Good luck, Ernie

I have a great deal of fellow feeling for Nebraska Senator Ernie Chambers in his effort to sue God for "death, destruction, and terrorization of millions." So much, in fact, that should the senator actually win a settlement, presumably monetary, but, considering the assets and capabilities of the Defendant (or is it Respondent?), I suppose anything is possible as redress, court calendars in all jurisdictions eligible to administer this matter will suddenly be booked solid for centuries.

But while I'm waiting for resolution on this litigation, I'll get on with other things, such as actually dealing with the admittedly sometimes crummy hand dealt me by the Deity in His, Her, Its, or Their wisdom, as the case may be.

police and deaf citizens

As the parent of a deaf child, I worry. My son has no hearing, so if, like they do on TV, a police officer ever yelled, for instance, "Stop or I'll shoot," if he was standing behind my son, my son would not stop. Not because he's a criminal, but because he can't hear the command.

I wrote, several years ago, to ask our police department what steps they were taking/had taken to prevent this sort of tragedy. I got a lukewarm and unspecific assurance that it probably wouldn't happen. Cold comfort, that.

The NAD newsletter came today, with a disturbing story of an encounter between police and a deaf man. Here it is:

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) reaffirms its commitment to effective communication between people who are deaf or hard of hearing and police officers. Recent incidents involving police officers and individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing remind us that our commitment must be ongoing.

For example, in November 2006, Douglas Bahl of Minnesota was pulled over by police for failing to stop at a red light. Bahl is deaf. Bahl tried to use gestures and paper and pen to communicate with the police officer. The police officer used physical force. Bahl was arrested. After being treated at a hospital for his injuries, Bahl was taken to a jail where he spent four days without access to a TTY to make a phone call and without interpreter services, despite repeated requests for these accommodations. On September 14, 2007, Bahl was convicted of obstructing the legal process without force.

Sadly, Bahl is not the first deaf or hard of hearing person to encounter communication problems with law enforcement officers. The NAD has represented deaf or hard of hearing individuals in disability discrimination complaints against law enforcement agencies when those individuals were arrested and held in jail without access to a TTY to make a phone call or interpreter services to communicate effectively with police. As a result of those complaints, the NAD has obtained favorable legal rulings and settlement agreements requiring law enforcement agencies to provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services, including qualified interpreter services and TTYs.

I am glad that the National Association for the Deaf (http://www.nad.org/) is taking some action on this situation. Deafness may not be that widespread a disability, but even one fatality from ignorance and failure to take action is too many.

Senate tries to censure people who disagree with Bush

Well well, that's a nice headline. And it's true. Our taxpayer dollars are well spent on this measure in the Senate to censure MoveOn.org, who has, apparently, been telling the Senate, often and at length, that many people in the US do not like things the Bush administration has been doing.

I think this is just the beginning, an opening salvo. I predict that soon Senators will be bringing in selected pieces of their mail and introducing measures to censure particular offensive letter-writers. "This lady doesn't like my voting record on health care!" "No! Give her contact info to my staff, and we'll add the old bat to our censure-everyone-who-hurts-our-feelings measure!"

Ah, our government in action.

religious books removed from prison shelves

Today's NYTimes tells me that the Federal Bureau of Prisons is removing "religious" books from its shelves. The stated purpose is to make it harder for militant Muslim and other groups to recruit there.

Wow, a single directive demonstrating both smaller government in action, and the religious tolerance that my grade school teachers claimed was the hallmark of the United States (aka the greatest country in the world).

And, instead of a list of prohibited materials, prisons are to limit their religious sections to titles from a list of approved works. Thus, the Federal Prison Camp in Otisville, NY, which had "a very extensive library of Jewish religious books, many of them donated," has removed 75% of those works. Because, as we know, a key recruitment tool of militant Islamic fundamentalists is a library of Jewish religious titles.

The fun thing about this is that, while the public is not entitled to see the list of approved books, religious folk who have gotten a peek at it are bemused by the omissions and inclusions.

Timothy Larsen, who holds the Carolyn and Fred McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, looked over lists for “Other Christian” and “General Spirituality.”

“There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame (who edited “The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” which did make the list), said the Catholic list had some glaring omissions, few spiritual classics and many authors he had never heard of.

“I would be completely sympathetic with Catholic chaplains in federal prisons if they’re complaining that this list is inhibiting,” he said, “because I know they have useful books that are not on this list.”

While I suppose it's counterproductive to have a library full of inflammatory religious literature in a place where violence is all too common, limiting religion to a skewed list of 150 titles seems excessive.

Craig

What happened to Larry Craig is what the Republican Party is all about: hypocrisy and hatred. This is family values? So many things about this story to comment on, but first, how do I get a job on the sex police force? I keep reading everyone applauding the arrest because they want their children to be able to go into public restrooms unmolested. Well, good luck with that. What are they doing sending their kids alone into public places anyway? Last time I looked, it is possible, even probable, that you will be exposed to something objectionable any time you leave the house (or when you simply stay home and turn the TV on). I am so sick of people hiding behind values and child welfare in their relentless and neurotic quest to eliminate every conceivable risk.

Shit happens people. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Wake up now, because if you stay asleep much longer, you'll have no freedoms, no human rights, and no Constitution. Apparently, the Soviet Union collapsed only to resurface here in the States.

nothing says "welcome to the U.S." like a credit card solicitation

A friend sent me a link to a Snopes report on one of those alarmist emails. This one happened to be true, sort of. It was calling for the populace to rise up and get out their pitchforks and tar and storm the nearest Bank of America branch and cancel their accounts because apparently BoA and other banks (Wells Fargo is cited, but I bet this applies to all those semi-sleazy credit card companies that fill my mailbox with usurious credit card solicitations) will issue credit cards to anyone with an ITIN number (as opposed to a Social Security number). Of course, the email did not refer to "anyone with an ITIN number." It said they're handing out credit cards to illegal aliens. I don't imagine it was referring to the influx of white people from England or Sweden; I believe the people in question are Spanish-speaking and brown.

Boy howdy. I can't think of a more appropriate welcome to our lovely scapegoatist, racist nation than an invitation to apply for a credit card at enormous interest rates with outlandishly huge fee structures. Please empty your wallets before exiting the country.

Why I never post in the personals

You, me, starry nights.
You, liar. Me, termagant.
It would never work.

You, me, endless love.
But…men are pigs. I’m no prize,
myself. Never mind.

Wanted: my soul mate.
You are married. I’m just sad.
Fie, sir. Get thee hence.

idiot-proofing the presidency

The most deplorable effect of President Bush's term in office is that when it ends (assuming it ends) no one will ever again be able to call the U. S. Presidency "the world's most difficult job."

education loan shenanigans

I have a Sallie Mae education loan. It's in forbearance. Sallie Mae keeps sending me mail that says, (IN ALL CAPS) "PLEASE CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY REGARDING YOUR FEDERAL STUDENT LOANS AND YOUR FORBEARANCE DEADLINE. CALL TOLL-FREE AT 1-866-439-0985."

I call this number and surprise, it's Sallie Mae's consolidation line. Of course, I am greeted by a recorded message, and I press 1 for English and am given 3 options, none of which mentions the word "forbearance." Instead, I can apply for a student loan consolidation or check up on a consolidation loan or application for one. This mail purposely gives the impression that I need to take some action or my forbearance is up; instead, they're doing a little bit of social engineering, trying to make it look as though I need to consolidate.

I am not even going to bother to look up whether the law has changed. When I last checked, a couple of years ago, consolidation loans were not eligible for any type of forbearance whatever. If you have no job, if you are unemployable, if you have disabled dependent children or are in the hospital with a dread disease, it will not matter; you will have to start paying your loan right away, and if you default, too frigging bad. So, if Sallie Mae can trick me into consolidating my student loans, I will lose my forbearance status. Slick.

I wonder how much of a bonus the executive who thought this up got.

TV

Lately, I suppose as a side effect of acclimating (sort of) to my 6th decade, I have found myself increasingly irritated by the high frequency of foreplay, if not actual intercourse, on TV. It's all pretty much gratuitous too. The slobbery, tongue-brandishing, face-engulfing kiss has become such a cliche that the only reason to waste minutes of plot time depicting the mutual redistribution of saliva can be that television writers are convinced that we'll forget to be preoccupied with our sexual impulses. So they remind us every 12 seconds. I'd say "Don't forget sex!" is the subtext of 90% of what you see on TV. (Interestingly, the other 10% is given over to food. "Don't forget to eat! Mmmm! Food is good! Better get some now!" And, coincidentally, we are, I believe, the world's fattest nation, those of us who aren't starving anyway.)

It's almost become a chore. You're going about your business, cleaning the toilet or mowing the weeds or going through the day's mail in case it contains something that isn't an exhortation to buy still more stuff, and you realize, guiltily, "Oh my gosh, I have not thought about sex for five minutes! Am I coming down with something?"

I wonder why TV is so industriously pressing upon an unsuspecting populace a preoccupation with bodily necessities. I like to imagine aliens, here to observe the species, collecting TV data and extrapolating results.

Day 1. Started up data collection efforts. Electronic signals apparently intended for amusement and edification of species.

Day 2. Must find different position in which to recline while absorbing data. Yesterday my grin!fkckl very sore. Humans (as they call themselves) devote considerable portion of signal to mysterious face-sucking activity.

Day 4. Data absorption, phase one, complete. Began reviewing, analyzing, and correlating.

Day 5. Hmm. Must check to see if human population declining, as much TV content comprised of exhortations to engage in reproductive activity. Oh and must investigate significance of popular face-sucking exercise. Collecting additional data.

Day 8. Human population appears to be on rise, probably due to high frequency of reminders to consume nourishment. Have noted large amount of electronic signal content devoted to instruction of females on correcting flawed appearance. Must investigate percentage of imperfect females. Still puzzled on face-sucking front.

Day 12. Collected physical data on females, extrapolated female ideals from signal content. This must be wrong. Initial figures seem to show 95% error rate in female physical construction. Will review numbers again tomorrow.

Day 14. Can find no error in calculations. Wonder why defective humans allowed to live. Must investigate why humans fail to make use of simple program of selective breeding to weed out 95% imperfection rate.

Day 17. Decided to examine male physical construction. Can find no difference in variety of male appearance. Wonder why this species is so finicky about appearance of females. What is it with the face-sucking?

Day 25. Face-sucking apparently activity leading to reproduction. Am forming theory that reproduction is simple process, hence hardly ever detailed in generally available signals, but face-sucking activity highly complex and difficult motor activity, hence the need for extreme frequency of repetition. Have noticed that historical signals devote much content to demonstration of sucking on small white tubular apparatus ablaze at one end. If calculations correct, populace mastered this activity in only 30 earth rotations or so, hence current signal content devoted to this activity is comparatively minimal. Wonder how long it will take humans to master face-sucking. Am looking forward to its disappearance from the signal content, as I have just been informed that I will be here for several hundred earth rotations, and f-s activity already tedious in the extreme.

FAT - it's catching. Run for your lives!

Well, Gina Kolata wrote an article in yesterday's NYTimes about a study that shows that if your friends or family are fat, you are 171% more likely to gain weight and be fat. So now fatness, a terrible, horrible condition, is contagious.

Here's what I don't understand. Why aren't we exporting fat people in droves? We need to be sending our fat (that's what we're going to be called now, the fat, like the homeless, or the poor, or the ugly, or the ill-mannered) to nations suffering from huge numbers of starving babies? If you are likely to gain weight as a result of the weightiness of your close friends/relatives, then all we need to do to combat emaciation in babies is to hook them up with our fat. Let's ship the fat to them. I'm sure they'll bond instantly, I mean, fat people are jolly, right? And soon the formerly starving infants will plump right up into Gerber-baby status. Sheesh, look on the bright side, people. We can always kill our fat, or at least deplore them to death, later.

feeding Fluffy

I just read in an alert today issued by EmergencyEmail.org indicating that, in addition to melamine, botulism is now a component of dog food. Okay, some dog foods, presumably canned. The alert named the following brands:

Natural Balance Eatables dog food varieties:
Irish Stew with Beef Dog Food	15 OZ	23633-59860
Chinese Take Out with Sauce with Vegetables and Chicken Dog Food	15 OZ	23633-59861
Southern Style Dumplings with Gravy with Chicken and Vegetables Dog Food	15 OZ	23633-59862
Hobo Chili with Chicken Pasta Dog Food	15 OZ	23633-59863

While I deplore (as does everyone else, I'm sure) the laxity with which food safety regulations are being enforced, I was riveted by the names of the dog food flavors. Irish Stew with Beef. Chinese Take Out with Sauce, Vegetables, and Chicken. Southern Style Dumplings with Gravy, Chicken and Veg. I am not too enthused about the Hobo Chili with Chicken Pasta. I have never encountered Chicken Pasta, and hope never to do so.

As a nascent elderly person with no pension or income, I'm going to look more closely at the dog food section in my grocery. Chinese Take Out. I mean, they can't all contain dangerous ingredients all the time. Hmm. Wonder how much it costs.

ghosting

Among today's Craigslist offerings for writers were two interesting opportunities. One person wanted to hire a ghostwriter to assist him in writing his "next bestseller," and another wanted someone to write his op ed piece (650 words) for him. (I wonder if they charge extra for coming up with opinions to ghostwrite.)

Oh my, what possibilities proliferate here! Let's see... I'm sure I can benefit from this whole new ghosting thing. Hmm, I do want to be known far and wide for my housekeeping skills. I wonder if I can get someone to ghost-clean my house? I also want to have a reputation as the world's best mom, so perhaps I can engage someone to ghost-nurture my children? Oh, and I want to be beautiful but alas, nature did not endow me with the requisite body, so I wonder if Craigslist has people who can ghost-represent me in all my appearances in public?

Of course, getting into a good college is key to a successful life, so perhaps it would be possible to advertise for someone to ghost-take my SAT and ghost-write my college admission essays? After my ghost-undergraduate ghost-graduates on my behalf, perhaps I can even hire a ghost-lawyer to ghost-sit for my bar exam or a ghost-doctor to pass my medical licensure exams should the ghost-law/medical student I've hired not be up to the task?

Perhaps I can engage a ghost-churchgoer to carry out my duties to God and a ghost-soldier to carry out my duty to my country? And I certainly have no desire AT ALL to die myself, so, I'll see you all later -- oh wait, someone-to-be-named-at-a-future-date will see you all later! I'm off to advertise for a ghost-corpse!

of COURSE they want to end residuals

I have been stewing about a piece in the NYTimes Media and Advertising section (link here).

The press briefing was conducted by Barry M. Meyer, CEO of Time Warner, Anne Sweeney, president of Walt Disney-ABC TV Group, and J. Nicholas Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, an industry bargaining group. The press conference was held as a kind of opening salvo in the upcoming contract battles with the WGA. Media companies are proposing to end the way residuals are calculated, in a manner designed to reduce residual payments almost to nothing. I imagine that directors, actors, and anyone else who receives residuals is next. Perhaps we'll begin to see ads on Craigslist for writers for vehicles for big stars, paying $12 an hour, or a dollar a script page. (None of these figures appear in the NYTimes article; they are my extrapolation from watching remuneration for regular writing jobs plummet.)

Well, this clears up a question that has been mystifying me for a while now: Why are the networks so eager to thrust "reality TV" on the public? I know it's cheap, that's a powerful reason, but I didn't realize until I read this article that it's part of a concerted effort to lower the standard of television and develop in the TV audience a tolerance, even a craving, for complete crap. Which, of course, is what we'll see more and more of, if they cut back on residual payments.

It looks like what has happened to the rest of us over the last decade -- showing up for work one day and finding that either your job has been eliminated entirely or that your company only wants to pay you a half to a third of your salary for the work you've been doing, while the top executives of your company are paid vast amounts of money for their work -- is happening to the enormously profitable media industry. Of course they don't want to pay writers. That is money out of some CEO's compensation package and golden parachute fund.

campaign speech disguised as Homeland Security Warning

When I got my alert email from emergency.org with the subject "Breaking Item: NEW Homeland Security Warning," I thought maybe there was something substantive. Then I went there and found it was Chertoff stumping for his boss.

Boy, these folks in the executive branch stop at nothing to foist themselves and their viewpoints off on everyone at every opportunity. I would expect a release from Homeland Security to be a serious warning of some impending danger, but if they are just going to be vague potshots at the opposition, I'm going to quit reading these things. I don't enjoy Republican campaign literature.

on the function of journalists (and bloggers)

I'm posting this here so I shall be able to consult it every time I find myself taking things too seriously.

My various solutions to the problems which beset the nation are intended as suggestions to be thrown around in pubs, clubs and dining rooms. If the Government adopted even a tenth of them, catastrophe would surely result ... The essence of journalism is that it should stimulate its readers for a moment, possibly open their minds to some alternative perception of events, and then be thrown away, with all its clever conundrums, its prophecies and comminations, in the great wastepaper basket of history. (Auberon Waugh quoted by his son, Alexander, in his book Fathers and Sons: Autobiography of a Family)

Alexander Waugh expands on this in the next paragraph:

If journalism was not 'important' to him he nevertheless held it, as a profession, in high regard. It was only when journalists took their jobs too seriously, when they tried to play an active part in shaping events, that he began to lose his enthusiasm for the press. The sole purpose of political journalism, he always insisted, was to deflate politicians, the self-important and the power mad: 'We should never, never suggest new ways for them to spend money or taxes they could increase, or new laws they could pass. There is nothing so ridiculous as the posture of journalists who see themselves as part of the sane and pragmatic decision-taking process.'

I was tempted to write a long jeremiad on the state of argument today, but I think I'll just sit back and consider Waugh's view of the function of journalists, and try to notice if anyone is doing that anymore.

The market is silent on this one

"Finding a way to keep diethylene glycol out of medicine, particularly in developing countries, has confounded health officials for decades. “It is preventable and we have to figure out some way of stopping this from happening again,” said Carol Rubin, a senior C.D.C. official." (NYTimes article "F.D.A. Tracked Tainted Drugs, but Trail Went Cold in China," June 17, 2007)

I keep hearing ambient conversation in the very conservative state where I live about how terrible government regulation of anything is. People forget why so many things are heavily regulated until the regulation goes away and greedy criminals swarm out from under rocks and start killing people in their quest for money.

Do Not Call Me

Years ago, when I read about the advent of the "Do Not Call" list, I signed up on the spot. This was instituted before the Bush administration got hold of things. Well, since today I've gotten three sales calls, and five or six this week, I wondered if the Bushites hadn't dismantled the process. But no. I went to the Do Not Call Registry site and found out that you have to re-frigging-register every five years. God forbid you should miss getting sales calls after five years of being annoyance-free. Maybe they think you get nostalgic or something. "Oh gee, I miss those irritating sales calls, flogging a bunch of overpriced crap that they think I'm too stupid to go out and buy without a lot of telephone nagging. I repent of my signing on to the Do Not Call Registry!"

So I re-registered today. They have 31 days to stop me from getting sales calls. I'm counting.

By the way, the registry site is: www.donotcall.gov

just let go

Oh my god, Richard Gere. Richard, when they start struggling and pushing you away, particularly if you're being filmed, honey, just let go. argh. damn.

http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/entertainment/13181267/detail.html

And, it being India, of course they're going after the woman. This whole thing just makes me slightly ill.

Fear of Flying

In yesterday's NYTimes there was an article about the decline in numbers of people taking flying lessons. The subject, it turns out, is a powerful example of gender politics. And it brings up something I had not thought about before. When, in the early 70s, everybody was trying to get women out of the home and into the workforce, the first thing that sprang into my twisted mind was, "Gee, double the workforce; now everyone will earn half as much." I forgot to consider the effect of this huge influx of female thinking on, well, everything, including what people do in their spare time.

The writer is talking about the drop in numbers of people who are learning to fly as hobbyists. It's a significant drop. After citing figures, the writer is trying to find the cause of this decline in interest. It's surprising since if you think about it, current trends favor hi-tech toys (though I think that there's a general trend, which isn't mentioned, toward staying at home and surrounding yourself with this expensive stuff).

Here's a quote from the article:

Ironically, an increasingly technological society is turning its back on a high-technology pastime.

One problem is fear, in an era when people describe their cars by the number of airbags, not the number of horses. In small planes, the statistics show that fatal accidents per 100,000 hours of flight fell by one-quarter in the decade ending in 2004, but some people in aviation fear that tolerance for risk is falling even faster.

ANOTHER is the shift of income and family decision-making to women. Industry leaders try hard not to sound like a former president of Harvard and attribute anything to innate skill, but women simply do not take up flying as frequently as men do.

“There’s been a big sociological and psychological change in the families of today, in where the discretionary dollars go,” said Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. When the husband told the stay-at-home mom of the 1950s that he was going to spend a Saturday afternoon taking flying lessons, she acquiesced, he said. Today, he said, in a two-income family, she is more likely to say: “You are not. That’s your day to take Johnny to the soccer game, and what the heck are you doing spending our hard-earned money on flying lessons?”

The article doesn't (dare) draw a correspondence between the two "problems": Fear and female influence. I think there definitely is one though. Our conditioning, as a society up through the 60s, was based on a perfect nuclear-family mythos, where the little woman's job was to be the brakes, and the man's job was to be the gas. I have to say that the overwhelming majority of women I know have little use for the big male ideas, like space exploration, or building great huge giant phallic edifices that thrust themselves through the cloud cover.

I am not saying women are chicken at all. I'm suggesting that women have been conditioned to be the brake pedal, the crossing guard, the person who says, "Put that down; you'll poke somebody's eye out!" "Look both ways before you cross the street." "Don't run with that! You'll fall down and stab yourself!" "Go wash your hands; you don't know WHERE that's been!" And now a whole bunch of them (us) suddenly have a powerful voice in government and business and modern thought. And just look at the way advertising has mutated in response. I'm not saying it's not a good thing, necessarily, but it bears scrutiny. Women have been conditioned to be risk averse. It's also very scary to be out and participating in an arena from which your mothers and role models were banned. I have to laugh when I hear women say things like, "Thank god that equality thing is settled." Is it now? Then how come we only make $0.75 for each dollar a man makes? Anyway.

Ecological bad influences and fuel expenses aside, both of which, by the way are fixable, women have not been conditioned like men have to view flying as a thrilling metaphor for freedom. It strikes, I think, so many of us as a waste of time. "You're going flying when people are dying by the thousands in Africa? You heartless selfish monster!"

Like I said I don't know how to think about this, but I know I've definitely spent some time in recent years deploring what I see as a loss of courage in American society. I know that's a judgmental thing to say, but just look at how successful the Bush administration has been at getting its policies through by the simple expedient of screaming "OH MY GOD TERR[OR]ISTS WILL BOMB THE GRADE SCHOOL DOWN THE STREET TOMORROW IF YOU DON'T PASS THIS LEGISLATION!" every other day. For the past six years, we've all been jumping at shadows and trying to peer around corners miles in advance and generally quaking in our boots. It's just weird. I think it's a response to the increased anxiety that human beings experience when they are thrust into unfamiliar situations.

I know there are large numbers of men who feel this way too. I think it's easier for them to admit to it now that there is an alternative to the once-pervasive idea of what maleness entails.

The article goes on to quote this flying instructor on the difficulties he faces trying to teach women to fly:

Mr. Boyer’s association is trying hard to make flying more appealing to women, including offering training in how to read aviation maps, talk on the radio and provide other help in the plane, and maybe transitioning them to earning a license themselves. But 95 percent of the students are still male, he said.

At the airport in Smoketown, Matt Kauffman, the chief flight instructor at Aero-Tech Services, the only flight school here, said that the training system had not adapted itself to women. “Women learn differently from men,” Mr. Kauffman said. “If two men go up, they will scream and shout, and a transfer of knowledge occurs, and we’d get back on the ground and go have a beer, and life is good,” he said. “If you yell at a woman, she’d start crying, and she’d never come back.” He would like to hire a female flight instructor but can’t find one, he said.

This last observation brought a wry smile to my face. I didn't learn to drive until I was 28, because of the way driving was "taught" in my high school, which was exactly the way this guy describes guys learning to fly. You had the driving instructor in the front seat, and a back seat full of hearty, sarcastic, loud, intimidating high school boys, all of whom were screaming at you. I find it hard to believe anyone can learn anything under these conditions, but apparently it's only me and some other people without penises. I went to exactly one driving class and never went back. I believe my exact words, when questioned, were, "Fuck that noise." I sure as hell would not spend my hard-earned money on that experience. I mean, you do not want me at the throttle of an airplane thousands of feet above the ground in the state of mind I get into when people are yelling at me.

I acknowledge however that there is a powerful and successful outfit who is teaching people stuff all the time using the yelling method: Our Armed Services. I am not the person to write on the changes that military training has had to make in response to the influx of women, but I bet it's had to adapt.

At any rate, I don't think I like the idea of our abandoning those big, impractical, thrilling enterprises. I remember I didn't like the way they were glorified. And the injunction to "be a MAN" is not as effective as it once was. But I find myself missing thoughtful bravado in a world where everyone is hellbent on planning out his/her entire life in his/her Daytimer, and doling out his/her time in stingy little driblets, as though it were the last few drops of water in a cloudless desert.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/fashion/26pilot.html?em&ex=1177819200&en=3d74feb7e7e3bc73&ei=5087%0A