Bloomingdale’s sucks. Whole Foods does not.

On Tuesday my wife was in Bloomingdales in Manhattan, attempting to make a purchase, when our debit card was declined. It turns out that the bank put a hold on the card because of possibly fraudulent activity. When the card was processed as a credit card, it went through fine, but if it was processed as a debit card, it was declined.  

The woman at the register in Bloomingdales was impatient and impolite to my wife, making her feel as if she was trying to pass off a stolen credit card.

She was too kind and forgiving to mention this to anyone, but I am not as kind and not nearly so forgiving.

Contrast that experience to the following day, when this happened, written in my wife’s own words: 

This afternoon I was at Whole Foods picking up some groceries. Before checking out I went to buy a latte and discovered that my credit card wasn't working. I knew it shouldn't be the case so I stepped to the side to call the bank. I was on with the bank for quite some time, and the bank employee kept telling me it should be fixed and to try it again, but each time to no avail.

I had Charlie in his carrier and a carriage full of groceries that I knew I was going to have to leave at the market soon. It was snowing and I had to pick Clara up from preschool. At this point a Whole Foods employee came over and asked if I had any more shopping to do. I said that I was also going to get a rotisserie chicken. She walked away and returned with two chickens and asked which one I would prefer. Then she began bagging up my groceries.

I was still talking to the bank so it took me a minute to realize what she was doing. When I looked up she said, "Don't worry. We've got this for you."

I said, "Wait, what? You are giving these to me?"

She answered that she was, and of course I got all teary told her she didn't need to do that. She said, "It's no problem. It's snowing. We've got it."

So there you go. Some pretty awesome kindness from Whole Foods.

You can be sure I'll be making a nice donation to their charity next time I check out.

Customer loyalty is not a difficult thing to earn.

For years, I have been critical of Whole Foods for their outrageous prices, limited selection, and the sheer weight of preciousness and pretension that the company and their clientele exudes. It’s a store that sells some of the best pizza in town, and yet they will not sell me a Diet Coke to go along with my pizza. Instead, I am forced to purchase a soda-like product that tastes as if it was extracted from the bark of a tree (and probably was).

It’s stupid.

Not deigning to sell otherwise ubiquitous items like Diet Coke or batteries only forces customers into the inane (and exceedingly popular) process of shopping at multiple grocery stores, which only serves to waste time and money.

And it makes you seem like a bunch of self-righteous foodie bustards in the process.

But after they way they treated my wife yesterday, I will be decidedly less vocal about my opposition to Whole Foods. I love their pizza but am not a fan of their business model, but the company employs good people who know how to take care of customers in need, and for that reason, I will give them the credit they deserve. 

Well done, Whole Foods. Thank you for taking care of my wife in such grand fashion.

Bad Internet

The Internet is one of humankind’s greatest achievements. It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without it.

Still, I can’t help but think that before the Internet, this sentence, and sentences like it, never existed:

Need. Coffee. Now.

There’s something to be said for the old days.

Bunk

I hate this.

Why not try to be better than everyone? Crush the world, damn it. Don’t be better than yesterday. Be better than everyone’s yesterday.

Imagine how many remarkable accomplishments might have never happened had every inventor, explorer, athlete and entrepreneur failed to chase down the frontrunner and competed against the very best in their chosen field.

Also, the comma after the word than is superfluous and grammatically incorrect.

A grammatical error in an inspirational message?

Perhaps the person who created this should have set his or her bar higher, too. 

The dashboard is no place to roll back technology in favor of tradition

My rental car from the weekend, a Chrysler 200, was equipped with only an analog clock in the dashboard, even though the radio mounted directly below the clock had a digital display.

I can’t begin to imagine the amount of pretentiousness required in order to eliminate the digital clock entirely from the dashboard.

It’s akin to having an actual Rolodex mounted onto my iPhone rather than an app to organize my contact list. 

Which is another way of saying it’s incredibly stupid.

The three day, three month, three year test

Last year the New England Patriots played the Kansas City Chiefs on a Monday night in Foxboro. My fellow season ticket holder could not attend the game for less than acceptable reasons, and I could not find a soul who was willing to attend the game with me.

The freezing temperatures and the probability of arriving back home in Connecticut well after 2:00 in the morning (if we were lucky) deterred anyone from wanting to take the extra ticket and join me.

I hemmed and hawed all day about going to the game alone, knowing that if I went, I would be driving home from the game in the dead of night by myself. I’d also be watching the game from the icy confines of Gillette Stadium without the benefit of a friend’s companionship or a pre-game tailgate party.

In the end, I chose to remain home.

Last week I planned on attending a Moth StorySLAM in Manhattan. I had a story prepared and was ready to make the trip on my own (again, no one was willing to join me), but at the last minute, I chose to stay home. I had spent 5 of the last 6 days on the road, camping with my fifth graders, attending the Patriots home opener and traveling to Troy, NY for a book signing. With so much time spent on the road, I decided that I would be better off staying at home rather than enduring another long, late night drive on my own.

In the past two years, these two decisions represent two of my greatest regrets. I’m completely annoyed with myself for each decision, and I cannot foresee a time when I will not feel this way.

When it comes to making decisions like these, I use a “three day, three month, three year” test.

As difficult as it might be to travel to and from Gillette Stadium or New York City on my own, late at night, will I regret my decision three days later? Though I may be tired or even exhausted the next day, how will I feel about my decision three days from now, when I am well rested? Will I regret not having chosen the more difficult road?

What about three months later? When I look back on the missed opportunity, will that restful evening at home come close to matching what could have been? Will I even remember what I did on the night that I could have spent watching Monday Night Football or telling a story on a Moth stage?

What about three years later? What will mean more to me?

A forgotten evening at home amidst a thousand other evenings at home or the memories from a rare Monday Night football game?

Or the missed opportunity of taking the stage at a Moth StorySLAM and entertaining an audience of strangers with a story from my life? Perhaps even winning the StorySLAM and earning the right to perform in another GrandSLAM?

I am not implying that an evening spent at home with my wife and children is a forgettable, wasteful experience. Those evenings are some of the most cherished moments of my life. But I also believe that we must take advantage of the considerably less frequent opportunities like a Monday Night Football game or a Moth StorySLAM when they present themselves. The time we spend with our families and friends creates the fabric of our lives, but those moments we spend doing things that so many do not punctuate our lives and create the bright, specific memories that last a lifetime. We cannot allow a few hours of lost sleep or chilly temperatures or the promise of a bleary-eyed day at work prevent us from doing those things that so many people skip in favor of an evening in front of the television or surfing the Internet.

When making a decision about whether or not to do something that is hard, we cannot allow the subsequent 24 hours to dictate our decision. We must look ahead, three days, three months and three years, to see how we might then feel about our decision.

Perspective is a powerful tool in decision-making. While we can never know for certain how we will feel, we can predict how hindsight might make us feel. This is what I do when deciding between something that is easy and something that is difficult.

Tomorrow doesn’t matter. I can always survive tomorrow.

Will I regret this decision in three days, three months or three years time?

In terms of last years Monday Night Football game and last week’s StorySLAM, the answer is decidedly affirmative.  

Pick a career, damn it. Or ten.

I read an interesting piece on Penelope Trunk’s blog on choosing a career that you will like.

Trunk quotes economist Neil Howe, who says that only 5% of people pick the right job on the first try.

He calls those people “fast starters” and in general, they are less creative, less adventurous and less innovative, which makes a conventional, common path work well for them.

If you’re in a career that you despise and are dreaming of trying something new, take heart. Almost everyone makes the wrong choice at some point in their lives.

The tragedy is not changing careers when there is still time.

And there is always time.  

One of Trunk’s suggestions in choosing the right career is to pick a lifestyle, not a job.

I like this suggestion a lot.

My boss often refers to teaching as a lifestyle choice, and I agree. No one will ever become wealthy by choosing to become a teacher, but the benefits that teaching offers in terms of the kind of work we do and the time it allows us to spend with our families makes it an ideal career choice for people who want to make a difference in this world and still spend as much time as possible with their friends and families.

I chose teaching because I had wanted to be a teacher ever since I was a little boy. Perhaps this is because school was a safer and happier place for me than home. Perhaps it was because my arrogant, little boyhood self always assumed that I could do the job better than the teachers standing before me. Perhaps it was because I was the oldest of five children, so teaching came naturally to me. Regardless of the reason, I was blessed with a strong desire to teach at an early age.

In terms of career choices, teaching is actually a relatively safe and stable one. As a writer, I know that not all career choices are nearly as secure. As an example, Trunk writes:

Look at the successful writers you read. Most of them wrote for years in obscurity, risking long-term financial doom in order to keep writing. Do you really want that path for yourself? Rena Subotnik, author of Gifted Grownups finds that most people who are exceptionally creative have to give up almost everything else in order to pursue “creativity with a big C”. For most people, that path is not appealing.

When I was deciding on my career path, I was well aware of the financial dangers that a career in writing presented me. Though my desire to write for a living was just as strong as my desire to teach by the time I was able to attend college, I knew that teaching would afford me a more stable future. Thankfully, the two careers fit together nicely. Though I write every day without exception, I tend to do the bulk of my writing over the summer when the demands of teaching take a two month hiatus.

I’m astounded by the number of young adults who have recently told me that they are still not sure what kind of career they want, or even worse, who seem to have no strong career aspirations whatsoever.

I’m also surprised by the number of people who end up falling into a career that pays the bills but does not resemble anything that they envisioned for themselves when they were younger. These tend to be people who had dreams of pursuing careers in the arts but have abandoned these dreams in favor of more conventional, profitable endeavors.

While I understand the rationale behind these practical decisions, I cannot understand the decision to abandon your dreams entirely. Go to work in sales in order to support your family, but if your dream was to become a painter or actor or musician or animator, don’t just give up. Paint on the weekends. Join a community theater. Start a garage band. Take evening classes in computer animation at a local college.

Don’t just quit. 

Instead, I meet people who are rudderless and directionless, working in jobs for which they have no passion or looking for a job that they cannot identify. When I ask them what they want to do, they shrug their shoulders and sigh.

Literally. 

I have the opposite problem. Despite the many jobs that I have held in my past, I have too many career ambitions. When I retire from teaching someday, the unimaginable idea of never standing before a class of students again will be mitigated by the freedom to launch a new career.

I’m just not sure which career to choose next.

There are the jobs that I have mentioned before on this blog, including professional best man (I had my fourth inquiry about this position recently, but once again the client lived too far away to make the job feasible), life coach (I actually have two paying clients), double date companion and gravesite visitor.

Then there are the more serious careers that I have serious interest in. These include:

Sociologist
Bookstore owner
Behavioral economist
College professor
Efficiency expert
Camp director
Inspirational speaker
Professional poker player
Financial analyst
Firefighter
Therapist

I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.

There are so many careers in this world from which to choose that I cannot imagine finding myself in the position of not knowing what I want to do with my life.

Instead, I find myself wanting to demand that these directionless young adults donate their lives to me. In the unlikely event that I someday die, I won’t have time to do all that I want with my life. If you can’t decide what you want to do with your life, hand your precious time over to me.

I promise to use it productively. 

If a person cannot muster enough passion to choose at least one career path, that person has a serious problem.

As a life coach and a future therapist and inspirational speaker, perhaps I can help.

Public opinion is irrelevant when it comes to matters of right and wrong

The Daily Beast’s David Frum writes:

Maryland will settle same-sex marriage the right way: at the ballot box. In November, Marylanders will vote on Question 6, an initiative to amend the state constitution to allow same-sex marriage.

I could not disagree more.

Equality, basic human rights and common sense should not be dependent on public opinion. The legislation of issues such as same-sex marriage should not rely upon voter turnout, television advertising, and campaign fundraising to decide the matter. It should be decided by a fair minded, politically neutral court comprised of men and women who have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Actually, same-sex marriage should just be legal from a standpoint of basic human decency and common sense, the same way that kissing your grandmother, climbing a tree or hugging a friend did not require legislation in order to be legal. But absent this, the matter should not be reliant upon the whims of the electorate. Human beings live too damn long, are too narrow minded and are too likely to carry their bigotry to the grave with them. Reforms like the legalization of same-sex marriage often must be forced upon the citizenry, regardless of public opinion.

For example, interracial marriage was legalized in 1967 by the United States Supreme Court even though only 20% of Americans supported it and 73% expressed disapproval of interracial marriage at the time. Twenty-seven years after the Court legalized interracial marriage, a majority of Americans still opposed it, but public opinion did not matter. The Court had done the right thing, regardless of what the public believed or continued to believe more than two decades later.

In fact, it was not until 1997 that a majority of Americans expressed support for interracial marriage. Had the country allowed the ballot box to decide the issue, interracial couples would have been required to wait thirty additional years before being granted the same rights as intra-racial couples. 

Public opinion should only go so far. When it comes to doing the right thing,  do the right thing, regardless of what people think, any way you can. 

Want to settle the same sex marriage debate the right way?

Just legalize it and tell the bigots to shut the hell up.

Gift giving is not supposed to be an opportunity to show us how special you are.

A friend and I were recently speaking about the upcoming wedding of a mutual friend. Specifically, we were discussing the gift that she planned on bringing to the wedding. I told her that I knew that the couple could use cash to help them pay for the wedding and had put the word out to their friends and relatives, but she said that she would never consider giving cash to the couple.

“Is it just that you don’t like to give cash?” I asked.

“Oh no,” she said. “I just have the perfect gift idea for them. They’re going to love it.”

“But why not just give them what they’ve asked for instead of assuming that you know better?”

“You don’t understand,” my friend said. “I have the perfect gift.”

“Is it at least on their registry?”’

“No, but it’s something I’ve been wanting to give them for a long time,” she said.

My friend is an example of the kind of person who associates gift giving with ego. A wedding gift is an opportunity to demonstrate her superior taste and discerning eye. Rather than giving the couple something they have asked for and need and waiting until their first anniversary to be creative, my friend is turning the gift into a moment for herself.

She is the same kind of person whose investment in the subsequent thank you card will probably border on obsessive.

I do not support this type of gift giving. If a couple is financially secure and nonspecific in their request for gifts, then the giver is welcome to be as creative as possible.

But when a couple is starting a life together by paying for their own wedding and were very specific in their financial and material needs via word of mouth and a gift registry, it is nothing more than ego, selfishness and self-centeredness that causes a person to completely disregard the couple’s need and give a gift that fulfills some hole in their own self-worth. 

Just send a check, damn it. It’s not about you.

Just admit that you think homosexuality is yucky. Don’t drag religion into it.

A couple days a ago I posted a letter that was forwarded to me by a reader regarding gay marriage. It was pointed out to me soon after that The West Wing has a scene that conveys a similar message.

The message in both the letter and the scene from The West Wing is simple:

If you are going to use The Bible to justify your bigotry toward homosexuals, then you should be required to adhere to all the bigotry that The Bible demands. The word of God should not be digested buffet-style. Either it represents the infallible word of God or it does not.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last couple days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s this inconsistency that bothers me most about these bigots.

If you don’t like my gay friends or believe that they are not entitled to the same rights as all Americans, I can at least understand this. Hating people for being different is nothing new. While I don’t agree with your position, I can at least attribute it to basic human nature. The human race has a long, unfortunate history of treating people poorly because they are different.

We’ve seen your breed of stupidity before.

But when you use The Bible as justification for your bigotry while ignoring those passages that are inconvenient to your cause (or demand that you stone your mother to death for wearing that Christmas sweater), you offend me and like-minded people on the grounds of logic and reason. Simply admit that you find homosexuals despicable or inexplicable or yucky, and I will at least respect you for your honesty. Defending your ignorance through blatant hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty only serves to further highlight your ignorance.

And while I may not be a religious person, this buffet-style approach to Biblical  doctrine also does great harm to the people of faith who sensibly acknowledge that the lessons of The Bible are not absolute. It’s the radicals, the lunatics and the hypocrites who cast a pall on the good work of the believers. Defending your opposition to gay marriage on religious grounds diminishes their good work and causes people like me to question religion in general.

Besides, anyone with half a brain knows that there is nothing redeeming about the Old Testament argument anyway. We all know that the same book that justifies your hatred of homosexuals demands that we kill anyone who works on Sunday.

By your logic, I should be stoning the New England Patriot players tomorrow at Gillette Stadium rather than cheering them on.

Please just admit that you are grossed out by the idea of two boys kissing and move on.

Leave religion out of it. 

The lowest forms of human communication

The following are the four lowest forms of human communication, in no specific order.

I’m willing to consider additions to the list, so please feel free to offer me your thoughts.

1.  The demanded apology

2.  The absence of a thank you note complaint

3.  The “I’m angry at you and will therefore write an email rather than speaking to you in person or at least calling you” email

4.  The anonymous critique or attack, in any form

Alex Pareene’s takedown of Andy Borowitz’s humor in Salon is a joke.

Alex Pareene wrote a take down of humorist Andy Borowitz that I found so infantile that I felt obliged to write a take down of his take down here, even if it means garnering Pareene more attention than he deserves. Based upon his opening paragraph, I knew that I would despise this piece:

Andy Borowitz makes dad jokes for self-satisfied liberals. If you think Sarah Palin is stupid and Mitt Romney is rich, Andy Borowitz has some jokes that will decidedly not challenge a single one of your prior assumptions!

It’s a terrible opening paragraph. He opens by using two unsupported, undefined, vaguely indiscernible adjectives that I still don’t quite understand.

First, he refers to Borowitz’s jokes as “dad jokes,” and while I may have an inkling of what Pareene is implying by the phrase "dad joke," I am still not entirely certain, and this is the first statement of his piece.

Are his jokes corny? Aged? Obvious? PG?

Actually, this statement comprises the first five words of the piece, and even if I am right in one of my assumptions about the negative use of the word "dad," Pareene does nothing to support the claim for at least three more paragraphs.

Pareene then describes Borowitz’s audience, still in the first sentence, as “self-satisfied liberals.”

I honestly have no idea what this means or why it is bad.

Then he ends his opening paragraph with an exclamation mark, which is something I might expect to see in an essay written by a high school freshman but not a piece in Salon.

Pareene spends the next three paragraphs, which amounts to 36% of the total words in the piece, attacking Borowitz for his sitcom work in the 1980s and 1990s. Why he thinks that Borowitz’s work on The Facts of Life or The Fresh Prince of Bel Air has any bearing on whether or not he is funny twenty and thirty years later is beyond me, but he seems quite angry about the amount of work that Borowitz did in the past and fixates upon it for quite some time. He’s also generous enough to mention that Borowitz was the editor of the Harvard Lampoon, but he only includes this fact parenthetically, as if it is fairly irrelevant in comparison to Borowitz’s shameful work with Will Smith and requires the sequestration of parenthesis lest it be viewed as an important part of Borowitz’s comedic career.

In this same paragraph, Pareene attacks a Borowitz joke from 2o08.

Five years ago.

Does he think that any comedian could stand up to this kind of scrutiny? If we examined every joke told by any comic from the last five years, does Pareene really think that we wouldn’t find more than a few clunkers? I don’t get it. It’s not as if Pareene is even attacking a recent joke. He goes back five years to find one that he doesn’t like. Later on in the piece, he goes back to 2004 to find another joke to fit his argument.

In fact, Borowitz’s has tweeted more than 8,000 jokes in the past three years alone. Pareene cites a grand total of ten of them while criticizing the comedian. That’s .00125 percent of all the jokes Borowitz has attempted, and this only amounts to the jokes he has posted on Twitter, which is the area in which Pareene is directing the brunt of his post-millennial criticism.

What comic doesn’t miss on .00125 percent of his or her jokes?

Then Pareene makes this statement:

I am not a comedy expert, and nothing is less interesting than listening to any self-proclaimed comedy expert expound on comedy, but I thought it was at least generally agreed that the best humor involves the element of surprise.

The best humor involves the element of surprise? This is generally agreed upon? By whom? Had Pareene lost his mind? There are many ways to be funny, and while surprise is certainly an effective one, it is not agreed upon to be the best by anybody.

It’s surprising how stupid Pareene’s statement is, but that doesn’t necessarily make it funny.

Pareene then spends a paragraph criticizing Borowitz for including celebrity culture as a part of his comedic repertoire. Does he expect anyone to believe that Borowitz’s decision to write jokes about Hollywood starlets and reality television buffoons is a signal that Borowitz is a hack? What comedian doesn’t reference celebrity culture in his or her comedy? Even a comedian as hyper-focused on politics as Bill Maher takes advantage of the horrors and stupidity of Hollywood when telling jokes.

Does Pareene really think the world of celebrity culture should be taboo to serious comedians?

Pareene follows this nonsense with claims that Borowitz’s humor is most appropriate for old people, because apparently in Pareene’s estimation, old people suck and aren't funny. In defense of this argument, he cites Borowitz’s appearance on CBS Sunday Morning as evidence that his ideal audience is old people.

Of course, CBS Sunday Morning has also featured comedians like Louis CK, Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman, just to name just a few, so they must suck, too. Right?

Pareene then proposes a formula for creating a Borowitz joke and attempts to create a few of his own, none of which are funny (nor is the Pareene’s formula bit), all the while lacing his piece with more unnecessary exclamation marks and the incredibly stupid double question mark.

Pareene ends his piece by suggesting that Borowitz should work less often, not only for the good of America (yeah, he said America, and I know he used it as an exaggeration, but sometimes exaggeration is so obvious and cliché that it no longer serve as exaggeration), but for Borowtiz’s own good.

He uses a couple extraneous exclamation points here as well.

I guess it wasn’t such a take down after all. In the end, Pareene must like Borowitz a great deal. Apparently he wrote this whole take down as a way of warning Borowitz about the dangers of overexposure and a life spent consumed with too much work and not enough play.

Pareene also states that less Borowitz would be good for his Twitter feed, but apparently Pareene doesn’t understand Twitter.

Rather than writing a hack takedown piece in Salon, just unfollow the guy if you don’t like him. It would be better for you, Alex Pareene.

See? This isn’t a take down of a take down after all. I’m just looking out for you, Alex Pareene.

I mean, for you!

Ugly baby

Earlier in the week my wife and I brought the kids to a perfectly lovely children’s museum called Imagination Nation. It’s actually one of my favorites. My daughter could spend hours in that place and never get bored.

I only had one complaint about the whole museum, and it was this:

In a section of the museum designed to recreate a doctor’s office was this freak show of a doll:

  

I can only assume that the person responsible for purchasing the dolls for the museum has a baby creepier looking than this one, and as a result had a distorted vision of what a normal baby should look like.

Einstein was dumb

Not about many things, but about this:

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”

I’ve always hated this definition.

I wouldn’t call it insanity. I’d call it persistence. Grit. Determination. Practice.

There are many examples in life in which one does the same thing over and over again with the reasonable expectation of improvement (and thus differing results).

In fact, I can think of more instances in which this is true than it is not.    

I’m sure that when Einstein said this, he was referring to a specific instance where this definition aptly applied (probably related to scientific experimentation), but too often quoted as a universal truth when this is simply not the case.  

Curmudgeonly thinking

I loved this quote from a New York Times opinion piece by Oliver Burkeman, who has a book coming out entitled “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.”

You can try, if you insist, to follow the famous self-help advice to eliminate the word “failure” from your vocabulary — but then you’ll just have an inadequate vocabulary when failure strikes.

I have always preferred a healthy sense of realism (and even a little self-flagellation) over any power of positive thinking. 

The problem with Slate’s Double X Gabfest

I realize that this will apply to a tiny subset of my audience, but I have to put it out there: I can’t stand Slate’s Double X Gabfest. Not that this should be a surprise, as I have criticized it before. Even so, I continue to listen each week in hopes of improvement but come away angry, annoyed and frustrated.

I may have to stop listening at some point.

Today I finally identified the main reason why I cannot stand this podcast.

No, it’s not because Slate’s Double X editor Hanna Rosin manages to find a way to mention her upcoming book each week, though I find this hideously self serving.

No, it’s not because the same Hanna Rosin speaks twice as much as anyone else on the podcast combined, even though this is true.

It’s not even because every other contributor to the podcast seems to pay constant and unwavering deference to Hanna Rosin.

The reason I cannot stand this podcast is because there is never an ounce of push back on the show. The Double X Gabfest amounts to little more than a mutual mind share, with each woman attempting to outdo the next in her universal agreement on the topic at hand.

They use phrases like, “So we all agree?” and “We think this is a good idea, then?” and “That sounds right to me” rather than finding topics to actually debate.

This week the trio discussed the teenage sexual assault victim who named her underage assailants via Twitter after the judge admonished her not to release their names to the public. Not surprising, all three contributors took the side of the victim in the case. I felt similarly, but I couldn’t help but wonder:

What if the underage criminal whose identity was disclosed on Twitter was guilty of breaking and entering rather than sexual assault? Would we feel differently about the victim’s actions? What if the perpetrator had been a fifteen year old boy who had broken into the victim’s house and stolen from her? Would we feel the same about her public disclosure of his name?

What if this had been a case of simple assault rather than one sexual in nature? What if both the victim and the perpetrator had been males? Would this change things in terms of publicly disclosing the names these minors?

What if the crime has been manslaughter instead of sexual assault? A 14-year old boy brandishes a firearm in an attempt to intimidate a teenage girl, and in the process, the gun accidentally fires, killing her the girl’s best friend. The judge seals the court documents in order to protect the identity of the assailant in this case because he is a minor, but the girl broadcasts his name on Twitter in honor of her dead friend.

How do we feel now?

Does sexual assault or rape, for whatever reason, carry a different weight than other crimes? Should it?

I’m not sure about the answers to any of these questions, and I suspect that in the end, I would still find myself siding with Rosin and her colleagues, but they are the kinds of questions that are never addressed on this podcast. On every other Slate podcast, debate is constant, expected and appreciated. Devil’s advocates abound. There are even moments of genuine anger and discord.

This does not happen on Slate’s Double X Gabfest. No one bothered to wonder if we would think differently if the crime had not been sexual assault. No one bothered to play Devil’s advocate on behalf of the assailants and their court-ordered anonymity. No one even bothered to question the judge’s reasoning behind his desire to keep the assailants’ names private. There was talk about the stigma and shame associated with rape, and then all agreed that the victim had acted correctly in this case.

Every topic is handled similarly. Discussion, agreement, consensus, and more of the same, with Hanna Rosin dominating the conversation while finding some way to mention her upcoming book.

I’d like to be invited to join the Double X Gabfest for a week or two, in order to present an alternating viewpoint to some of the issues that they address and challenge the collective position from time to time. While I often find myself siding with the Double X collective, I think it’s reasonable to expect that either someone on the panel be willing to play Devil’s advocate or (even better) find someone whose opinions do not align so nearly with the rest of the panel.

Yes, I could just stop listening. I know this. But I genuinely want the podcast to be better. I want Slate to produce a podcast that addresses issues related to women and feminism, and I want to be exposed to these ideas more often.

And yes, if you haven’t figured it out, I’ll admit that Hanna Rosin bugs me as well, which is odd because I think her husband, David Plotz, is fantastic in his role as both editor and occasional contributor to Slate as well as podcast host.

I can’t imagine how he puts up with her.

In truth, I’m sure that Hanna is a wonderful person, and I don’t doubt her intelligence or accomplishments for a moment. She is a skilled writer and journalist, and I will probably read her book when it comes out.

I just think she stinks as a podcast host.

Why didn’t anyone tell me that all these women were have sex in front of me?

I’m not sure which part of this column is more stupid:

The part where L.G. from Phoenix asks if it is appropriate for her sister to be reading FIFTY SHADES OF GREY in front of their father (while clearly taking a passive-aggressive swipe at her sibling in the process)… 

… or the part where The Boston Globe’s Robin Abraham asserts in her Miss Conduct column that reading this book in public equates to a public sex act.

Fifty shades of gross! Your poor father was probably only feigning unconsciousness out of embarrassment.

Reading in public is a fine, improving act. As a city dweller, I have always enjoyed the way public reading creates a barrier — yet a permeable one — between the individual and the people surrounding him or her. You have a sense of fellow feeling with readers, don’t you? Oh, look, that guy over there likes the New Yorker, too. Commuters catching up on the newspapers, students plowing through dense academic tomes, “escape” readers with their lurid science fiction or crime paperbacks . . . reading in public gives people a little window into your mind.

And therein lies the, er, rub. The purpose of Fifty Shades of Grey is to arouse the reader, which means that reading it in public is about as appropriate as feeling yourself up in the coffee shop. You are forcing other people to witness a sexual act.

There’s so much wrong with this response (and there’s more in the column if you’d like to see her complete answer), the stupidest being:

“Reading in public is a fine, improving act.”

What the hell does that mean? Improving? Is this a column written for nineteenth century girls attending finishing school? Has Abraham declared herself the arbitrator of all public activities? Is it her role to determine which activities are “fine and improving” and which are less so?  

“A fine, improving act?”

Could she sound more pretentious?

And did you notice the way she matches readers to their choice of books?

She is a New Yorker fan, of course.

Students read “dense academic tomes” as if they’ve stepped right out of a Harry Potter film onto the bus. No Kindles or Nooks or iPads for these young people. Dusty, intellectual books for them. 

“Escape” readers read “lurid science fiction and crime paperbacks,” because apparently everything written in these two genres is considered lurid in Abraham’s mind. 

And did you notice her use of quotation marks around the word escape? What’s the point? It’s almost as if Abraham cannot deign to touch the concept of an escape reader without first bracketing the term inside the protective confines of the quotation mark.

God I hate this women.

But of all the stupidity contained within her response, this is the worst:

“The purpose of Fifty Shades of Grey is to arouse the reader, which means that reading it in public is about as appropriate as feeling yourself up in the coffee shop.”

Is she serious? I have yet to read FIFTY SHAES OF GREY, but I am having a difficult time envisioning the reading of this book as a sexual act. 

My mother-in-law read the book on her Nook, which means she could’ve been reading it in my presence. I have no way of knowing for sure. 

Am I to believe that my mother-in-law may have been engaging in a sexual act in my presence?

In fact, I have seen dozens of women reading this book in public over the last three months. Am I to believe that each of these women were engaging in an act akin to masturbating in a coffee shop? If so, I wish someone would have told me about this sooner. I would have paid closer attention to these deviants.

Hell, maybe I should’ve called the authorities.

A woman was reading the book on the treadmill beside me last week. I had no idea how shocked or embarrassed I was supposed to feel. No one warned me. Little did I know what this sexual deviant was doing beneath the veneer of a high impact cardio workout.

I feel dirty just thinking about it.

And slightly stupider for reading this ridiculous column.

A surprising response to my request that women stop wearing makeup

Yesterday I wrote a post that essentially criticized women for wearing makeup. I knew that I might be stepping into a hornet’s nest with my comments, but I felt strongly enough about them to risk the sting.

Twenty-four hours later, I thought I’d update you on the reaction to the piece, because it was both plentiful and surprising:

First, every person who disagreed with my position responded in a reasoned, thoughtful, and polite manner, which is more than I can say for myself at times, so thank you.

Second, the response in general was surprising. Through Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, actual human conversation and email, the response to the post (more than 60 respondents in all) was 80/20 in favor of my position.

I was astounded.

I am also cognizant that this is probably not a true measure of opinion. Readers who disagreed with my position may have simply scoffed at my ideas and moved on, whereas women who have spent much of their life makeup-free were more likely to respond with support and appreciation.

Still, 80/20 is overwhelming.

I also heard from several women who acknowledged that on a logical, objective level, it’s true that makeup does not make sense and might even be damaging to female self esteem, but because we live in a society that deems otherwise, they will continue to wear it.

One reader said:

“It’s true that I probably only enjoy wearing makeup because I have been taught to enjoy wearing it by women before me. And I’m even willing to acknowledge that it probably doesn't help a woman’s self image. But that doesn’t change the fact that I enjoy wearing it.”

I thought this was an excellent point.

In discussing the issue with my wife last night (even though she rarely wears makeup, she was less than enthusiastic about my approach to the issue), I said, “Can’t we agree that if we had a chance to start the world all over again, we should probably start it without makeup.”

“Yes,” she said. “And that’s what you should have said that in your post.”

As usual, she makes a good point. Rather than simply criticizing women for wearing makeup and asking that they stop, it might have been more productive to take a less personal, more conceptual approach to the issue.  

I’ll also take a moment to acknowledge that a small percentage of men wear makeup as well, as at least two readers pointed out. Yes, it’s true that some men wear makeup, but I considered the the number so small that I did not feel the need to mention it in the post. Also, I hardly think that young boys are being taught to need makeup by their older male counterparts. Regardless, I wish these makeup-wearing men would remove their makeup as well.

Even more so.

Lastly, I’d like to end with a quote from a reader that I simply adored. She said:

“I don't wear make up because I feel like I'm apologizing for my face if I do.”

I suspect that I will be using that quote often.

No makeup, ladies. Please?

On an objective, logical, and unbiased level, can we all please agree that it is twisted and bizarre that men spend every moment of their public lives without a spot of makeup on their faces while many, if not most, women are uncomfortable and unwilling to even leave the house without it?

This fact alone would seem to imply that men possess a natural beauty that women do not, which is obviously not the case.

As one of many men who prefer when women do not wear makeup, this has always annoyed me. I’ve always felt that women are much more beautiful absent any makeup and that confidence is infinitely more attractive than any amount of makeup that a woman could use.

And it’s not as if the makeup goes unnoticed to the untrained eye. We all know that your lips are not that red. We all know that your cheeks are not normally that pink. Your eyelids are not naturally dusky, and yes, we can all see the concealer that you are wearing, even though no one will ever tell you so. As masterfully as it may be applied, it’s no mystery when makeup has been applied, and we all know that it’s being used to cover or enhance something that the woman does not like about herself.

As the father of a little girl, this annoyance has now moved into the realm of genuine concern. I don’t want my daughter to ever feel like she needs to wear makeup, and I know how difficult a message this will be to send with so many women walking around the world painted and caked and smeared with the stuff.

But there’s hope.

First, my wife wears almost no makeup, and on the rare occasion when she uses it, she wears very little. If Clara ends up being anything like her mother, I will consider it a victory over the forces of makeup.  

Even better, there is apparently a trend for female celebrities to post photographs of themselves without makeup.

From a recent New York Times piece on the subject:

Female stars have been rushing to publish photos of themselves without makeup. Last week, Rihanna, known for her brightly colored hair and makeup, posted a photo of herself on Twitter looking like the girl next door, makeup free and with braided pigtails. That followed a quadriptych of photos she posted several months ago, showing her looking as if she had just rolled out of bed, albeit with flawless and radiant skin.

The writer, Austin Considine, questions whether these photos are being posted as a publicity stunt, but I don’t care why they are being posted as long as the celebrities keep it up. They are promoting a positive message either way. I want more of this.

Objectively, we must realize that the only reason we think it strange or daring or unusual for a woman like Rihanna to post a photo of herself absent any makeup is because we have come to expect most women, and especially female celebrities, to be wearing makeup whenever they are in public.

But there is no innate reason for women to wear makeup. Women’s skin is not unnaturally flawed. Women’s lips are not unnaturally pale. Women’s eyelids were not meant to be blue or green or purple. There was no tragic eyelid transformation to a more fleshy color as a result of Hiroshima radiation or high fructose corn syrup.

We have come to expect women to wear makeup because women wear makeup.

Perhaps if more celebrities decided that it is somewhat sad and fairly insane for women to feel the need to spend the time and money painting their faces while their male counterparts are walking around without the same need or expectation, things could change.    

I don’t know who the hell AnnaLynne McCord is, but I am her newest, biggest fan as a result of her recent decision to post a photo of herself without makeup and her comment on the subject:

In May, the actress AnnaLynne McCord posted an unvarnished photo of herself, her face dotted with red blemishes.

“I woke up this morning and decided I’m over Hollywood’s perfection requirement,” Ms. McCord wrote in a Twitter message accompanying the photo. “To all my girls (and boys) who have ever been embarrassed by their  skin! I salute you! I’m not perfect — and that’s okay with me!”

I’m going to get this photograph and her tweet blown up into a poster, and when she’ old enough to read, I’m going to hang it in my daughter’s room. Right over her bed. I realize that I might be fighting a losing battle when it comes to makeup, but at least I’m fighting.

Three unjust presumptions

1. The cold person’s temperature preference always trumps the warm person’s temperature preference.

2. The parent who argues for greater frequency in the bathing of a child assumes unjust moral authority over the parent who argues for less frequent baths.

3. The person who does not cry is automatically the bad guy.

Least favorite animal

My least favorite animal is the koala bear. It sleeps 17 hours a day.

I have a hard time respecting anyone who is still in bed at 8:00 AM. How could I possibly respect any animal that sleeps that much?