Beauty pageants must end now.

I would like to propose that every man, woman and child in the United States sign a pledge refusing to participate in or watch any beauty pageant like the Miss USA Pageant ever again.

Pageants are bizarre and awful. Teams of  judges stare at young women in ball gowns and swimsuits and score them on their physical appearance. In the case of the most recent Miss USA Pageant, the judges included an NFL player, a professional wrestler and at least three reality television stars, so the choice of judges is apparently based upon the probability of increasing viewership for the telecast.

Then contestants are asked to answer randomly chosen public policy questions, which result in embarrassing, incoherent, inexplicably stupid moments like this one from last week’s Miss USA Pageant:

Not as bad as the South Carolinian from the Miss Teen USA Pageant in 2007, but still pretty stupid.

What the hell are we doing?

As the father of a little girl, I’m horrified and disgusted that she will be growing up in a world in which these pageants still exist and are broadcast on national television in primetime.

What kind of person even watches a show like this?

The process of judging young women on their physical appearance is disgusting. The inherent sexism behind the existence of these pageants is appalling. I can’t begin to imagine why a parent would want to involve his or her daughter in the pageant process. 

If we could all agree to never involve ourselves or our children in the pageant process and (more importantly) look away when they air these vile programs on television, then the cattle calls of pretty women in swimsuits strutting across a stage so that a football players and reality television stars can assess their curves will eventually come to an end.

Wedding etiquette torn down by one of the most popular advice columnists in the world. I’m impressed.

Emily Yoffe, the Ask Prudence advice communist for Slate, recently did a podcast in which people were able to ask questions about wedding etiquette via the telephone as part of Slate’s wedding issue.

Yoffe tends to lean toward tradition and formality, which differs from my natural inclinations, but I found myself both in agreement and incredibly impressed by her answers during the course of this podcast.

In response to a bride-to-be who recently learned that her mother-in-law plans on wearing a cream-colored dress to the wedding, Yoffe told the caller not to say a word to her future mother-in-law about the choice of color. Yes, it’s true that it’s traditional for only the bride to wear a white dress to her wedding, but Yoffe assured the bride that no one is going to mistake and the mother-in-law because their dresses are similar in color, nor does the mother-in-law’s dress have any bearing over the enjoyment that the bride should have that day.

Moreover, and more important, she also implored the bride to take the high road if someone commented on the dress color at the wedding by simply stating that she thought her mother-in-law looked beautiful.

The tradition that the bride is the only woman wearing white at the wedding is true enough, but Yoffe is also willing to acknowledge that this is a fairly meaningless tradition, and that the bride’s relationship with her mother-in-law, who has already bought the dress and expressed her love for it, is more important than ridiculous matters of dress color.

Yoffe also acknowledges the likelihood that the bride would speak about the mother-in-law’s decision behind her back and is wise enough to advise against it. I cannot tell you how many times my respect for a person has eroded after listening to them make petty, backbiting, materialistic comments like the ones Yoffe anticipated about someone who is not in the room. 

Another caller expresses her concern over the mounting cost of four weddings that she is going be in this year as a bridesmaid. As a fulltime student with a part-time job, the cost of the dresses, the alterations, shoes and the out-of-town bachelorette parties has become too much for this woman’s checking account to bear. She asked Yoffe if it would be acceptable to not bring a gift to the wedding.

Yoffe says that you are obligated to do “only what you are able to do.”

Then she speaks blasphemy:

“Gifts are optional.”

Except it’s not blasphemy. We all know how much it costs to be a bridesmaid these days with bridal showers, bachelorette parties and wedding costs.

What kind of bride would not acknowledge and understand this when it comes to the bridesmaid’s choice of gift?

A despicable one, perhaps, but you shouldn’t be serving as bridesmaid for a despicable person.

Yoffe goes on to say that you can pick up something small but nice for as little as ten or twenty dollars, wrap it up and you have “discharged your duty.”

Hallelujah.  

What Yoffe fails to acknowledge is the disgusting and all-to-common custom of discussing the quality, choice and even cost of gifts with friends and family members after the fact.

“Can you believe that Aunt Judith only gave me $50?”

“My friend, Tina, went off-registry and bought me this awful looking vase that I’m sure was on sale.”

“What did Kim and Joe give you for your wedding? Were they as cheap as they were with me?”

On this week’s Slate’s DoubleX podcast, Slate editor Allison Benedikt actually argues in favor of bridal registries for this very reason, claiming that the potential gossip material that bridal registries provide is too valuable to allow the tradition die.

If this woman follows Yoffe’s advice and gives an inexpensive gift or no gift at all, it is likely that the bride will gossip about her, maybe only to her parents or sister or favorite cousin, but probably more.

It’s possible that the bride possesses the degree of grace, dignity, restraint and/or perspective necessary to to never speak about the quality of this bridesmaid’s gift, but I fear those people are few and far between.

As vile and disgusting as this kind of gift gossip happens to be, I have seen far too much of it over the course of my lifetime to believe that it won’t happen here.

Still, I agree and admire Yoffe’s advice. She’s right. The cost of the gift should never matter, but it should especially never matter when a bridesmaid is involved.

To hell with the possible gossip. If you spend hundreds of dollars on a dress, shoes, alterations, hair, a wedding shower and a bachelorette party, you should not be expected to also purchase a wedding gift.

Only a loser moron materialistic cretin who sucks at life would say otherwise.

Placing an engagement ring in food is stupid.

Last week comedian and podcast host Marc Maron proposed to his girlfriend by hiding the engagement ring in a stack of pancakes.

I do not understand the decision to conceal the engagement ring in food or drink. I cannot imagine a single instance in which this is the best or most preferred way to propose. It strikes me as a passive, ordinary, possibly  cowardly and an almost certainly sticky way to propose to a woman.

There is nothing romantic about someone reaching into a stack of pancakes or a glass of champagne to receive their engagement ring for the first time.

 

In my not-so-humble opinion, it’s just plain stupid. 

It’s not like an effective and memorable proposal is that difficult.

1. Choose the right place.

I chose Grand Central Station in New York City because Elysha once told me that it was her favorite building in the world, and I wanted to choose a place that would be around for a long, long time.

2. Say something great.

I didn’t exactly hit a homerun with my actual proposal, but it was serviceable. The police officer was unexpected, but it worked out fine. You can read the text of my proposal (and the description of the actual event) here. 

3. Put the ring on her finger.

Elysha actually took the ring from me and placed it on her finger herself, but this made sense given we were perched on the landing of a busy staircase in a room filled with hundreds of people. No sense risking one of us dropping the ring while I was trying to slide it on her finger.  

4. THEN eat. 

We had lunch at Ruby Foos with the 25 or so friends who came into New York to witness the proposal, followed by a stroll through Manhattan to Rockefeller Center to see the famed Christmas tree.

But this level of extravagance is certainly not required. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the kitchen with your fiancée following the proposal can be just as sweet.

Just keep the damn ring out of the peanut butter.

A perfect example of how my disputatious mind works

So it turns out that some of my closest friends were highly amused by my surprise in discovering that my wife (and my arch nemesis) think I’m a know-it-all.

Apparently they feel similarly.

Finding myself in the position now where some of my closest friends and family members are in agreement over this issue, my next move is simple:

Accept the know-it-all label and find a way to justify, legitimize and ultimately celebrate the label.

Strip away the negative connotations associated with the phrase and demonstrate the value and prestige of know-it-all status. 

My wife made the case for my know-it-all status by saying, “You do know a lot, honey.”

I think I’ll start there. Knowing a lot is a good thing. Maybe even a great thing.

I’ll begin my work with that premise. 

I should probably update my list of shortcomings, too. It’s apparently in need of revision.

There is a name brand on my zipper, and that is a problem.

Some of my students have become aware of my policy of not wearing any clothing that advertises a name brand.

No stupid alligator where a breast pocket would be. No Abercrombie & Fitch splashed across my chest. No company name affixed to the pocket of my jeans.

I avoid name branding at all costs, for a couple reasons:

1. I reject the idea of allowing a clothing manufacturer to use my body as an advertisement of their product. If they want to pay me, we can talk.
   
   
2. I find the splashing of name brands on clothing, handbags and other accessories as signifiers of wealth, taste, style, quality, brand knowledge and/or conformity to be a vile, petty, pretentious, unoriginal, sheep-like and stupid.

My feelings on this topic tend to be specific and pointed.

My one exception to this rule is sneakers. I have yet to find an off-brand pair of sneakers that does not disintegrate within a month, and I cannot find a pair of name brand sneakers that does not plaster its label on the product. As a result, I am forced to purchase sneakers with a name brand outwardly visible, but I specifically choose black sneakers so that the name brand is as hidden as possible.

While some of my students find this policy insane (as do many name-brand invested adults), most students respect and occasionally admire my position. Even as they walk the hallways of our school with their Hollister shirts and their Nike sneakers, they are already wise enough to recognize the problems with investing in a style predicated on what everyone else is wearing and requiring them to signal to others where they shop and how much money that have spent.

They are still too young to have reached the point of denial, illogical justification or surrender that so many adults have achieved. They are still innocent enough to admit that they are actively participating in a flawed and stupid system.

Nevertheless, they also love finding flaws and missteps in my policy. They find no greater joy than in proving their teacher wrong.

Last week, I was walking around the playground during recess duty wearing a sweatshirt. It had no visible name brand, or so I thought. A student approached, began chatting with me, and then stopped midsentence.

“J.Crew!” she shouted.

“What?”

She pointed at my chest. “J.Crew!”

I looked down. I saw no label. “What are you talking about? There’s no label.”

“Yes there is,” she said. “Look.” She reached out and took hold of the zipper on my sweatshirt. Engraved in tiny letters on the metallic zipper was the brand name.

I groaned. I couldn’t believe it. She was right. Worse still, I could think of no  way of removing the label. The name was cast in iron on the front of my sweatshirt.

“That’s awful,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”

“Don’t throw the sweatshirt out,” she said. “It’s from J.Crew. It probably cost a lot. I won’t tell anyone.”

This was remarkably generous of the student, who would ordinarily seek out my personal destruction whenever possible.

More important, she illustrated my argument with precision.

“The sweatshirt is from J.Crew. It probably cost a lot.”

The name brand clearly signified the probable expense of the item to my student and thereby helped to define my socio-economic status, my taste, my style and my willingness to conform.

In truth, my wife bought the sweatshirt for me (she purchases almost all my clothing), which probably means it was at least half price. And it’s J.Crew, so it couldn’t have been that expensive to start. Right?

But as much as I despise that zipper, it helped to illustrate my point perfectly. Name brands aren’t meant to be attractive. They do not enhance the clothing with their carefully formulated design. They are used by manufacturers to advertiser their product, and they are used by consumers to demonstrate their wealth, taste, knowledge or similarity to everyone else. 

No one carries around a bag with an interlocking G or wears a shirt with a tiny alligator on the chest because these symbols are inherently beautiful. They wear these polo shirts and carry these handbags because that is what everyone else is doing.

They want to signal their membership to a specific herd.

The label on that zipper annoys the hell out of me, but at least it now serves as a visual reminder that I am not insane. My policy has merit.  

Still, I might need a pair of tin snips.

There may be things that are fun to squeeze, but this umbrella ain’t one of them.

I don’t hate this new umbrella design. I just don’t think it solves an existing problem. I just don’t think people are suffering from an inability to text in the rain while holding an umbrella.

But my real complaint is the ad copy, which purports that the umbrella has “a unique handle that’s fun to hold” and that “makes squeezing your umbrella grip something you’ll have a blast doing” and “it’s unique design makes it a great conversation starter.”

No. I’m sorry. It can’t be any of those things.

When you can’t be honest in your advertising, how could I ever trust your product?

Bigot? Hypocrite? Ignorant? All three?

ESPN commentator Chris Broussard does not consider NBA player Jason Collins to be a Christian because he is gay. He declares that Collins is living in “open rebellion” to God and Jesus Christ.

I’m sure that Collins is devastated by Broussard’s declaration. 

The problem is that I’m not sure what to think about Broussard.

A bigot? Probably.

But wait.

Perhaps hypocrite would be a better descriptor? Once you start quoting The Bible as the primary source of your attacks on homosexuality (as Broussard does), you’d better stop wearing clothing woven from two kinds of fiber, eating bacon, or working on Sunday, because all of these sins are identified in The Bible, in the same chapter as the homosexuality reference, as on par with homosexuality.

You can’t only adhere to the laws that support your bigotry and ignore those that inconvenience you. Once you start cherry picking Scripture in order to support your bigotry, I can’t help but label you as a hypocrite, because that is what a hypocrite is. 

Unless Broussard is ignorant. Maybe he hasn’t actually read The Bible and is merely echoing the words of other ignorant or deliberately misleading people. I’m not calling him stupid, mind you (though that is also a possibility). Just ignorant. 

Or perhaps Broussard is all three. It’s possible. Listening to Broussard, I’m inclined to think yes.

Regardless of the designation, I am relatively certain, even as a non-religious person, that Jesus would happily take the side of a gay basketball player over a television commenter who believes that he is qualified to determine who is Christian and who is not.

Is there be anything more tragic than a left handed kid stuck with a right handed baseball glove?

It just occurred to me this week:

I am left handed. I am very clearly left handed. I have always been left handed.

Yet the first baseball glove that my parents bought me as a child was for a right handed player, thus dooming my future Major League career and (more importantly) requiring me to learn how to play the most important sport in a young boy’s life with my non-dominant hand.

I was never a great baseball player, and yet as a child, I never understood why.

Of course I was never great. No wonder why I still throw (pardon the expression) like a girl. I was playing with the wrong hand.

What is the possible explanation for this kind of parenting decision?

Did they not realize that I was left handed?

Was a left handed glove too difficult to obtain?

Did it cost more?

They purchased a glove for my brother around the same time, and they bought him the requisite right handed glove. Did it not occur to my parents (one of whom played in a softball league) that their left handed son and right handed son probably shouldn’t be using the same kind of baseball glove?

My parents made many decisions throughout the course of my childhood that I did not like.

Leaving me at home on a Saturday night to babysit my brothers and sisters at the tender age of 9 until 2:00 in the morning.

Feeding me bologna and catsup on white bread for lunch for entire summers.

Never mentioning the word college to me once despite my excellent grades.

But this baseball glove thing might be the most egregious thing they ever did to me. To take away a boy’s ability to play baseball at an adequate level and make learning the game so difficult seems like the worst thing you could ever do to a boy.  

A toddler bikini? I’m think I’m okay with that. A poorly written defense of the toddler bikini? I take great umbrage.

I did not like this piece by Jessica Grose in The Daily Beast defending the toddler bikini. I don’t like it at all. 

I’m not quite sure how I feel about toddler bikinis. Honestly, I think I agree with Grose on the issue for the most part, but I don’t like her argument one bit. It’s a mess.

Issues include:

Gwyneth Paltrow’s goofily named e-commerce website and blog, Goop, recently featured bikinis for girls 4 to 8 years old.

Don’t open the piece by making fun of the name of the website selling the bikinis. Even if you think Goop is a goofy name for a website (and I do not), it’s no way to begin an argument. Ad hominem attacks are unnecessary and undermine your authority.

Next:

“The British charity Kidscape, whose mission is to prevent bullying and child sexual abuse, took one look at the dour blonde child model donning the Odabash bikini on Goop and cried outrage.”

Also poorly argued. To imply that Kidscape “took one look” attempts to imply that the organization did not examine the issue closely before issuing their statement. Grose could not know this, and it is likely not true.

Also, using the phrase “cried outrage” implies that Kidscape’s statement was less than reasoned. Read the statement. Kidscape did not cry outrage. The organization released a statement that explained their opposition to these bikinis in clear, reasoned language, and I am quite sure this was written after more than just “one look.”

Next:

This isn’t the first time Kidscape has criticized a celebrity mom for her pro-bikini stance: They dissed Jessica Simpson back in September for putting her baby girl, Maxwell, in a yellow two-piece and showing pictures of the 4-month-old on Katie Couric’s show.

Dissed? Read their statement. Kidscape released a rationale statement expressing their concerns about these bathing suits, especially in light of Simpson’s celebrity status. They did not “dis” her. They did not attack her in any way. Once again, this is an attempt to imply an emotional response that simply did not exist.

Next: 

“…if you unpack the logic behind it…”

This may be a personal preference, but “unpacking the logic” is a self- important phrase that carries no real meaning. You can examine the logic. Counter the logic. Debate the logic. Refute the logic. Oppose the logic. Even guffaw at the logic. But unpack the logic? Give me a break.

Next:

If you think there’s anything sexual about that child model’s presentation, you’re probably the kind of person who’s outraged by the retro Coppertone toddler. All that exposed cartoon flesh! The horror!

Not only does Grose make a broad assumption here (if you believe A, you must believe B), but she does not actually attempt to refute the opposition to the bikini or the retro Coppertone toddler. A sarcastic “All that exposed cartoon flesh! The horror!” is not an actual argument. There’s nothing wrong with a little sarcasm if it’s also supported with an actual reason or evidence, but Grose provides no reason whatsoever.

Next:

Beyond the misplaced fears of early sexualization, the other concern among the anti-bikini set is that girls who are put in bikinis at a young age will be more worried about their weight.

While I agree that these fears of early sexualization may be misplaced, Grose doesn’t actually make this argument. She simply dismisses them in this single transition sentence. “Beyond the misplaced fears of early sexualization?” When did we get beyond them?

Next:

But as Dr. Robyn Silverman tells the Today show, a mom’s attitude about body image is much more important for her daughter’s well-being than how much fabric her swimsuit has.

Agreed, but just because a mother’s attitude about body image trumps the amount of fabric in a toddler’s swimsuit does not mean that the swimsuit is irrelevant. No one is surprised that many factors play a role in a girl’s body issue, nor are we surprised that some factors might be more important than others. But to imply that the importance of one nullifies another entirely is an obvious a flaw in logic, packed or unpacked.

In addition to all of this, Grose cites expert’s appearances on The Today Show and a commenter on Jezebel in the piece, and other than a writer from the Daily Mail, these are the only sources she uses. I don’t think of any of these sources as serious or reliable. Basing your argument on the answers derived by third party journalists on a morning talk show is hardly the way to support your argument, and cherry-picking a random Jezebel commenter is convenient and ridiculous.  

As I said, I ultimately agree with Grose on the issue of the toddler bikini. I don’t think I have a problem with it unless it is designed in poor taste.

But I have a problem with this piece.

While the bikini doesn’t offend my sensibilities, Grose’s argument does. It’s careless and at times ridiculous.

The omnipresent coffee culture has officially jumped the shark

There are ten items in this “10 Tools For Success”  slide show from Jonathan Coleman.

I’m not a fan of the slideshow in general. I think all ten items are fairly ridiculous. The slideshow is either designed to highlight Coleman’s most remarkable qualities or provide a list of attributes that people may or may not have but will certainly not acquire via a slideshow.

But #5 annoys me the most because of its inclusion amongst items like Humility and Humor and Optimism.

Even the most lunatic coffee culture aficionado has to admit that this is taking things too far.

What I Carry: 10 Tools for Success from Jonathon Colman @jcolman

Pixar’s bathroom. Eddie Van Halen’s M&Ms. Enough. We got it.

I’ve heard the story of Pixar's bathrooms about a thousand times now. Enough. I get it. People peeing together make for great collaboration and great film.

I’ve also heard the Van Halen brown M&M story a thousand times, too. Brown M&M’s equal contract accountability. I got it.

Last week I heard the M&M story told on a business podcast as if it were something new and enlightening.

I also heard the Pixar bathroom story on a similar podcast and read about it on a science blog. In both cases, the story was told in its entirety.  

I’d like to officially propose a five year moratorium on both these stories.

I don’t want to read about them in any social science, business or behavioral economics books. I don’t want to find them in any journal articles or magazine pieces or science blogs. I don’t want to hear them discussed on television or on a podcast.

Can we all agree that everyone has either heard these two stories by now or don’t read or watch or listen to the kind of material that would ever expose them to these two stories?

Find some new stories. Please?

Worst super power ever

It turns out that I write about my super powers quite often.

First there was a post about my actual super hero persona: Mr. Indestructible.

I cannot be killed (having been brought back from death twice already) nor have I ever bruised, and I have not vomited since 1983, yet I tend to be hurt all the time. Golfer’s elbow. Bad knees. Separated shoulders. Frequent concussions.

Strength and weakness tied together. The classic superhero motif.

Then there were posts about some of my lesser super powers:

My ability to wake up in the middle of the night and accurately state the time within fifteen minutes of the actual time, and oftentimes much more accurately than that.

My ability to hold my breath underwater for an exceedingly long time.

My ability to sleep very little, fall asleep almost instantly and sleep almost anywhere, regardless of the discomfort associated with the location.

For a short period of time, I actually tried to bring a few of my friends together with similarly questionable super powers in order to form a band of super heroes.

At the time, I thought that if Elysha had wanted to join our team, she might use her ability to identify any song after listening to it for three seconds or less as her super power, but it turns out that she has a more legitimate and equally useless super power:

Her sense of smell is superior to any human being on the planet.

Unfortunately, this is the worst of the five senses to possess in super quantities. As far as I can  tell, this super power only allows her to smell the dog or similarly distasteful scents when no one else can.

Unless your sense of smell is superior enough to sniff out the chemical components of a bomb at an airport, a super sense of smell is an atrocious power to have.

It prevents you from sitting in the train car with the restroom.

It causes you to smell the dead skunk on the road for considerably longer than anyone else in the car.

And yes, it allows you to smell the dog when no one in the house can smell her unless she is in your lap.

On a positive note, her super power fits the classic motif of combining a super power with an associated weakness.

Now all I need is a name for her super heroine persona and she can be on the team. Suggestions? 

Be different. But be prepared to suffer, despite what parents and teachers may tell you.

While I think this book looks excellent, it also seems to embrace a fundamental flaw in the teaching of young people.

It’s an issue that I am slightly obsessed with.

We tell our children to be themselves. Be different. Blaze their own trail. Ignore peer pressure. Find their own style.

But unless those differences allow you to guide Santa’s sleigh on a foggy night (as is the case for Rudolph) or fly (as is the case for Dumbo), you are likely to lead a difficult life. People will punish you for being different. Nonconformity breeds contempt.

You may ultimately succeed, but it will never be as easy as your parents and teachers make it seem.

Nor will it be as easy as this book seems to imply.

It’s disgusting either way, but which is worse?

This photo was taken by author and photographer Deborah Copaken Kogan in Claire’s, an accessory store found in malls across America.

Which is worse? The company that sells a product as vile as this or the person who purchases it for his or her daughter?

I’m honestly not sure.

Do you want Kate Middleton’s nose?

TIME reports:

Among the many things that women envy Kate Middleton for are her style, her poise and her husband.  It may be time to add one more thing to that list: her nose.

According to the New York Daily News, young women in New York and Long Island are flocking to the plastic surgeon’s office like it’s a spring sale at Barneys to get the Duchess of Cambridge’s sniffer.

I hope that this story is hyperbole on all counts.

I hope that women aren’t actually envious over Kate Middleton’s style, poise, nose and especially her husband, particularly if they have a husband of their own already. 

Most importantly, I hope that women find the title (What New York Women Want: Kate Middleton's Nose) and the first sentence of this piece as offensive and demeaning as I do.

I happen to know a number of women living and working in New York, and I can’t imagine any of them expressing envy over the shape of Kate Middleton’s nose or anyone else’s nose.

My hope is that TIME has based this story (and its hyperbolic assumptions) upon an infinitesimally small group of horrible, superficial, low-esteem women and that the use of the word “flocking” does not imply a number large enough to constitute an actual flock. 

I was forced to parent like a lunatic for a night. It wasn’t pretty.

On Friday night we spent the night in New York City at a friend’s apartment. They are vacationing in Florida and were kind enough to let us stay at their place following a Moth StorySLAM.

Clara slept in their son’s crib and Charlie slept in a crib in the bedroom where we were sleeping. As we tried to quietly climb into bed after midnight, Charlie awoke and began crying.

At home we’d let him cry himself back to sleep (as we did last night), but on Friday night Elysha jumped out of bed and picked him up, worried that his crying might awaken our friend’s neighbors on the other side of the wall.

I had no idea that “crying it out” was not an option.

For one awful night, we were forced to live like the lunatics (I use this word with the utmost affection) who refuse to allow their children to cry it out and spend their nights rocking and nursing their children back to sleep or (even worse) taking their babies into bed with them.

It took more than an hour to get the boy back to sleep.

One night was enough to confirm two things:

1. Allowing your baby to cry him or herself to sleep is best for everyone involved, including your baby. Learning to sleep is a skill that is only acquired through practice. My daughter sleeps 10-12 hours every night without exception because she has been trained to sleep. Even at the age of four, she has thanked me for letting her cry it out when she was little.

2. Parents who refuse to allow their babies to cry it out really are lunatics. I don’t know how or why you people do what you do.

Again, I say this with the greatest affection. 

Nineteenth century women did some insane things in the pursuit of beauty. But the modern woman is a hell of a lot crazier.

Mental Floss lists 11 Really Terrible 19th-Century Beauty Tips. They include:

• Bathe in ammonia.
• Don’t wash your face, hands or hair.
• Dash soapsuds into your eyes to keep them clean.
• Sit naked by the window in order to absorb sunlight and “vapor bathe.”
• Keep your eyelashes trimmed daily.

Strange, yes. But are they any more strange than today’s female beauty tips, which include:

• Change the color of your eyelids to shades of pink or green.
• Install bags of saline in your breasts to enhance their size.
• Cook your skin to a shade of brown via cancerous ultraviolet radiation.
• Undergo a process in which dermalogen is taken from your skin and is transformed into a into a high concentration collagen slurry that is injected into your lips to make enhance their size.
• Don shoes with heels that will permanently damage your feet over the course of a lifetime.
• Burn your hair daily until it is sufficiently straight. 

I admire my wife for many reasons, but one is her rejection of the trappings of the beauty industry.

She does so little in the pursuit of beauty and looks so damn good.

Football is better than fashion, even if both are inane.

On Sunday night, my wife turned on the television half an hour before the Academy Awards were to begin to watch the fashion on the red carpet.

Less than two minutes later she turned it off.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s just so stupid,” she said.

I love her so much.

On Monday morning I criticized the existence of a piece in Slate entitled Oscar Shocker! Movie stars rivet the entire world by wearing stunningly conventional evening gowns and all the Oscar fashion talk in general. On Twitter, I questioned why anyone even cares about this nonsense.

A few people responded, questioning how one’s love for red carpet fashion is any different than my love for sports, and my initial response was that they were correct.

My love for the New England Patriots is illogical and fairly stupid.

The love for red carpet fashion is the same.

The people who questioned me were satisfied with his response.

But I think I’ve changed my mind.

Essentially, these people were arguing that it’s not fair to judge a person’s personal interests. To each his own. Some people like sports, Some people like fashion. Some people like bird watching.

Who’s do say which is better?

But I found myself thinking that some areas of interests and some hobbies have inherently more value than others, and there’s noting wrong with valuing one over another.

Take sports versus fashion, for example.

I attend Patriots home games with friends. I spend a day outdoors in the company of friends. While tailgating prior to the game, we cook and enjoying a meal together, listen to music, engage in conversation and meet new people. Then we enter a stadium and watch world class athletes who have trained for the entire lives compete against other world class athletes on the field of play.

Contrast this to the person who sits in front of the television for two hours before an award’s show begins in order to examine the clothing choices of actors entering a theater. These movie stars answer questions like, “Who are you wearing tonight?” and “Which movie do you think will take home Oscar?” Then the next day these actors and actresses are subjected to hundreds, if not thousands, of best and worst dressed photo galleries and glossy magazine covers in a spectacle not unlike high school. Discussion often includes the actor’s weight, nipples, makeup and hair.

Are these two areas of interest really comparable?

If you’re opposed to football because of the violence and sexism that it admittedly embraces, substitute it with tennis. Women’s basketball. Minor league baseball. Soccer. Track and field. The Olympics.  

As a parent, would you prefer that your child become a sports fan or a fashion fan?

Would you prefer your child to read an article about Anne Hathaway’s nipples (of which there are hundreds) or one about the rise of women’s soccer in the United States.

I don’t even think all aspects of fashion are bad. As hesitant as I am to admit this (for the ammunition that it will provide my friends on the golf course), I have watched every season of Project Runway and loved them all. Unlike red carpet fashion, Project Runway is a television show that honors creativity, intelligence, competition and excellence. It is a show about designers who utilize their expertise, wits and problem solving skills to create amazing objects in a short period of time.

This is an aspect of fashion that I can embrace.

Even if you want to argue that fashion is better than football (and I could probably make that argument even though I might not believe it), can’t we at least agree that a hierarchy of value exists when it comes to personal interest? That a day spent reading or painting or listening to music or playing tennis with a friend (or even bird watching) has more inherent value than one spent watching Celebrity Rehab III or playing Farmville on Facebook?

“To each his own” is a valid way of viewing the world, but that does not mean that each choice is equal in terms of value and merit.

Some are just stupider than others.

When it comes to the pre-Academy Award red carpet television show, I’ll defer to my wife:

“It’s just so stupid.”

The twenty-first century is such a tough time to be alive.

A piece by Drake Baer in Fast Company entitled Slacking At Work Is A Controversial Productivity Tool--So Is There A Better Way? opens with this sentence:

More and more of us find ourselves unable to juggle overwhelming demands and maintain a seemingly unsustainable pace," Tony Schwartz recently wrote in The New York Times.

“Overwhelming demands.” “Unsustainable pace.”

Shut up.

We could be living through World War II right now. The fear of invasion. The loss of so many American lives. The almost complete transformation of our peacetime economy to a wartime economy. The rationing of food, fuel and metal for the war effort.

Or the Great Depression. Crippling unemployment. The bread lines. Homelessness on a national scale. The Dust Bowl. Hoovervilles. The constant fear of starvation.

Or how about the eighteenth century? A time when Americans had to grow their own food, make their own clothing, build their own homes and store enough firewood to survive the harsh New England winter. It was an age that lacked indoor plumbing, electricity, insulation, basic communication, the combustion engine and antibiotics.

How about the Civil War? Or Vietnam?  

Why not spend a day imagining what it was like to be an African American on a slave plantation in the deep south prior to Emancipation. 

Overwhelming demands. Unsustainable pace.

Seriously. Shut the hell up.

The postnuptial agreement: A new method of marital negotiation. An even better indicator of people who need to repeat kindergarten.

My wife and I almost never fight. We don't even bicker. She says it's because we're both easygoing people.

I thought it had something to do with love.

Either way, we always manage to find middle ground on the rare occasions when the need for compromise arises.

May I humbly suggest that if you are in need of a postnuptial agreement in order to settle your differences, you are marrying the wrong person.

Or perhaps marriage simply isn’t for you. 

As described in this Daily Beast piece, a postnup is a legal proceeding in which spouses hire attorneys to “work out exactly how to spend the family’s money, or even the details of your day-to-day activities. You get this much for golf gear; I get that much for home décor. Your parents for Thanksgiving; mine for Christmas Eve. In other words, it’s marriage by postnuptial agreement.”

“According to some of the nation’s top divorce experts, a postnup can be a productive way of dealing with all sorts of practical and financial issues that often threaten the long-term viability of a union.”

Husband hires a lawyer. Wife hires a lawyer. Negotiations ensue.

Apparently this can range from how often a couple will be taking vacations to who gets stuck with weeding and raking the backyard.

Writer Jacoba Urist admits that at the postnuptial agreement sounds “a little silly” but I think it’s a little more than just silly.

I think it’s a goddamn tragedy.

I think it’s a pathetic alternative to genuine compromise and emblematic of a marriage that should have never happened and should probably end immediately.

Frankly, I think it’s also a clear indicator that the two people engaging in the postnuptial agreement are repulsive in their own right and should be avoided at all costs, at least when it comes to long-term relationships.

These are people who failed to learn the lessons taught in kindergarten regarding sharing, cooperation, concession and sacrifice. And because their teachers and parents can no longer step in and settle their differences for them, they hire attorneys to serve as de facto kindergarten teachers, dividing the toys and the chores equitably.

These marriages are destined to end in divorce, and when they do, avoid these people at all costs.

Date adults. Not kindergarten brats.