Curiouser and Curiouser

Did you know that 8,279 voters in the New Hampshire Republican primaries wrote a Democrat's name on their ballots? In fact,

U.S. Senator John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, who won the Democratic primary, came in second to Bush in the Republican contest, winning 3,009 votes. Kerry name was written in on almost 5 percent of all GOP ballots.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if this presaged the beginning of a new era of sanity in New Hampshire and, cross your fingers, even in the rest of the country? Probably not. But it's always good to dream.

Blog Touring

Here's a short travel guide to the Liberal Coalition blogs and a few others:

First, both Steve Gilliard and Stradiotto are feeling poorly. Best wishes for speedy recovery. You are needed back.

Second, the Democratic primaries are the hot topic as might be expected. Corrente has a good analysis of the treatment the 'cool' media of television gives to Dean's 'hot' candidacy, Respectful of Otters reminds us that Dean is just acting like physicians do, Trish Wilson discusses the Diane Sawyer interview of the Deans and also doubts whether the two parties are any different at all for the majority of voters. Chris Brown reminds us that Dean still has the most delegates, and Bark Bark Woof Woof considers the desirability of a continuing Dean campaign.

Dean is not the only candidate people write about. The Clonecone blog looks at Lieberman's position in the race and wonders if anybody wants him there, and dohiy mir tells us why he doesn't want to vote for Kerry.

Choices for everybody, right? And if you like something more general on the primaries, Amy at blogAmy gives a good assessment of several of the candidates. If this is too serious, go and play the game with the Democratic debate points at And Then...

Third, looking at the policies of president Bush is ever popular. MercuryX23 notes that people in Iraq don't much matter to the administration, while upyernoz at Rubber Hose writes about what does matter in Iraq for the president: the proper timing of shifting power for maximal election benefits at home. Edwardpig urges people to vote against Bush and praises the administration whistleblowers, and Invisible Library tells us why librarians and reading suffer under the current administration. Gotham City13 interprets the Bush interview in Poland for us ordinary folks. The Fulcrum is astonished that a journalist actually pressed Condi Rice for an answer on an important question, though she refused, and Collective Sigh thinks that Cheney will be dumped.

Fourth, humor is also to be had on the LC blogs, or at least good discussions of it. Speedkill watched Dennis Miller's inaugural show on CNBC and it wasn't funny, and Pen-Elayne has a good discussion on why something is funny and why it's not.

Finally, Rook has a wonderful rant! Also, don't miss the interesting discussion on manliness at Alas, A Blog.

The Manly Art of Politics

From one extreme end of the political spectrum (George Will in the Washington Post) to the other (Richard Goldstein in the Nation) the pundits and talking heads seem to agree: Politics Is A Manly Man's Game. Neither writer finds this particularly disconcerting, probably because they are both men. It's nice to have a game all for yourself and to point out that it's because you are better at it.

The only problem with this is, of course, that politics is not a parlour-game, but supposedly the manner in which we take care of our shared concerns. Or is that just propaganda to be fed to the not-so-manly men and all women?

Be as it may, these otherwise completely different political writers are now unanimous in their demands for macho or butch politicians, men bristling with body hair, anger and competitiveness. George Will quotes a writer called Carnes Lord who argues that leadership

"... presupposes some element of "such traditionally manly qualities as competitiveness, aggression or, for that matter, the ability to command.""

There you have it. Woman can't lead because they don't have the manly qualities of competitiveness, aggression or, for that matter, the ability to command. Well, except for the tiny fact that Will provides no evidence of the absence of these qualities in women, and except for the tiny fact that anybody who grew up a girl knows all about womanly competitiveness, aggression and even the ability to lead.

"Can a Democrat be an alpha male?" asks Richard Goldstein in his rambling Nation article. Goldstein sees the popularity of the Republican party among white men as caused by a successful campaign to interpret political issues in symbolic terms as a battle between the white men and everybody else; a war waged to either maintain their supremacy in the society or to end it. And the Republicans are on the side of the white dude, whereas the Democrats are against him. That's why, according to Goldstein, only 22% of white men identify as Democrats.

George Will goes even further:

"New Hampshire confirmed what Iowa intimated. Democrats who are serious about the candidates' electability understand that seriousness requires a retreat from the feminization of politics.

That explains Democrats' short-lived flirtation with Wesley Clark, the empty uniform who, were a Democrat now president, probably would be on the right flank of Republicans running this year. And the Democrats' movement away from feminization explains John Kerry's brisk forward march, with a military cadence.

Kerry's "patrician aloofness" may be manly reticence. But he has embraced today's confessional ethos by making autobiography serve as political philosophy and reducing his narrative to a war story. Riding his Harley, gunning for Iowa pheasants and playing hockey in New Hampshire have expressed his campaign's subtext: manliness."

A retreat from the feminization of politics is what we need now according to Will? Hmmm. What's the number of women in the U.S. Congress again? How many female American presidents can you list? How many are running for the job of the next president? How much feminization of politics would be acceptable to Will? One percent? Or even less?

Goldstein doesn't pretend that politics has somehow suddenly been feminized, but he does have other odd ideas. For one, he thinks that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center Towers has a clear symbolic significance as an attack on traditional masculinity (never mind that the attackers also were men, never mind that women also died in this atrocity, never mind that this utterly trivializes the real human suffering that took place), and that this attack reinforces our desire for a strong Daddy to lead and protect us. And presumably the new phallic symbol that will be erected in the place of the destroyed Towers.

Because Will is a conservative, he's quite comfortable with a plan to masculinize politics even further. Because Goldstein is not, he adds the obligatory nod to us non-macho readers at the end of his article:

"We may resent the fact that Americans regard the penis and its symbolic projections as synonymous with strength. But the psychic reality cannot be denied. At this moment, most voters are looking for a leader who reassures them with a manly presentation. The trick is to be the man women admire, blacks find credible and white guys bond with. It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it or Bush will ride the backlash to the White House - with a real mandate this time."

And what is the backlash that will take Bush back to the White House? It's not obvious from Goldstein's article, unless he means the need to protect our phallic symbols. I wonder if this bit is from an older article, written about 2000. Never mind, in comparison to Will's feverish ramblings (do read them if you doubt me) Goldstein comes across clear as water. Sort of.

Now, as I have no penis handy myself, I do resent the 'fact' that Americans regard the penis as synonymous with strength. Maybe I should strike Will and Goldstein down with my divine feminine pinky, just to remind them not to make simplistic stereotyping generalizations at the expense of real critical thought. Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Elizabeth the First of England, Catharine the Great of Russia and many other woman leaders in history show that strength is not only a manly characteristic. Women can be competitive, aggressive and ruthless, and men can be cooperative, kind and merciful. Human beings have access to all sorts personality traits, and to assume that they are solely determined by what might be found between the legs is preposterous and insulting. And not only insulting to women, as may have been the intention of these articles, but also to men and especially white men whom Goldstein at least regards as immature teenagers permanently worried about the next erection and its size and unable to differentiate their own human worth from such considerations.

Does This Work?

The next post below this one is intended to reveal my soft side, the subtle feminine touches of appreciating beauty in a snowflake and the admiration one feels when ones long scaly snaketail whips up lovely filigrees in the freshly-fallen snow. I hope it works to balance my public image. It better work, for my future plans for posts are a bit fangy.

An Introduction to Winter

On a winter night when it's snowing, go out, turn your head up and stick out your tongue. Taste the snowflakes melting on your tongue. If there's already enough snow on the ground, lie down on your back and look at the sky. Are there stars? Northern lights? Then move your straight legs and arms up and down as far as they go. Get up carefully, and admire your artwork. You have just created a buttangel! You could make a whole row of these, a chorus to sing the ode to winter. If you are a man, you could also write them a song to sing in the snow.

Next, make a snow lantern if the snow balls easily in your hands. Make nine snowballs and set them in a tight circle on the ground. Place another seven snowballs above the first eleven, slightly inwards and inbetween the first balls. Continue with five and then three. Slip a lighted candle or tealight down through the whole that remains, and cap the whole with one perfect snowball. You could have a row of snowlights leading to your door, inviting the spirits of winter in, or just partyguests if you prefer.

Find a piece of corrugated cardboard and a hill where children go sledding. If you are shy, wait until they have gone to bed. Sit on your cardboard and slide down the hill. Don't forget to scream. Then try it on your back, head first.

Go home and make a SnowBush. The principle is the same as in making snowmen. Use pebbles for eyes, nostrils and teeth. Use larger stones to pelt the SnowBush down.

On a clear winter morning, take a walk. Look at the architecture of nature, its spare, elegant bones, the beauty of the bodies of trees, the contrasting plushness of winter animals and birds. Notice the colors that hide in what first seems starkly black and white: the silvers and faint burgundies, the pinks and icy blues, the colored shadows of tree trunks and boulders, and then the sudden thrill of the blood-red berries on bare branches.

Then go back to your warm home, anticipating a hot cup of chocolate or a glass of cider with a cinnamon stick, and the warmth that will slowly seep back into your fingers and cheeks while your eyes will retain the shine and brightness of winter.

The Jobless Recovery Is Just Fine!

So says an editorial in the Washington Post, a central player in the great liberal media conspiracy. Such editorials are a goddess-send to us weary bloggers, even when they are anonymous as this one is. And no, I didn't write it just to have something to laugh at, but I almost wish I had.

The editorial tells us to look at the bright side of the jobless recovery. It points out that the current unemployment is largely structural rather than cyclical (i.e., based on a mismatch with the changed needs of the economy and the existing skills and education of the workers rather than on a drop in aggregate demand caused by recessions). It then interprets this as joyous news:

"But the bigger question is whether jobless recoveries are a bad thing. They are, after all, the flip side of good news. There is less cyclical unemployment these days, so recessions are milder; fewer jobs are being created now because fewer jobs were destroyed during the downturn. Moreover, a jobless recovery means, by definition, that each worker is producing more. Higher productivity, in turn, is the best promise possible of higher wages and employment in the future."

The first two sentences in this quote are equivalent to saying that it would be a good thing if cancer was a larger percentage of all illnesses and if the relative percentage of influenza sufferers decreased correspondingly. We could then avoid getting the flu every winter, because we would all be dead from cancer or barely surviving chemotherapy. Whatever will the so-called liberal media say next?

Well, the editorial says next that it's great how each worker still working in a jobless recovery is producing more, or rather, working harder. Then it makes a subtle shift to a different reality, and continues by stating that:

"Higher productivity, in turn, is the best promise possible of higher wages and employment in the future."

That each worker might be producing more does NOT necessarily mean that worker productivity per hour of work is up. People may simply be working much longer hours just to keep their jobs. And no, dear Anonymous, higher worker productivity does NOT mean that earnings will automatically rise. There's a large number of workers out there who'd like a stab at any job, many of them in places like India and China, and this reserve will keep wages low. Besides, employers have market power in many labor markets, and they can use this power to keep wages and employment lower. Workers, on the other hand, have very little power, what with us having gotten rid of the evil trade unions.

Read the whole thing tonight instead of the cartoons page in your local newspaper. It's worth it.

Poetry For Today

The New Hampshire primaries have taken the limelight away from George W. Bush. I want to give some of it back to him. Here it goes:

This following poem is composed entirely of actual quotes from George W. Bush. It was compiled and arranged by Washington Post writer Richard Thompson.

Make the Pie Higher

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen
And uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish
Can coexist.

Families is where our nation finds hope
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

Malpractice Awards - The Cause of High Health Care Costs?

You may be forgiven for believing so if you listened to president Bush speak on Monday in Arkansas. He blamed the malpractice system for high medical care costs. One of his main arguments was this:

""Hear me out on this: (unnecessary lawsuits) drive docs to prescribe drugs and procedures that may not be necessary, just to avoid lawsuits. That's called the defensive practice of medicine.""

And all this defensive yet unnecessary medicine costs more, thus causing the health care expenses to rise. Or so says the president.

What to do about this? The Republicans and the American Medical Association, AMA (sort of like a trade union for physicians) favor caps on malpractice awards, or at least the part of the awards that goes to compensate the victim for pain and suffering. Bush also seems to believe that there are too many:

""junk" lawsuits [that] cost taxpayers because they drive the federal government's health care costs up by $28 billion a year."."

Does this mean that we should reduce the patients' ability to sue their providers and limit the total awards to some smaller sum than is currently possible? In other words, should we get rid of 'frivolous' law suits and 'excessive' awards? And would this then reduce the costs of health care?

To answer these questions, it's good to know why we have a system of medical malpractice suits in the first place. Its major goals are to compensate the victims of medical malpractice and to discourage doctors, hospitals and other medical providers from committing acts of malpractice; malpractice beind defined as acts of omission (not doing the correct thing) and acts of commission (doing the incorrect thing). If we make suing doctors and hospitals harder, and if we reduce the awards going to the victims, we'll cut back on the probability that the victim will be adequately compensated and we'll increase the probability that a negligent doctor or hospital will get away with this negligence altogether. What other safety precautions would the president apply to protect the victims and to deter future malpractice? I see none in the proposals.

Oh, but we are told that many of the current malpractice suits are frivolous. Maybe then it would be acceptable to cut back a little on the patients' rights and the providers' restraints? Maybe. But consider the results from a study carried out by the Harvard School of Public Health in the 1990s: The researchers retrospectively studied the actual medical records of hospital patients in New York state during the mid-1980's, and found out that medical malpractice had taken place in one admission out of each one hundred. Only a tenth of those affected by malpractice had actually sued their practitioners, and less than one half of this tenth won their cases. In summary, only five per cent of those with a good case had actually been awarded malpractice compensation.

Now, it's possible that many patients also sue without proper cause, given that roughly 40% of all doctors will be sued at least once during their lifetimes. Some suits are indeed frivolous, and some frivolous suits get awards because of the inherent randomness of the legal process. It would be nice to reduce these suits while retaining and even encouraging the rights of those with a real grievance to sue. The trick is how to do this.

What about the large court awards for medical malpractice? The average award size has grown over the years, that's true. President Bush sees the cause for this in the greedy trial lawyers who take cases on contingency basis (client pays nothing if the suit is unsuccessul, then a certain percentage of the total award for successful cases): the bigger the award, the more the lawyers get paid.

"Lawyers walk away with up to 40 percent - 40 percent! - of every settlement and verdict," Bush said."

The legal system is indeed a pretty inefficient way of compensating the victims. The problem is that the Bush alternative would not only reduce some of these inefficiencies but also reduce the patients' ability to seek compensation. As an example, if contingency suits are banned, poor patients will find it very hard to procure legal help, as they need to be able to pay whether the suit is successful or not.

The president may have spoken against trial lawyers for political reasons, but he was silent about other reasons for the high malpractice awards for reason of ignorance, most likely. The awards are not high simply because lawyers are seeking maximal payments for themselves. They are also high because doctors and hospitals carry insurance against malpractice awards, and the juries know that the money they allow to the victims is not coming from the pockets of the individual provider standing in the dock, but from anonymous, big and wealthy insurance companies. No need to cry for the lost educational opportunities of the poor doctor's children, or to fear that a small local hospital will shut down due to the financial problems of paying the award.

The whole existence of medical malpractice insurance is an anomaly. Insurance is supposed to protect us against unforeseen random events outside our influence. Surely malpractice is none of those things. Strictly speaking, malpractice insurance makes no economic sense. Its existence protects doctors, hospitals and other medical providers, true, but we don't in general sell people insurance against their own mistakes or crimes.

One unintended consequence of the malpractice insurance system is the protection it offers to the true 'rotten eggs' in the medical professions. Only a small number of doctors, for example, is responsible for most large awards; yet all doctors help them out by subsidizing them through malpractice insurance. This is not good for the goal of discouraging providers from committing further malpractice, and it makes nonnegligent doctors and hospitals take the side of those who actually should not be allowed to practice any longer. Something that should have been seen as a fault-based approach to compensating the victims and punishing the offenders has now been transformed into a general business problem for all doctors and hospitals.

So yes, the system does need urgent reforms. Whether the ones president Bush is backing are in fact the right ones is highly debatable. I believe that we are at risk of throwing away the baby (compensating victims and deterring further malpractice) while keeping the bathwater (high health care costs).

And what about the bathwater? According to the president, we would save lots of money if physicians no longer had to practise defensive medicine. Actually, studies have shown that whatever is said by the politicians, doctors don't practise that defensively to begin with. This makes sense as most malpractice studies are not about something the doctor didn't do (omission), but about something the doctor may have done wrong (commission). Doing more things on top of something that's wrong isn't going to reduce the likelihood that a provider will be sued. Given the absence of evidence on any current costs of defensive medicine, we can't assume that the health care costs would be lowered by changes in the malpractice awards system.

Reducing the size of the payments could decrease the doctors' insurance payments, of course. It's a totally different question whether doctors would pass these savings to their patients or not.

On Shopping

I have a sin to confess: I don't like shopping. No, I don't just not-like it; I HATE IT! Have hated it for years.

I wish I were a man. Men are not given the commandment to "shop until you drop", men are not held to blame when the economy collapses due to "loss in consumer confidence" (read: due to women buying less). Nonshopping men are not regarded as evolutionary failures. Rather, men have the much more pleasant duty to make up bad jokes about shopaholic women. I wish I were a man.

But the fact is that I am a woman who hates shopping. We never have any food in the house. We have a house we have long since outgrown. I wear my clothes until they fall into shreds, when my long-suffering husband goes out and buys me some new ones in varying, approximately correct sizes. And still I will not repent or reform. Not even when our president told us that the war against terrorism depended on my shopping.

Oh, but I tried! I tried. But I never got past the first step in my twelve-step program: admitting that I hate shopping. Medications failed to work; having the prescriptions filled would have meant going out to buy them. My Freudian therapist thought that I suffered from insufficient consumption envy, my cognitive one urged me to rethink shopping until I realized I had a previously unrecognized phobia concerning internet sales sites. At last I could no longer face the thought of shopping for a new therapist.

This can't go on. I am falling apart under the pressure. My husband, loving and supportive all through this unending ordeal, is developing ulcers from the unnatural, unmanly position he has been forced to take as the main consumer in the family. My friends seldom visit us anymore, and when they do I hear them whispering to each other, pointing out the absence of bunny-decorated kitchen towels, dried flower arrangements, food.

I have a recurring nightmare: There is a knock on the door, presaging the entry of the stern agents from the Consumer Interest Association. Gigabites of their computers are filled by my case: the Public Enemy Number One, a woman denying her proper womanly role, a consumer abstaining from consumption, a citizen refusing to participate in this most sacred sphere of our shared capitalistic concerns. I wake up screaming:"What are you going to do with me?"

What they might do with me doesn't bear thinking about. Oh, don't doubt for one moment that I wouldn't accept whatever fate it might be; I know that it is people like me who are slowly destroying the country our founding fathers made so great. If they ever come for me I shall go without resistance.

But in the meantime I still hate shopping.

Some Interesting News

Colin Powell on the missing WMD in Iraq:

"The open question is how many stocks they had, if any, and if they had any, where did they go. And if they didn't have any, then why wasn't that known beforehand?"

Good questions, especially in the second sentence. Especially as we went to war over not having the correct answer to that one.

Dick Cheney on the selection of the quote in his family Christmas cards:

"Lynne Cheney was responsible, the vice president said, for the quote from Benjamin Franklin on the family Christmas card: "If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid"?"

According to Cheney

"The quote reflects Franklin's musing over the importance of God in the affairs of men, the vice president said. "It did not refer, or should not be taken as some kind of indication, that the United States today sees itself as an empire"."

Whooah! Now that's a relief for the rest of the world. I think?

The Pope on the media portrayals of marriage and family:

"Infidelity, sexual activity outside of marriage, and the absence of a moral and spiritual vision of the marriage covenant are depicted uncritically, while positive support is at times given to divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Such portrayals, by promoting causes inimical to marriage and the family, are detrimental to the common good of society."

Assuming that the basic unit of the society is a creature called 'the marriage and the family', and assuming that these are interpreted very traditionally, perhaps yes. But what happens if the basic unit of the society is a creature called 'a human being'? Things aren't then always anywhere near so clear-cut. I can't help thinking that the Pope's own existence as an unmarried childless man makes him perhaps not the most expert of judges in this field. But what do I know? I'm just a pagan goddess.

After reading through this and the last few posts, I think that I need lessons on benevolent writing and sunniness. "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" and all that stuff. I think that when life gives you lemons,you squirt them in your enemy's eye. Something seriously wrong here.

Are Women More Prone to Injuries?

"Are women more prone to injuries? It's that time of year when many people start trying to get into shape, but it may be more difficult for women than men. In fact, when it comes to beginning an exercise program or trying out a new sport, men and women may not always be created equal."

This is what my screen revealed when I clicked on the link to CNN.com for its Headline News.
To learn more about these injury-prone women, I clicked on the 'full story' link, eager to find out exactly what makes women so fragile or clumsy-footed.

But of course I was disappointed. The 'full story' refers to two military studies, one done in Britain and one in the U.S.. The British study found that female recruits were eight times more likely to be discharged for injuries once men and women were put on the same basic training program. The research concluded that

"...differences in strength, bone mass and the length of their strides put women at a greater risk of getting hurt."

Bone mass, strength, length of stride? In other words, smaller people were found to be more at risk for injuries in a program that most likely is extremely demanding and geared to the bone mass, weight and length of stride of larger people. Now, women are, on average, smaller than men, but most women who initiate an exercise program are not going to pick up the British military training manual and blindly follow it as the ideal daily routine. Keep in mind the preface to this story: "It's that time of the year when many people start trying to get into shape..."

The American military study had similar findings, but found out that the injury gap narrowed as training proceeded. This made the researchers suggest that

"...the level of fitness matters more than gender, and that women, on average, start out at lower levels than men."

And what can we conclude from this story? Its author believes that it is

"If you're starting an exercise program or a new sport, take it easy. You'll be less likely to get hurt, and when you've reached the level of fitness that you want -- go get 'em!"

Ok, sort of, though this conclusion has nothing to do with the way the article lured us in to begin with. And it is not all that we are going to take with us after reading it. We are also going to have a slightly greater belief in women's greater injury-proneness, whether such injury-proneness exists or not. After all, it was in CNN news!

The manner in which this story was sold is common for reporting of this ilk: first hint at great new revelations about what makes women women and men men, then go into a summary of various, often half-baked, research findings, but always, always finish with something that lets the gender that's been getting the bad rap (usually women) to feel that they have not been getting such a bad rap after all. This sells, I guess. But it doesn't change the basic message of such writings.

I, for one, expect more from writers who pretend to tell people how to live their lives, including how to exercise safely. Some proper research into the field, applicable to average individuals and their average circumstances would be good. Avoidance of pitting one gender against another would also be good, and tying the message of the piece to its title and preface would be excellent.

I, for one, will probably expect forevermore, at least with regard to writings aimed at strengthening and manufacturing women's many insecurities.
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And whatever blogger says, this IS a Saturday's post.
PS: Read this excellent article on why women's bodies attract so much more interest in the medical subspecialty of "Feeble, Weak and Withering" when there are no real reasons for this.
Thanks to Amy (in the comments) for the link.

My Favorite SOTU Assessment

..is this one:

Meanwhile, Bush was running the same old plays in his State of the Union Address: fear, threat, danger, terror, war, enemies. He even trotted out the weapons of mass destruction again, just as though they had actually existed. And the media accuse Howard Dean of being negative!

Read the whole thing here.

Echidne goes girly

Why? It's a long story, but the gist of it is that I slipped into the body of someone who was having a migraine attack. At first I feared that I could actually die from this thing, then I feared that I would not die. Afterwards, I felt a strong need to spruce up my appearance, what with the death-ringed eyes and the translucent teeth.

So I dug up my library on beauty care. It spans a long way back. Here's instructions from an 1873 Young Ladies' Journal on how to wash the hair:

It is occasionally necessary to thoroughly cleanse the hair. One or two precautions must be taken, however. Never use soap if you can avoid it; if you do, let it be the very mildest and unperfumed. Avoid so-called hair-cleansing fluids, and use rain-water filtered. The yolks of two new-laid eggs are much to be preferred to soap; they make a beautiful lather, and when the washing is finished, and the hair thoroughly rinsed in the purest rain-water, you will find, when dry, that the gloss will not be destroyed, which an alkali never fails to do. The first water must not be very hot, only just warm, and the last perfectly cold. Dry with soft towels - but do not rub till the skin is tender - and afterwards brush. Be always careful to have your brushes and combs perfectly clean and free from grease.

If this is too much girliness for you, take this quiz. It tells you which famous Western feminist you most resemble. If you are a man, you must first take a few deep breaths, imagine yourself to be a woman, and then rapidly answer the questions. I am Simone de Beauvoir, with a dingleberry named Sartre dragging behind me. Link to the quiz via Going Dutch.
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Postscript: I just realized why the water must be so cool: Imagine your hair with a couple of egg yolks in hot water! Anyone who's thickened a sauce with egg yolks would know what would happen. Wet hair encircled by slimy globs of semi-cooked egg!

Behind the Veil

France is contemplating banning the veil, the Yarmulke and large Christian crosses in schools. This can be seen as a consequence of the strict separation between religion and state in France, a tradition which has its roots in the state's fight for supremacy against the once-powerful Catholic church. But it is also a response to the growing French fears about islamic fundamentalism in a country with five to seven million muslims. The effect of the proposed ban is, of course, to limit the individual's scope for the free practice of religion.

This has provoked demonstrations in France but even more fervent protests abroad. Now some in the French government question the advisability of the ban. Here's the foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin:

"De Villepin told fellow ministers that the planned ban "puts France in a very delicate situation on the international stage," a well-placed government source who was briefed on the talks quoted him as saying. The source spoke on condition of anonymity.
Particularly, bans against wearing the veil put France "on the wrong foot with Arab nations, but also with the United States, which is for the respect of individual liberties," the source quoted de Villepin as saying."

Meanwhile, the top islamic cleric in Saudi Arabia, an Arab country, has criticized the atmosphere at an economic summit in Jiddah for the intermingling of the sexes:

"What we saw at that meeting of the mixing of men and women, and the women's appearance without their hijab (head scarf), which is ordered by God, is forbidden," Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheik said in a statement released Tuesday.
He said he was troubled by photographs from the meeting published in newspapers Monday, saying the women's dress violated Islamic law. He also said he was worried about the moral state of Saudi Arabia.
"My pain is increased by such shameful behavior," he said. "God curses the woman that imitates a man, whether in appearance, clothing or in the lifting of her voice. So how can she walk among them, mix with them, uncovered?"

The Saudis have always taken a firm approach against any relaxation in the women's dress code. When the U.S. military decided to no longer require that American servicewomen in Saudi Arabia wear abayas (black head-to-toe robes) while off-base:

... the Saudi Committee for the Preservation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a government office, announced that the women would not be allowed in public without the abaya regardless of their U.S. citizenship or religious opposition. Saudi officials called the change in U.S. policy an affront to Islamic law that challenged Saudi sovereignty. Officials were also displeased that the U.S. did not consult the Saudi government before changing the policy.

It seems to me that the U.S. holds France to a higher standard of behavior than, say, Saudi Arabia. Though France is proposing restrictions to religious freedom, these would only apply in the school system. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, disallows the public practice of other religions. Surely those that are concerned about the freedom of religion should first address the more egregious violations, or at least criticize them with an equally loud voice. But then, of course, the Saudis are the friends of the U.S., whereas the French are... you know, Old Europe and all that.
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And what about the feminist analysis of the veil that I'm duty-bound to present? That, unfortunately, must wait until I have more time. Lots more time.

Matchmaking Between You And The U.S. Presidential Candidates

I'll write anything to make you look... Actually, this is a quiz which helps you find out which candidate you might want to elect. The results might surprise you. I was surprised by mine. Too bad that I'm not allowed to vote in this anti-goddess society.

Liberal Anger

An oxymoron? So it seemed until quite recently. As Molly Ivins points out,

Guys like Rush Limbaugh figured that out a long time ago--attack a liberal and the first thing he says is, "You may have a point there."

Conservatives, on the other hand, are excellent haters. They have had the hate arena mostly to themselves for the last decade, after all, and practice does make perfect. Liberals are no match for voices such as Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh, though they are the targets, naturally. So puny has the left resistance been in these games that some right-wingers have had to turn to attacking their own to stay in training. Here's David Frum, a neo-conservative, on the paleoconservatives of his own party:

They began by hating the neoconservatives. They came to hate their party and this president. They have finished by hating their country.
War is a great clarifier. It forces people to take sides. The paleoconservatives have chosen — and the rest of us must choose too. In a time of danger, they have turned their backs on their country. Now we turn our backs on them.

Well, things are looking up for Frum and other underemployed conservative pugilists. Several recent articles have declared that liberals have finally turned angry. "I hate Bush" begins Jonathan Chait in last September's New Republic, and he notes that he's not the only one:

There seem to be quite a few of us Bush haters. I have friends who have a viscerally hostile reaction to the sound of his voice or describe his existence as a constant oppressive force in their daily psyche. Nor is this phenomenon limited to my personal experience: Pollster Geoff Garin, speaking to The New York Times, called Bush hatred "as strong as anything I've experienced in 25 years now of polling." Columnist Robert Novak described it as a "hatred ... that I have never seen in 44 years of campaign watching."

Not only does the conservative columnist Novak find this hatred unmatched in the last forty-four years of campaing watching (he must have had his back towards his own troops), but other commentators on the right also find it 'puzzling', 'a mystery'. Liberals have no such trouble understanding the root causes of Bush-hatred. Here's Chait's summary on the issues which have turned your average kind-hearted Liberal into a bloodthirsty wannabe-warrior. He sets out the scene by reminding us that the year 2000 election results made all reasonable observers expect that George W. Bush would govern from a moderate, bi-partisan position:

Instead, Bush has governed as the most partisan president in modern U.S. history. The pillars of his compassionate-conservative agenda--the faith-based initiative, charitable tax credits, additional spending on education--have been abandoned or absurdly underfunded. Instead, Bush's legislative strategy has revolved around wringing out narrow, party-line votes for conservative priorities by applying relentless pressure to GOP moderates--in one case, to the point of driving Vermont's James Jeffords out of the party. Indeed, when bipartisanship shows even the slightest sign of life, Bush usually responds by ruthlessly tamping it down. In 2001, he convinced GOP Representative Charlie Norwood to abandon his long-cherished patients' bill of rights, which enjoyed widespread Democratic support. According to a Washington Post account, Bush and other White House officials "met with Norwood for hours and issued endless appeals to party loyalty." Such behavior is now so routine that it barely rates notice. Earlier this year, a column by Novak noted almost in passing that "senior lawmakers are admonished by junior White House aides to refrain from being too chummy with Democrats."

When the September 11 attacks gave Bush an opportunity to unite the country, he simply took it as another chance for partisan gain. He opposed a plan to bolster airport security for fear that it would lead to a few more union jobs. When Democrats proposed creating a Department of Homeland Security, he resisted it as well. But later, facing controversy over disclosures of pre-September 11 intelligence failures, he adopted the idea as his own and immediately began using it as a cudgel with which to bludgeon Democrats. The episode was telling: Having spent the better part of a year denying the need for any Homeland Security Department at all, Bush aides secretly wrote up a plan with civil service provisions they knew Democrats would oppose and then used it to impugn the patriotism of any Democrats who did--most notably Georgia Senator Max Cleland, a triple-amputee veteran running for reelection who, despite his support for the war with Iraq and general hawkishness, lost his Senate race thanks to an ugly GOP ad linking him to Osama bin Laden.

All this helps answer the oft-posed question of why liberals detest Bush more than Reagan. It's not just that Bush has been more ideologically radical; it's that Bush's success represents a breakdown of the political process. Reagan didn't pretend to be anything other than what he was; his election came at the crest of a twelve-year-long popular rebellion against liberalism. Bush, on the other hand, assumed office at a time when most Americans approved of Clinton's policies. He triumphed largely because a number of democratic safeguards failed. The media overwhelmingly bought into Bush's compassionate-conservative facade and downplayed his radical economic conservatism. On top of that, it took the monomania of a third-party spoiler candidate, plus an electoral college that gives disproportionate weight to GOP voters--the voting population of Gore's blue-state voters exceeded that of Bush's red-state voters--even to bring Bush close enough that faulty ballots in Florida could put him in office.

But Bush is never called to task for the radical disconnect between how he got into office and what he has done since arriving. Reporters don't ask if he has succeeded in "changing the tone." Even the fact that Bush lost the popular vote is hardly ever mentioned. Liberals hate Bush not because he has succeeded but because his success is deeply unfair and could even be described as cheating.

Add to this the anger boiling due to the administration's unusual approach to environmental protection, its contempt for women's rights, its unilateralism and most importantly, its pre-emptively defensive war against Saddam Hussein, and most of the ingredients of the liberal Molotov's cocktail are mixed. The only thing that's surprising about this anger is how slow it has been in coming together.

So, now that we are all angry together, will the country benefit? The answer depends on whom one asks. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times deplores this trend:

Considering the savagery with which the Snarling Right excoriated President Clinton as a "sociopath," blocked judicial appointments, undermined U.S. military operations from Kosovo to Iraq, hounded Vincent Foster and then accused the Clintons of murdering him, it is utterly hypocritical for conservatives to complain about liberal incivility. But they're right. Liberals have now become as intemperate as conservatives, and the result - everybody shouting at everybody else - corrodes the body politic and is counterproductive for Democrats themselves.

Anger may well corrode the body politic; in fact, the conservative anger has already done so. But why is anger counterproductive for Democrats when it seems to have served the Republicans very well? Kristof implies that the kind of anger that gets you votes is not the liberal sort:

My guess is that if the Democrats stay angry, then they'll offend Southern white guys, with or without pickups and flags, and lose again.

Hmmm. And if the Democrats swallow their anger and smile, will the Southern white guys vote for them in droves? Please say that it is so, Nicholas.

Given the above analysis, the Republicans should welcome the anger of liberals everywhere. They don't seem to do so, of course. Rather, they act as if their own behavior in the last decade or so has been worthy of ten Nobel Peace Prizes. You know, feigned assaulted innocence.

Consider the reactions from the right to the MoveOn Organization's recent ad competition where one of the entries had Bush morph into Hitler. RNC chairman Ed Gillespie called this "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech" and "a despicable tactic". And no doubt it is. However, using nazi-terminology to describe ones political opponents appears to be much more common from the other side of the aisle. Here are Michael Savage and Norman Liebmann on the topic of nazis:

"I once wrote that 'Vac'm in the Vulva' Barbara Boxer was the reincarnation of Adolf Mengele in drag, the Nazi Angel of Death. I meant it. ... The spirit of Mengele knows well to start at the weakest point and work from there – with Clinton, Singer, Boxer or any other willing host."

"The difference between Clinton's fascists and Hitler's fascists is Clinton's have no paradigm. The trickiest to identify are the fascists in Arkansas, but only because the people there found the Nazi salute too intricate a maneuver for them to master."

Conwebwatch gives thirty-four such examples of the use of nazi imagery by right-wing pundits in the last five years.

No sane person would defend such slurs from either political party, but in the absence of these extremes, could rising liberal anger actually be a good thing? Paul Starobin in the Atlantic Monthly thinks so:

The clash between angry secular liberals and angry religiously motivated conservatives sometimes seems to generate little more than media din. But the rising partisanship of the American voter is probably a positive development. A country as big and diverse as the United States cannot avoid contentious fights over public-policy issues. A broad sorting of voters into a Red team and a Blue team—a trend harking back to the intense partisanship of the nineteenth century—is better than a European-style fragmentation of the electorate into numerous small parties, able to govern only after patching together fragile coalitions. The same Pew Research Center survey that found—tut-tut—a surge in the intensity of partisan feelings also turned up a decline in cynicism about government.

I'd feel more comfortable with Starobin's arguments if his excitement didn't give me mental images of beer-drinking fans rooting for the two sides in the Superbowl. Does he want two big teams because their clash would be more gigantic, and therefore more fun to watch? Or because he seems to see the art of compromising as nothing but the 'patching together of fragile coalitions'? Would this country indeed be better off with more open anger on both sides?

And might the liberals themselves be better off now that they are finally angry? How will they negotiate this volatile emotion? Its dangerous zones are at both ends of the scale: in sullen, inward-turned bitterness and apathy on one hand and in self-destructive foaming-at-the-mouth rage on the other. Neither of these are attractive campaign promises for the Democratic candidates. But there is a third way: anger used as fuel for long-term organizing, campaigning and negotiating. This is anger as a small warming flame firmly under control of reason; anger with a smiling face if you like.

I believe, on balance, that the new liberal anger can be a great opportunity when carefully handled. It isn't even that new, historically speaking. What could be more liberal than the righteous anger one feels when injustices are committed? That, my friends, lies at the very heart of liberalism.
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See Carol Tavris' Anger. The Misunderstood Emotion for more ideas about how to use anger productively.

I've Been to the Mountaintop

Martin Luther King, April 3, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee:

Well, I don't know what will happen now; we've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life - longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not go there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I'm happy tonight; I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

All About Me!

The blogosphere has been sweet to me! I have been raised to the proper divine place!
First, this blog is among the nominees for the Koufax award for the Best New Blog! And look at the company I keep! I'm humbled and elated at the same time...

Next, the Great Voice of ms. musings has picked my blog from among the multitudes of very good blogs as one to be praised! And once again, look at the company I keep!

Enough with the exclamation marks already. I'm a very pessimistic goddess, and immediately noticed that there's no way in hell I can win the Koufax award, given all the professional and famous and otherwise excellent competition. And then I noticed that the Ms. magazine writeup mentioned that I blog daily, and yesterday I DID NOT blog, as I was asleep.... And then the pressures started building up: there's nowhere to go but down now... and I've barely begun! What if I run dry? Why is everything always so hard?

Ok. Now I feel more normal, and can extend my sincere, from-the-very-bottom-of-my-heart thanks to everybody who's been so nice to me, and everybody who hasn't been so nice to me but still reads here once and a while. And my sincere, admiring thanks to everybody whose blogs I mine daily for good data and ideas (you know who you are). And to everybody else, including the people who give me material by their very existence...

The only logical way to stop this would be to say that I am quitting blogging now while I'm still doing good, but I won't!

Maureen Dowd: Marriage and Career Counseling for Politicians

Maureen Dowd is a New York Times columnist who inherited the 'one-woman-only-in-a-prominent-position' job from Anna Quindlen. In fact, it's said that Anna herself fished Maureen's writings from the slush pile and brought them to the paper's attention. I so wish she had let them stay in the slush pile.

Based on her picture, Dowd is a woman, and I dare conjecture that she's supposed to cater for the female market in political readership. And what does she think might interest women readers of the Times?

The answer: argyle sweaters on men, inability of being a 'good wife' in women. Both of these topics are applied to Democratic candidates for the job of the president of the United States. Apparently our nation's future is hanging by a thread of argyle wool which a careless wife could easily snap. So.

Her latest assault on wives concerns the role and career of one Dr. Judith Steinberg, the wife of Howard Dean. Dowd begins her article suggesting that the Deans are in urgent need of George W. Bush's new initiative for propping up the conventional marriage. Why? Because Judith is not sitting in the front row when Howard gives speeches; widening her eyes into admiring opaque circles at the wonder and wit of this man that she suddenly finds herself married to. Instead, she's back home in Vermont taking care of her patients and the Deans' school-aged child still at home.

This MUST mean that the Deans marriage is in deep trouble. On the other hand, of course, if she indeed had chosen to sit in all the front rows on her husband's campaign tour, what would Maureen and others like her have thought about that? Shall I guess? Perhaps Judith would have come across as a political groupie, a woman who wants the limelight more than she wants to help her poor suffering patients. A woman who chooses to wine and dine with celebrities while her poor child is all abandoned in the middle of the frigid snow fields of Vermont.

Wives just can't win. Guilt is a fine tool in even clumsy hands as Maureen shows us:

"What will she tell their grandkids?" wondered one political reporter here. "Yeah, Grandpa was once a front-runner for president with crowds all over America cheering him but I was too busy to go see it?"

Too busy. Or too selfish. Or too cold. Or too clingy. Or too independent. Or too lumpish. Yes, I've heard them all about political wives. Poor things, they can't do a thing right, and as a corollary neither can any other wives. Is this what Maureen thinks that women like to read about in the mornings, just before donning their hairshirts and taking up the daily self-flagellation?

Why couldn't she stick to argyle shirts? Oh, but I nearly forgot! She does discuss the fashion sense of Judith:

In worn jeans and old sneakers, the shy and retiring Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean looked like a crunchy Vermont hippie, blithely uncoiffed, unadorned, unstyled and unconcerned about not being at her husband's side — the anti-Laura. You could easily imagine the din of Rush Limbaugh and Co. demonizing her as a counterculture fem-lib role model for the blue states.

No! How terrible! She's actually dressed like most women in real life! This won't do. Put her back in corsets and high heels, give her a dolly face with makeup and puff up her hair. Then wind up the key and off she totters, to walk properly just three steps behind her husband: the perfect political Barbie. The guilt and blame programs come with the basic version, and all socially conservative potential Dean voters can breathe a long sigh and relax: we can still win this thing, Dean now looks like he's supposed to: a package deal where we get a butch leader and his Suitable Spouse to fight another butch dealer with a suitable spouse.

According to the ever-unreliable source of the Drudge Report, Maureen isn't even done with Deans yet. Supposedly Howard forgot to give her a promised telephone interview, and she's promised to write about it tomorrow. Ah, the suspension! There is a hint, though, if Drudge is to be trusted (I wouldn't, personally). Dowd told him (he says):

"A race rooted mainly in attacking the president may not take Dean far enough. Voters want someone who's been through the fire. They care about character. They want to know the evolution of the man, even if it's a myth."

Myth? If Dowd wants to be the mythmaker, Echidne save us all. And she can't.
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Postscript: And what did she write?

But a race rooted mainly in attacking the president may not take Dr. Dean far enough. Voters want someone who's been through the fire. They care about character. They want to know the evolution of the man, even if it's a myth.

And I want to know why she reads her columns to Matt Drudge before they are published.

Fighting Fat - The Bush Administration Approach

The World Health Organization just issued a report on the world-wide obesity problem. It estimates that 300 million people are obese and 750 million overweight. Even 22 million children under the age five are regarded as overweight. The WHO wants people to start eating differently and their governments to support this change:

The WHO report recommends eating more fruits and vegetables and limiting fats and salt. It also suggests governments limit food advertising aimed at children and encourage their citizens to eat healthier foods. Taxes and subsidies could be used to reduce the price of healthy food and make them more attractive to consumers, the report said.

The U.S. administration response was swift. HHS official William Steiger argued that the WHO findings were based on faulty science. I guess he also didn't like any of the onus put on governments or the business interests:

"The (U.S. government) favors dietary guidance that focuses on the total diet, promotes the view that all foods can be part of a healthy and balanced diet, and supports personal responsibility to choose a diet conducive to individual energy balance, weight control and health," wrote Steiger, special assistant for international affairs at Health and Human Services.

Now, personal responsibility is all fine and dandy, and exercize is also an important part of a healthy life. But personal responsibility is something that's a lot easier to practise when the grocery stores offer many affordable alternatives of healthy foods, when the cheapest filling thing to eat isn't a Big Mac with fries from McDonald's, and when the television isn't constantly blaring messages about the desirability of fast foods and soft drinks to its watching audience. If these messages didn't work, advertizers wouldn't be willing to pay for most of the tv industry.

Wiener's response isn't surprising, of course, given that the Bush administration wants pregnant women to assert individual responsibility in avoiding mercury that might possibly lurk in quite a few saltwater fish species, while the fishing and power plant industries (which put the mercury there) are not held to the same standards of individual responsibility.

Would you like to have lunch with me here at the headquarters of Snakepit Inc.? The menu: tuna salad with dill and mercury, freedom fries with saturated fat and a soft drink beverage with phosphoric acid. After lunch, we'll don our bulletproof vests and go for a brisk walk through the nearby delapidated area, admiring en route the individual initiative demonstrated by the drug dealers peddling at every street corner. Even the poorest American can do this much!