Apt. 11D

Off Until Sunday

I'm leaving on Thursday for Chicago to attend the political science conference. I have to take a break from the computer until Sunday. Maybe Monday.

In the meantime,

Congratulate Dan Drezner on becoming a dad.

Read this essay by Tim Burke on protecting kids from wacky science experiments and dodgeball bullies. Feel free to talk about it here, since he doesn't have comments. I've been thinking a lot about holding the chaos back from our kids, but that will be an essay another time. While you're there, read his dear John letter.

Political Animals?

The best thing I read all last week was this article by Louis Menand on public opinion. (The second best thing was a Times magazine article on a performance artist who masquerades as a preacher and spouts off about materialism, but it's no longer on line, so we have to move on.)

Menand brings up the depressing topic of voters and how they make their decision about who to vote for. In 1964, Philip Converse concluded that only a small margin of Americans have any coherent political perspective. Most people just vote based on how well they did that year. Another scholar recently found that many voters based their decision in the Gore/Bush election on if their county was dry or not. Access to pubs or lack of access may have turned 7 states in that election.

Other sobering statistics that Menand rattles off:
- 70% of Americans cannot name their senator or congressman
- 49% believe that the President can suspend the constitution
- 30% can name an issue to explain their vote
- 20% hold consistent opinions over time.

He concludes with this quote from Robert Putnam:
"Most men are not political animals. The world of public affairs is not their world.. It is alien to them -- possibly benevolent, more probably threatening, but nearly always alien. Most men are not interested in politics. Most do not participate in politics."

(There is a lot more in the article, so check it out.)

I've taught Introduction to American Politics at a city university many times. Most of the students in the class don't intend on being majors, so that first day, I face 50+ of the most disinterested faces that you've even seen. They are busy checking out the girl with the halter top in the front row, thinking about going out that night, and noticing that I carry the most beat up backpack. They're thinking about everything but politics.

Those disinterested masses is why most experienced professors foist this class off on adjuncts and junior faculty. Actually, I like teaching it.

The first few weeks are usually tough, because these students don't care and are uninformed, but as the class progresses, things improve. I teach them about the process of making laws and define all the terms for them. And then we do pro and con on different issues -- affirmative action, campaign finance reform, death penalty, prayer in school. And then they surprise themselves. They do have opinions. I make them learn the name of their local congressman and then call the office to find out answers to questions. By the end of the class, class debates escalate into fights and ten new students declare themselves to be political science majors.

I agree with Putnam that men are not political animals naturally. But teach them how the system works and give them courage to speak their mind, then they are hooked for life. At least, I hope so.

I Want to Scratch So Bad

For the past week, I have been driven to brink of insanity with a severe case of poison sumac. My fingers were the worst, all swollen and blistered. The blisters traveled up my arm to the right side of my face and on the tip of the right ear. When I woke up Friday morning, I felt more forming on my upper lip and in my nose. My blisters mocked the over the counter remedies. Rubbing alcohol, cortisone, solarcaine, oatmeal soap, toothpaste. Bah! Time to utilize the health plan.

That Friday morning as I felt my nose swelling, I roused the kids from their beds and had them dressed and eating fried crap at the Burger King that faced the walk in medical center before 8:00. I had to be the first one in there, because I needed relief. All I wanted to do was itch. I could think of nothing else. Hurry, kids, eat those hash browns. No, better yet. Let's take them with us. Put them in your pocket. Come on! Quick!

Itch. Itch. Itch.

The doctor took one look at my arm. I thought it was a bad sign when she backed away from me to the other side of the examining room. That bad, Doc?

Those knowledgeable in the ways of torture know that there are various ways to achieve extreme discomfort in humans. There's extreme heat, extreme cold, sleep deprivation, and, of course, there's itching.

Itch.

On Saturday, Steve sought revenge on the evil vegetation. In 89 degree heat and covered in flannel, heavy jeans, two pairs of socks, Steve uprooted sumac and just about every other plant that got in his way. If the heat hadn't slowed him down, he might have paved the entire backyard.

Pumped up with steroids and anti-histamines, I'm starting to recover. The blisters are forming a hard crust and have stopped spreading. Still, when I wake up in the morning, before I take that first pill, all I want to do is scratch.

Protest With Style

Jails normally separate inmates by genitals. An inmate with a penis is placed with them men, regardless of how "female" she may look. And what if your procedure is half completed? Where will they put you in Rikers? More information for transgendered protesters.

The vegans have their own plans.

TAMALES FOR THE REVOLUTION
>
> Do you want to learn how to make vegan Tamales?
> Do you want to be part of our Tamale bike brigade?
>
> During the protests we will give away 1,001 vegan, no-RNC
> tamales to sustain our fellow radicals as they resist the
> Republicans.
>
> We need help with funding, assembling, storing, steaming,
> and distributing all those tamales! Join the revolution See the village voice article.

No protest is complete without performance art.

Vomitorium2004 is a theatrical performance, modeled after the opulent parties of the Roman Empire, where guests will engage in consuming astounding amounts of food, and when stuffed to the limit, vomit so that they may gorge themselves again and again. For one evening we will transport the participants and audience to those long-gone days in order to reflect on the fate that eventually befell the Roman Empire, and heed the warning signs of history repeating in the current decline of the American Republic.

Know your rights. Make vegan tamales. Vomit. Read more here, here, and here.

Out of Commission

No post tonight. I'm still battling with the poison sumac rash, and am cranky, cranky, cranky. At 3:00am last night, i was up googling remedies. One site recommended applying toothpaste with baking soda. I've smelt minty fresh all day. Tomorrow, I'm off to get a cortozone shot.

For more on tall chicks in bikinis and sports, read Ogged, Stephen Karlson, and Dan Drezner.

Hot Mamas

(Just a quick post tonight. In my zeal to tame the shrubbery in the backyard, I failed to recognize a sumac bush. I'm an itchy, swollen mess.)

Apparently, motherhood is a hot, hot topic. I know that because I've been approached by two academic presses and one journal to write something about mothers' political organizations.

I also know that because the Time Out New York said so. In their Aug. 5th issue, they review four new novels where the main character is a mother. The novels are: Murder Plays House, Reproduction is the Flaw of Love, Maybe Baby, and Within Arm's Reach.

The author of the Time Out article says that the hip parent trend grew out of Ariel Gore's Hip Mama website in the late 90s. Has parenting become an alternative lifestyle?

Cheap Thrills

As I scraped off brown flowered wallpaper tonight, I watched the Olympics for the first time.

Question for the readers... Is beach volleyball a real sport or is it the equivalent of the swim suit issue of Sports Illustrated. Is beach volleyball really just a way to ogle tall women in bikinis.

The men divers. Well, that's just about the athleticism. I didn't put down my scraper to watch that cutey-pie Canadian diver. No way.

Class Rankings Disappear

According to our local paper, the high school has stopped providing college administion committees with a student's class rank. This is a trend among the elite schools, according to the paper. The superintendent said that in a highly competitive schools, the rank of the student is less important than test scores and grades. A student at the 85% in an elite school would be in the 99% in another town.

On Ballet and Bikes with Red Flames

Eszter at Crooked Timber writes,
Our world is so gender-based that it is hard for people to think about a person without knowing the person’s gender. But what is it exactly about a baby that makes it necessary for us to know its gender? In what ways is it going to be important? Is it so we can say whether the baby is beautiful versus handsome?

Before Jonah was born, I was very adament about not cramming traditional gender roles down my kid's throat. I told Steve that I really wanted Jonah to take ballet lessons. Steve squirmed. "What would the other kids say? You're going get the kid beaten up, Laura." Then Jonah came out and if boyness is on a scale, he's at the far end. If I made him take ballet lessons, I would be cramming untraditional gender roles down his throat.

(I had to pause mid-post to take the boys out on their bikes with red flames through the muddy streets.)

Prior to kids, I poo-pooed gender differences. Any differences were sociologically programmed. Since I have had kids, I am convinced that some gender differences are biological. I once accidentally bought a set of girly pull ups for Jonah, he rejected them immediately. From an early age, he seemed to take great joy in banging his cars into each other. The louder the crash the better. Like other boys his age, he ran before he could talk. Ian, who is two, has followed the same pattern, but is slightly less active. He walked at 10 months, while Jonah walked at 8 months.

We've worked to moderate the kid's boyness. They have a pretend highchair for their dolls and a set of pots and pans. They do play with those toys, but not as often as their trains and cars.

Comparing the kids in the playground, there are definitely some kids who fit the stereotypes, like my kids, but there are also a few girls hanging from the monkey bars and a few boys sitting quietly on a bench.

But back to Ezster's original post. I do agree with her. It is funny how gender is the primary way of identifying newborn babies. I guess because other than their gender, newborns are pretty identical at that point. All just red faced monkeys.

Crap on the Lawn

6/30/07 UPDATE: Information on the veggie booty recall is at WebMD and at the corporate web site.

I've had an uneven weekend.  Some animal has been crapping on my front lawn every morning.  The craps are smaller than a dog's and larger than a cat's.  The culprit is almost certainly the fat bastard living behind my garage.  Not knowledgable in the ways of suburban members of the rodent family, I can't tell you what it is.  A woodchuck, a muskrat, a craprat, who the hell knows.

On Saturday night, in a cheap ploy to get out of the nighttime routine, I volunteered to run out to do the week's grocery shopping.  "This the BEST time to go.  Really.  Don't forget to read Jonah three stories.  Bye." 

Then for some reason, the Shop Rite threw me into a fit of depression.  It's huge. Three times the size of what we were used to back in the city.  The trouble is that I don't want to buy anything in the place.  They have Wonder Bread, but not crunchy, crusty, Manor Loafs. They have 27 varieties of baked beans in a can, but only one kind of soy sauce.  The cheese comes in individually wrapped slices.   

(OK. I'm showing my snobby city side now.  I aspire to be a populist, but when it comes to food, I'm an elitist snob.  I can't help it.)

A short trip from our old place in Manhattan was the Fairway.  I've been mourning my separation from the foodie mecca all weekend.  It was a fraction of the size of the Shop Rite, but it had all the best stuff.  They saved a lot of room by cutting out the Wonder Bread and having less varieties of sliced pickles and baked beans.  Like a city street, the aisles twist and turn, and there is always too much traffic at the deli section.  In the produce section, there is a mountain of mesclun, an organic area, and a bushel of fresh basil.  By the deli, they have an olive bar, three variety of heavily herbed chickens, bagels that are bagels (not rolls with holes in the center), and a huge cheese section.  100 variety of cheeses are available -- goat cheese, feta, fresh mozzarella tied up in bags, obscure moldy cheese that fermented under some French guy's armpit for two years.  And meat, fish, and dairy is in a walk-in freezer.  You and your kids put on communal coats before entering to buy extra firm tofu and organic yogurt. Everything looks so fresh and exotic that you're immediately inspired to try out the recipe from the Sunday Times.  Shop Rite only inspires me to nuke some frozen pizza.

Steve mowed the lawn for the first time.  Big huge manly grin on his face the whole time.  Flash to the scene in the John Hughes's flop She's Having a Baby, where the suburban men do a synchronized dance while mowing their lawns. 

We spent the day pruning back the overgrown yard, taking down an old fence, and watching the kids ride their bikes on the street.  Later, we grilled hamburgers on a $8 charcoal grill. 

If we could just catch the crapping bandit and find some arugula, life would be good.