11D

The Writing Process

I always get questions from my neighbors and friends about what professors do in the summer time. I have to explain that I write papers in the summer and that my job is more than just giving lectures and grading papers. They check out my grubby t-shirt and my hair in a knotty pony tail and then give me a skeptical look. The thought bubbles over their head are saying, "sure. She's watching Oprah and lazing about."

No really. I'm writing. And it is very, very painful.

I started a paper on the Internet and American politics a few weeks after the end of the semester. It a theoretical paper, which brings together a lot of literature and adds my own spin to things. I wanted to write without the pressure of deadline in order to produce something better than the rush jobs that I usually do in the summer, so I decided to give the end of summer APSA conference a miss this year.

By last week, I had forty pages of stuff. Well, forty pages of bad stuff. I was too caught up in making every small point that I had ever thought up and not the overall picture. I wrote pages and pages of long descriptive passages with eloquent language. But I had buried the big point somewhere on page 30. I had started writing a book, rather an article. I finally realized what I had done over the weekend. On Sunday, I made a new outline. All week, I've been hacking and slashing and things are finally coming together. The goal is to have a decent rough draft by next week, when the kids finish camp.

There something tortuous about this process. Each sentence requires a certain amount of blood letting. One paragraph comes out easily, but keeping my ADHD riddled mind focused enough to write a second and third paragraph requires a mental whipping. Editing makes waterboarding look good.

I experimented with offering myself little treats and incentives. I tried writing at home for a while, then moved to my office, and now I'm backing writing at home.

I know I'll be pleased when it's all done and I suppose it beats a day job, but this writing process sure hurts.

The Wordle of my paper:

Newpaper Comments

My brother the journalist often gripes about the crackpots that leave comments on the online version of his newspaper. He says it's an enormous pain in the ass to have to monitor the neo-Nazi rants at the end of each newspaper article. Similar sentiments at Gawker.

While you're there, you must check out how they age McCain and Obama. I'm loving Gawker lately.

A New Media Link-Fest

Christopher Caldwell writes about the New Yorker/Obama mess and comes to a similar conclusion that we did in our comment section.

This problem would never have come up 20 years ago, when the only people who read the New Yorker were subscribers. But today, billions of people are a mouse-click away from being New Yorker “readers”. Enough clicks and the cartoon begins to convey the opposite of what it meant to. Under the influence of a hyperdemocratic medium like the internet, you can’t say anything to anyone that won’t be heard by everyone….

Dan adds, "I’m not sure the problem is strictly about partisanship.  Methinks it’s the witches brew of partisanship and the democratization of media."

I've been trying to ignore the "stealing the cracker"/death threat nonsense in the blogosphere. Nobody comes out clean in that fight, and I'm not going to even link to relevant posts. Use google.

Hendrik Hertzberg says that the netroots are quibbling about Obama's flip flops. Gotta wonder if the Netroots is going to be able to make the switch from "the loyal opposition" to actually getting someone elected.

I only read the New York Times business section on Mondays, when it covers the media business. My husband's stress level is a much better barometer of the general economy than anything I can read in the paper. I highly recommend Monday's business section. I always look forward to David Carr's column. Today's column is a light piece about Facebook. (I'm due for a light post on Facebook.) Carr's take on new media is a little stogy, but he knows the business really well and writes charming pieces. Last week, he dropped hints about his former crack habit. A few days later, I read an excerpt of his book at Gawker. And then there was the magazine piece this weekend. Great stuff. It adds a whole new angle to memoir writing.

Two big blog conferences happened this weekend: Netroots Nation (a much better title that Kosfest) and BlogHer. I'm looking around for good recaps.

A blogger makes six figures.

Weekend Journal

We're busy checking off items from "Things We Must Do Before Summer Is Over" list. We're having a hard time getting Yankee tickets, so we headed down the shore instead.

Little Bundles of Joykill

An article in Newsweek discusses the latest studies on happiness and children, which find that parents are less happy than non-parents. (Via Will Wilkinson and Megan)

In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book "Stumbling on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008's "Gross National Happiness" author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.

In fact, we seem even more unhappy about the rugrats than we did in the past. Some point to the increasing difficulties of mixing work and family. Or it may because more of us had a blast in our 20s, so those late night feeding and temper tantrums are rather a shock to the system.

Wilkinson says that empirical studies on these matters are limited, since the intense love for our kids may compensate for the hassle. Megan says the findings in the study sound about right and that women have been sold a pack of lies in order to agree to marry and pump out kids.

There's got to be something rewarding, if not happy making, about having kids. Or else, why do parents have more than one. If they had been sold a pack of lies, you would think that after the first one, they would catch on and stop. No, people keep pumping them out and go for two or three.

The low level of happiness that is being measured by parents is certainly tied to the crappy work-family laws in this country. Northern European countries with more liberal policies in this area have higher birthrates than Italy and Spain with less liberal laws. So, these studies haven't measured the right thing. Unhappiness comes from the lack of support from government and society. It's not the kids that make us sad; it's the hostile environment.

The Dark, Dead Knight

The Dark Knight is getting mostly, excellent reviews. Apple Geniuses and World of Warcraft addicts everywhere are lining up for tickets. We'll have to wait to see it until we can reserve Amanda the babysitter.

As much as I would like to see Heath Ledger's performance, I think it will be difficult to throw myself into the movie without thinking about masseuses, Mary Kate Olson, cocktails of prescription drugs, and pathetic, boring self-destruction.

A few days ago, I watched "10 Things I Hate About You," which is one of my favorite teen flick. Great soundtrack, great Arts and Crafts house (I really have to refinish the hardwood trim in our house), great scenes with Allison Janney, great lines from the dad ("Kissing isn't what keeps me up to my elbows in placenta all day long"). Ledger really does an outstanding job of going beyond the "bad boy with a heart of gold" role. He's quirky and frizzy haired and awkward. More geeky than dangerous.

Leger had an approachability that makes his death more real than other icons that have kicked the bucket in recent years. He hadn't been turned into a two dimension figure by the tabloids and publicists. He was fallible and sweet and uncomfortable. There was something fragile about his performances. This will be a hard movie to watch.

Spreadin' Love

Lawrence and Sides write about their research on political blogs. Matt responds. Bloggasm finds that traffic levels were up on all political blogs in the first half of 2008.

Ana Marie Cox says that McCain doesn't want to talk about "girlie" domestic stuff.

I've never been one of those who thinks McCain's social conservatism is for show and that deep down, he's a closet liberal. He really is pro-life, anti-gay marriage, etc. But it is also true that he would rather not talk about it. His aversion to those topics is at fifth-grade-and-cooties level. It's his reluctance to discuss those matters that, I think, makes some people hope he's uncomfortable with the actual views. Who knows, maybe he is.

Ezra Klein writes, "prominent women are one-third less likely to be encouraged to run for office than prominent men". Actually, I was recruited and turned it down for work and family reasons.

All Must Be Mocked

Is Obama too pure to be mocked? Can his purity be mocked? Yes, damnit.

The Comedy Central crew and the late night hosts have been a little afraid to go there. His race and the partisanship of their writers might be factors.

Dowd thinks his green earnestness is a prime target for ha-has. She had chatted about making Obama jokes with Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.

When I noted that Obama, in his memoir, had revealed that he had done some pot, booze and “maybe a little blow,” the two comedians began riffing about the dapper senator’s familiarity with drug slang.

Colbert: Wow, that’s a very street way of putting it. ‘A little blow.’

Stewart: A little bit of the white rabbit.

Colbert: ‘Yeah, I packed a cocktail straw of cocaine and had a prostitute blow it in my ear, but that is all I did. High-fivin.’ ’

Here's Colbert on the New Yorker cover.

UPDATE: Must read Jon Swift (via Bitch PhD)

Rosa Brooks and Dan Drezner talk about this at Bloggingheads.

Time For Some Campaignin'

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It's Satire, Get it?

This morning, I caught the headlines on the Today show before I packed the kids up for camp. Brangelina spawn. Miley McSlutty. And the New Yorker cover.

When Matt Lauer described the furor and showed the image, I rolled my eyes. Big deal, I thought. Lauer seemed to think it was all about selling magazines. I thought, New Yorker humor, but pretty obvious and probably wouldn't raise an eyebrow when it showed up in the mail. I would just skim the contents for an Anthony Lane review and then plop it on the coffee table.

Most bloggers agreed with me.

Yeah, the ruckus hasn't died down. CNN grilled David Remnick this afternoon. And he was all like "satire, people." And Wolf Blitzer was like, "no, hate mongery. People won't get your humor." And then they found the dumbest people in America and showed them the cover and sure enough, they didn't get it.

This nonsense is starting to tick me off. Do we have to run all political humor past a focus groups of dumb people to make sure they get it?

5 Year Blogoversary

Dude. I've been blogging for five years now both here and the old blog. I have written at least one blog post almost every weekday for five years. Dude.

I'm not sure if I should be very proud or very embarrassed.

Well, blogging has been very, very good to me. 1.2 million page views. Smart and funny friends. I've learned crap loads from the process of writing quickly and from the back and forth of political debate with you all. I'm very grateful that people keep showing up here.

Here's to another five years.

Spreadin' Love

Kristoff profiles two men who are attempting to combat religious extremism and global warming with small, grassroots programs. Do these drops in the bucket make a difference? I would like to think so, but my cynical side says no.

A podcast of Eric Hanushek talking about school finance.

Tim Gunn! (via Andrew Sullivan)

Congrats to Ianqui on the birth of Yo. Kisses on those chubby baby cheeks.

Weekend Journal

You spend half your life saving up to buy a house. Then you spend the rest of your life working to keeping the house from falling down. 

Signs of Summer

The Blogosphere and Partisanship

A recent paper by Farrell, Lawrence, and Sides found that more blog readers self-identified as liberal, rather than conservative.  In a bloggingheads diavlog and post at CT, Farrell also argues that democrats have dominated the Internet early, since blogging took off when the Republicans held the presidency and Congress. The internet may also appeal to younger people who tend to be more liberal than older people.

This poses real problems for the Republican party. Will they be able to catch up? Republicans took early domination of talk radio and the left was never able catch up in that medium. They now face the same difficult catch-up position in the Internet, that Democrats faced in talk radio in the 1980s.

I'm not entirely sure that liberals control the Internet. In a paper that I did with my colleague, Toni Pole, we found that more bloggers in our study identified as conservative or libertarian. A quick look at the top 100 bloggers shows a healthy balance between the left and the right (though I have to admit being too lazy to count them up.) Outside of the blogosphere, Democrats have been much better about using all tools of new media - YouTube and social networking software, but within the blogosphere, many of the early adopters were conservative who were all steamed up about 9/11 (ie Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt, Lileks, Sullivan). Perhaps the huge success of Huffington Post, a late adopter, is helping to skew readership to the left.

I do think that liberal bloggers have an entirely different mission than conservative bloggers. Liberal bloggers, taking the lead from guys like Kos, are more interested in political mobilization, while conservative bloggers have been more interested in attacking the media and academia, which they perceive as preservers of the liberal order. (Our paper hints at that finding, but we needed a larger N to prove that point.) The mission of liberal bloggers may be more successful and more attractive to future blog readers.

President Presumptive

OK. Who's loving that Jesse Jackson said "nuts" on national TV? Raising her hand.

Back story that you all know, but let's go through it anyway. Obama goes to black churches and says, "any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father... Too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes."

This caused a ripple of debate in the blogosphere. Ross Douthat discusses marriage rates among the white working class. A piece in PJM tells Obama to lay off black fathers. Ta-Nehisi Coates has written several posts on this topic. On the Today show, they first discussed Nutsgate and then had some expert talk about how blacks think Obama should deal with this sensitive topic. He said, we should not only scold the deadbeat dads, but point a finger at social as a whole for creating a hostile environment for black men.

Where's George Bush? Is he still the president? I heard some vague talk about him in the press at the G8 conference where they bravely decided to lower fuel emissions by 2050, but that's about it. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

George Bush has handed over the bully pulpit to Obama. The chatter in blogosphere and in the mainstream media is about stuff that's happening in Obamaworld. Nobody is wasting ink or keyboard clicks on Bush.

Has Bush landed in "lame duck" land, earlier than previous presidents?

Academic Blogging

Laura at Geeky Mom sent this list of the "Top 100 Liberal Arts Bloggers" to the faculty at her college with a note that it makes good beach reading. She's rather ticked off at the response that she got back from the faculty. "I got a response pretty quickly from someone saying that he/she was disappointed that the blogs weren't scholarship and that the list just confirmed that blogs are worthless."

Laura says that academic bloggers recognize that their audience is larger than the handful of scholars who study their topics and that there's more to life than scholarship. She also questions the usefulness of scholarship and speaks to the need for academics to get out of the ivory tower more.

Get a little sun on that pasty skin, already!

Spreadin' Love

The top ten sex laws. Apparently, in Connorsville, Wisconsin, it is illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner is having an orgasm. (via the Monkey Cage)

Dan Nexon asks, "Given the ABYSMAL level of professionalism among peer reviewers, why do we continue to place so much stock in peer-reviewed publications in International Relations?"

A great list of popular books about American politics.

"Like most working journalists, whenever I type seven letters  — Fox News  — a series of alarms begins to whoop in my head: Danger. Warning. Much mayhem ahead." Great article by David Carr.

Anybody considering plastic surgery should check out this photo before going under the knife.

Which state has the fattest population and which has the skinniest? Answer here. Now, I want someone to check whether or not the fat states are Republican and the skinny states are Dems. Does fried chicken cause a lapse in judgment and the urge to watch O'Reilly? (Great animated map showing how much fatter we've gotten in the past 20 years.)

How Technology is Ruining MyProse

Often, bloggers and blog commenters will express concern that these rapid posts and dashed out sentences are trashing our ability to write long, nuanced essays. Or that easy access to spell check has wrecked our ability to spell. Or that google has diminished our attention span.

I would like to note the impact of computer industry's use of compound words with random capitalization (ie. WordPerfect, PowerPoint, iPod, MySpace). I sometimes feel compelled to turn perfectly normal words into computer software spelling (ie. BabySitter, PlayGround, HomeWork, HangOver).

Spreadin' Love

The world needs more high fives.

I linked to Matthew Harding's Happy Traveling Dance last week. The Times reports that it's had 4 million viewers in the past couple of weeks. (Perhaps it was the 11D bump?) Andrew Sullivan saw it a few weeks ago and was unimpressed.

My husband is hooked on this coffee soda. I am repulsed by the thought of it and refuse to buy it for him at the store. I'm not sure if he really likes the taste of it or he's just a sucker for alternative looking labels. He's also got the whole family drinking this beer.

"My mother was once asked how she managed to live harmoniously with three men — my father, brother and me. Her answer, delivered with awesome arrogance, was: ‘You simply operate on the assumption that no man matures after the age of 11." And more marital advice from some priest who hijacked Maureen Dowd's column on Sunday.

More on Dara Torres.