Apt. 11D

Spreadin' Love 492

I love that the Clintons go to their local Memorial Day parade.

The best dresses at Cannes. 

Was the creator of the TV Show, Community, fired, because he was autistic? 

Percentage of college grads by metro area. 

 

Sunday's Mad Men

Wow. 

I guess Jaguar Motors was not impressed. 

Female Bylines

The whole report is here.

Elizabeth Warren and the Academia Backlash

Alex MacGillis wonders if Elizabeth Warren's candidacy has been damaged by the academia backlash.

But when you're worrying about getting your kids through college in an era of $50,000 tuition, room and board, it is, shall we say, a little bit dissonant to have the rally for the little guy coming from a professor whose bottom line has benefited from those sky-high tuition rates...

Seriously, if Lizzie Warren, daughter of an Oklahoma City janitor, can't make the jump from the ivory tower, who can? Her troubles may be a sign that the academy's moat has grown wider than it ever intended.

 

Hey Mon

Who Works the Hardest?

Derek Thompson has a couple of very funny charts on the Atlantic. Chart One shows that every country in Europe thinks that Greece is the laziest country, while the Greeks think that they work the hardest.

Chart Two (on the left) shows that the Greeks are right. They do work a lot, but their work is less profitable than work in more industrialized nations. 

The Spelling Bee Whiz

Confession. When Steve and I watch the National Spelling Bee contest, we often play the game "Spot the Autistic Kid." 

A six-year old has qualified for the National Spelling Bee this year. She's the youngest contestant ever. She was too smart for a gifted and talented school, so she is homeschooled. She hit all her milestones early and was reading at age 2. (Ian read at three, btw. How do you spell hyperlexia?) The little girl is actually a little annoying, and there's already a backlash against the kid. 

Doc Watson

Labors of Love

Arlie Russell Hochschild has a new book, The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times, which looks at all the people caught up in the care business.

With women in the office, extended families dispursed, and communities in shambles, the job of care taking of others has been outsourced to professionals for a dollar. Hochschild looks at love coaches, nannies, elder-care managers, surrogate nannies in India. She wonders whether "we are dividing the world into emotional types — order-barking, fast-paced entrepreneurs at the top, and emotionally attuned, human-paced mediators at the bottom?”

Judith Shulevitz has a great review in this week's New York Times book review. I just ordered this book. 

Travel Websites

It's that time of the year when I get itchy for adventure. 

We're due to visit my in-laws in the Outer Banks this summer. We usually break up the trip down there with adventures in coastal towns in Delaware and romps through the mountains of Virginia. The New York Times has some great websites to help me plan.

They recommend Designtripper. I need to spend some quantity time on that website. 

National Geographic's profile of the Outer Banks is fabulous. 

 

Horror History

Etan Patz's parents in their Soho apartment in 1979.

I can't imagine the pain that these people have endured. 

Another Guest Blog Post

I wrote about public colleges and adjuncts at Megan's blog today. 

The Kiddies

Only silly stuff on Apt. 11D today! 

At 7 this morning, I went upstairs to round up the boys for breakfast, and Ian came flying out of Jonah's bedroom laughing. "Mom, we're NOT playing video games!" They're not allowed to play with electronic devices during the school week until homework is done. They are most certainly not allowed to be playing video games before breakfast. They were chased around the house and spankings were administered.*

Yesterday, I started the cleaning spree that is required before the in-laws visit. I went into Jonah room and found his suitcase from last week's Washington, DC. I told him to clean it out, but he hadn't done it. I sighed and dumped the contents of the suitcase on his bed. I found three pairs of underwear in their original wrapping. I guess Jonah had failed to change his underwear during his three day visit to DC with his class. Jonah's default setting is gross. 

Ian was in the choir recital for the fourth grade. We haven't had the best luck with school productions in the past. There was the kindergarten and first grade shows where he stood on the edge of the stage frozen unable to sing. Last year's recorder show was a bust, because he couldn't stand the screeching, out of tune notes. I went to this show with very low expectations.

His teacher had told us only the night before that the kids were required to wear dress clothes. I need more than one day to get Ian into dress clothes. So, I packed up Jonah's old 1st communion pants and shirt and sent his teacher an e-mail that said "good luck getting him into those clothes."

Not only did he wear the clothes, but he sang and did the choreography. I am very, very proud of him.

 

 

* My concerned commenters asked that I make it very clear that the kids and I were horsing around and no spankings occurred.

State Colleges

I'm working on an article about state colleges. Got any gripes? Got links to great research? Send it my way. 

(Off for the morning. Going to art school.) 

Spreadin' Love 491

Maria Popova points to 5 timeless commencement speeches. 

Rufus Wainwright angers church parisioners in Chelsea. "Wainwright told us, 'It is a beautiful church, and I hope that it gets the restoration it deserves. But considering the Catholic Church’s views on gay rights, they won’t get much help decorating.'
"

Why Are SAHM's So Bummed Out?

Sharon Lerner looks at the emotional state of stay-at-home moms.

In the latest unfortunate news at the intersection of motherhood and politics, stay-at-home moms are doing worse emotionally than their working counterparts. According to a Gallup pollreleased last week, mothers who don’t work outside the home were far more likely to be depressed, with 28 percent reporting depression, compared with 17 percent of working mothers, and also 17 percent of working women who don’t have children. In fact, stay-at-home moms fare worse than these two groups by every emotional measure in the survey, reporting more anger, sadness, stress, and worry. They were more likely to describe themselves as struggling and suffering and less likely to see themselves as “thriving.”

She says that finances play a huge role in this depression. Also, she says that mothering work is low status and under appreciated. Mothers need longer parental leave policies, protection for part time workers, and affordable child care. 

Impact of Autism on Families

Ricardo Dolmetsch, an associate professor of neurobiology at Stanford University, says his son's autism diagnosis has changed both his personal and professional life.

This work was made more difficult, Dolmetsch says, by the fact that caring for a child with a disability is a full-time job. Although his wife, neurobiologist Asha Nigh, supports his research, such as through managing projects and writing grant proposals, she has put her own scientific career on hold in order to care for their son and his brother, age 7. In his opinion, Dolmetsch says, his wife has earned an honorary doctorate "in getting insurance coverage for stuff."

"The finances of autism are brutal," Dolmetsch says. "The amount of continuous care these kids need is a lot. … The only thing that works at all are behavioral treatments," which, depending on the state and one's health plan, may not be covered by insurance, he says. "They're very intensive… and they're horrifyingly expensive."

Insurance companies MUST start paying for autism treatment. 

 

Guest Blogger

I'm guest blogging at the Atlantic for a couple of weeks. (Thanks so much to Megan for giving me this opportunity.) My first post tied together school vouchers and integration. 

Nicholas Lemann Explains Why College Costs So Much

Nicholas Lemann:

College costs so much because people are paying for unstated social goals. Each college and university is a collection of many different activities, some of which pay for others. Research libraries and philosophy departments can’t possibly make money; they require subsidies from business schools and biomedical-research labs, but that drives tuition higher than it would be if universities dropped their money-losing functions. More broadly, the United States created the world’s first mass system of higher education. Hundreds, not dozens, of colleges aspire to be research universities—because there lies status, prestige, and intellectual excitement—and so they have faculty members with low teaching loads. That costs money. The system is built to take in just about all high-school graduates, and that costs money, too.

I said that in the comment section of this post and in this article. 

30 Days For Ravi

A judge sentenced former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi today to 30 days today. It was recommended that he not be deported. More info here. 

Fair or not fair?