Apt. 11D

The Worst Place to Be A Woman

"I travelled to a place where if you have the bad luck to be born female, you might as well roll over and die."

What's Fulfilling?

Harry Brighouse recently attended a conference that explored solutions to the demands on families from the workplace and the gendered division of labor at home. One presenter "argues for a mix of improved daycare provision, labour market regulation and parental leave at generous replacement rates; and the argument is that this will improve the quality of family life and increase gender equality".

Harry was disappointed with the discussion, because he found that a sizable group of people felt that changes in the workplace would lead to greater inequalities in the workplace. Women would get sidelined into "mommy track" jobs. They also felt that men would be highly unlikely to step up to the plate and do their share at home. Most felt that responsibilities at home fall under the category of "shit work," rather than fulfilling work.

Harry and I are clearly in the other group. We believe that given the opportunity, more men would take the opportunity to jump into family life. If an equal number of men as women took advantage of workplace flexibility, then gender inequality wouldn't be a problem in the workplace. More likely, there would be a greater chasm between childless and family workers, however. Workers with kids would be shuffled to less fulfilling and poorer paying positions. That doesn't really bother me.

Do people find greater fulfillment in their work or with their kids? That question came up last year, when Linda Hirshman wrote that people find greater fulfillment at work. We pointed out the elitist notion to that claim. Clearly, people with higher level jobs have greater fulfillment from work. It is also dangerous to make assumptions about the preferences of all people; everybody's different.

It's interesting how one's view of human nature can have such a large impact on public policy.

I find fulfillment in both work and kids. (I'm lucky that I have a cool job and that we can afford for me to do this job. There is often a trade off between cool jobs and good salaries.) I was willing to trade off a little time with the kids in order to work, however I am not willing to cut into that time too much. How many people fall into the camp of liking both equally? I'm not sure.

Like Harry, I think that parental involvement with the family is important; it's good for child and parent alike. It's important enough to use government incentives to gently guide work-centered parents to commit more time at home. I also believe that employment is a good thing. It protects individuals from risks -- divorce, death, disability. It's important enough to employ government incentives to gently guide family-centered parents to have some minor employment.

Whatever work-family policies are cooked up in the next few years have to take into account differing fulfillment measures and needed outcomes.

Open Oscar Thread

I'm not live blogging the Oscars, but I can't resist some random snark.

Ellen's choice of footwear is driving me batty. We all expected Ellen to wear the crimson, velvet suit. That much was a no brainer. But white flats with it?!!! I am four square against white shoes, especially white oxford shoes. Laws should be written.

Was it really necessary for Ellen to do a costume change mid show? Red suit to white suit to black suit. She's crazy like that.

I'm amused that Mel Gibson didn't show up even though his film was up for some awards. And the drunk, anti-semite award goes to...

And the award for a long-winded speech in a foreign language goes to...

And the most obvious jealous face award goes to... Beyonce.

I believe it's time to call a moritorium on interpretive dances on the Oscars. Down right creepy.

And the best "I-never-dreamed-growing-up-in-nowheresville-that-I-would-end-up-here-today" speech goes to... well, it's a toss up between Forest Whitaker and Jennifer Hudson.

What's On the Tube?

With all the work around here, I've been culling the crap I watch on TV to a few favorites. Rome on HBO is fantastic. I'm glad to see that Russell is liking it and that Robert Farley has been catching the historical errors. I haven't liked it as much as the first season, though I think it's starting to hit its stride again.

Lost, of course. Amused that the Television Without Pity gang is gunning for Charlie's death.

And American Idol. In general, I watch the show not for the music, which feels canned and tasteless, but for the criticism. I like matching up the judges comments with my impressions. I like to indulge my inner talent scout.

This past week, the top 12 male vocalists performed and they were God awful. I would surf around when they were singing and come back when the judges spoke. But after an hour, that wasn't even amusing. One guy had a Morissey-thing going on, and the last guy, who resembled Beaker from the Muppet Show, wasn't bad, but on the whole, the show was a pile of turds. I swore off Idol forever.

Well, I gave it one more chance on Wednesday, because I wanted to see one of the women singers, Lakisha Jones. The few clips that I had seen of her the week before had stuck with me. The women singers were much better than the guys, but still Steve kept poking me to change the channel. "Wait until the fat girl sings," I insisted. The producers wisely put her last, batting clean-up, so we were forced to watch the whole damn show. It was worth it. That woman was fantastic. She's got a huge gospel trained voice and a chills-up-the-spine performance. Check her out.

The Oscars are on tonight. Last year, I live blogged them. I'm wavering, but I think I probably won't be able to do that tonight. Maybe just some snark tomorrow morning.

Weekend Journal

It's a quiet Sunday afternoon. Grey and bleak outside the window. Everyone is silently attending to various projects. Jonah is waging war against the Huns on the Steve's PC behind me. I can hear Steve is hacking up a lung on the sofa downstairs. He’s wrapped in an afghan and absorbed in his new book on Caesar. I think Ian is playing games on the Game Cube downstairs. I'm not thrilled that both boys are playing video games all afternoon, so I'll chase them away soon. But, like flies, they'll just swarm back again. Steve's too sick, and I'm too busy to more effectively distract them.

I'm pumping out lectures like I do every weekend, every evening, and in every spare minute that I have. Things are a bit mad around here, but we're laughing about it, so all is not lost. And this insanity will continue only for another couple months when the semester ends. I'll have off from May until September. And all next year, I'm only slated to teach two classes each semester, the prep work will be done, and Ian will be in school full time. We can handle a little nuttiness for a short time.

A Spicy Meatball

I was going to write a big heavy post on the unbearable lightness of blogs. Naaah. Let's talk meatballs.

In my media class, we've been discussing the agenda setting function of the media in country. The media helps to shuffle the nation's priorities by choosing which policies and topics to put on the front page. Of course, the big rebuttal to that statement is that people aren't lapdogs to the press. They often choose to focus more on articles in the back of the paper or in less significant sections. Take for example the list of most popular articles on the Times. Does it ever include an article on Scooter Libby? No, it does not. In fact, today it contains three articles about spaghetti and meatballs.

The public apparently feels very strongly about meatballs. And they should. Meatballs rule. I love these recipes, because they are very close to my family's recipe. Probably because the author comes from the same area of Italy as my Grandfather -- Abruzzi, a mountainous, rural area known for their pork. That's why you have to put pork ribs into the sauce or the gravy as the Bronx Italians call it. Makes it nice.

There are some differences. My grandfather was adamant that spaghetti sauce should not include sugar. He said that was for peasants.

The meatballs we make with ground pork, veal, and beef. We also add two slices of bread that have been soaking in milk.

Question of the Day How do you make a nice sauce?

Post-Marcotte

I haven't had a chance to post about Marcotte's resignation from the Edwards campaign, though it has been a topic of conversation at home and in the classroom.

For the record, I feel bad for Amanda. Sounds like she was all packed up and ready to relocate when she was impelled to quit. Some serious bottom dwellers have been filling her inbox with crap. I also don't know whether bloggers or others should held be held accountable for every word written on the Internet.

Interesting discussions are coming out of all this.

From TPMCafe:

...there appears to be a deep division between the wide open debate culture of the emerging blogosphere and the high-stakes, tightly controlled world of electoral politics. Must every writer tamp down the free flow of thoughts and ideas to have a future in politics? Or maybe our politics can be more accepting of the occasional controversial idea. Is there a middle ground in which the blogosphere and electoral politics can meet, or are we beginning to see a division within the public debate?

In her first post on this topic, Amanda writes,

Blogging is a real counterpoint to the thoughtless, elitist, soundbite-driven mainstream media, where we're supposed to absorb an endless stream of soundbites and photo ops and our participation is limited mostly to a vote every couple of years. Blogs are bringing back the 19th century debate culture, where people would attend real debates and political rallies and listen to speeches for hours at a time.

Green Hipsters

I spent some good time avoiding lecture-writing yesterday with the latest issue of Domino magazine. This month's issue was devoted to being green and sustainable while still being hip. "101 things to do with hemp" and all that.

I don't have any problem with sustainability. If we even buy our own car, rather than getting my dad's castoffs, we'll buy a Prius. When I was growing up, my folks went through a major organic farmer stage. If our backyard was big enough, I might even do a little composting. We're a sucker for Trader Joe's.

But when you mix the green lifestyle with post-heroin chic supermodels, it's a little gag worthy.

The greenest people are totally unhip. They're still wearing their clothes from twenty years ago. They aren't keeping their home spa-worthy clean. No need to worry about polluting the air with chemicals, if you aren't dusting every five minutes. They aren't constantly renovating their kitchens and bathrooms, all of which uses enormous amounts of energy and resources; they are still living with the Formica numbers from the 70s. They aren't jetting off to Europe to browse the Paris markets; they go bowling in the next town over. They aren't constantly shopping for new things and tossing out the old things.

Domino really needs to put a slightly dumpy woman in her 60s on the cover surrounded by dusty Hummels and wearing stretch pants from Dress Barn.

Freaks On Parade

A few weeks ago, friends began asking me if I had seen Brainman series on the Science channel. The show featured disabled people with prodigy-like skills. Rainman and all that. No, I had missed it.

On Thursday, there was an unlikely article in the Home and Garden section about one of the men featured in the Brainman series, Daniel Tammet. The article didn't talk too much about Daniel's house, instead it mostly described his gifts and disabilities:

He wears his gifts lightly, casually. When he gets nervous, he said, he sometimes reverts to a coping strategy he employed as a child: he multiplies two over and over again, each result emitting in his head bright silvery sparks until he is enveloped by fireworks of them. He demonstrated, reciting the numbers to himself, and in a moment had reached 1,048,576 — 2 to the 20th power. He speaks 10 languages, including Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto, and has invented his own language, Mantï. In 2004, he raised money for an epilepsy charity by memorizing and publicly reciting the number pi to 22,514 digits — a new European record. In addition to Asperger’s, he has the rare gift of synesthesia, which allows him to see numbers as having shapes, colors and textures; he also assigns them personalities. His unusual mind has been studied repeatedly by researchers in Britain and the United States.

I was intrigued enough to go out a buy his new book,
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant and read it in one day.

Daniel seems like a sweet guy, who has worked hard to find the happiness that many of us take for granted. However, I have major problems with the freak show that he's been put on in the past couple of years. Smart people shouldn't be exhibited like circus freaks. There's some distasteful about taking a guy who is easily led and putting him up on a stage to recite numbers. The purpose of the spectacle is get people to marvel at this man's weirdness. Feels like exploitation to me.

Where The Hell Are 'Ya, Miss Thang?

Sick kid and last minute lectures.

Ian has a cough that only comes out at night. An incubus, perhaps? For the past couple of nights, he's been waking himself coughing or gagging on mucus sliding down his throat . Last night was particularly rough. Today, I gave 3 lectures (4-1/2 hours) with two hours of sleep. I think my eyeballs are shaking.

I also learned today that when your computer scolds you for ripping out a flash drive improperly, it really means it. After I finished my powerpoint lectures at midnight, I was too hasty with my flashdrive withdrawal. Meant that when I stumbled into class today, I couldn't coast on some slides. The hapless professor.

I sent Ian to school and daycare today. It was a toss up. He hadn't been coughing much during the day. But the poor kid didn't sleep at all. But I already used up my mom favor for the week. But he really puked his guts out last night. But it seemed like it was from gagging and not a stomach flu. A more conscientious parent might has help him back. I sent him in and waited for a call.

On my lunch hour, I feverishly tried to reconstruct my powerpoint slides for my policy class and called Steve to see if he got a call from Ian's school. No, he said, and sounded rather puzzled that I had been so stressed out. I was a bit annoyed that I had to shoulder all the worry. I've been trained that worrying is a necessary job that must be done to prevent real disasters from happening. When people stop worrying, that's when the tornadoes hit and the ground opens up. Worrying is a family responsibility, just like doing the laundry and taking out the garbage. I have to admit that I feel like Steve isn't doing his fair share here. Don't even talk to me about compartmentalizing.

After school, I retrieved Ian from daycare, where they said he didn't eat anything all day, but no bouts with narcolepsy. We picked up Jonah from his aftercare program. Home. Ordered pizza and a salad. Warmed up soup for the poor tired boy. After one sip of chicken soup, Ian sacked out on the sofa. I'm planning on popping out my contacts and reading the blogs for a while.

Blogging might happen in fits and starts for the next few weeks. Thanks for continuing to stop by.