by my spam filter, but I was curious what kind of woman referred to herself as “madam.” I opened the letter.

Inside I found one of those old-school scams, the kind of letter that made me nostalgic for the days when I was 13 and believed my email could change the world. I still remember my first petition: it was on behalf of a Botswanan boy whom, for lack of memory, I’ll call Ted. Ted had no arms, no legs, no parents and no liver. He had no liver because he’d been poisoned by his evil uncle as part of a vicious inheritance battle that had already claimed 100 Botswanan lives. Despite the apparent hopelessness (not to mention biological inviability) of his situation, Ted held out hope that kind strangers like myself would sign his email, bringing him one name closer to the 1,000,000 signatures required for a free liver transplant in his home country.

I signed another on behalf of the woman of Afghanistan, who were treated like cattle under the Taliban. Despite the tragic melodrama attached to descriptions of these women’s lives, we now know that much of these abuses reflected the truth. It’s too bad my sign of support never reached anyone in power. It strikes me in retrospect that it might have been misplaced email spam, along with fear of terrorism, that softened the President’s stony Texan heart and inspired him to invade.

Looking back, the point of these scams eludes me. They certainly weren’t targeted at swindling me out of cash. Perhaps email spam provides an outlet for stunted creative writers trapped in midlevel managerial positions. It certainly sounds like the kind of thing I would do, given time and unrestricted Internet access.

Today’s letter was more of the same. The madam in question begged sanctuary in the US for herself and her young son. She had been entrusted by her dying husband with 8.5 million dollars, and she needed refuge and investment advice. Midway through the heartfelt missive, the madam revealed that she’d pay 15% of her fortune in exchange for these services. Never mind the unlikeliness of an African royal emailing random American strangers. What upset me is that it was so out of character for a desperate woman to switch from pleading for her very existence to haggling like a real estate broker over the commission.

Perversely, I wanted to respond. I wanted to say that for only 5% more, I’d get her refuge, investment advice, and a lifelong membership with the Friends of the National Zoo. Surely she, living on the wild side in Africa, understands the value of preserving the pride and glory of our planet’s endangered species?

Why I Hate Engagement Rings

2007-06-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

According to recent surveys, nearly 30% of Americans have at some point videotaped themselves having sex. While this is good news for voyeurs everywhere (and our amateur sex tapes might have been a better propaganda item to drop over Iraq than the threatening leaflets the Bush administration eventually OK'ed), it also takes the 'conspicuous' part of 'conspicuous consumption' to an entirely new level. For better or for worse, we are becoming Generation "Look at Me, Look at Me!"

In my eyes, shady videotapes are proof that we're more comfortable now than ever with the risk of being exposed to public ridicule. I'm not trying to suggest the Romans wouldn't have recorded their orgies if they could have, I'm suggesting that things we once considered private now lie in a strange gray area.

How does this all relate to engagement rings? It's the reason I hate them. As mentioned in Slate's wedding issue, people only started wearing diamond engagement rings in the 1930's. It was a lonely spinster (no doubt working late one Christmas night, because that's what unmarried women did back then) who came up with the line, "A Diamond is Forever." The theory was that diamonds, like marriage, were a "'til death do you part" sort of deal. Now, of course, the reverse is often true of marriage. But diamonds have stayed steadfast.

Despite their reassuring permanence, engagement rings perturb me. Maybe it's because neither my mother nor my grandmother had one, so I don't associate rings with some tearjerking romantic tradition. Mostly, it strikes me as crass to ask your fiancee you buy you a hunk of gleaming ore as proof of his love ("Baby, I think men with large...credit card debt...are so attractive...") I know that's not how wearers of engagement rings see it - and after all, they do have the population advantage.

But what's more awkward that those locker room non-conversations when one woman sidles up to another, sneaks a sideways glance at her left hand, and reassures herself that her own ring is bigger, better and shinier? It suggests that her boyfriend's love is more pure, or at least that his tax bracket is a few percentage points higher. Thank God, she thinks to herself. Not because it changes her feelings towards him - after all, isn't he the man she loves? - but because now she doesn't have to hide anything. For this reason alone, I would no more want to wear an engagement ring than tattoo my salary on my forehead or exchange homemade sex tapes with other recently-engaged friends.

Then again, while the woman with the smaller ring may feel awkward at, say, a champagne brunch on the Upper West Side, the woman with no ring suffers the worst fate of all. How can she explain this choice without making her fellows feel guilty and judged? Or worse yet, leading them to believe that her fiancee is broke, unemployed, or clueless? If you're opting out of the ring, it's probably best not to mention your engagement in public at all. Let the wedding be a surprise!

The truth is, although my grandmother never got an engagement ring, she does scramble after gems. Indian women obsess about their jewelry. They lie, steal and extort just to show off their taste. Sometimes they resort to heinously gaudy fakes. It's a relic of the days when they had nothing else to call their own and no professional opportunities. A woman's jewelry, gifted to her by others, was her only true measure of worth. To me, living your life by the light of another's carat is old-fashioned. Modern women should have a more self-centered (not to mention equitable as far as the guys are concerned) way to establish status.

Before I conclude, I have to admit that I'm biased. In terms of price-to-value relationship, most precious jewelry doesn't make my cut. If instead of engagement rings we exchanged week-long vacations in the rainforest, or books by famous authors, I'd probably accept the competitive nature of the interaction (does Costa Rica mean a better relationship than Belize? Does the girl who gets a vintage first edition of Remembrance of Things Past have a rosier marital outlook than the one who gets a mass-market paperback of The Da Vinci Code? What if neither speaks French?)

I don't, and other dramas

2007-06-04T19:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I was looking through a bunch of wedding photos. I was inspired by an article in the Washington Post, a feel-good puff piece about Washington DC couples renewing their vows after 50 years of marriage. It was sweet. It glossed over the fact that most of these couples - all Catholic - had at least 4 kids, some had as many as 10. Clearly, these people take their injunctions seriously.

Personally I don't understand marriage - the thought of inviting all your friends and family to witness you join your life to another person's until you both die - well, I'm being cynical, but it just makes it worse if it doesn't work out. I feel as if life is never as perfect as wedding photographers would have us believe. If you're fortunate enough to actually be that happy, you shouldn't tell anyone. You'll jinx yourself.

But up in Antioch the other day, my aunt was telling me about her wedding. She mentioned the saptapadi, and I realized something. These gestures - the garlands, the sindoor, the seven trips around the fire - strike me as deeply romantic. For some reason I always assumed I didn't want a wedding because I was picturing a Christian wedding. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why I thought this.

There are things I would change. For example, there are never any photos from a Hindu wedding of the bride and groom making out in some exotic locale. That's a Christian tradition, but it's one we should adopt. I've always been annoyed by hypocritical Indian prudishness. This is a culture where long-lost aunts will pinch their niece and nephew's cheeks, and cousins will slap each other on the shoulders, and strangers will feed each other with their bare hands. Meanwhile, for a married couple to kiss each other on the cheek in the morning is somehow improper. Bunch of shit, and it just increases people's overall repression. And anyway, the dishonesty of priests aside, we all know that one of the seven promises is about sex. It's in the Gita.

What would Mata Hari call it?

2007-05-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

There are few things that stir the blood in American veins as much as espionage tales. It's the American dream, but with a badass Ninja flavor that recalls the Old World. According to these stories, anyone with courage, determination and Internet access can become James Bond or Jason Bourne. Or at least a halfway decent imitation.

Most modern covert operations - those that take place on college campuses, anyway -involve alcohol, sex, or the overly optimistic hope that one will lead to the other. And while I love chilling outside the dining hall, smoking a string of imaginary cigarettes while waiting for my best friend's secret crush to appear, or handing off cartons of Franzia to an unmarked van full of freshmen, I feel like there's something missing.

I finally realized what it was. It's the name. Imagine, for a moment, that Operation Iraqi Freedom was instead called Operation Fruitless Search for WMD's in the Vast Deserts of the Middle East. Would that have inspired millions of young Americans to think up ways to evade the draft? Or what if Operation Northwoods had instead been called Operation Cause Suspicious Accidents and Blame Them On Cuba? The US public certainly wouldn't have slept through that one. What about Operation Ajax? If the CIA had settled for calling it Operation Remove Nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from Power and Support the Western-Friendly Pahlavi Dynasty in Iran...well, just reading the name is like sitting through a world history lecture back in high school.

It's not just the CIA. The DEA is famous for its covert ops. What about Operation Black Gold Rush? Damn, that sounds sexy. A hell of a lot more fun times than Operation Holy Shit Don't Shoot Me but That's a Lot of Black Tar Heroin.

Or what about the recent Operation Jacket Racket? It sounds like an arcade game, the kind cool kids played back in the 80's (not that anyone was all that cool in the 80's). In fact, considering how important name is to the image of a covert op, I think both the CIA and the DEA need boots on the ground in the naming department.

Here are some of the suggestions I would give.

CIA:
Operation Obama...We Mean, Osama
Operation Oops We Did it Again
Operation Enduring Quagmire
Operation Howzabout These Guns
Operation Shmoperation

DEA:
Operation Smooth Dealin'
Operation I Like Big Busts and I Cannot Lie
Operation You Should Have Just Said No
Operation Is That An Eight Ball in Your Pocket...No, Really, Is It?

A Man By Any Other Name

2007-05-21T21:35:00.001-07:00

The other day I read the heartfelt online blog of a man who was questioning his masculinity. In particular, he was considering coming out as transgender. (He'd used a pink blog template with magenta accents, which sounds to me like a man with something to prove.) Most of us aren't transgender, after all, that's a serious and psychological state. But who hasn't questioned their gender at some point?

Years ago, I read in a newsletter that certain mental traits were associated with boys. Among them, "logic" and "spatial reasoning." Interestingly, those were the areas in which I scored the highest on all my grade school aptitude tests (I was, for many years, better at math than verbal on standardized tests). As I got older, "inability to communicate" and "immaturity" became male traits. Unlike most women, I never competed for men. But I often competed with them. As if this weren't enough, I could do more push-ups than any girl in my class, and my shoulders were always wider than my hips. I became convinced, for many years, that there was something inherently masculine about my brain.

But I wasn't interested in an all-out sex change. First off, there's the prickly question of sexual orientation. Obviously, I could never be a straight man. I'm not attracted to women (all those experiments failed). So, that's a no go. And I just don't have what it takes to be a gay man (after all, this is a population that frequents bathhouses, tosses around expressions like 'top' and 'bottom', and gave us the expression 'bareback.' Shudder.) Also, I don't follow sports.

I retired the question for a few years, but tonight, with an economics midterm on the horizon, I thought it was the perfect time to answer this question. I spent exhaustive hours taking online gender tests, and here are the results.

According to SparkLife, I am almost certainly a man. In fact, only 11% of Spark test takers are more masculine than I am, and these results are based on over 8 million people! (I don't get this result: I definitely checked 'no' when they asked if nuclear war would be, in a strange way, entertaining.)

According to a quiz on Blogthings, I communite like a man. However, another Blogthing told me my brain was 60% female. Yet a third told me 45% feminine and 55% masculine.

According to this more scientific-looking test, I have a "gender aptitude" of 105, which puts me in a category I don't like, so I'm going to ignore it.

This more frilly test told me I scored 60% femininity, 46% masculinity and 39% "uncertainty." What the hell is uncertainty? And why don't those percentages add up to 100?

This test, which seems a lot more scientific and also brings back nausea-inducing memories of high school aptitude tests, tells me my brain is largely female.

The results, of course, aren't conclusive. In fact, they're by and large useless. The only thing I carry away from this is the sad realization that my spatial reasoning has worsened with time (it took me ages to get the hang of that first angles exercise, on which I did worse than both men and women. But after I figured it out, I got it every time...) Actually, the only result I like is the following:

According to yet another Blogthing, I am 82% sexy. Who gives a fuck what gender you are when you have numbers like that?

The Sins of the Taxpayer

2007-05-21T21:00:00.001-07:00

Reading about the tax code (which, incidentally, makes a career in data entry sound like fun) dredged up this interesting line, in relation to the federal income tax child credit. The footnote reads,

"Some taxpayers with children qualify for both the child credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, but the two provisions have different definitions of 'child.'"

Different definitions of child? It's true that two Americans, depending on their religion and creed, might have different definitions of immorality, bravery, marriage and the phrase
"enemy combatant." But to quote Justice Potter Stewart's famous line, "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it." Majority of Americans probably feel the same way about children. Too bad the IRS can't adopt the same standard.

(By the way, was anyone else disturbed that I adapted a quote about porn and applied it to kids? Because looking back, I kind of am.)

The Price of Idealism

2007-05-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

I think history will remember Bill Clinton as a better President than George W. Bush, but not because Clinton was a Democrat. In fact, in his own way Clinton was much more of a challenge to the Democratic base built under FDR than George W ever was to the Reagan Republicans.

As the 2008 election looms, I think the distinction between Clinton and Bush is more important than ever. We face a slew of candidates with real experience - Hillary, McCain, Romney, Giuliani. Despite the symphony of flip-flopping coming from the direction of these power-brokers, I feel confident about this election. I'm almost walking on air. Because these men (and woman) aren't like Bush - in fact, they're all a lot more like Clinton.

Clinton wasn't a Democrat. He wasn't much of an idealist at all. He passed on the terrorist threat, but he contributed troops to the NATO forces that bombed the Balkans during the Kosovo war (a deployment for which he, much like Bush II in Iraq, was roundly criticized). Clinton was a big believer in "Coalitions of the Willing," although unlike Bush he didn't borrow heavily from the black-and-white rhetoric of the Apocalypse.

Nonetheless, Clinton cut federal spending and capped government welfare benefits. He gave the States the right to distribute their own welfare income, a distribution of power long associated with the Republican Party. In this, he was a centrist, as has been noted. But he was also part of a longer and more glorious political tradition: realpolitik.

Realpolitik was a term first coined by Otto von Bismarck, the pragmatic political genius who engineered German unification in the late nineteenth century. He is remembered as one of the most diabolitical and brilliant minds of all time. Henry of Navarre, one of the most popular kings of old France, was another real politician. In 1593, he said that "Paris was well worth a Mass" and converted to Catholicism. In so doing, he won over France's Catholic majority and tolerated its Protestant minority. He passed laws that united the nation's warring religious parties, and ushered in a new era of religious tolerance. Queen Elizabeth the First was another example: the rare ruler who managed multiple factions with ease. Even Abraham Lincoln, who held the US together during the Civil War, only freed slaves in Confederate states, letting those in border territories fend for themselves.

Meanwhile, history regales us with stories of brilliant but misguided idealists, whose governments were marked by both spectacular successes and failures. Indira Gandhi, an idealistic federalist, wrought havoc on Indian society with her agricultural initiatives and forced sterilization programs. Margaret Thatcher, as British Prime Minister, won military acclaim in the Falklands, but mismanaged taxes that later led to massive unemployment. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan (a real prototype for Bush II) helped initiate unsustainable tax cuts, escalated the Cold War, witnessed the Iran-Contra scandal, armed Osama bin Laden and invented "Reagonomics" from wholecloth. (He also took the laudable step of reforming Social Security.) Jimmy Carter, an idealist if ever there was one, raised payroll taxes and manhandled the Iran hostage crisis.

Not to suggest that Gandhi, Thatcher, Reagan and Carter were failures as national leaders. The truth is, to stay in power, everyone compromises. But some people do it brilliantly and often, whereas others do it grudgingly and rarely. The begruders are the problem. They lack real unifying power, and their political reigns usually end in a morass of ineffectiveness and public distrust.

George W Bush has fallen - actually, run willingly - into the same trap. He's tried to keep every campaign promise he ever made. He's given us our tax cuts, our prescription drug benefit, and our homeland security department. He's stayed true to his vision of America, which is larger than any one man. And yet, against all the odds, it isn't working. He himself admits he's no great student of history, which might explain why he missed this critical lesson. In order to hold a country together, a leader has to sell out. Bush can't sell out - it's against his stubborn Texan nature. If he doesn't like a policy, he gives it the death penalty.

And that's why Clinton was, underneath it all, more effective. True, he wasn't all that moral. He did screw an intern. But Bush, by placing personal morality above political necessity, managed to screw the entire nation.

Pride Goes Before a (Wind)Fall

2007-05-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

Last quarter I wrote a paper on IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programs in Haiti. These well-intentioned but misguided programs aimed to sponsor industrial growth and general upliftment throughout the country. Instead, they led to agricultural atrophy and economic stagnation.

The so-called SAP's, the now discredited mental byproduct of the neoliberal school of economic thought, wrought havoc in many developing countries before they were finally brought to heel. But for me, who'd always believed the World Bank was a knight in shining green armor, learning that the men behind the curtain at the WB had messed up was a little like learning Santa doesn't bring presents to Hindus.

I was upset. I said to my TA, "Why does anyone even trust the World Bank anymore?" He replied, "They don't. The World Bank and the IMF are some of the most hated institutions in the world right now."

Maybe he was exaggerating. After all, what happened to Gitmo? But nonetheless, the comment suggests what many power-brokers already know. The Bank was rotten to the core, and the now-ended Wolfowitz-Riza debacle was just another sad story in a series of tragedies. Over the years, the WB has developed the image of a Western toadie, its dedication to democracy relegated to the same closet as ethics reviews and responsible hiring.

The debate over Wolfowitz was, at its heart, a debate over who was responsible for this decline in image. Wolfy, a Bush neocon, represented all that was wrong with American diplomacy: its hypocrisy, cronyism and hamfistedness. Meanwhile, the European Powers That Be, who had long felt like spectators at a U.S. vs. Developing World soccer match, insisted that this whole mess could have been avoided, if only someone had listened to them.

It's a common refrain these days, and hindsight is perfect, so we'll never know who's actually right. A recent article in Newsweek does point out the obvious: no one ever cared about Wolfowitz. He was a symbol of the corrupt partnership between the WB and the US. His ludicrous pay package - indeed, the ludicious pay awarded to most WB employees - brought back memories of the abuse of WB funds that Wolfowitz once blessed as a highly-paid ambassador to Southeast Asia. Wolfowitz is yet another crony CEO, whose pay never reflected his performance. In this, he is the image of what the rest of the world is starting to think about America: crony CEO's, unable to finance their debt or cheaply produce their own goods, living off the sweat and savings of the rest of the world. He didn't deserve his good fortune, and neither do we.

It was too much to stomach, and it was only a matter of time before Europe tried to toss Wolfy out on his ear. The assumption is that now, if Europeans get on top once more, the world will see a smarter, gentler capitalism. You don't have to be for it or against it. You don't care whether God blesses it. Hey, says Europe, you can't spread this stuff by force.

And the World Bank will rise from the ashes.

We'll see. Whether this Resurrection is possible - and let's not forget Europe's record of colonial exploitation - is a matter for the history books. In the meantime, the developed world can sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of other people's labor.

I, Anika

2007-05-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I felt something I hadn't felt since sophomore year of high school. I was chilling in a cafe with my creative writing group, and somehow we got started on the subject of The Brothers Karamazov. I was unusually quiet. I rustled my papers and clicked my heels. I said everything except the truth: I've never read the damn book. In fact, I've never read anything by Dostoevsky. For the first time in years, I felt uninformed.

Dostoevsky is one of those authors whose books appear on every reading list and "Top 100" list of all time. Another is James Joyce, whom I also haven't read. Yet a third is Charles Dickens. I have read a few books of his - a few too many. Reading Dickens, to me, is like eating boiled carrots. I do it because someone else says it's good for me, but I don't like it. I feel similarly about Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner (I know, someone call the Feds). Reading Woolf and Faulkner is like watching the Cirque du Soleil. They performs feats of contortionist derring-do with the English language, and I ooh and aah and admire their technical expertise, but at the end I feel vaguely uncomfortable, like I've just witnessed something unnatural.

Where are the books in between? The ones you can bring home to your English teacher, but also have fun with on the side?

In honor of that ideal, I've put together a list of my top books of all time. There is a writing standard - for example, you won't find Bridget Jones' Diary on this list - but these are the books I most loved to actually read. They changed my perception of writing, and occasionally humanity. One of them (Jonathan Safran-Foer's Everything is Illuminated) is so powerful that when I was reading the last chapter I started crying silently into the pages. On a train. In Italy. Surrounded by strangers. Which isn't so remarkable, except that a few minutes earlier I'd been laughing hysterically. Be warned.

1. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
3. Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer
4. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
5. Fear of Flying, by Erica Jong
6. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
7. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
8. The Lost Girl, by DH Lawrence
9. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
10. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

Opposite of Money

2007-05-16T09:41:00.000-07:00

Recently, my mother considered quitting her current job but asking the same company to immediately hire her back as an independent contractor. I asked her, what's the point? You're doing the same job.

She said, if I were hired on as a consultant, my salary would be 200% of what it is now. That is, 100% higher. Why? Congress currently levies enormous taxes on labor. Think about it: the Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, unemployment benefits and health insurance programs eat up a sizable chunk of labor profit. (And might be one of the reasons why, all other things being equal, firms would outsource to countries with more favorable labor laws even if the standard of living was just as high)

You might be asking (and you'd be right) Congress levies these taxes on employers. That is to say, the statutory incidence (the people required to pay by law) are the corporations, so why should employees take such a huge paycut?

Research shows that the supply of labor hours in the United States is relatively inelastic. What this means is, the amount of work hours available to a firm doesn't change depending on the wages the firm pays. Obviously, this depends on the labor being sought - one of the reasons educated workers make more money is because there are fewer of them, and they have more options, meaning the elasticity of labor supply for, say MBAs might be greater than for burger-flippers at McDonald's. (On a side note, educated workers are more likely to be married or cohabitating with a higher-earning partner, which also increases the elasticity of their labor supply.)

What this means is that firms can pay whatever they want, and still attract workers. They might attract better workers if they pay slightly more, but workers will still bear most of the burden of labor taxes. What does this mean for people like me? Let's say my summer salary is $10/hr (totally hypothetical - ha!). Every time I get my paycheck, I see two federal payroll tax deductions. The first is for Social Security - a charming 7.65%. The other is Medicare - another 1.45%. That cuts my check down to $9.10/hr. According to Congress, my employer also pays the same percent for Social Security and Medicare. However, according to economics, I also pay my employer's percent of the payroll tax, in the form of a lower wage than I would otherwise earn. The total taxes levied for Social Security and Medicare together are 18.2%, and I pay most of it.

But now consider this: with the costs of Social Security and Medicare rising out of control, I will certainly receive less from both these programs than I paid into them. Essentially, I am paying almost 18% of my annual income for benefits that I may never receive. If I'm a married person whose health insurance comes through my spouse, I'm also paying for health care benefits that I will never take advantage of.

Basically, corporations pass the cost of employment on to us. And we (the rising generation) might not have anything to show for it.

This is not how the system is supposed to work. Kudos to George W Bush for trying to reform it - although his plan, obviously, has serious flaws of its own.

The Man Who Won't Be Missed

2007-05-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

Death is strange. It's strange because it makes the living forget things. The most despotic, intolerant individuals (people whose awfulness exceeds even Donald Rumsfeld's, for example), can expect sappy Hallmark eulogies once they finally do the world a favor and expire.

That said, I'm curious to see what people will make of Jerry Falwell's death. I can't say I'm upset, although I am surprised. The most obnoxious people seem to linger forever on the cusp of death, tantalizing and teasing their opponents with the promise of their coming end. So I fully expected Falwell to live on, like Castro, to confront the Apocalypse. Now that he hasn't, we get the next worst thing: misplaced nostalgia. I say, there's no harm in calling Falwell what he was: a bigot, a misogynist, and a fool. However, newspapers might disagree. Here are a few thoughts on the media spin we might see in the next few days.

"He loved children." (Translation: he condemned abortion, and encouraged violence against operators of legal abortion clinics.)

"He accepted that all people must choose how to live their lives." (Code for: He said homosexuality had no basis in biology.)

"He forgave and forgot." (Years after condmening Martin Luther King Jr., Falwell pretended to have supported the civil rights leader.)

"He was fluent in many religious traditions." (Falwell, who read portions of the Qu'ran, referred to Mohammad as a terrorist and a 'man of war.')

Yes, there's really no end to how creative we can be with this. Here's my problem with eulogizing goons like Falwell: future generations can't learn anything from such a sugarcoated history. If nothing else, Falwell's ideas polarized Republican politics and gave voice to an extreme evangelical minority. For this alone, we should reprint his ideas and statements exactly as they were.

The Washington Post seems to be doing that, but with mixed results. For example, they refer to Falwell as a man who preached "traditional values." I have read (a lot of) the Bible, and nowhere is intolerance listed as a value. Falwell practiced his own preachings, but they were grounded in personal interpretation. And although his interpretation has taken hold in the Heartland, I like to think there are Christians out there - active, even evangelical ones - who see traditional values as respecting your mother and father and doing good work in the community. Many of these people have no truck with Falwell and his self-aggrandizing agenda (or am I just deluded? One of those hopeless romantics who insists, even after seeing Borat, that Americans are good at heart?)

I also have another motive for wanting Falwell depicted scrupulously. I hope at some point John McCain sees the real Falwell and demonstrates some shame for his 2006 reconciliation with the man. The presidential campaign has turned McCain into a tragic hero. We have a man who, before his candidacy, spoke out bravely in favor of his reasoned, principled views. Now, he can no longer sort his elbow from his ass. He's trying to please, and he's doing it with the awkwardness of a debutante on her wedding night. It's ironic, really. The two front-runners for the Republican nomination are now tying themselves in knots trying to prove that they're not Democrats. We face a slew of the same candidates pretending to be different candidates. (With the exception of Barack Obama, who actually is different, although whether in a good way or a bad way I still can't decide.)

A Modern Magdalene

2007-05-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

I stand corrected.

After doing some research on Shaha Ali Riza (and by research I mean, sitting in front of my computer and watching the headlines pop up for a few minutes) I've come to realize that I was 100% wrong about Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend. Very few of the gleeful tales detailing Wolfy's slow unraveling have focused on Riza as more than an accessory to a very political murder. Many people have giggled over her famous photo, where she appears in an unflattering profile. Others have gaped at her astronomic salary (not astronomic considering her years of experience at the World Bank.)

But who mentions that she worked for the WB long before Wolfy was all but appointed? That her superiors recommended her for promotion multiple times? That she has a brilliant mind, and consistently spoke in favor of reason and justice in the Middle East? That her career was, by all accounts, more illustrious and admirable than Wolfowitz's?

He, of course, has a history of cronyism and blindness (and one wonders what W saw in him). But I will say one thing about Wolfy: he chose a woman who was his equal, and one from a different religious background. Let's debunk the inevitable comparison - Wolfowitz isn't sneaking off into corners to get blowjobs from a White House intern. (Which paints him in stark contrast to another, supposedly more feminist leader I could name.) He's engaging in a long-term partnership with a brilliant, intelligent woman his own age, and he isn't married or previously committed. In fact, it is the very women who hate Wolfy and his blighted history (me) who aspire to be the kind of woman he ended up dating. It's no wonder the liberal media are confused. On the one hand, we want Wolfy dead or alive. On the other, our pro-humanist impulses cry out that Riza must have her day. I hope she does. I hope she emerges from this, that she doesn't become yet another civilian casualty on a political battlefield dominated by misguided politicians and hatchet-wielding journalists.

For more on Riza, click here.

The International Men of Mystery

2007-05-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

I thought Italian men were vain. Not in the sense of matching shoes and belt (after all, the modern fashionisto makes his mark in colorful, clashing accessories). They are vain conversationalists, and they are always looking to unloose their talk on some unsuspecting girl. They start conversations about famous operas, jazz pianos, ancient architecture and liquors that blend well with absinthe. And they toss off opinions with the confidence of people who know that their audience will never be able to correct them. Why? Because their audience is American. I once shocked a group of "writer-revolutionaries" by asking them, in Italian, if they'd ever read Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Of course, neither had I, but in those dark and pretentious moments around Sergei's bar, we shared the conspiracy of people who pretend to be better-informed than we are for purposes of getting laid.

Which is what it all boils down to. This is the country that invented love at first sight. But as Shakespeare once said, a rose by another name is still a rose. Similarly, the biological drive to reproduce with attractive people is still, by any other name, rude lust. But the story's not over! Petrarch, father of the Italian sonnet, wrote hundreds of love poems to a woman he saw once, from a distance. She grew older, got married (to another man!) and died, but the flow of his verbose passion never faltered. Petrarch, for all his maidenly protestations, was most in love with himself. It is a proud tradition. Italian men nowadays flirt with themselves and each other. Their partners - the much-touted long cool women in black dresses - are supposed to sigh their way through to the good parts. And demographers wonder why Italy has a negative population growth rate?

So imagine how surprised I was to read a recent review of Brazilian men that ranked them right up there with Italians. Brazilian men are beautiful in the same way that yachts are beautiful: costly to maintain, but all your fancy friends will want a ride. Which makes for a fun time at the beach, but there are pitfalls. Among them, a group of commentators dissecting Brazilian soccer player Ronaldo's recent image problems at the World Cup. Ronaldo is one of the best soccer players in the world, but the judges are fixating on his so-called "gut" like middle school girls at a cheerleading competition. My opinion: if these Nancies want to see a gut, they should hop up to North America. I know plenty of Midwestern guys (and girls!) who put their belly where their beer is. In some states, you may even get an eyeful of middle-aged nipple piercings. This is the stuff of nightmares in nations where trans fats don't need to be banned, because no one ever eats them.

The greatcoat

2007-04-17T20:45:00.000-07:00

I saw The Namesake the other night. For those in the know, the movie follows the life of Gogol, son of two Indian immigrants to the United States. Not only was Gogol born in the U.S., his parents gave him a helluva awkward name that he just can't shake.

Over the years, Gogol experiments with fluent English, weed, guitar, and various blonde girlfriends. After his father dies, Gogol meets and marries the daughter of a longtime family friend. She cheats on him and breaks his heart. She says, "It wasn't enough that we were both Bengali." And he replies, "That's not why I love you." They divorce. At the end, covered in life's bruises, he returns home and tells his mother that his wife left him for a man named "Pierre." His mom says, "I'm so sorry, I should never have pushed you to call her." He replies, "Mom, it's okay. For the first time in my life, I actually feel free."

Divorce is terrible, but not all marriages are meant to last forever. I expected to relate to the characters in The Namesake, to feel their struggles and cultural mismatches as my own. And I didn't. My parents were never those parents. My Dad is too loud and angry, my Mom too educated. One of my friends once told me, "Your family doesn't strike me as very Indian - culturally." I was pissed off at her, because how is she supposed to know what that means? How can she so casually pass judgment on something that has defined our entire lives? I kept these feelings to myself, of course.

No culture is a monolithic institution, we all relate to it in our own ways. At one point, Gogol asks his father, "Why this name, Dad? Why did you call me Gogol?" (Gogol, by the way, is the famous Russian author of The Overcoat. He's also a lunatic.) And his Dad replies, "We all came out of Gogol's overcoat."

What I carried away from this film is the idea that we're all coming out of various overcoats, awkward as it sounds. We all come from somewhere, we all have a set of values, behaviors and prejudices we associate with home. The most difficult thing about college is realizing that each of us has come so far, but we're still trying so hard to hold onto things that remind us of home. It's why students start attending church when they hated it for years. It's why I spent hours playing piano in those stuffy classrooms in the music buildings. It's why...well, I wonder how much of "finding yourself" is just "finding your way back."

What I liked about The Namesake is that it recounts that journey, but the main character doesn't end up in the same place he started. If Gogol can return to a better home than he left, can't we all? Or, as one of the other characters puts it, "Go ahead. Grab a backpack and get on a train and see the world. You will never regret it."

The Hawk and the Hooker

2007-04-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

I usually wouldn't write twice in one day, but my ode to open sources pales to the color of milk beside the story I just dug up on DC gossip-blog Wonkette. I did some online sleuthing of my own, and corroborated Wonkette's story (by corroborated I mean, dug up loosely supporting facts). For those who don't regularly type "prostitute" into the Google News box, a quick summary of the story. About a month ago, DC police charged a California woman with racketeering and money-laundering. She would have been just another middle-aged woman implicated in massive fraud, but when the police raided her home, they found that she was also an entrepreneur. Deborah Jeane Palfrey ran the most profitable prostitution ring in the DC Metro area. Over the course of a few decades, her 130 girls serviced over 15,000 power brokers in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area (for the mathematically-minded, 15,000 divided by 130 is 115. Enough said.) Palfrey made nearly $3 million.

But the plot thickens. She recently decided to give her entire client list to ABC News, and today they outed senior policy associate Harlan Ullman as a regular customer. Ullman, for those who don't regularly type "Neocon" into the Google News box, came up with the "Shock and Awe" strategy towards military combat. Apparently, shock and awe "calls for a massive attack of precision air power that psychologically destroys an enemy's will to fight as much as it destroys the physical ability to fight." I'm sure I'm not the only one surprised that this guy had trouble meeting women. It's unclear which warhawk sex scandal came first: Ullman or Wolfowitz (a married man who allegedly paid his Arab mistress $193,590 to "work for the World Bank." As many sources have said, this is more money than Condi makes, but for now the Secretary of State plans to continue in her current line of work - servicing George Bush for free).

Although Republicans have never been in favor of free love, I didn't realize they were so enthusiastic about paying for it. More importantly, even I'm surprised by Palfrey's discretion - in an age where a girl can drunkenly flash the bartender on her 21st birthday and find the video on Youtube ten years later - Palfrey managed to recruit sex workers through the Internet without anyone knowing.

The fact that she chose to recruit only college-educated women puts a charming Woody Allen spin on the entire tale.

Is that an iPod in your pocket, or are you just trying to rob me?

2007-04-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

I hate to say it, but the age of copyright is over. As a journalist, I'm supposed to exhibit frothing-at-the-mouth enthusiasm for copyright protection, printed media, and other things that will soon only exist within the Library of Congress. But as Dave Barry once pointed out, there's no point in pursuing the demographic of "people who are dead or older."

I'm biased, maybe because I have a rap sheet. I recently faced a serious complaint under the DMCA, which, for those of you who aren't in the criminal know, stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA is what happens when Congress monkeys with the Internet. It's also the infamous law being used to prosecute college students across the country for distributing illegal copies of copyrighted material. When my case came up, I uninstalled all the offending software (some of which had been running without my consent) and swore, ala Frances Willard, that I would "never touch the stuff again." Which I'm willing to do, to stay out of the clink.

However, let me just get one point across. When I first entered the world of downloading, there was no iTunes. The only way to get music was to convince my parents to drive me round to Best Buy and drop $15 on a CD. And $15 was the cheap end of the scale - new CD's cost as much as $24. Record companies, confident in their monopoly power, had been fixing prices with the enthusiasm of the Wal-Mart Price-Slashing Smiley. In economic terms, this is a market failure, and perhaps illegal downloading began when one brave student took on the mantle of Adam Smith and decided it was time to do something with his invisible hand. The truth is, I was drawn to it because it was cheap and easy - the values our generation lives by. But when I was 14, I never bought CD's. By downloading music, I got to sample artists, periods and styles I had never previously known. My world expanded because I wasn't tied to the all-expensive CD. Online downloading decreased the risks associated with musical diversification, and increased the odds of it ocurring. I bought more music, rather than less, because of downloading. And this is what the IRAA still fails to understand.

I did an interview today with the director of a Rwandan nonprofit. This consortium of moviemakers puts all their product online, for free, with no copyright protection. And after a moment of shock, I realized that their strategy was genius. In the world of viral marketing, media is information, and its power (and selling ability) lies in how easily it can be distributed. This strategy brings more, rather than less, attention and money to the cause. The same is true for music downloading. It has created a fan base for artists who might never have attracted a second glance in the era of big-budget CD's. It has brought music to the masses, who couldn't afford it before.

But then again, maybe that's just what the record companies fear. The diversification of the music-making and distributing process. They know their profits depend on a narrowly-defined intellectual monopoly. The truth is, I never stole anyone's intellectual property. I deprived them of their rightful profits. But I never claimed to have written or performed "Genie in a Bottle," or any other ballad that went through my machine. In fact, the value of the product came from the fact that Christina wrote it. Illegal downloading might make the real theft of ideas more recognizable, rather than less, since it ensures a wider spread of information.

The Internet has turned the little guy (the downtrodden consumer, etc) into the commercial decision-maker. It's a shift in power that most large corporations can't handle, and I don't blame them. But in my opinion, they will have to learn to leverage profits differently. I have seen the future, and it is open source.

Things that go "bang" in the night

2007-04-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

In a class where every lecture ends in an unsolved mystery, I was not surprised to hear this story in Southeast Asian Politics. Apparently some years back, in the dead silence of Indonesian night, rebel forces kidnapped six powerful military officers. They shot three, and took the other three to an Air Force Base on the outskirts of Jakarta. Three days later, the bodies of the three remaining generals were discovered at the bottom of a well. The bodies were grossly disfigured, and no one knew the cause of death. Soon after, Indonesian newspapers got wind of a horrific story: apparently, the popular "Women's Movement" (wing of the Communist Party) tortured the brave generals with razor blades. They gouged out their eyes and castrated them. Then, these bloodthirsty harpies took off all their clothes and started to dance naked around the whimpering generals. More torture followed. Then they dumped the bodies down the well.

The military nationalists warned that this was what happened when Communists ran free. The orthodox Muslims warned that this was what happened when women didn't wear headscarves (Salem witch trials, anyone?) Public sentiment turned against the Communists. People took up arms in the streets, and before the year was out, nearly 1 million Indonesian communists had been massacred, most by their neighbors and countrymen.

Years later, an American scholar going through some discarded papers came across copies of the military autopsies for the three generals who were found at the bottom of the well. The reports contained descriptions of three relatively intact bodies, all with eyes and genitals untouched. Each man had died of a single gunshot wound.

So the question is: what really happened at the Air Force Base? And who planted the story that led to mass murder? The CIA has released most of its files on Indonesia. But there are four files that it has not yet declassified, and scholars suspect they contain the answers, because rumor has it the CIA supplied the insurgents who kidnapped the generals in the first place.

Looking at Indonesia, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Argentina and Vietnam, I feel the US foreign policy of the past has been to ship boxes of guns to ill-informed and poorly-trained guerrillas and watch the resulting battles with mounting consternation and horror. In the case of Saddam, it was not guns but weapons-grade VX gas (which answers the question of where the WMD's came from, if not where they went). It seems that despite our best intentions, the only democratic principle we've consistently exported is the 2nd Amendment.

Help, my makeup is taking over my face

2007-04-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

I used to scrub my face before working out. Now, in a more laissez-faire (or more fittingly, lazy-fair) approach to life, I just let it molder before taking it off at the end of the day.

I've come to accept mascaras, blushes and tints - essentially, paint-like gloop for the face - as part of my skin. But imagine my surprise today. I got dressed and put on eye makeup. I had lunch with a friend, went to two classes, trekked several miles through the Siberian sleet that apparently constitutes an Evanston spring, took a Pilates class, went for a swim, and showered. Yet when I reached up to brush my hair out of my face afterwards, I was shocked to realize that my eyelashes were still crunchy.

Anything that clings to skin with such ardor - resisting water, oil, chlorine, snow, and sweat - must have more devastating long-range effects than Agent Orange. Isn't water supposed to be the universal solvent? What otherworldly crap am I spackling on each day?

Germany's Kinder Cousin, and Battle of the Bulges

2007-04-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

So when I was 7 years old, my parents told me that India, much like the United States, had once been a British colony. I was too young for cursive, but old enough to know how the world worked. I asked, "Why did the British get so many colonies?" My mom answered, "well a couple of hundred years ago all the countries had a competition. Each country built a boat, and the country that built the fastest boat got to colonize the others. The British built the fastest boat."

For many years I was satisfied with the BBC Kids version of the story. It's a kinder, gentler colonization tale than children in ex-colonies learn. That story goes like, "they stripped our country of its natural resources and denigrated our culture and history for hundreds of years." As you can see, no mention of boats.

The Dutch proved the exception. Around the early 1900s, as a result of widespread Dutch protest, the government instituted "the ethical policy." The softer side of colonialism integrated native and white populations in schools, and gave native elites access to certain resources. Interestingly, the Dutch were also the only people who made a countrywide effort to hide and protect their Jewish citizens from Hitler's police during World War II. Coincidence, or are the Dutch just better people than the rest of us?

On another note, this week is our college's first Sex Week. The College Fems have been touting the event for months. They put cutesy posters all over campus with slogans like, "Sex Week is coming. Are you?" Gosh, girls, it takes more than a poster to get me to that point. Unlike at Yale, where Sex Week features a "panel of porn stars and stripping lessons from a Playboy Channel hostess" (A hostess? What? Are we businessmen at a gentlemen's club in Tokyo?), our Sex Week promises "discussions on the 'sin of sodom' and the effect of sexual arousal on decision making."

The 'sin of sodom'? It's Sex Week, and we can't even call it by its real name? Furthermore, what is with this discussion BS? How does a discussion put anyone in the mood? Fore-conversation? After-discussion glow? I have another suggestion. I say, take a page from the Dance Marathon book. They're our most successful campus organization. Rent out the student center for 30 hours. Get a DJ, themes, costumes, videos, the works. Even a light show, or a not-so-silent auction! Just like dance marathon, except no dancing, and people don't have to stand up the entire time! We could call it Sex Weekend, because who needs a whole week? Certainly nobody who's been on the quarter system! You choose your own partner, but it's probably best not to ask your parents for a donation.

Sex toy and condom giveaways can take place as planned. At the door.

For once, NU can become a forum for people to actually have sex, rather than just talk their way around it.

Between a keg and a hard place

2007-04-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

Yet again, I've come across an article about Laura Stepp's Unhooked. For the unaware, Stepp's book is a condemnation of today's hookup culture. According to Stepp, young women who have casual sexual encounters (what counts as a sexual encounter in Stepp's view? Holding hands?) soon find themselves on the fast road to misery and disappointment. Stepp, who clearly scribbled the book on napkins in between handing out brownies at a chastity ball bake sale, recognizes young women for the lost lambs they are. She's not alone. Newsweek ran a story a few months back about the "Girls Gone Wild Effect." Although the writers did nod at parental responsibility, the mag cited a long tradition of "women behaving badly," starting with Queen Elizabeth I. Newsweek dubbed her, "The virgin queen who slept around." In Queen Liz's footsteps came Britney, then Paris, then Lindsay. The result: 10-year-olds flirting with boys and singing songs with the word 'sexy' in the lyrics.

Excuse me if I don't rush off to buy the entire Left Behind series. As a college student, I feel someone has to get a word in edgewise about the common theme these articles share: that somehow, girls are being manipulated into bringing sexyback. Yes, we live in a sex-drenched culture, but is it really possible that we're getting so much more action than our parents did in the free-loving 60s? For that matter, than our tight-laced grandmothers did in the 40's and 50's, or our swag-sporting great-grandmothers in the Golden Age of the Flapper?

Give me a break. Women have been sleeping wherever they want since Cleopatra first rolled herself in Caesar's carpet. The difference is, nowadays, Paris Hilton can talk about Carl's Junior without feeling the least bit ashamed. I admit that maybe young women have more sexual partners than in the past, but don't blame that on Lindsay: blame it on Friendster. These days, even the janitor has MySpace, and it's no longer so hard to go where everybody knows your name.

For a lot of people, casual hook-ups are fun. More importantly, college is supposed to be a time of experimentation. Women have more power, greater voice, and more numerous options than at any time in the past. Those options come in all shapes, sizes and levels of stylishness. And for girls who don't appreciate the love that dare not call in the morning, there are still plenty of options. Most of my friends don't sleep around. Those who do know what they're doing.

That said, there are pitfalls and drawbacks to any casual encounter. If a girl falls for a guy who thinks of her as "that eight-hour period between the Keg and Sunday brunch," she's in for a world of pain. But getting your heart broken is as much a part of college as co-ed dorms and late-night talks about breast size (a popular subject for both guys and girls). My advice to all these people: let it go. Socrates once said, "know thyself." In the process, you may get to know a lot of other people as well. But didn't another wise mystic once advise us to "love our neighbor"?

The caveat: alcohol makes people do regrettable and unwise things, and these things have serious consequences. I'm not trying to deny that. But with the freedom to explore our limits comes the freedom to make occasional tragic mistakes. People have been trying to learn from their mistakes since the dawn of time.

Rhymes With Zen

2007-04-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

Reading through Slate, I came across a reference to this fancy new Green Tea beer. The microbrewery behind this New Age tonic claims that the flavor "transcends beyond anything you have ever experienced before" and makes sense for those in search of "something more mystical... magical... wonderful."

I may be wrong, but I always pictured the beer drinking demographic as the men to the left. Whereas the green tea drinkers of the world look more like the people below.

Between them, a gap not even creative marketing could bridge. But as always, I underestimated America. This new beer can create magic (if the possibility of a drunken one-night stand doesn't stroke your magic machine already.) And it contains green tea, a substance that (if we believe the hype) prevents cancer, cures the common cold, burns fat and enhances your sex organs to mammoth proportions, all without a single negative consequence. So what's the drawback?

I couldn't find one. But before plastering pro-green-beer posters all over campus, I paused to wonder. In my ongoing attempts to sculpt myself into this, I've explored (always guiltily, while pretending to be reading a textbook) websites for various diet and exercise regimens. I've checked out the Zone after a friend told me Jennifer Aniston had been on it for years. I read in-depth comparisons of Atkins and Ornish. South Beach. Mediterranean. Juice. Color. I didn't try most of these, but I examined them, I weighed their benefits and drawbacks.

I realize, objectively, that my attitude is the function of a selfish culture (I mean, 5 pounds? There are people dying in a genocide in Sudan. I could get off my ass and help them rather than whine about Jessica Alba) and an obsession with control (the user-driven life). There's no excuse. But it's an obsession that most of America suffers from, and I wonder, how far have we taken this whole 'diet' thing? Perhaps there are limits to what your entree can accomplish as far as your general appearance goes. There is no practical difference between the Color diet and the Mediterranean diet, or at least, not in terms of my expectations. You eat. You live, sometimes healthily. End of story. The ideal waist-to-hip ratio? Transcendental peace?Enlightenment? You can't buy that in a grocery store.

Conversations with Strangers

2007-03-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

So the other night, on the way back from the club, I struck up a conversation with the cab driver. He asked me if I had a boyfriend, I told him no. He said, "no one pleased you, is that it?" I said, "must be it." And he started in, talking about how love is painful, and we all get our hearts broken, and it's just worse if you try and prevent it. The day before I was walking out of the post office and I saw a man with a clipboard limping along the sidewalk. "Do you have five minutes, ma'am?" I am a total sucker for anyone who calls me ma'am. I stopped. He told me he was collecting money for a hospital, I asked to see his permit. He told me his legs were paralyzed, and that he'd collected money in the past. He said, "Come back and I'll take you to the hospital, you will see incredible need." And he took off his hat and showed me the scar where he'd been hit in the head with a hammer years ago.

From other cab drivers, I've learned that Nigeria has a Christian South and a Muslim North and an entirely conflicted present, that it's been ruled by various rival factions for years. That UIC is more racially diverse than Northwestern (an observation a blind man could make, I'm sure) and that Romanian is more similar to the romance languages than the Slavic languages. I've gotten directions around town from the mendicants outside of CVS. I've discussed love and relationships with tour guides, beggars and missionaries. Last year, I spent an hour debating liberal politics with the janitor, and this year I exchange all kinds of greetings in Spanish with the woman who cleans the bathrooms.

What's the point of this monologue? That I start conversations with strangers. And while occasionally these conversations end creepily, overall they prove extremely rewarding. How often does it happen that you're driving home through the rainy streets of Chicago with someone born fifty years ago in another country, lamenting the fact that both of you are looking for love in all the wrong places?

(Don't count all the times you've seen "Lost in Translation.")

Facebook and the female brain

2007-03-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

In a recent column, Dan Savage blames Sex and the City for perpetuating the "cruel hoax" that women want to have lots of sex. In fact, he says, "all that yammering about women with voracious sexual appetites during Sex and the City's reign of terror?...a figment of the straight-male imagination, a Big Lie picked up on and promoted by self-serving female sexperts eager to tell straight men what they wanted to hear."

Since when did straight men take their cues about female sexuality from Sex and the City? I have never met a straight man who could stand that show! Also, it's a revelation to Dan that women talk about sex a lot more than they actually do it? In this, I think his ignorance is showing. As a gay men, Dan probably has twice as much sex as even he talks about. But for the straight population, with neither bathhouses nor 80's bars to abet us, well, we tend to run long on talk.

Also, I recently read a poll in Glamour that suggested 49% of women wish they had sex every day! What is this, Dan Savage? Another Big Lie concocted by female sexperts to torture all the poor, unfortunate straight men who read Glamour? Sure sounds like it! Listen women, don't ever talk about sex again, otherwise someone will assume you want to do it right then and really, you'll be obligated.

What a boatload of crap.

Speaking of Sex and the City, remember that one episode when Carrie's boyfriend dumps her via a Post-It he sticks to her computer screen? She wakes up, he's gone, she has just the Post-It to console her? Well I have a story to top it. One girl didn't realize she'd been dumped until she logged onto Facebook and News Feed told her that her boyfriend had reset his relationship status to "single." Yikes. It's like that scene from When Harry Met Sally, when Harry rushes up to Sally and says, "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin right now." Well, there's a little-known corollary to that statement, and it goes, "When you realize you don't want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you still want the rest of your life to begin right now. In fact, you want it more than you did before."

Neither shaken nor stirred

2007-03-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

So I came home from break and reconnected with my family by watching a TV screen for two hours. Specifically, Casino Royale. What I didn't realize until watching the film was that this movie, unlike the ones that came before, attempts to take us back to the days before the signature drink and polished cuff-links. Back when Bond, much like Madonna and Cher, went by his first name.

The movie assumes that most of us, long-time Bond fans or at least acquaintances, actually care. The truth is, I don't think much can explain James Bond - he's a cartoon character. He's bizarre and quirky and unrealistic. I never felt tempted to look behind the curtain. I just assumed the rooms back there were empty.

So what to make of the heartrending hero in Casino Royale? He gets poisoned and beaten up and doesn't even know what his signature drink is. Worse, he has emotions. He declares to his erstwhile lover, "You've stripped me of my armor." Oh Bond, you certainly haven't stripped me of mine. Part of my disbelief might stem from Daniel Craig's wooden delivery of the deeply emotional love scene. He sounds like he's reading a teleprompter.

Or perhaps I was distracted by his barrel-muscled chest. This may be the first Bond film to boast more male nudity than female. At one gruesome point Bond is tied to a chair, and a villain says to him, "You've certainly worked on your body, James." And James has: he looks fresh from the gyms of Hollywood, waxed and tanned and ready to fight evil (or at least flab and unwanted hair.) I saw Craig in Layer Cake and he looked great, or at least, on the far better side of average. Now he resembles an amateur bodybuilder. As the villain goes on to say, "such a waste." I couldn't agree more. As an action hero, he does all right. Despite being handicapped by his awful spray tan, Craig has an amoral rawness that makes Peirce Brosnan's Bond look, well, girly.

And then there are the real girls. Judi Dench steals every scene she's in, delivering lines like "I might have to have you killed" with such spine-tingling sincerity that even I, miles away from England, was looking over my shoulder. The hapless wife of some millionaire ends up dangling from a hammock as thanks for her attraction to James, but the real Bond girl, Vesper Lynd, is amazing. If there were more accountants like her, there would be no such thing as tax evasion. Her scenes with Bond are interesting, but the two lovers get sacrificed on the altar of poor writing (Case in point: Lynd says to Bond, "You know, even if there were nothing left of you but an easy smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than anyone I've ever met." He answers, "Well, that's because you know what I can do with my little finger." Poignant. Perhaps Lynd is confusing Bond with Judi Dench's character.)

And finally, some things about the film are just bizarre. The opening chase scene, set in a construction yard, casts Bond and his prey as Chinese action heroes doing parkour. In the penultimate scene, Bond tenders his resignation to M16 - through Gmail. And how about the fact that Bond is chasing terrorists (or so we're led to believe, the only villains I see are some especially violent stock-brokers.) By the end of the film Bond has wrecked a construction yard, an embassy and a Venetian palace. Honestly, who needs car bombs when this guy is running around?

Bad Lighting Blues...

2007-03-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

So these days, what with my impressive Pilates regimen, I've been thinking of myself as a bit of a Jessica Alba lookalike. From the neck down, of course.

Imagine my surprise when I slipped into the Nordstrom's dressing room and stood tall (relatively speaking) in front of the three-way mirrors in the flourescent light. I discovered several things. First, that I bear more resemblance to Alba from the neck up than from the neck down. Second, that high-end stores are still using circus-style fat mirrors. Third, that I will never ever install flourescent light in any of my residences.

But instead of thinking about this from my selfish perspective, I looked at the problem like the marketing major I am (fast) becoming. I mean, what kind of strategy is this? Women don't want to see what their clothes look like on them! They want to see what their clothes look like on other, hotter women. (One of the few similarities between the sexes.)

So when I got home, I took several steps. I put on my marketing hat. I tossed all the carbs and refined sugars in my fridge out the window. And I wrote down this plan:

1. The flourescent lights have got to go. What about artistic overhead track lights? Or even candlelight? The pioneers were on to something. Not only is it flattering and mysterious, it doesn't contribute to global warming! Al Gore could use a fitting room like this!

2. Why the white walls and plastic doors? This isn't a high school bathroom stall - we're not sneaking in here to smoke. I want a whole new decor, let's say green and yellow (a pre-prison Martha color scheme, shades that remind the viewer of vegetables and other foods that make her thin)

3. And why the silence, broken once in a while by some midwestern mother drawling to her teenage daughter next door ("Oh god, Allie, not another size 0. When are you going to grow some hips?") Why not play music...maybe old-school Marvin Gaye. Or, for those who don't want to hear a 50-year-old man lay his game down, what about Twista? Who cares if these jeans are, like, a 24?

4. Who looks in all those mirrors anyway? Believe me, if I wanted to stare at my own ass, I'd get a three-way mirror installed in my house. Replace the mirrors in high-end department stores with classy art. In lingerie stores? Opt for windows (with drapes for the milder-mannered shopper.) All those "adult costume" stores in Belmont? Try a life-size reproduction of the Italian soccer team's Dolce ad. Sales will skyrocket.

Of course, all this is just the beginning. I see a future where we don't have fitting rooms at all, but high-end "shopping lounges" where women pick a series of outfits for a model to try on, and then choose the outfits they like best. In fact, why stop at outfits? Dispense with those, too. Soon enough, every woman in America will see this when she walks into a department store.
"God," she'll think, "when did I get that tan?" And buy everything in sight.

It's not dishonesty. It's good business.

Oh my God, Becky, look at her...

2007-03-07T23:32:00.000-08:00

A little while back, Glamour ran a short blurb criticizing cosmetic vaginal surgery. What does that tremor-inducing phrase mean? Cosmetic vaginal surgery covers a variety of completely voluntary procedures: among them, surgeries to tighten your vag and to reattach certain elements, making you feel, in the words of Madonna, "like a virgin." I know - just thinking about this makes me want to cross my legs and weep.

There are some women, of course, who denounce this surgery as an anti-feminist outrage. Personally, I prefer to think of vaginal surgery along the same lines as penis enhancement. Neither seems to improve the receiver's sex life, both can cause severe complications (think permanent loss of sensation, discoloration, oozing, and other things associated with never getting laid again). Interestingly, no one has stepped up to call the penis enhancement industry by its real name: an anti-manist outrage. But let's be honest, who gives a flying, discolored fuck about men's identity issues anyway?

Nonetheless, I think I sense the source of some female outrage. And it has nothing to do with prosthetic privates. The truth is, I too felt a twinge of foreboding when I read the article. I suddenly saw, in my mind's eye, a blazing future in which beautiful women walked around with pencil-thin, constantly virgin vaginas. In this world, I felt outdated and out of place. I faced a terrible choice: go under the knife or die alone.

Then I woke up and realized it was all just a terrible nightmare. But what about those women who never wake up? God, it must be terrible for them.

And at the risk of getting too far out there (let's be honest, I'm pretty far out there already), I have a suggestion for all the dissatisfied women who shell out $5000 to have themselves surgically 'revirginized.' Consider seeing a professional dominatrix. You'll still get a night of awkwardness, pain and bleeding, but it won't cost nearly as much.

For those who really can't get enough of the word "vagina," there's a great article about this surgery in the Wall Street Journal. (Non-subscribers can get a brief summary at Slate.)

Whack Snake Moan

2007-03-01T21:59:00.000-08:00

...or, another movie I won't be seeing this season. The director seems to believe he's made a real revolutionary cry of a film. In my opinion, anytime one person chains another to his radiator it's a felony.

Heroes can be felons (Layer Cake, anyone?). But what about Christina Ricci, in her torn-up Confederate flag shirt? As one man says, "she's got the sickness. She goes crazy." In some perverse way I'm a little thrilled by what a fallen woman she is. She has sex with four men in a single night, and wakes up naked and bleeding by the side of the road. Samuel Jackson says to her, "I will cure you of your wickedness" but really, why be so ambitious? He could just cure her of her scrapes, bruises and broken bones first.

And since when is Ricci's "nymphomania" (a mythical psychosexual disorder, by the way, since most sufferers of hypersexuality usually don't enjoy it) a wickedness? Let's not get carried away: it's not wickedness that gets her into trouble, it's carelessness. If she were having this much sex with, say, her husband, she'd only be obeying the injunction to "be fruitful and multiply." It's not her sex drive that's the problem. It's her addiction to self-mutilation. But the two are not the same.

I've seen the same mentality in the recent book Unhooked. As pointed out on Slate.com, the author assumes that young women who pursue casual sex are going to wake up in a world of pain. I'm not trying to be excessively modern, but I just don't buy it. The world of pain that Ricci experiences (particularly in the long hours clanking around Jackson's Tennessee shack) has nothing to do with the fact that she's been so "violated." And what about Jackson, the down-home hero who, Bible in hand, tries to restore Ricci's lost purity? The entire movie feels like a religious experience: temptation, the suggestion of all these kinky sex games, but in the end, they swear, they're just friends.

I don't buy that either. Friends don't chain their half-naked, drunk friends to the wall. I'm just saying.

Of course, one could argue that it's all allegorical. Fallen woman and knight-errant, devil and angel, left shoulder and right. But my spiritual battles tend not to be so dramatic. Also, for the most part, they don't leave chafe marks.

The Notlist

2007-02-27T21:51:00.001-08:00

GQ once ran a list of "100 Things Every Man Does Not Have to Do Before He Dies." On the list: visit his grandfather's village, have sex on an airplane, and date a supermodel. So, in order of importance, here's my list of "21 Things Every College Student Does Not Have to Do Before He Graduates."

1. March in a protest. (It can be exhilarating, but it can also be wet and awkward.)
2. Get busted by the cops. (It's only fun until you're sitting in a plastic chair deciding whom you want to call.)
3. A three-way. (This one time, while I was in New York, a few co-workers and I got really drunk...and fell asleep.)
4. A major relationship. (We don't all have to get married right out of college, despite what my mother says.)
5. An internship, especially an unpaid one. (Who says your time is worthless?)
6. Study abroad.
7. A second major. (Who's counting? Who cares?)
8. Hard drugs. (Again, it's fun until you wake up, still baked and unable to see properly, in a stranger's apartment. And your wallet's gone. So I'm told.)
9. Have a 'great adventure'. (Who cares if you never motorbiked the Outback? Saved the Whales? Appeared on Parental Control?)
10. Save the world. (From what?)
11. Get 'thrown out' (of a bar, a dorm, an Asian Students Association meeting, etc...)
12. Anything involving alcohol - and a camera. (Who needs proof that they danced on a bar in a short skirt/dyed their chest hair orange/made out with their best friend? Everyone already knows anyway.)
13. Throw a sweet 21st birthday party. (That party - everyone was talking about it? Three sorority girls made out on a couch? Half the freshman class passed out on the floor? Two kids actually did it on the fire escape? The football team brought a giraffe? The neighbors called the fire department? Yeah, that party. It wasn't at your house.)
14. Learn to cook. (It's a fact, people eat Easy Mac long into their 20's.)
15. Blow job shots. Or any other drink that sounds like a sex act.
16. Laundry. (Just kidding, unless you don't wash your underwear.)
17. Found a company (This town ain't big enough for Google, Facebook, and whatever you come up with.)
18. Watch porn. And then talk about it in an honest, respectful way that encourages sincere dialogue between the sexes.
19. Work out.
20. Mature. (Do you still chuckle when some unfortunate exchange student has a name that sounds like an obscenity? What about when someone mentions anal sex?)
21. Figure out what you want out of life. (I know one thing: when I graduate, I will not know what I want to do/whom I want to marry/how many kids I want to have/what age I want to die. I'm not sweating it.)

Oh, to Ben: I don't mind if people read it. Go ahead and put it in the Feed, and good luck.

Suburban Sex Kittens

2007-02-24T20:41:00.001-08:00

Imagine how surprised I was to see an article about pole-dancing in the New York Times. Not because I think it's inappropriate, but because nearly a year ago I wrote the same article, discussing pole-dancing among young women.

For three months I interviewed exotic dancers and their students, attended shows and took classes. In fact, I took a three-hour long class where I learned several different routines and moves for the standard striptease. I thought it would be awkward to get down with a bunch of strangers and, say, hump the floor (or roll my ass, or whatever the hell else) but it wasn't. In fact, ever since, I listen to the Pussycat Dolls while working out. So one could say it changed my life.

But on the other hand, I didn't feel any sexier than normal. I felt a lot freer, that's true. One young student told me, "it taps into your body's natural way of moving." I studied classical Indian Dance for twelve years, ballet for four, jazz for several months...but they all felt like work, like I was training myself to do things my body wouldn't naturally do. In an instant, the striptease felt comfortable and natural. But that's because it isn't as much a dance form as a way of physical expression. So I expected it to come more easily.

The NYT article claims the women in these classes learn to "unleash their inner sex kitten." Here's another trend I discovered: these claims, usually made by peddlers of exotic dance programs, are a little bogus. The women who loved the striptease class were women who felt confident about their sexual beauty. The women who hated it were the ones who didn't, and the class itself didn't really change that dynamic. But perhaps this is mindset? I didn't ask how much the girls wanted their minds to be changed. It's really a psychological question. Women who seek out these experiences fall into two types. Ones who love their sexuality and want to express it, and ones who are afraid/insecure about their sexuality and want to get over it. But a class can only teach you to move. It can't teach you to think, and it can't teach you to feel.

And then there is the final question: many women love their sexuality and just don't express it through dancing, not even for close friends or lovers. It's not how they see themselves. Do these classes promote an unfair standard of sexuality by suggesting that all sexually active, uninhibited women must enjoy exotic dance? To be honest, I had a lot of fun in the class, but that's all it was: pure fun. We laughed, because if you take yourself too seriously when you're tottering around in a men's shirt and platform heels, you just feel cheesy. For some women, theatrics are ridiculous rather than erotic. As with all activities that claim to empower women, the women who don't enjoy it will feel left out, leading to a somewhat one-sided "hotter-than-thou" Pussycat Dolls-style empowerment for the ones who do.

The Truth

2007-02-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

"Haha, you put up quite a fight the other night."

It's not something I expect to hear from a friend. Last night I went out and got so blasted I tried to sleep on a train platform. Some guy carried me home from the train stop (romantic, I know, too bad I was a wreck at the time) and a bunch of friends tried to feed me some water and put me to bed. I was sick and nearly unconscious, but here's what really worries me: apparently I told one good friend, "I need to talk to someone who knows what they're doing." Then, when she went and got another friend, I refused to drink water again, and snapped at her, "Look, I just need to go to the bathroom."

And this morning, yet a third made the "fight" remark. They've all been very sweet and considerate to me since, the first even stopped by to make sure I hadn't curled up and died wretchedly in the night. This was nice of her, considering I was such a meanie. I've always had a lot of contempt for two groups of people. The first is people who drink and get sick. Having never done it, I simply couldn't understand how someone could so underestimate their own limits. Now, several strong Rum and Diet Cokes later, I know.

And the second group I hate are mean drunks who don't have enough discipline to stop drinking. Last night, I was aggressive and rude and impossible to people I cared about. I've been around plenty of drunk women. None of them were ever rude. And that worries me. I've always said alcohol brings out your real personality. I've always been a friendly little drunk, until last night.

The truth is, growing up, I was famous for having a bad temper. I fought with my sister and yelled at my parents all the time. I got it from my father - he had such frequent violent outbursts that my sister and I hid in locked rooms to avoid being slapped and yelled at. My grandfather is famous for his vicious temper. In his case, it borders on a pathological disorder (I would normally never share this with anyone but I'm pretty convinced no one reads this blog). I remember when my aunt committed suicide ten years ago. She set herself on fire. The family hushed it up and pretended it was an accident, but after a few careless remarks I learned the truth: that she'd always been unhappy. When she was my age, my grandfather broke his lifelong prohibition against sending his daughters to college. He let her go to school while she lived at home. One day, she went to a movie theatre with some friends after school. A family friend saw her there and told her father. He was in a bad mood. When she returned, he demanded that she drop out of school. Then he took off his belt and beat her within an inch of her life. Mind you, she was 21. I'm not saying he caused her depression, but that's when the rest of the family started to notice it: when she dropped out of college and stayed at home, and eventually got married off to another man with a bad temper.

The point is, I am terrified of inheriting that legacy. Seeing my father's rages growing up, I developed an early contempt for people with no self-discipline, who express their anger by screaming and throwing things. I remember him getting so angry he picked my younger sister up by the arm and yanked her up the stairs. He would shake her, throw her against the wall. And there I was, standing on the stairs, crying and shouting, "You can't treat people like this!" But of course, he could.

Even now, I remember standing on the stairs and feeling nothing but absolute red fury. I wanted to kill him - and it took me a long while to get over the urge. Sometimes I think I didn't get rid of it, I just supressed it to the point that it was no longer a part of my personality. I disciplined my own temper and mannerisms, partly because I cared, but partly because I knew I would rather die than hit my own children, or hurt my own family. I was not one of those people.

The truth is, I'm shaking to think that's what I descended to. That I hurt someone who was trying to care for me. That it wasn't a change of my personality, but the deep and shameful self I've put away. And at the same time I'm frightened because I enjoyed not being responsible for myself. I don't remember the last time I wasn't trying to change, control or manipulate myself. The other day Erica accused me of having problems with intimacy and it's true. And I wonder if this is why: because deep down I don't know if I like my naked personality. I don't know if I was born a good person, with only good urges. Or if I've tried to make myself into a good person because I have seen bad people, and I have seen them hurt other people, and I refuse to be one of them.

I really can't ever drink that much again.

The joy of telemarketing

2007-02-22T20:49:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I came home from the incredible release party (seriously, over 200 people? What the hell?) and wrote a poem. Actually I wrote three, because it usually takes me that many strikes to hit a vein of gold. As a little teaser, I'll say: it's called Calypso, it's about a siren, and it's pretty sexy. If I say so myself.

I've spent two days now soliciting money from strangers on the phone. It's a long way to come for me. (I was the Girl Scout who sold three boxes of cookies every year - to my parents. I was that shy about asking strangers for money.) But most people actually aren't that rude! Granted, I'm usually calling from nonprofit organizations (it might be different if I needed spare change for Exxon-Mobil) but isn't it great to be pleasantly surprised by your fellow man?

And speaking of being surprised, I was looking at the webpage for a San Francisco escort agency, and was surprised to find they had all of the following listed: men for men, women for women, and men for women. But no women for men! Isn't that the most common arrangement, if we're talking about market supply and demand? I found the omission strange...

Sexy Movie Week

2007-02-20T19:15:00.000-08:00

...or, I still know what you wanted to do last night.

The line-up:

1. Henry and June (based on Anais Nin's famous erotic memoir)
2. Pirates (only the highest-budget porn flick of all time)
3. Sense and Sensibility
4. Entourage, Season 2 (does it count as a movie if I watch it all in one night?)
5. Secretary
6. Yes
7. Stealing Beauty

This personal film festival ends in two nights, when I decide what is the sexiest movie I've seen. Sorry, erotic film enthusiasts, "9 and 1/2 weeks" did not make this list. The previews alone bored me senseless.

A Night Right

2007-02-19T21:15:00.000-08:00

So tonight I went down to the church to photograph a group of folk dancing senior citizens. As gray-haired women twirled by in the arms of various aging Casanovas, I thought: it must be fucking great to grow old. To finally dispense with bullshit because your life really is short!

I mean, you should have seen those people! They were fantastic! I blushed like a seventh grader when one of those old guys asked me to dance. In vain, I hemmed and hawed, pretending I had more photos to take. He would have none of it! To be fair, it was an easy number, a little crossing over and a small kick. I got the hang of it, and I didn't even have to fight some bitch because I stole her man.

On the way back, invigorated by a brisk walk in the cool air, I bought myself a raspberry yogurt at Whole Foods. I'll break the bank, I thought, handing over a $5. I mean, life is short, right?

God, sometimes I really do love journalism.

I also love film. I worked on my first film set this past weekend. What a rush. We were jumping around in a jungle gym while wearing little kids' Halloween costumes and lobbing camera equipment at each other. I can't believe an entire group of NU kids does this every weekend and I really didn't know about it until now.

Here's something else I love: Entourage. Last night at Barleycorn some guy asked me if I wanted to "hug it out." "Sure," I said, "once you take your hand off your dick." Haha, just kidding, of course. But seriously, I did ask him if he watched Entourage. And then he told me he went to Marquette, and I blurted out, "Dwayne Wade went to Marquette!" Man, I was really on fire with this guy. And then we went to the bathroom and lost him. Sigh. Oh beer.

A Night Awry

2007-02-18T01:16:00.000-08:00

I've had a lot to drink, I can barely type straight. But before I clean off my makeup, before I clean up my desk, I want to remember what I'm thinking tonight because I do feel as if it's important.

I've always believed that alcohol doesn't turn you into a different person, it makes you more of yourself. Dancing at a bar downtown tonight, I realized that I can no longer wonder what's wrong with me. I feel as if I have wasted so much of my time and energy wondering how I can better accomodate people who don't give a damn whether I'm alive. (I'm not trying to be melodramatic, I really feel it's the truth.) Tonight I kept dancing with strangers whom I didn't even like and I kept thinking about the same individual and I kept wondering what I was doing wrong, time and again. And this is detrimental thinking. The truth is, I did nothing wrong. It's an insight I had lately regarding jobs and I mean to apply it to all aspects of life. There are times when you are true to yourself and live life correctly and you are still unwanted. And it's better to know that now than later.

When I was in high school, I was so held back by my own imperfections. I knew their names: insecurity, unattractiveness, naivete - I made them up as I went along - and I tried so hard to fight them. I changed my personality and I stopped eating and I pretended to a greater knowledge than I actually possessed, all with a great belief in my own power to confuse other people. And nothing happened.

I have to stop wondering what's wrong with me. Maybe it is something, and maybe it matters, but how much can I apologize for myself? My background, my interests, my race, my personality, my religion, my desires, my ambitions? How much can I take back or hide? How much is it worth it?

I thought I learned this lesson in high school but I'm still learning it: that I am not that important nor that interesting nor that pretty nor that anything. And none of it matters, because nobody is. What matters is some other strange quality that I don't have, and I have to stop obsessing over it.

Not because it isn't important. But because I can only live a certain way. Tonight, Sara said, "I can't date that Indian boy because I know where it will go. His parents will hate me, and he's not Jewish." And so I said, because let's not let her off too easily, "So your parents will hate him," and she said, "My grandmother." And the truth is, this is all a lie. His parents won't hate her, any more than they hate anything they don't recognize. And her grandmother will get over it. And my parents would never hate anyone. They taught me, from the beginning, that I should pursue whatever and whomever made me happy, and that is what matters. It was a disservice because I grew up believing that happiness has no rules. And to most people happiness is nothing but rules. That is the difference that matters.

This fall in New York I saw so many interracial couples and every time I saw one I was struck by the thought that there are parts of the world where people still take chances on each other. And I used to live somewhere like that, whether it was a real place or my own mind. In losing my context, I've lost myself, lost my belief in my own worthiness, in all the values I was raised with. I've found myself in conversations where boys will tell me that I would be great if only I were white or Christian and I've nodded fucking along as if this is okay. As if it just happens.

Tonight, one of these boys said, "I don't get along well with smart girls" and I said, "You and I will never get along." And he said, "You are way too personable, and way too cute, to be here." Sometimes, that is how I want to feel. Better than everyone else. As if I should never have come here, never have left home, never have doubted anything in life.

This is my last and most important thought. When I was a freshman in college, I fell really hard for this one kid. I've never admitted it to anyone (probably a mistake in and of itself) but there are many times when I think, what was wrong with me? I wanted him so much. And I hate knowing that my self-esteem depends so much on a circumstance, an individual, and a series of meaningless moments I imagined to be more than they were.

Fantasies and boredom

2007-02-16T11:28:00.000-08:00

A good friend once told me that when she got really bored, she started fantasizing about torture: elaborate scenes in which she was the perpetrator. Needless to say, it's not a fantasy she plays out in real life.

But it made me wonder about those strange dreams that move into your head when you're bored. I sit through two-hour lectures. My attention span can be so short I've sometimes wondered if I missed out on an ADD diagnosis I really deserved. I fantasize about all kinds of things: sometimes violent, raw or just plain strange.

And what about the intersection of fantasies and dreams? Last night I dreamed I was pregnant (a dream I've never had before) with twin girls. The strange part is, I remember people asking me over and over who the father was, and I simply could not remember. I was 21, there was no father, and everyone seemed extremely happy for me. I only felt anxious once, and that was when I looked down at my pregnant self and realized I had X-ray vision, and could see through my skin to the babies inside. And somehow, Howard Stern was involved.

But it was a happy dream.

Which makes me wonder. The strange part about dreaming isn't what happens (although it's usually creepy) but how you feel about it when it's ocurring. Another friend - a really, really heterosexual one - told me this in high school. "So the other night I had a dream where you and I hooked up," she said, as we got into her car. "And the entire time it felt so strange and awkward!" Your dream was strange and awkward? I thought. What about this conversation? She seemed relieved - obviously, if even her dream self didn't like girls, she was out of the so-called lesbian woods - but I don't know.

Is dreaming like drinking? Does it lower your inhibitions and turn you into a stranger? What about nightmares? I once read that dreams are the mind's way of getting rid of excess energy. Perhaps high-intensity dreamers are just people with loads of excess mental energy - that makes sense, if boredom leads to daydreams. When I'm tired I almost never dream, but when I'm on vacation I dream so intensely that I wake up feeling I didn't sleep at all but actually, briefly, lived another life.

My Free Lunch

2007-02-12T21:03:00.000-08:00

Sitting in the darkness of my room (our lamp just fused out) I wish for a fast electrician and the wherewithal to pay him. I wish for...an expense account.

As one of my old employers once said of the New Yorker, there are two types of people in this world. Those who have it, and those who don't. The same is true of expense accounts. This past weekend I stayed in the Hilton in NYC's Financial District, doing final-round interviews for a high-powered investment bank. I was surprised to find myself, for the first time, staying in a hotel room completely alone. And at someone else's expense.

The truth is, I've worked in nonprofits and in the government sector. I haven't made a cent off my past two internships, and for once it felt nice to be a person of means. I could take Town Cars without feeling a rush of guilt. (Imagine wedging a carry-on suitcase through the gates of a New York subway station and you'll realize why this matters.)

Sitting in the Hilton's all-hours "Business Center" I accidentally printed a document on a machine the guy next to me was using. "Sorry!" I exclaimed. "Let me pay you..."
He looked at me like I was a door off its hinges. "Look," he said, eyes narrowed. "I can always expense it." And in a flash of blinding insight I realized, Wait, so can I! It's like a rush of blood to the head. I was dizzy, blinded, strangely excited...part of an upper class I hadn't even known existed.

There are drawbacks. Except at the most senior levels, those who live the expense account life rarely have leisure time. It's true, they fret over bottom lines and corporate valuation. Coming back, I was a little deflated when I heard someone use the phrase "Econ Tool." Is that me? I wondered.

A word in the defense of Econ Tools. Just like there are Econ Tools, there are Nonprofit Tools. People who attend every lecture about every cause, toss around phrases like "institutional oppression" when talking about a rare night at the Keg, and in general make a nuisance of the fact that they really really care about low-income people's right to all-organic diets. I care about most liberal causes, I've volunteered for liberal politicians. But I can't lie - sinking into the 500-thread-count sheets, damp from a shower taken under a massaging showerhead, and smelling of sweet hotel shampoo - I didn't fill with righteous indignation. I didn't think about the child labor that wove those sheets, the water wasted during my long shower, or the landfills those empty shampoo containers would end up in. Instead, I thought, Ahhh...this feels good...wow, five pillows! It's like an orgy with a family of dwarves!

Maybe it's not what I expected going in, but it's not that bad, either.

Saline Through Life

2007-02-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

I am an educated, liberated woman, and this morning I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered, "Should I get breast implants?"

There, I've confessed. I can't think of any way I could embarrass myself further, but I'm going to try. Let me explain.

I used to think plastic surgery was for insecure, whiny women with no self-esteem. In fact, I still think that. There's no relationship between breast size and cranial capacity, or even earning power (except in certain black market fields I don't care to pursue. Although, I have to admit, in terms of the sweet life of a stripper: at least you skip college and you never pay taxes on your tips). But I digress. The point is, I was never whiny: I was mostly satisfied with the way I looked.

But recently, driven by stress, cold-weather and my rising gym bill, I've starting taking near-daily trips to our local health club. I take Pilates and yoga. I bounce a stability ball on my nose (as well as other unlikely places). I swim laps for the first time since dropping swim team. After just three weeks of this aggressive regimen, I'm stronger and smaller than ever. But here's the caveat (and there's always something) when women shrink, they shrink everywhere. (The same can't really be said of men. Is there nothing on earth that doesn't work in men's favor?)

So I went from being average to...well...almost average. And this is a huge psychological difference. (Imagine, if you're a man, the same thing happening to you. Wouldn't you treat it as a crisis on the same level as premature balding, inability to parallel park or, say, the Israel/Palestine conflict?) I've looked for positive help. I've mentioned the problem to friends, but through some self-destructive impulse I've only befriended women who are far better endowed than I am. Their sympathy takes the form of "constructive advice" like "Well, at least you're not fat" or "Why don't I give you one of mine to balance us out? Oh wait, hahaha, I can't. Sorry." Thanks, girls. My mother, who negates all my rebellions by taking them in stride, said, "Well, honestly, you're probably the smallest woman in our family. But they'll get bigger when you're pregnant." Thanks, Mom. Not only am I a genetic anomaly, but the only solution to my problem is a lifelong commitment to the absolute care of another human being.

How is it possible I didn't think of this when I started working out so much? Perhaps because most of the women I see in their underwear (Adriana, Karolina, Gisele and Alessandra) seem incredibly fit and massively endowed. But you can't Photoshop into real life the way you can onto magazine pages.

And to be honest, most people don't seem to care. Men have the same attitude towards size as four-star generals have toward U.S. troop deployment in Iraq: although bigger is usually better, the most important thing is a coordinated strategy. Particularly if you're committed long-term.

So I guess I can handle it, without the aid of cosmetic surgery. After all, Merriam-Webster defines a woman as "an adult female person." It's quite a brief definition, really. In the dictionary, at least, less can be more.

Savor faire

2007-02-10T22:37:00.000-08:00

Imagine walking to class. Crossing over the Bosporus Strait to the forests and castles on the European side. Hearing the morning call to prayer. Spending an hour talking about politics - in detail - before dropping by a cafe with friends. Ordering tea, breaking out a backgammon board, mulling your next moves. By the time you all leave, it's gotten dark.

It's the carefree life, right?

My friend says this is what he misses most about Turkey. The slow pace at which people live. The freedom to "savor."

I spent two months living with my grandmother in India. I woke up every morning when she was praying. I ate breakfast, took a shower, read for an hour. Went for a walk in the uneven lane outside her apartment building, weighed down by heat. Sometimes I stopped and sat in the garden, surrounded by bees and flowers and homeless dogs. I heard boys zipping by on their motorcycles outside. After ten minutes - or twenty, or an hour - I got up and walked back. I swung open the squeaking black gate, crossed the marble foyer, and peeled back both metal elevator doors. I heard a splatchy version of "Fur Elise" as I took the lift to the fifth floor. Went back inside and fell asleep on the cool marble floor under the buzzing fan. When I woke up my grandmother was painting at the kitchen table. "Want to learn?" she asked. And having nothing else to do, I picked up a paintbrush and let her guide me.

Another morning I went with my grandfather to the market. We milled around the stalls, smelling marigolds and rot. I tripped into runnels of dirty rainwater. All of a sudden a cloud came over the sun, and the air turned warm. Rain poured down on our heads. We ran to an awning and waited ten minutes - or twenty, or an hour - before striking back out, dripping with evaporating water. We filled our hands with tomatoes and custard apples before going home.

One morning a bird flew through our open balcony window and became trapped in the main bedroom. My uncle shut all the windows and we took up positions on either side of the room. We chased the bird back and forth. It flew frantically from wall to wall, perching on bureaus and beds and the washing line hung overhead. When it was exhausted, my uncle picked it up and handed it to me. The bird was small enough to fit in just one of my hands. As I wrapped my fingers around either side of its head, I felt the burst of its every heartbeat against the tips of my fingers. We finally let it go.

There's something to be said for living slowly. In the moments when there's nowhere to go, there's nowhere to be but the present. That summer, I realized what spice tastes like, that individual salt grains can make my tastebuds water if I hold them on my tongue for long enough. That cotton has a rough grain that can agitate the skin. That rain has a smell both before and after it falls. And the smell is not the same. That the sun's heat can feel like melted wax if I sit for too long without moving. That bees won't sting me if I'm still, but dogs will still bite.

The point is, it's important to move. To work. And at the same time, to sit still. To expand the senses. These moments don't have to last two months. Since that summer, I have a space in my mind dedicated entirely to feeling. When I feel, I stop thinking. My every nerve develops its own memory and history. I don't want to be a whole, I want to be broken into my component parts.

Where Did Sexy Go?

2007-02-02T23:38:00.000-08:00

Or, the Footwear makes the woman. This thought comes to me as I unwrap two new pairs of shoes. I know - my resolution to hold off on reckless consumption lasted as long as it took the Nine West Web site to load (which was a long time, I have a slow Internet connection) - but who cares? These beauties are for work. They have square toes, low heels, and sleek velvet exteriors. These shoes are Lincoln Town Cars. They are going somewhere fast, and they have important people inside.

And the second pair? Well, that's a whole different story. I admit, there's some lace action going on, and an open toe, and three inch heels (who says size doesn't matter?). It's possible that these shoes don't have their mind on the issues, that they tell dirty jokes, that they come with a matching lace flask and lingerie. It's possible.

The other day, I told my parents that I'd given up high heels. "They're not practical," I said.
"That's so true," my Dad agreed. He puts his money where his mouth is - we went shoe shopping early last year. When we got into the store, I took off my sneaks and walked around in front of a weathered septuagenarian, who stared as I walked (his eyes on the same level as my knees). I did a few turns around the store. The man straightened, looked me in the eye, and said gravely, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but you pronate." At my look of horror he added, "But don't worry, we caught it in time." And he brought out boxes and boxes of heavy white sneakers with medial posts and reinforced arches.
"Um...do you have anything in black or silver?" I ventured. He and my Dad looked shocked. "Running is a serious business," he said. "You need serious shoes." I looked around the serious store - one poster suggested 'Tips for Triathletes' and another 'Water- and Windproofing Techniques' and I thought, this guy means business. I walked out with Aasics. White. Serious. And expensive.

So I knew my Dad meant well when he warned me against stilettos. My mom added, "Heels are so painful. They're just another torture device meant to distract women from working on what's really wrong with society."
"Right," said Dad, falling over himself to reach the speakerphone in time, "You should always keep your mind on the issues."

Well, by this point I suspected there was more at work than their desire not to pay for my back-realignment surgery.

"Wait," I said. "Don't you all remember when Condoleezza Rice went to inspect troops in Afghanistan? She wore knee-high black boots with stiletto heels. Are you trying to say her mind wasn't on the issues?"

In fact, I know more: when someone asked the Sly Secretary about her footwear choice, Condi smiled and replied, "It was cold out." An evasive tactic worthy of the administration she serves.

My parents, not updated, hemmed and hawed. They could feel - as could I -that their goose was getting cooked. The gig was coming up. By which I mean, I am no longer as compliant as I once was.

"Well, just remember what matters," Dad said, delivering the State of the Union for both of them. And they hung up.

The question: where did sexy go? Clearly, to military training fields in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Oval Office, Stanford University and the Republican National Convention (that last, of course, being a negotiable stop on the road to success).

The Pen is Mightier than the film noir...

2007-01-21T21:15:00.000-08:00

So it's three in the afternoon and you stroll into a bar, looking to use the bathroom. You think the place will be empty but sure enough, there's some sad kid sitting at the bar, savoring the unhappy hour special (that's what they call it when you drink alone before 5 in the evening). He's wearing a long black coat, patched at the elbows and missing a few buttons. He's got a notebook nestled in his armpit, and there's a row of empty shot glasses in front of him. He's not a picture of style, but you notice he's making an effort. His heavy boots sorta shine. He's got his hat on sideways, and it almost looks cool, and as he downs another shot and wipes his mouth you think, I better give this one a wide berth.

But as you sidle towards the door, ready to make your exit, he catches sight of you. "Hey," he shouts, like you're just the man he was looking for. "Hey wait a second!" And you stop, guilty, hands in your pockets to show you don't want any trouble. "Yeah what?" you mutter. The kid wipes his mouth and takes off his hat, and you realize he needs to spend some time with shampoo and a razor. Oh - and he isn't a kid, either, because his hair is gray at the temples. He's just awfully skinny, like it's been a while since he stood still long enough to eat.

"How do you feel about this whole election scam?" he asks, like he's just talking about the weather. "To be honest," you stammer, "I haven't really been following the news..." "You haven't been following the news, huh? The men in power are pulling the wool over your own fucking eyes and you don't give a damn?" He's calm about it, though.
"Whoa, man, I don't know why you're talking to me..." you say, stalling, wondering where the bartender is and whether this is some kind of setup, and if men in black hats are gonna bust down the doors at any second and take all your cash and leave you duct-taped to a bar stool, penniless and desperate. "Who are you, anyway? Why are you here?"

"Oh, my name doesn't matter, but it's Gerald White if you're asking. And I'm here because this here Jack Daniels is just about the only date I can get in this town anymore." He smiles, revealing uneven teeth. And suddenly you know who he is. You've seen his name in the headlines. Gerald White spent months stalking the local Senator, nearly went to jail, had his phone lines tapped by the FBI and the CIA and the FDA for all you know. Badgered the officials up at City Hall until they broke down, and he came away with a real cockamanie tale about how the state senators had been gerrymandering the Southern counties - something about taking down the Hispanic vote.

Some people call White a hero, but in your opinion he's a goddamn trouble-mongering son of a bitch who just makes normal people uncomfortable. He's a journalist.

--

So there are a lot of stereotypes about journalists. That they drink a lot, and wear shitty clothes, don't shower and can't get dates. They're a weird cultish bunch who speak their own language. And in a world where you get points for blending in, journalists make an effort to stand out. Normally I don't go for this kind of thinking, but since I started taking photojournalism class, I've found myself once more on the fringes of polite society. Last week I walked for miles to get a weather shot. I found myself way out on Noyes Street, freezing cold and starving hungry, so I ducked into the first restaurant I saw to warm myself up. Of course, it was lunchtime, and the restaurant was full of people eating with their friends. And there I was, chowing down totally alone, feeling like an outcast and wishing I had a sign that read, I swear, I have friends, this is the first time I've eaten alone in my life. But it's not. I did it just last quarter, stranded between trains on my way downtown to do an interview.

Last night I go to see my sister sing in a church. I bring my camera because these days I can't part from it. I slide into the last pew, entirely alone, shrouded in my warm black coat. The couple in front of me has two young kids. And as the kids cavort and the choir sings, I think, This would make a perfect shot for my weekly photojournalism assignment. Out comes the camera, as quietly as possible. I slide it open, scooch down the pew until I'm at just the right angle to snap a shot of the little girl on her mother's lap. Fuck permission. I'm gonna get my shot off first. And the kid moves. I wipe my brow and put the camera down. I wait. Soon enough she's back, reading a little brochure, and looking so damn cute I just know I have to get this shot. I inch down further, wondering if the parents are on to me. But it doesn't matter - everyone knows that if you get a kid in the shot, it's a surefire feature. And again, the kid moves. By now I'm sweating in my coat, but I also have a bad cold, and I start to cough. I don't have water, but as I dig through my bag I come across a sketchy plastic bottle left over from a party the night before. I ease it open and take a big sip. Shit. Vodka. So there I am, sitting alone in the back row of church, drinking and trying to take covert pictures of other's people's kids.

Sometimes the stereotypes are true.