Not a Potted Plant

That was quite a season opener for Clayton Kershaw. Against the arch-rival Giants, no less! Ah, but April is always full of promise. May will raise hopes, leaving us thinking that this could be the year Something Special happens. But also stay tuned for the traditional June Gloom, with a slump induced by the continually-overcast and never-rainy skies delaying the first bites of summer. This will be followed by a failed attempt to rally after the All-Star Game, broken hearts throughout August and an inexplicable vulnerability to the Padres around Labor Day spiking the season. Just in time to start enjoying football again. Who says there are no seasons in Los Angeles? The rhythm of life for a Dodger fan is as well mapped and predictable as the Hollywood Freeway.

Princeton alum Susan Patton garnered some publicity by writing a letter to the Daily Princetonian suggesting that the women attending the school take the opportunity to find a mate there:

A few weeks ago, I attended the Women and Leadership conference on campus that featured a conversation between President Shirley Tilghman and Wilson School professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, and I participated in the breakout session afterward that allowed current undergraduate women to speak informally with older and presumably wiser alumnae. I attended the event with my best friend since our freshman year in 1973. You girls glazed over at preliminary comments about our professional accomplishments and the importance of networking. Then the conversation shifted in tone and interest level when one of you asked how have Kendall and I sustained a friendship for 40 years. You asked if we were ever jealous of each other. You asked about the value of our friendship, about our husbands and children. Clearly, you don’t want any more career advice. At your core, you know that there are other things that you need that nobody is addressing. A lifelong friend is one of them. Finding the right man to marry is another.

The reaction and pushback was swift, to say the least. Princeton alum Maureen O’Connor calls the advice sexist (“pushing women — and women alone — to define themselves by their spouses and to make life choices according to an outmoded understanding of romantic attraction”) elitist (“this embarrassing window into how Ivy Leaguers talk to each other should be as cringe-inducing to modern audiences as Patton’s take on gender relations is”) and Nina Bahadur also offers a plethora of criticisms of varying quality.

I can understand at least some of the objections. That this advice seems so frequently geared towards women (by a woman with two sons, in this case) has to be grating to women who resent the notion that mate-seeking is of primary or greater importance to women than to men. There is, of course, a rationale behind this view. My own experience aside, women are more likely to rely on her husband for income than vice-versa. And Bahadur’s protestations aside, women complain quite regularly that men do not place sufficient emphasis on intelligence or even look at intelligence as a negative value, which (to me) has the implication that they would value intelligence. Both of these things, are part-and-parcel to precisely what a lot of women view as being wrong with the world, however, and I can understand the reluctance to chart a course accepting a status quo you want to see changed as a given. So the pushback here is, at least to some degree, understandable.

Is it productive? Is Patton right? That, I don’t know.

Someone else pointed to this Atlantic article on the virtues of getting married later in life. It’s looking primarily (though not solely) at income. Which is one metric. It also discusses divorce rates.

Some of this can be chalked up to simple self-selection, though. Which is to say, when getting married later is “the responsible thing” that’s what responsible people are going to be doing, regardless of the merits. If wearing puce every day is “the responsible thing to do” then people who wear puce every day will show better results than people who don’t. Further, getting married later (and finishing college, which the article also focuses on) are indicative of longer time horizons and greater impulse control, which are both conducive to higher earnings.

At the same time, marriage can very much complicate the natural progression of a woman’s (or man’s) career. I had to put my career aside for my wife’s, but I didn’t have to put my college career aside because I’d already graduated by the time we met. There is nothing to stop a group of people from going to college together, but it requires some givens that aren’t always there. In my wife’s case and my own, we didn’t graduate at the same time and she went to medical school a distance away from where she completed undergrad. Would I have had to transfer? Would she have had to forego medical school? Given that Patton specifically exhorts underclassmen girls to date the range, that will inevitably lead to different graduation points. Sacrifices have to be made that don’t have to be made under the post-collegiate progression. At that point, you’re simply looking at situations involving career sacrifices, which are much easier to rebound from than dropping out from college or needless transfers.

My conservative soul, however, is at least somewhat sympathetic to where Patton is coming from. She is absolutely right that nowhere after college will you be surrounded by such good opportunity. There is almost something cruel about the post-collegiate progression in that respect. It becomes really hard to meet people after college. Especially if you’re not the outgoing type. And, ahem, especially if you’re a guy who works in IT. There is Internet dating and the like, but my success with that was always limited. The Internet (as with BBSes before it) was helpful in meeting the people I did, but the big hits of my life (Julie, Evangeline, Clancy) did not involve online dating sites (as such).

And there are times I really question the wisdom of the status quo. I was not really ready to get married until sometime after I graduated from college. Had I married the girl I was with when I was in college, I’d be divorced or miserable now. It’s impossible to separate that, though, from the society from which I come. If getting married when you’re twenty were common, it would have changed a lot of dynamics. The self-selection issue wouldn’t be there. The “Am I missing something by settling down so young?” questions would cut less deeply, and so on. When social institutions support early marriage, such as in Utah, divorce rates are not appreciably different than elsewhere. The Mormon timeline seems to demonstrate that there is another way. Of course, the Utah experience is not something that non-Mormon (or non-religious, anyway) women are likely to want to embrace. Apropos the above, Utahn women attend and graduate college at lower rates than women nationally (though they graduate at higher rates than men).

Conservative commentator Jonathan Last is making the argument in his new book (that I have not yet read) that we have a “fertility gap” between the number of kids that people are having and the number of kids they want to have. Which means that, not only are people having fewer kids than Ross Douthat might prefer, but they’re having fewer kids than they want. Late marriage plays a role in this. As does the social structure that so often encourages it. Clancy and I wanted three, but due to biology and age we’re likely two-and-done. In a social structure where getting married younger was a norm, that might be different. This is a cost of the post-collegiate progression and one that Patton’s advice – if widely accepted – might mitigate.

The other criticism of Patton’s piece is the (alleged) snobbery. From a personal standpoint, though, her suggestion is probably sound. People from Princeton don’t need to marry people who went to Princeton, but they’re probably going to want to marry people of a similar background more often than not (yes, even the men). People who went to college are generally going to be looking for the same thing, and people who went to ubercollege… ditto. Though on a personal or individual level, this is sound, it would potentially exacerbate class divides with assortive mating. Which means that it might not be as good a thing for society as a whole. What effect it would have, given that assortive mating is already occurring, is unclear.

Patton defends her original letter (and speech) here and here.

It’s been too long since we’ve shared cocktail recipes. Today, Mrs. Likko said she wanted something new, something sweet, and something refreshing. So I looked up things to make, and found the Iguana. It happened that I had no jalapeno-infused tequila left, and my wife isn’t all that fond of spicy things anyway. Then the limes we had turned out to be no good. So I made Baby Iguanas instead:

• 1½ parts resposado tequila
• ½ part green Chartreuse
• ½ part Rose’s sweetened lime juice
• several cucumber segments
• tangerine, segmented

Put the tequila in a cocktail shaker.  Drop in several segments of cucumber, reserving a few. Allow to soak and marinate for about five minutes. Add ice, Chartreuse, and juice. Shake well. Garnish glass with ice, serve with a segment or two of tangerine.

Went nicely on its own as a pre-dinner drink.

Entertainment:

[E1] Are we reaching the end of product placement? I wouldn’t guess it from how characters seem to have a new smartphone every episode.

[E2] Reading fiction can make us more empathetic.

Fettleness:

[F1] When I find myself worrying about the end of antibiotic effectiveness, I find myself feeling better when I read things like this. It gives me hope that we will have some tricks up our sleeves.

[F2] Cutting Medicare payments can backfire.

[F3] Public opinion on anti-obesity laws is a mixed bag o’potato chips.

[F4] The case against junk food is itself junk, according to Barton Hinkle. The toll of overeating is quite scary, though.

[F5] I don’t know how I am going to handle my smoking habit when it comes to Lain. According to LiveScience, I shouldn’t admit to it even if I’ve quit.

Awesome:

[A1] The pingpong machine and the industrial revolution. Also, legos that knit!

[A2] The skyscraper of the future?

[A3] Batman!

[A4] Ex-lab chimps improving with anti-depressants. Also, monkeys controlling robots.

History:

[H1] How the U-Boat was sunk.

[H2] How we might be able to reconstruct early human languages with software.

[H3] Anti-semite Joseph Stalin accidentally saved some of Poland’s Jews.

[H4] All these years later, comic buffs are still battling the legacy of Fredric Wertham.

Democracy:

[D1] Honeybee democracee.

[D2] Dave Schuler: The politics of feeling good.

Business:

[B1] No, cable does not have a 97% profit margin.

[B2] Does the (ostensibly supportive) press has a tendency to be harder on female executives than male ones? They certainly get more scrutiny. It’s unlikely Yahoo would get nearly the attention if their CEO was male (or a less photogenic female). That’s a double-edged sword, to say the least.

[B3] Some of the biggest obstacles of women in the workplace are other women. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox thinks young men won’t help because they’re on the defensive. AM Slaughter thinks we need to take gender out of the work-life equation and focus on improving the balance for everybody.

[B4] How our credentials may be holding us back.

[B5] David Frum wants to know… what happened to Peak Oil? Are we passing Peak Renewables? Will geothermal change the game?

Nation:

[N1] Will we be severing area codes and areas? It seems to me that “national area codes” are an unquestionable good, though I do have an attachment to local area codes, too.

[N2] Given the same constituency within the US senate, you really wouldn’t expect pairings like this.

[N3] How stressed and screwed are the Millenials?

World:

[W1] Old photos of Singapore.

[W2] The Dutch’s efforts to legalize prostitution has not been without its problems. My impression is that it’s been working out well in Nevada?

[W3] How much is China’s relationship with North Korea revealed by meth?

[W4] Will the unraveling of genetics and IQ happen in China?

Internet:

[I1] Even the Internet is better when you’re rich.

[I2] For sale! Girlfriends on Facebook. For a real girlfriend, perhaps you should photoshop yourself onto a Centaur.

[I3] It’s interesting the extent to which the internet and social media may inhibit, rather than promote, free behavior. I am Trumwill largely on the basis of googlability.

[I4] Immigrant courting and marriage in the Age of Skype.

[I5] Zombie-twitterers!

[I6] Mall cop, Internet hero.

Youth:

[Y1] How to combat bullying. The notion of teaching kids to “step in” was undercut by every policy that every school I ever attended had. Not without reason, but getting involved at all was more likely to get you detention than any accolades.

[Y2] The case for a hippie-dippie approach to education. [Ed note, see Kazzy’s response below]

[Y3] A lot of parents have a favorite child, and other interesting tidbits from The Telegraph.

Geekery:

[G1] Is the S4 Samsung’s last attempt to ape Apple’s success? They seem to have big plans. Plans that may not involve Android. Google is apparently worried about Samsung.

[G2] Something seriously must be going on at Microsoft if they are even remotely considering Office for Linux.

I spent this evening scrubbing the door of the garage they’re tearing down. I also got a bill from the cleaners for $1700. Lastly, the cleaners activated a pipe that sprung a leak and so there’s dirty water all over the floor of the basement I need to be cleaning.

Sonny Bunch and Liam Julian take issue with the recent Facebook campaign of folks changing their profiles to a pink-on-red equals sign. From Julian:

Let’s be real: the broad majority of those who adopted HRC’s photo had, theretofore, not lifted a finger on behalf of gay marriage. And when they did lift a finger, that’s all they did—lift a finger and click the mouse a few times.

Which is not to say one can support a political cause only if he works for it 24/7. But what percentage of those with HRC profile pictures have spent even a few minutes reading intelligently about the gay marriage debate, e-mailing their elected representatives, donating to gay-marriage support groups, or listening to this week’s oral arguments? These, alas, are largely private pursuits, and they don’t come with public validation in the form of positive comments and “likes.”

And so we get more mass slacktivism: low-effort, public activism that risks nothing, oversimplifies complicated topics, and has more to do with the individual than the cause. It’s offensive and trite.

I get where he’s coming from, but I view this mostly as the equivalent of yardsigns or maybe bumper stickers. I rarely apply either, but I did partake in the Facebook exercise. And if we had something on the state ballot, I’d probably put a yardsign up.

Why? Why on this issue and not on any other? Partially because this is one of those issues where I see black and white and feel pretty strongly about it. It’s also an issue where I can make a statement – however minor – as someone that doesn’t fit into the conventional liberal mold. People on Facebook know I don’t, so this is my very quickhand way of saying “Yeah, even though I might support these non-liberal policies, I also support this.”

Is it cheap? Sure. But that’s okay. So are yardsigns. But yardsigns can have the affect of raising awareness of a particular candidate or issue. And because it’s easy, it’s easily replicated. One of the issues with the gay marriage movement is that the non-passionate supporters have been “on the run” in the conversation. Politicians whom many of us feel have supported gay marriage privately have publicly disavowed that support? Why? The perception of a lack of popular support. The last poll in my state on the issue is that it’s 50/50. You’d never guess it, though, because opponents of SSM are so much more likely to speak up in such larger numbers. It would have been better for the movement had there been more “cheap” activism for longer. More solidarity outside liberal circles. And I’ve seen more than a few posted by people who are not enthusiastically liberal across-the-board.

This is not at all to criticize those that didn’t participate. I could have gone either way, to be honest. And in many ways, this sort of thing runs against my grain. But, vain though it may be, it is nice to know that a lot of people agree with you on an issue that, not that long ago, made you fringey.

Oliver Burkeman from The Guardian has a piece about how trying to work smart can backfire:

When it comes to “working smarter”, the same kind of problem arises: what if doing things more “efficiently”, in a superficial sense, results in doing them worse? There’s evidence to suggest that we need to daydream; perhaps we also need those moments of afternoon lassitude and aimless conversations by the office microwave. Creative work, especially, depends on a kind of inefficiency. Inevitably, the scandal and schadenfreude surrounding Jonah Lehrer’s book Imagine has all but drowned out its fundamental insight, but it’s a good one: creative breakthroughs depend on being stumped and feeling frustrated. Make the path to them too smooth, and you get lower-quality breakthroughs.

It relates to the studies showing about how we don’t multitask like we think we multitask.

This is something I have been struggling with. With my smartphone and audiobooks, I have cut down on downtime considerably. When I am in line, or moving stuff, or whatever, I am listening to an audiobook. It makes the time fly by. There does seem to be a price being paid here, however. My mind doesn’t get as much time “to itself” as it used to. It’s hurt me creatively, I think. It’s made me more scatterbrained than I used to be. During the times of boredom, I have come to the conclusion that the boredom was serving a purpose. Sort of like how our mind defragments in our sleep, there is something going on during the day, too.

Google is famous for allowing its employees 20% “do what you want” time. Rather than being a loss for the company, they see it as a gain because idle minds are where good ideas are developed. Bumper-to-bumper work may be good by some productivity metrics, but something is lost along the way.

Knowing all of this, though, I can’t seem to act on it. Boredom sucks. Downtime feels non-productive when there is always something to be done. While ideas are maybe lost when I am listening to John Sandford rather than thinking vaguely about things as I am taking care of some brainless task, it makes the brainless task go by so much quicker.

And yet I find myself enjoying my shower as the only time that I can’t be doing anything else. It also contributes to my smoking, since I bar myself from listening to anything while I smoke, it is an escape for “me time.” Why can’t I just do that at various other points, when I am so intent on maximizing my time by consuming stories rather than just moving the dang box?