An American Housewife, formerly in London

Reverse Culture Shock: Motherhood, Part 1, at School

2012-02-10T19:45:00.000-06:00

(Bumped because I am going to be busy for a bit and want this post on top for a while.)

In case anyone wondered if I was just a Brit basher who thought everything in America was bigger and better, allow me to put that notion to bed. Sit back with a soothing cup of tea. This will take a while.

By far the most extreme reverse culture shock has been the nature of American motherhood.

I thought I was prepared. I started fighting American motherhood (thanks, Maverick) when Christopher Robin was born. I braced for the return to the States. Still, the awesomeness of the beast has shocked me. Not only have I been gone for five years, but I’ve been living in a culture with motherhood issues on the opposite end of the spectrum. When British motherhood goes of the rails it tends to too little motherhood but when American motherhood goes off the rails--far more often than its British counterpart by the way--it tends to all consuming motherhood. An interesting post for another time: Brits have different attitudes about nannies and schooling, often farming childcare wholly out to the nanny or sending kids to boarding school as early as 8. A sentiment I have often heard that will make Americans' jaws drop to the floor: by 12 or 13, many British parents think their active parenting work is done; the rest of their formation is a job for schools, peers, and society.

Obviously the goal is a balance between the two extremes. After spending most of early motherhood in London, I am more in tune with British mothers and think that we should take more lessons from our British counterparts. Not only are British motherhood problems less frequent, but also they don’t necessarily destroy that which they seek build, happy and functional adults.

Mothering over here reminds me of studying for the Bar exam. There is so much information to understand that, during the weeks of review, every time you go to the loo, go to sleep, or stretch your legs you worry about wasting those precious study minutes. The difference with the Bar exam is that the study period only lasts about six weeks. American motherhood has the same sense of squeezing every moment for purpose and significance, only with no end in sight.

The relentless nature of American motherhood tries to do, give, and be everything our children need, and thereby exempts children from responsibility for just about everything and actively promotes their continued dependency on parents. (I've written about why we do this previously.) Not content with such bitter irony, American motherhood has few advantages for women as well. It can rob mothers of a sense of self and chip away at the foundations of marriages leaving mothers fractured and alone. (Fathers can fall to this child-centered life as well, but I will focus on mothers, because the issues a more acute for mothers, and I am one so know more about it.) To round out the horribleness, I seldom noticed the Mommy Wars in London, but I can't fail to notice them here. They are hotter here.

I have two final notes before I start ranting. One, isolate any one of the issues mentioned below, and the problem is not apparent. The damage wrought by American motherhood results from these issues working together. Think of a death spiral. Two, this American motherhood is a battleground chosen by the affluent. The plights I will describe are less dire than, for instance, inability to feed a family, and as such are often dismissed as not real problems. But smaller problems are still problems, which is why they are only diminished by comparison to extreme hardship. Worse, middle and lower class mothers get caught in the crossfire of our battle. They are often left mired in guilt or stranded without options, or both. To use a cliche mothers will understand, we made this mess, we have to tidy it up. And as the self help books tell us, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one...

I knew I had underestimated the transition right from the start. In London I was above average for mother involvement. Actually, I was slightly above average for the nursery school, whereas for Hill House, I annoyed some mothers because they thought I was a busybody, that American with the clipboard. Since the move home, I have not changed my level of kid involvement, but here, within 6 weeks I realized that I am just a notch above complete slacker. By the end of last term, I started receiving personal emails from teachers and homeroom mothers reminding me of things I could volunteer to do. (More on that below.) Two mothers were shocked to learn that I didn’t work. They just assumed that I was a working mom. One even mentioned how I dress! (The idea that I am well dressed is shocking to me. I strive not to be a slummy mummy, but the London merely-not-slummy apparently equals Houston yummy mummy. In truth it is probably that I didn’t wear my gym kit to dropoff, which is standard uniform for stay at home moms.)

So what exactly was I expected to do?

I have 4 children in two different schools and was, therefore, invited to the before-school-starts coffee for each school, the school start coffee, the grade level coffees for the older children, and class coffee for the Things. That was seven coffees in half as many weeks.

Another example, I started this post last Fall, in the parlor of the Things school. I dropped them at 9, but that day was the Fall Festival, to which parents have to accompany their children. My Things slot was 10:30 to 11:30, so I had a little over an hour, which any experienced mom will tell you, is not enough time to be getting on with anything. The festival is in the soccer field across the small--in American scale--school's parking lot. The Things’ class has eight children and two teachers. That is, the 4:1 ratio class has to walk perhaps 25 yards across a dormant parking lot to an enclosed football pitch, yet the mothers must attend. Someone might get hurt, lost, need to go to the loo, I guess. A mere six weeks into school, and that was the second mother participation event. The girls missed a trip to a farm two weeks prior that mothers didn't have to attend, but had to drive their own children. The farm was a little over an hour out of town. I didn't think I could make it back in time for the school bus for the older children. Plus, even if I didn’t need to go into the farm, productive activity for a housewife is limited in the country from 9:30-1:30.

But American mothers are far more likely to have a sense of wanting to experience the joy of such events with their child. In fact, I would bet that most American mothers reading this wonder what I am going on about. On the other hand, I fully expect any British mother reading to have to stop to shake her head and sputter. And here lies the heart of the problem: it hasn't occurred to American mothers to mind any of this. British mothers would have protested by the third coffee.

Not that British mothers aren't involved at schools. At my rather-intense-for-Britain nursery school, sections rotated weekly excursions to the park. Most of the time two teachers had to prep 15+ children for weather (no small job in London), walk further on London sidewalks to the bus than these kids have to walk to the football pitch, drive 10 minutes to the multi acre park (usually Battersea), and haul bags of games equipment for a mere 45 minute romp. It was all part of a Health and Safety initiative to get London school children outdoors more. The school always had a mom or nanny go along for extra hands. Sometimes they got lucky and two moms or nannies came along. The upshot was, a mom like me, with twins (we are expected to do double duties both here and in London, though that was merely implied in London, while I was informed in writing here), went on about two outings a year.

Here, the first weeks of school also saw elementary school orientations (three, in fact, one for the school and one each for Christopher Robin and Cupcake), Parent’s Nights, various open PTA meetings, or, get this, beautification projects. On a certain Saturday in November we could spend 8:30 to finish planting trees and shrubs on the elementary school playground. As mentioned, there is little objectionable about any of those things individually. In fact, I was sad to miss the beautification Saturday. It is the volume that overwhelmed.

One might counter that I am discounting the activity level required for British school, which have fancy fundraiser nights in December that require tons of man hours to plan and collect donations for auction making the autumn term at least very busy. I'm not discounting it. I can just trump it. The elementary school had our huge auction at the end of October. The nursery school auction was the following week. That was just the Fall fundraisers. Rodeo is coming up now.

An interesting aside, there is a major difference between American and British school fundraisers: we fund raise for the schools, not charities. The idea that tuition is sufficient to pay for a school's needs is completely foreign to the American school system. Private schools rely on fundraising, as do public schools. A short version of the Texas tale, similar to tales across the country: state schools are funded by property taxes. School districts with valuable property had more money than others. The courts shut that “unfair” system down a while back leading to the "Robin Hood" regime whereby property taxes go into a pool and are divided equally throughout Texas. Wealthier areas, therefore, supplement their school budgets with fundraising. The charitable function performed by British school fundraising is served by a host of other organizations such as the Boy and Girl Scouts, National Charity League, the Junior League, and by our well attended churches. I covered this a bit here, but for now, I digress.

The upshot is that the elaborate school functions not only create more work for the actual parties, but also create more need for fundraising. More and better fundraisers mean fancier functions and facilities. The trends feed each other.

Witness the school fairs. The Fall Festival I mentioned, it reminded me of the London nursery school field day merged with the Christmas Fair adding on a bubble machine, zip line, class pictures, and--I am not making this up--a DJ. I did a stint on the nursery PTA in London. Planning for our much smaller Christmas Fair took some man hours. I can only imagine how much work this Fall Festival took. In addition were the typical holiday parties--though don’t call them Christmas parties in a public school. There are also teacher appreciation luncheons. The moms bring food and cover the class so the teachers can have a morning off. (For the British moms who have to keep reading that last because it can't possibly say that; I assure you, this happens. We made brownies for them.)

At least in America we have semesters, not three terms each with a week long half term, right? I looked forward to that, only to be mildly disappointed. Yes, we have fewer long breaks, but we have loads of short ones. In the first six weeks we had Labor Day (September bank holiday), a teacher in-service, and time off for parent teacher conferences. The kindergarten teacher at least did her conferences on a Saturday. By comparison, the London nursery had parent teacher conferences before school over a few days or one evening so both parents could attend. Hill House? They had one parent night a year. If you wanted more conference than that, you called to make an appointment.

I’ve yet to mention those volunteer opportunities alluded to in the introduction. In addition to the standard fare, accompany a field trip, read a story to your child’s class, etc. I can do everything from shelve books in the library to play teacher assistant for my child’s class to answer phones in the office. (That might just be PTA moms--I’m not up there enough to know.) How have I avoided it so far? This is classic: I haven't yet taken the volunteer training at either school. Yes, we must be trained to do such things.

I've not done so for a host of reasons, the least important of which is that I am afraid that the volunteer training might have something to do with don't touch the children/assume everyone a potential pedophile/precautionary principle/bring a bottle of hand sanitizer affluent American mentality, and I just can't fight those battles yet.

More substantively, I don’t think parental classroom involvement is a great idea. Kids often act up or cling when their mother is in the room. Furthermore, kids need to have authorities beyond their parents. If I am up there all the time, I undercut the teacher’s ability to establish her own authority with my child. (By the way, “her” is not just PC. Between my 4 children, there is one male teacher, for gym.)

The common counter argument I hear for volunteering in the classroom is that it is a good way to know what is going on in your child’s life, academics, teacher dynamics, and kid interaction. Yes, it is a good way to keep tabs on such things, but it is a horrible way to teach children to negotiate small battles on their own. Letting go happens in small steps. It should happen in small steps. If we don’t allow them a little independence and smaller consequences in grade school, neither child nor mother will be prepared for the break at adulthood. Therefore, absent evidence of a significant problem, I am not inclined to hang around my children’s classrooms. But I have learned that this is not so simple, which brings us to the next topic, academics, which I will post soon because with academics, sports and social life, and health still to go, I might bump up against some previously unknown blogger post size limit.

Updated: Short-sighted glee

2012-02-10T19:42:00.000-06:00

A bit more on the Komen and Planned Parenthood battle...now updated and bumped.
Not wanting to be an echo chamber, I purposefully read, or follow in the case of Twitter, news, blogs, and people of the left. For my own comfort, I usually follow the well reasoned, see Dissenting Justice, or others with whom I have something in common, feminist Texpats for example. We can relate on the Texpat thing. When needed, I can then drill down in their links to see more of the other side. I've done some drilling on the Komen drama, and I am not impressed by what I see.

There is a significant amount of glee feminists have about sticking it to Komen. Apologies for the language but I'm too old to go diving into lockers, and so are readers of this blog, but a telling tweet: "Don't fuck with Planned Parenthood!" It was retweeted and then followed with "And don't fuck without Planned Parenthood." Cute.

This glee is short-sighted. First, it exposes feminists as the rabid, single issue, narrow-minded characters the right thinks they are. Feminists should realize that it is easier to accuse the other side of being narrow-minded drones if they, themselves, don't act part in public. Second, as detailed the other day, depending on the success of the PR assault on Komen, either few future foundations will want to fund PP or current foundations might think the PR crucible is worth the increased fundraising. Third, it exposes feminists' irony defenses. They are seeking to devastate an established and important breast cancer charity...in the name of protecting women's health.

I get that abortion is important to feminists, central in fact to their quest for equality. But in this glee over Komen's PR wounds they show that they do not realize, nor do they care, that women have other health issues than unwanted pregnancy and that organizations other than PP can meet those health needs. They will, it seems, sacrifice anything, women's health, their honor--remember how they defended Bill Clinton against rape and sexual harassment issues for which they would have flayed any other man because Clinton was their guy, or how about the more recent 'it's not rape-rape'--for the "beautiful choice" that is abortion. (I saw that on a bumper sticker the other day, "Abortion: a beautiful choice". Choice, I can intellectually understand, even as I vehemently disagree. Same for "necessary" or "essential". But "beautiful"?! What kind of person puts that sentiment on their car?!) And yet they will have the gall to tell you they are the champions of women's health, essentially that Komen brought this on itself. One would think that feminists would be sensitive to the use of a 'she was asking for it' defense. Alas, no. Not only do they use the defense if it suits their purposes, but also they seem to be blind to the irony.

UPDATE: Now Komen has been instrumental in its own demise: it has upset everybody. By taking both sides of the issue, defunding PP and then firing the VP popularly believed responsible, Komen has broken most of its potential fundraising streams. Feminists won't donate, they will "encourage" other foundations not to donate. Now with the firing, conservatives who inspired to donate after the PP decision and might have carried them through the battle, won't donate to an organization unwilling to stand its ground. Neutral parties directly involved with cancer research and treatment, a significantly smaller set, might still donate, pressure depending. Think about it, who will buy pink stand mixers now? Watch what Zeta Tau Alpha does now.* If they don't stick by Komen, I'd bet it is finished as a major charity.

For my UK and other readers, ZTA is a fraternity, one of many social and charity organizations for college men and women, most of which use the Greek alphabet for their names. During the college years, the member focus tends to the social, though we all (I'm a Pi Beta Phi) have charity requirements. Fraternity foundations usually affiliate with a major charity or type of charity, which alumni and active members support with time and money. Zeta is partnered with Komen.
Zetas publish BSE, Breast Self Examination, cards and posters for Komen. I meant to mention this back in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, when the plastic cards were placed in the shower at the gym. The posters and cards are found in most doctor offices. At the time, their presence caught me because I realized that I wasn't used to seeing graphic breast cancer awareness items. I can't recall ever seeing anything of the sort, even in my OB's office. I certainly wasn't asked about getting a mammogram. As it happens, I'm going to be in trouble with my doc when he finds out I haven't had a baseline one yet. He wanted one before I got pregnant with the twins, but I was in the UK. He told me to get one after I quit nursing, but I was in the UK and too busy to boot.

Questions about toy organization

2012-02-08T11:34:00.001-06:00

A quick break from the heavy topics today, as I need some experienced mom advice. Christopher Robin and Cupcake, whose names I really need to change to Calvin and Hermione as they have more defined personalities now than they did two years ago, they haven't been tidying up their rooms properly. In a quest not to do my ogre mommy rant so often, I told them they knew what I expected, that I would stop ranting, but if I had to tidy their rooms, then I would do it my way and get rid of whatever I wanted.

Saving you the suspense, it came to pass that I cleaned out their rooms on Monday. They've hardly noticed. Not the tidy room, they noticed that. They haven't noticed things are missing. I'm sure this is partially because most of the removed items were parts like dollhouse furniture. But still, they've not noticed.

I did not think they had so much stuff that they wouldn't notice. This house isn't overrun with toys. My mom thinks I'm a bit of a curmudgeon on that front. Are my kids at 6 and 8 just older and don't play with as many toys. Have I hit that frontier? Should I do a more ruthless clean out? I'm inclined to have them participate, but I am certain that while they do not play with but 10 % of their toys, they are not ready to let go of them.

Also the nature of their toys has changed. They no longer have a toy, but components, Legos, art supplies, school kits, sporting gear. I usually get good results with my kids when I have them help organize things and teach them how to organize in the process, but I'm at a loss for ideas for this stuff. JR and Cordy, do y'all have toy organization pinterest boards? I'm thinking large tackle box for Legos. Naive? Roll play supplies, anyone have good ideas? FYI, I'm not big on buying specialized organizers. I like using things I've already got and/or things that can be retasked later.

Also, is it worth it to repair a shattered iPad screen? Can it even be done?

- Posted from a device with occasionally odd spelling suggestions that I frequently fail to notice until the next day.
Sent from a device with occasionally odd spelling substutions. Reader beware.

What's that old saw about life happening whilst you make other plans?

2012-02-06T00:27:00.000-06:00

I hate blogging from an iPad. I tried to edit a typo in this comment and ended up reposting as empty because text wouldn't load. Great.

Komen v. Planned Parenthood roundup

2012-02-04T23:31:00.000-06:00

You might have heard, but last week the Susan G. Komen foundation decided not to grant money to Planned Parenthood. The amount in issue was about $600,000, which Planned Parenthood made up in quick order from individual donations and large donations from New York Mayor Bloomberg. The buzz around the blogsphere seems to be that Planned Parenthood won this round, handily. But I'm not so sure. First, one of the main complaints we pro-lifers have had against abortion providers is their public funding. The quick and effective response of generous liberals provides a persuasive argument that PP does not need government funding. Second, there is the protection racket angle Best of the Web noted. What foundation would foolishly start giving to PP? Donate once, and you must donate forever. Third, I've noted that few who gloat about how quickly PP was able to make up the funds notice or care that Komen got a fundraising spike after the PP news broke. The media has gone out of its way to act as if Komen has few supporters:

The conservative Media Research Center notes that CNN "aired a pretty one-sided piece including statements from Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards, evidence supporting her claims of right-wing 'bullying,' and even vitriolic Facebook posts decrying the de-funding." No supporter of Komen's position or critic of Planned Parenthood was included. Even more appalling than that lack of balance, though, was CNN's echoing the charge of "right-wing 'bullying,' " while the network was participating in Planned Parenthood's effort to bully Komen.

More here. (h/t Instapundit, because I never read the NYT unless somebody credible links to it)

Komen has not been very specific about the fundraising spike, "100% increase" in donations (an increase over the days before? last week? same period last year?), but if the spike is significant, then other current donors to PP might decide that the PR crucible is worth cutting funding PP as well.

In short, PP might have just handed the pro-life movement a powerful argument that it can rely on private funding while undercutting its large private funding.

Gardening Leave

2012-01-29T22:33:00.000-06:00

In the UK, when finance people leave one company to go to another company, by law they have to take three months holiday before starting the new job. It is called gardening leave because, I guess, garden proud Brits might take the forced holiday to work in their yard. They often go on actual holiday, but in theory it is just time off to prevent client and trade secret poaching.

I've not been around here much this week because I'm taking gardening leave, only I'm actually gardening. I missed gardening in London. I was surrounded by lovely outdoor spaces but only had a tiny balcony. I have a backlog of inspiration to be getting on with and that was before a friend, who I will call Cordy, as in Cordelia, brought her Pinterest garden ideas board to my attention. (JR got me on Pinterest for her geek stuff, and when I signed up, Cordy found me and then hooked me with her garden ideas. JJ, to answer you, I'm not really using Pinterest, just following people.)

I have things to do, a land to help quell! I don't have time for gardening.

A bit of a strained reference, but that is one of my all time favorite movie scenes, and it replays in my head whenever I think that gardening is frivolous. But the gardening isn't really so frivolous. This house was vacant for two years before the summer's drought; my garden certainly needs the TLC. And then there is the current weather. Summer in London is rarely as nice as January in Texas. Save one very stormy day, clear blue and 60-75F have ruled the past few weeks. It is just too nice to sit at a computer, at least until I get my outdoor typing spaces sorted.

Happily, my gardening has come with a pleasant surprise, beyond a more pleasant yard: clarity. I've had more "ahha!" moments while pruning half dead azaleas, than I ever have sitting at the computer. I should have remembered this about myself. When I was a protecting lawyer, I would take walks while writing memos; I got better ideas while strolling. Anyway, it has taken me months to write some of the American motherhood stuff because the subject had so many crossed streams that all my efforts became 'and another thing...' rambles. I finally have a structure for the subject.

So I garden in the day, and write in the night. I'd like to be more consistent with my posting around here, but after a year and a half in this blogging game, I still haven't figured out that housewifery with four young children does not allow for consistency.

The failure of the political consultant class

2012-01-26T13:30:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to run errands, but stopped for a sandwich and to read my email. While I was writing about how well Ted Cruz's message would have worked for Perry, this Morning Jolt sat in my inbox: (I will sort quote formatting and link to MJ when I get back to my desktop.)

I remember during the height of RatherGate, marveling that folks such as Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs (it was a long time ago!), the Powerline guys, Hugh Hewitt, Glenn Reynolds, and myself (my apologies for all the Pajamahadeen Vets for Truth who I've forgotten for their service against the Sauronic Eye) were beating the bushes on 1970s word processors and laying out the case that CBS News anchorman Dan Rather had tried to kneecap the president's reelection bid with a laughable hoax. As exhilarating and exciting and thrilling and righteous as those days were, I remember wondering at the time, "Why were we the ones left to fight this fight? Where was the Bush-Cheney campaign? Where was the RNC? Why was it left to 'a bunch of guys in pajamas' to make this argument and lay out how the Rather report was a pack of damnable lies?"

I'm starting to get that same vibe from Romney. Avik Roy defends the work of Bain ten times better than the candidate does himself. Romney's entire argument against Gingrich's work at Freddie Mac was based on the work ofTim Carney. Every day, I see better, more compelling arguments for Romney from outside the campaign than from within the campaign.

On Wednesday, Jonah observed:

Elliot Abram's piece on Newt's attacks on Reagan is an interesting read. While it does muddy Gingrich's claims that he was sort of Reagan's junior partner, I'm not sure everyone will see it as an all-out indictment. As Josh Treviño writes on twitter: "I'll take '80s Gingrich attacking Reagan from the right over '80s, '90s, and '00s Romney attacking Reagan from the left."

But my question is, Why are we hearing this from Elliot Abrams now and not from Mitt Romney weeks ago? Seriously, Romney spends a lot of money on consultants. They couldn't prep the boss to mention a floor speech by Gingrich excoriating Ronald Reagan?

And when Romney goes off message, he needs a GPS to find his way back. Charlotte Hays is left slack-jawed:

Who on earth is advising Mitt Romney? Somebody should have stoppedthis:

"Romney blasts Gingrich over attack on debate moderators, news media"

Yikes!

Note to Mitt advisers: Republicans hate the news media. Got it? And that goes double for debate moderators who try to entrap conservative candidates with trick questions. Indeed, it was partly Newt's attack on these scoundrels that catapulted him into first place in South Carolina. There's absolutely no reason for Romney to say this.

We've had almost 20 debates, and it feels as if a hundred of them, not even counting Romney's debut on the national stage four years ago. He's had chance after chance to make his sales pitch and close the deal, and he has, so far, largely failed to do so. On paper, this is the best environment for a Republican presidential candidate in decades:

A president who many Republicans see as the breathing embodiment of liberalism sits in the Oval Office; an energetic grassroots movement to fight back spontaneously formed in the tea parties; the 2009 races in New Jersey and Virginia, the special election in Massachusetts, and the 2010 midterms all showed that Republicans can win (and win big) almost anywhere when they tap into that passion; the president's record consists of enormously unpopular nationalized health care and a stimulus that didn't make a dent in high unemployment. Throw in scandals such as those involving Solyndra and Fast and Furious, and Obama's presidency represents the nightmare that every Republican would presumably be highly motivated to end.

If you can't get people excited in an environment like that, you can't get excited.

The failure of the political consultant class is mind boggling. Any campaign using seasoned consultants needs to take heed. This time, they are wrong--about everything it seems.

Sent whilst on a walkabout.

Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible, it should be, um, smelly. Giles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Sen. Jim DeMint needs backup.

2012-01-26T12:48:00.000-06:00

This morning, I went to a Ted Cruz event. Cruz is the guy challenging Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for US Senate. He's a classical conservative, who wrote his thesis on the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. (I've requested a copy of that.) His stats look good. Here is a link to fundraising info. (Who is the party of the rich?) Here is another link to recent poll data. Having started with negligible name recognition to compare to the sitting Lt. Gov., the trends look good, and he hasn't even started spending money yet. His campaign so far is built mostly on speeches and word of mouth. (Compared to the Perry campaign, Team Cruz knows how to work grassroots and social media. This unknown guy running for US Senate has a much better web operation than the sitting Governor of Texas did.)

Just like the analysis on the GOP from earlier today, Cruz believes that the problem for classical conservatives is one of leadership. We are tired of talking about change. We are ready to act but have precious few operatives in place.

That's what the Tea Party has been about, getting classical conservatives in office. Because of the current GOP presidential primary debacle, people think that the Tea Party is in the midst of an over dramatic death. Based upon the Ted Cruz campaign alone, I can attest that reports of the Tea Party demise are greatly exaggerated.

We did well in 2010. In 2011 that we managed to get a presidential candidate. We did not, however, manage to scale the walls of the consultant class. They, blind to the gift of the Tea Party and deaf to the impending doom of the modern socialist state beyond our borders, advised Perry that he had to play to compromises and social issues to win the nomination. They were wrong. If Perry had managed to communicate action the way Cruz did this morning, he would have locked up the nomination months ago. That did not happen, and the opportunity for the White House is lost.

But just because the Tea Party has not carried the day at the presidential level, does not mean that it is finished. The Ted Cruz/ David Dewhurst race is starting to look like a repeat of Florida's Christ/Rubio race from 2010, and we know how that one ended.

A while back Cruz talked to Sen. Jim DeMint, the highest ranking classical conservative in office, and asked him what he needed. DeMint answered that he needed some backup. In 2010 he got Rubio, Toomey, Paul, and Lee. In 2012, we could send in Ted Cruz.

A final note, back in the 70's/80's there was a popular Astro, Jose Cruz. When he came to bat, everyone would yell "Jose Cruuuuuuzzzzz." I keep hearing yell in my head when I write or read about Ted Cruz.

The Rift on the Right

2012-01-26T08:26:00.001-06:00

If I had posted my Why Newt? piece this morning as intended, I would have added a link to this precise analysis of what drives the current rift on the right:

As anyone with a passing familiarity with Republican politics over the past four or five decades knows, conservative magazines and think tanks have been making detailed entitlement reform proposals for most of those years, and Republicans running for offices high and low have been running on platforms of reducing the size and cost of government for just as long. And then nothing happens.
That’s why Congress’ battles over the debt ceiling and related issues provide such a potent example. Basically all Republican Senators profess to be in favor of smaller government, and yet so few are willing to go to the barricades to make it a reality....
The related point here – and one that says much about why RedState has put so much energy into intra-party primary battles rather than the production of white papers – is thatpersonnel is policy. The ideas are already there; what is lacking is the necessary corps of people with the will to fight for them....
It’s true that if you plow through Romney’s gazillion-point plans you will find things worth fighting for. The problem is convincing anybody that Mitt Romney, of all people, would actually go to the mattresses to get them done....
Gingrich, as I have noted before, is an odd fit with the anti-Establishment movement he now finds himself leading, not only because he is so long inside the Beltway and so steeped in its ways (albeit with a nearly endless list of enemies there) but because he’s not fundamentally a small-government guy. But the anti-Establishment, Outsider, Tea Party movement appears to be rapidly consolidating behind him as a vessel to stop Romney for reasons that are hardly irrational: Newt is a fighter and an iconoclast by temperament and a powerful spokesman for conservative ideas, but he’s also a guy with an actual record. As Newt loves to note, the 1996 welfare reform is the closest we’ve come to actual government-shrinking entitlement reform in living memory. Newt spearheaded a national reform that took millions of Americans off the welfare rolls, cutting caseloads in half by 2000; Romney created an entitlement to add about 400,000 people to the taxpayer-subsidized pool in Massachusetts alone....
The point of my essay was not to denounce anyone, but to explain the history and depth of the current popular distrust on the Right of leaders who seem unwilling to lead. The battle to restrain runaway government spending is so much smoke and mirrors unless the people who profess to support it in word are dedicated to it in deed. No wealth of position papers, endorsements and Power Point presentations can demonstrate that.

The whole thing is worth a read. For me, of late, I had wondered at why I was heading to RedState more than National Review. There was a time, prior to children, that I never missed a single post on The Corner. But we have been outlining policy options since Goldwater. Now it is time To Do. The base understands that. The establishment doesn't.

Intervening in temper tantrums

2012-01-26T03:00:00.000-06:00

Presented for discussion, this tale from the Daily Mail about a woman intervening against a mother during a temper tantrum. A few years ago, I saw a similar event when a woman took a mother to task for yelling at her children, only the woman hadn't seen what had gotten the mother so worked up a block back--her 4-ish year old had bolted away from her onto the King's Road. I tried to comfort the mother, but she was too stung to accept any help.

I started thinking that I've not seen this sort of thing in the US, but I have. In the US, however, women tend to intervene to distract the children. For instance, if the same fact pattern from the Daily Mail played out on a Houston school run, the intervening woman would likely start doing something to get the child to follow her, or ask a question, or introducing her dog. That is, the woman would attempt to distract the child from the battle of wills with the mother. Sometimes that breaks the stalemate, and gives the mother a chance to count to 10. I've seen this play out often in grocery checkout lines. I myself have started a fair share of conversations with children upset over impulse rack denials.

In keeping with intervening through the children, American mothers are far more likely than British mothers to scold a misbehaving child, not their own, on a playground. (An example not precisely on point as the mom gave instruction to her own child about a bully, but illustrative.) It isn't as accepted as it used to be, but is still accepted. Among friends it is almost expected; a child at your house is treated as one of your children, up to the need of major discipline, when you simply call the other mother to come get her child. This was one of those self-selecting traits of Hill House. Most of us expat moms had this attitude even though it was not the norm in London.

Thoughts, anyone?

Clearly, I don't have enough bling.

2012-01-25T14:59:00.001-06:00

In the past 6 weeks I have been to a few big fundraisers, two of which stand out in all their contrast. Suzanne Powers took me to the Great Ormond Street Hospital fundraiser when I was in London. My new friend, Annie Oakley, took me to a Rodeo fundraiser last weekend. Both events had a live and silent auction and about the same number of attendees. That is pretty much where the similarity ends.

To start, it makes sense that a hospital has a fundraiser, even if it was for fancy beds that raise and lower at the heads and feet and have drop rails on the sides. (The hospital is doing up a new children's ward and needs the "special" beds. It wasn't that they had a fundraiser for such things, but that they clearly thought the beds fancy that caught my attention. The special beds were standard hospital beds, albeit in fun kid colors. But I digress.) The Rodeo has charitable fundraisers as well. I've written previously on charitable opportunities appearing everywhere in the US. (The tag "charity" has more.) The Rodeo is involved with many charities.

The hospital fundraiser was typically English. It was a Christmas choral concert in a stunning old church (does Europe have any other kind?), at which a Jewish girlfriend impressed me by belting out "O Come, All Ye Faithful" and at which most of the readings were secular Christmas themed poems and stories. (I really must get around to writing the compare/contrast of UK and US Christianity. The analysis is far more complicated that most people understand, but for this example, I can't imagine a non-church charity in the US having a Christmas carol concert to raise money--it would be a scandal, likely involving lawsuits--and I am quite certain that if a charity did have a carol concert, all of the readings would be religious.) After the music and readings, the smartly dressed attendees walked across the street to the hotel ballroom for a cocktail, read champagne, and canapé reception, silent auction, and live auction. In what I imagine is a newish innovation perhaps instigated by my American friend and charity committee member, there was a attended dining room/playroom set aside for children. There were about a dozen silent auction items. The live auctioneer was a treat, breaking up his speed talking with asides of typical British dry humor. Altogether, it was a lovely evening.

The Rodeo function was...different. It was at Dave and Busters. We had the upstairs floor with the bowling lanes. They move out the pool tables every year to make room for the dining tables and dance floor. Gary P. Nunn donated 2 sets to entice people to come. I walked in moments before he started his London Homesick Blues. (I wish I could say that I planned that, but I really just got lucky.) Then there was the auction. There were perhaps 100 lots in the silent auction, including this inspired set of redneck stemware.
The live auction included a cowhide antique settee. The auctioneer was not as funny as the Brit, but I do think he was faster. He certainly was louder. One of the guests at our table had to leave for the speaker vibrations. Granted, we were at the front table as Annie, like Suzanne is on the committee, so the speakers were right above us.

For me, however, the previous differences were expected. The following was not.

I had asked Annie what I should wear, as I am out of practice with Texas social functions. She said jeans and bling, "because it was dark in there." Is this why I have forgotten about bling, because bling in the Texas sunlight would blind the population? Perhaps. That and 5 years in London, I don't really have any bling anymore. So I dressed in the perhaps British equivalent to casual bling: bright colors. I wore a black leather skirt, non-cowboy boots (my Bush boots aren't ready yet), and a Ted Baker top, i.e. tailored with bright print. Well, Ted Baker is not enough bling for the Rodeo--not even close. Clearly, I need a rhinestone studded belt. At the very least, I need to properly string the necklace of chunky turquoise that the children made for me a few years back. As I see it, big turquoise is the furthest one can get from rhinestone studded something and still fit in. I was almost as out of place at this rodeo fundraiser as I was walking barefoot into Ascot, and that my friends, is saying something.

Why Newt?

2012-01-25T10:00:00.000-06:00

Unless you've been living news free, you probably know that the GOP nomination is coming down to Gingrich and Romney. Santorum doesn't have the support, which with this field should be definitive proof that social conservatives are not the power base of the GOP. Paul has impressive, wide spectrum support for his domestic policies, which are essentially limited government policies, but will not be able to gather a collation due to his foreign policy ideas.

That leaves Gingrich and Romney. For further analysis, I recommend here and here, but for the nutshell: Romney is your guy if you want better management of the US government. That Romney would be a better manager of the status quo than Obama, I will not argue the point. It is most certainly true. If, however, you are not happy with the status quo, then Gingrich is the only viable option left.

Gingrich is a wild card bet, but sometimes wild wins. That is, with Gingrich, there is a chance for change. If he doesn't deliver, then we are no worse off than with a Romney presidency. (That we are fighting for a mere chance at change at a time when modern socialism is about to collapse* is something I try not to think about too often.)

The electability question has an even more cynical answer. Both men will have a tough time beating Obama, a harsh truth considering Obama's dismal re-election outlook. While I do think that Gingrich has better a better chance of beating Obama than Romney, the difference is not enough to sway my mind. But since Perry got out of the race, we classical conservatives have had to assume the White House is a loss and that we need classical conservatives in Congress. Gingrich will have coat tails. Romney won't.

I did say the reasons were cynical.

*That link is a long one, but worth the read.

Andrei Amalrik, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan predicted the demise of the Soviet Union – and the Sovietologists rolled their eyes. It was obvious to a handful of us in the 1980s that the iron curtain dividing Europe would someday abruptly come down; I have believed for more than twenty years that, in the Middle East, secular nationalism was on its last legs and that the Islamic revivalists would eventually have their day in the sun; and I am similarly persuaded that the one-party regime in China will in due course come apart. Old orders which nearly everyone takes for granted but very few still believe in and fervently admire grow increasingly fragile with the passage of time. Along comes a puff of wind, and they are gone – much to the shock of nearly everyone.

Life Interrupted

2012-01-19T03:00:00.000-06:00

When we moved to London, I tried out modern decor. Modern catalogues look so pretty, and since we rented furniture, I saw a chance for a cohesive look. Within weeks, I hated it. It was cold and sterile, hard to warm up. It also wasn't comfortable. And cheap modern falls apart shockingly quickly. To do modern, you have to go for quality. Quality modern is shockingly expensive. Needless to say, I got over my modern bug.

Upon our return, I started looking at those glossy catalogues, from the infamous Restoration Hardware book to CB2, Crate and Barrel's ultra modern glossy. It looks like expensive stuff for 20somethings' apartments. It is stuff that they will have no use for when have kids.

Looking back on my own 20s, I have had many a discussion with girlfriends of the waste of time and money in our 20s. We had few responsibilities and considerable salaries. (I graduated in the boom times when firms had 6 figure bidding wars over law students. These days I hear that grads hope for unpaid internships, which are really long running interviews. But I digress.) We could, and did, spend more on fashion and furniture--precious little of which fit into our lives once we had children.

Looking back, it all seems backwards to me. We were always planning for our own life. Wifery and motherhood then came as interruptions. Worse, having done little to no prep for a domestic life, we were surprised when marriage and parenthood proved difficult.

The Internet is Dark

2012-01-18T11:34:00.000-06:00

If your internet reading includes anything outside the motherhood and expat sphere, you have probably seen that the internet is dark today to protest SOPA, the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act. I'm not dark because I've already had a taste of how such legislation would work and figured today is a good day to write about it.

Last year, I published a group of posts highlighting equality struggles of Muslim women. I didn't write about the subjects much myself, but did the traditional web log thing of spreading information published by others. (BTW, the term "blog" is a shortened version of "web log." The first bloggers collected links on their featured topics from around the web, or logged what was on the web.) I would link to the original article and then provide an excerpt for quick info.

In short order, I started to get lots of hits in Turkey. Great, I thought. The inspirational information is getting to the people who need the inspiration. A few months later, I got a Blogger notice on one of my posts, informing me that a copyright claim had been made against my blog, they had taken down the post, and another violation might result in Blogger taking down my entire blog. Google, Blogger's owner, you see, has its own rules about online piracy.

I, of course, started researching and seeking permission from the likely copyright holders, the author and The Times of London. I found that neither The Times nor the author had made the complaint. Blogger's reporting mechanism, however, only requires that the complainant affirm that he has copyright over the disputed material, that is, Blogger does not require proof of copyright or identity.

A short while later, Yasha was in Turkey. He tried to access my blog. To no avail. I had been blocked. Yasha's wrote:

You are apparently banned in Turkey. If I try to access the blog then I get this message:
Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir.
Google translations thinks this means something like "by court order this site is barred".

So in my experience with online piracy guidelines, a person hostile to my ideas, files a copyright violation complaint by falsely claiming copyright on some material on my blog, and manages to strike the subject post and place my blog in peril before I even am notified of the problem.

SOPA does not work exactly as the Blogger provisions as it is supposed to be for foreign sites only (here is a great summary), but abuse potential is high.

But puzzlingly, all paragraph 1 stipulates is that the site in question be a U.S.-directed site, and the definition of a “U.S.-directed site,” starting at line 18 of page 8, never once specifically states that sites must be foreign.
Whether that loophole would imply that the U.S. government has the right to seize domestic sites not because of a specific legal violation — those are enumerated in paragraph 2 — but simply because they are U.S. directed, I don’t know. If it does: how many U.S. sites can you think of that are not “used to conduct business directed to residents of the United States”? [Note to laymen: do not take comfort in the term "business". It will be defined loosely enough that I'm quite certain that I could get all bloggers on my blogroll into the term through their use of adverts, product reviews, posts related to their professional expertise...]
The essential question becomes whether a judge would consider exploiting this wording to be in the spirit of the law or not. I’d just as soon it not be on the books at all.
You’ll notice that the question we return to in evaluating both the effects on foreign sites and the potential that this bill could be exploited to influence domestic sites is: “How far will the government push things?” While that answer is not readily forthcoming, the dozen or so pages where the rules are laid out for how service providers, search engines, payment networks, and advertising services will be required to deal with foreign infringing sites are not encouraging....
Secondly, as others have pointed out, the potential for censorship is strong. It’s likely possible to build weak cases against a host of foreign sites across the acts cited, and a weak case is all that is needed. As page 12 notes, injunctions can be issued “following commencement of an action” (emphasis mine), and these include injunctions “in an action brought in rem under paragraph 2″ (in rem means “against a thing,” and paragraph 2 is where the four groups prior mentioned are listed). As I read this, that allows for the effective censoring to be exercised not when the case is proven, but when it is opened.

Stuff as simple as a excerpt of someone else's blog post, a cut and pasted picture, an embedded YouTube video, even with proper attribution (I had a link to the original article and had stated it was from The Times in my post) could result in complaint. (Or how about linking to what Calvin has to say on censorship?) And as the Turkish outcome demonstrates, it would not be difficult for a governing body to shut sites down. Depending upon the nature of the governing body, SOPA is a wide open mechanism for silencing dissent.

Lawyer brainstorming now, I'm not sure that sites like Twitter and Facebook could survive in their present format given all of the information people share and exchange, especially since SOPA gives the AG the prosecution power, not the party with copyright. A crime, after all, is the state's duty to prosecute, not the victim's. Even granting blanket permission to share your posted material might not protect FB or Twitter from shutdown, and that is before considering information posted from a source not on FB or Twitter... And YouTube is almost surely DOA.

You might want to call your Senator and Congressman on this one.

Sit Down, John!

2012-01-16T18:27:00.000-06:00

So I am following up my tipping point post with a tale of discontentment. I reek of it.

My diary is up to date. The garage is organized. The art is on the wall. I've managed adult church and Bible study. Things are looking up, but only on the little things. I spent today hacking at dead branches that I've not been able to attend to since the summer's drought. The hacking helped with the thinking.

Two things became apparent in the past few days. First, I grossly misjudged how much less education my children would receive outside of Hill House. I will tell that tale later, but I now have a consummate understanding of why homeschooling is a major trend in the United States. While I have calmed my incandescent rage, it is clear that Yasha and I must supplement the children's education in ways that simply were not necessary at Hill House.

Second, limited government classical conservatism is dead in the presidential race. When Perry attacked Bain, it was over, not only because of the attack, but also because he chose not to lead with his defining difference: limited government, classical conservatism. Without that, he is just another candidate who has been weighed and found wanting.

All is not lost. Electing a federalist president, while extremely helpful, is not strictly necessary. It is necessary to have Congress. Certainly, electing a classically conservative Congress would have been easier with a classical conservative leader's coat tails--Romney will have pathetic coat tails if he even manages to pull a win out of the hat--but we can still advance the cause with a classically conservative Congress and a president unwilling to veto it. Romney is at least conservative enough for that. For the moment, the prudent action is to support classical conservatives for Congress.

But that is only for the moment. I started this blog, in part, to participate in the American political process when I could not physically participate due to the breath of the Atlantic. But I am not in London anymore. I can do much more than write. And so can Yasha. Hence our discontentment. It is time To Do.

We have much to discuss in the coming weeks, as there is much to be done. It seems that I got the life admin sorted just in time.

The Tipping Point

2012-01-16T03:00:00.000-06:00

To recap my angst from last fall, the hop back across the Pond did not go as smoothly as I expected. It was, still is, hard. When I posted the nervous breakdown post, a gaggle of girlfriends made contact to check on me. Virginia's called from New Jersey. Apparently she had been waiting for my return so we could discuss the craziness of it all, which was mostly the motherhood issue. Virginia has been back in the States for 2 years. If you do the math on all the pros and cons, then she says that life is easier here. I'd bet that way even before accounting for the opinion of a trusted friend. It is just that the main con, motherhood, is the bulk of our lives.

What irked me about all the difficulties is how much easier it was than my early months in London. I knew almost no one. I was in the flat the vast majority of the time, save the school run. The same went for Virginia. Then we met and things started to get better. It was our tipping point, she said. I simply needed my new tipping point.

Looking back, I had it. It was that conversation with Virginia. Heartened by our talk, I stopped everything else and made some effort to see friends. My 40th birthday helped in that regard. I spent a delightful time with friends who I hadn't seen in a few years. Then, I got some more housekeeping help. (When we moved back to Texas, I figured I wouldn't need much kid help once they started school, so I drastically cut my staff hours from London levels. My family, specifically my husband and sister in law, intervened.) When we changed our Thanksgiving plans to go to Sparkle's house, that is, we would only cook pies and buy wine as opposed to cook a feast for 9 at ours, I realized that my homecoming tipping point had arrived.

Feeling cocky, I started to draft this post in mid-November. But Pride cometh before a fall. Within 2 weeks I discovered that I had failed to enter any of the Boy Scout engagements in my diary. Then, I managed to screw up various birthday plans, including own son's. In two consecutive weeks I called in sick for my Sunday school gig and rushed the family to church (after missing the service) only to learn Sunday school was not in session that day. Even if I was on the down slope, I was obviously still at the top of the mountain.

Still a little more retooling, a trip to London to see friends, a lovely Christmas, things keep getting easier. Virginia was my tipping point. Thanks, my friend.

Your focus determines your reality

2012-01-14T03:00:00.000-06:00

In keeping with domestic reputation concerns from a few weeks ago, I recently had lunch with a friend. She left work with her second child. A few days prior to our lunch, she was with another, still working friend, who asked her 'what she did all day." My friend was vexed at how often that question comes up as most working mothers have limited understanding of a housewife's day. I started laughing. During some blog draft admin the previous evening, I'd run across an email I sent to her when, pregnant with her first child, she had expressed desire to stay home but worried that she would be bored.

Here's me, blogging before I was blogging:

Typing fast over nap time. Can’t do justice to the subjects but wanted to get you thinking.
First, went to a fish cooking class last night. Excellent class (saw JH btw). Anyway, Ahi tuna was one of the entrees. I was amazed at the number of people who wouldn’t eat it and the questions/whispers regarding its safety. A side discussion ensued about living in fear of everything including one of life’s great pleasures, food, about how if you read the news everything seems scary and focus on the bad, you’ll just end up paralyzed and sour. This does have bearing on what I wanted to discuss.

So lots in our generation are not wanting to be our mothers, not wanting to get occupied with trivial stuff. (I’m helping start a young mom’s group at church and this is a big theme for mom’s of little ones). Anyway, I’m concerned that the near universal reaction is to avoid the trivial by staying busy and for most this means staying at work. You hit this topic yesterday and in thinking later, I had a moment of clarity about why this has concerned me. Staying busy only covers the problem.

When you are 102 and on your deathbed you are just as unlikely to wish you’d spent more time networking, as getting to spinning, or picking out granite countertops. Its not that success in a career, exercise, or home décor aren’t important, they are, its that they are only important as a means to what really is important. At 102 you very well may regret that you weren’t a better provider for your family, that you had taken better care of yourself, or that you’d made a happier pleasant home, or additionally, that you’d spent more time with your family, God, or serving the community or simply relishing life more. That is, if you think that staying busy will fix the problem then you will likely just replace one set of triviality for another--and lose your ability to smell the roses to boot. The fix is to always focus on the really important stuff like God and family, recognize that the details of the important stuff changes all the time, and be able to adapt when the changes come.

Also be aware of your focus in another way: what do you expect out of any situation. I had a bit of clarity about how the boredom question bothers me. (I know you didn’t mean it in that way, but I still had a really good point come out of it so indulge me.) You can make anything boring if you expect it to be boring or you can make anything exciting if you expect it to be exciting. If you assume--as most women do because it is drummed into us by popular culture-- that staying at home with young ones can be mind numbing, then you are very likely to be more sensitive to and dwell on the things that make that assumption true. You get the baby into a routine like all the baby books say but instead of seeing how calm life is and using the time to smell the roses, you see the monotony just like Betty Friedan et al talked about and think that you need to get out of rut.

There is a technical term for this problem used by lawyers and statisticians, assumption bias or something similar. Back to the Ahi from last night. If you just focus on all of the dangers of food and listen to all the mercury in fish stories then you’ll never get to enjoy it. And you’ll feel really foolish when you finally hear about the little publicized statement by some prestigious medical group that I can’t remember right now that the health benefits of eating fish far outweigh the dangers posed by mercury in those fish.

Oh and here’s the link to the film blog I told you about. If you scroll down, you should find a great article one of the guys did about the Oscar nominations. Regardless, its always interesting.
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/

That blog is now Libertas Film Magazine (see the Intro to Conservative Blogsphere link list on right).

The letter sounds like me, though it makes me chuckle. Only two kids. I got that all written during one nap time, and I only had to make a few typo edits for reposting. Plus, I wrote this mere days before I got the call we were moving to London; I seem so settled in Houston, cooking classes and all. Little did I know...

For the Geeks, the title is not a SW Prequel reference. That's just too lame. But even the SW Prequels have some bits of truth that are well phrased.

Revisiting "Who Regrets Motherhood?"

2012-01-13T12:18:00.000-06:00

As longtime readers might note, I've changed my blogrolls. I've got one I'd like to highlight now, Momastery (see expat and parent blogroll on right). Her blog exploded with a post called Don't Carpe Diem, about accepting that motherhood is hard and can't be enjoyed in every single second, but is inexplicably beautiful in fleeting moments and in completion.

Her post reminded me to reply to comments on one of my posts, Who Regrets Motherhood. I figured out what so upsets mothers about the Daily Mail article. Don't Carpe Diem says that the motherhood climb is long and hard but that there are moments of breathtaking beauty. Jill Scott, who regrets motherhood, refuses to see those moments. She despairs over her losses so much that at the top of motherhood Mt. Everest, she refuses to look out. She's looking at her calloused hands, contemplating her frozen toes and lamenting that she could have simply climbed any old hill.

And I do mean to compare motherhood and other things to Mt. Everest and random hills. Much of the day in and day out of motherhood can be compared to other bits of life. The constant noise and interruption is like cubical culture in a busy office. The sleep debt might be similar to Paper Chase hours or a constant state of jet lag due to a consulting job. That is, all of the bad stuff I can explain to non-mothers in terms they can understand: assorted bad days plus actual feces. But the good moments, the view from Mt. Everest, I can't explain that. There are no words. There are no comparisons. When we moms talk about those moments, we don't have to explain; we just know.

Plastic Surgery

2012-01-12T03:00:00.000-06:00

My friend Lara Lakin had an interesting post about paying physical compliments to women. Read the whole thing, but I responded:

I think your advice about delaying physical compliments until a bit later is spot on. In this day and age it is far to dangerous to lead with physical compliments to women. Another thought from an American, I've often found that British women are more reserved about their physical appearance, especially boobs. I find this fascinating when considered in conjunction with the American rep for prudishness. Last night I was Twelfth Nighting with girlfriends and today I queried my aerobics class. I realize that 20 or so women is barely above anecdotal, but all of us would have taken the comment as a compliment. Furthermore, a few noted that American women tend to be curvier in general, while much of the European gene pool is ectomorph. They thought that the compliment would be more likely mistaken because hour glass figures tend to outlier status, so that y'all are more self conscious of curves. Thoughts?

As it happens, all of the women, all Americans by the way, that I questioned had considerable boobs, most of them natural. Which reminds me of something I've been meaning to address: plastic surgery.

Houston is loaded with it. But it is all very subtle. In London, I think fewer women had any assortment of cosmetic procedures, but those that did had loads of it. Think Carla Bruni. Houston women have fewer and more subtle procedures. Did you know you could have a boob lift? The surgeon pulls up the skin at the collar bone, merely lifting breasts. Anyway, I've been surprised by the frequency of plastic surgery. I stopped talking about it after the second foot-in-mouth incident when I mentioned my shock to a new friend only to have her say, "You know I've had [insert one procedure here].'

I have to say, the thought is tempting. After the twins, no amount of Abs of Steel will give me abs of steel again. But I am just not a plastic surgery gal, mainly because I would never subject myself to the risks of surgery for cosmetic reasons. I did once think that if the docs were already in there, I wouldn't mind a tummy tuck. If I ever have to have abdominal surgery for something, I'll get things tightened up a bit. I told Yasha that if I am ever in surgery for some emergency reason, tell the docs I'd like a tummy tuck. This was his reply, complete with his very powerful James Earl Jones, courtroom voice. I remember it from memory:

"Let me get this straight: when the doc comes out to give me progress reports on your spleen removal after a car accident, you want me to tell him, "By the way, my wife wants a tummy tuck."?"
"No."
"Unequivocally no."
"Not if I had a thrice witnessed notarized document and a video deposition."
"No."

Guess I didn't think that one through.

Traveling with children, a scale of age

2012-01-10T03:00:00.000-06:00

I am done traveling transtlantically with children on a regular basis. For 5 years we flew to Texas from London and back 2-3 times a year. I have learned much about traveling with young children.

Whether taking a short trip to the country or boarding a transatlantic flight--or even a day trip to a museum--getting out with children sometimes is more trouble than it is worth. Our last nursery Sports Day in London, I was kicking myself for even attempting to go. I had to take the Things to the far side of Battersea Park for a sports day that had a few too many events for the younger children One melted down during the event. We couldn't get a cab. We--my mom was with me thank goodness--ended up walking most of the way back, with screaming toddlers. Fun.

My best advice, don't travel, or plan grand day adventures, with children under 5 unless you must.

But musts happen. As Kacie, a newish mom, found out last summer, travel with young children can be done, it just isn't easy. So for those not lucky enough to be able to stay put or leave children at home until your youngest reaches 5, I have a bit more detail to help you make travel plans.

0-6 months
Depending on the baby, this is easy. I don't recommend it too much though due to contagious bugs and the need to set routines, but if you must, it is not that bad. You have to take a few extra things along and, depending on the trip, need to give yourself more time to get there. You also need to adjust your expectations of your visiting schedule. But as far as traveling with a baby goes, this is the easiest time until they are 5.

6 months-walking
This stage gets more difficult for an assortment of reasons. Nap and feeding schedules are/should be established and are, therefore, harder to work around. The baby doesn't sleep as much. The baby is louder. The baby can be crankier. If the baby is crawling or cruising around furniture, then you have to worry about babyproofing at your destination. The baby is eating baby food, meaning you have to take along more than boobies or formula. If you feed the baby what you eat, that extra is only a stick blender and pre prepped mush for the plane. Yet, there are still delivery problems. Spoon feeding is much messier than bottle feeding and is a real experience on a plane. You need extra clothes for the baby and yourself. This is also one of the few times I used bibs. You need the heavy duty, long sleeved, big pocket ones to make any difference. That is, no matter how the Three Martini Playdate lady might hope, a plane trip with this age babe might require a steamer trunk for a carry on. (The rest of the time, she is spot on. Steamer trunk nappy bags are overkill.)

Walking-3 years old
This is the absolute hardest time to travel with a child. Don't do it unless you absolutely must. Security alone is a hurdle. A stroller, which you must crash for the X-ray, or a loose 2 year old? Easy shoes that the child won't remove on his own in other parts of the airport...you get the idea. Temper-tantums are par for the course for this age and only increase as a child gets tired and off routine. Jet lag will rock your world. Screaming in the hotel room at 2 am will mortify you. You must babyproof everywhere you go. I could go on far too long with tales of travel fails for this age group. Do not be lulled by the promise of a relaxing vacation destination. Nothing about traveling with children this age is relaxing. Nothing. It can be done, but you will need a vacation when you get home.

3-5 year olds
Sometime around 3, you start on the downhill slope for travel difficulty. Now, your child can be distracted on a plane. My best advice is to limit TV time except when you are on a plane. If you can spring for an iTouch or similar, do it, or add kids' games and shows to your iPhone. Have a charger or extra battery pack. Make airplane time unlimited fun. No time limit iPod use. Eat whatever you want. (Though you will want to push water a bit so they don't get dehydrated--wonder if I run afoul of EU regs for that?) Just like the plane ride is an oasis from constant communication, make plane time a vacation from the rules for kids. The older they get, the better this works.
Jet lag, sleep problems get progressively easier too. If nothing else, you can explain jet lag a bit, but mostly children start having more of an adult sleeping pattern and are easier to get back to sleep when they wake in the middle of the night. Note well, I'm not claiming jet lag at this age is easy, but merely easier than for a 2.5 year old.

Then sometime around 5, it all gets easier. I promise.

You have to force Americans to receive only as much government as they are willing to pay for

2012-01-09T17:13:00.001-06:00

Best of the Web has an item on a recent David Brooks column. I second what Taranto writes, but want to highlight one bit from Brooks:[emphasis mine]

If you believe in personal responsibility, you have to force Americans to receive only as much government as they are willing to pay for. If you believe in the centrality of family, you have to have a government that both encourages marriage and also supplies wage subsidies to men to make them marriageable.

No you don't have to do or have any of those things. On the contrary, if you believe in personal responsibility, it is most effective to leave people to their own devices. Natural rewards and consequences will do the heavy lifting. If you believe in the centrality of family, you need a government that doesn't take a wrecking ball to its foundations. That is, the decline of the family is, as Taranto notes in his post, in large part due to government action. The simple solution is to have government stop acting.

Unmoored

2012-01-09T03:00:00.000-06:00

So a few weeks ago I tweeted Penelope Trunk's Blueprint for a Woman's Life. In the discussion thread on FB I said of PT's take on life:

Practical rules unhinged from morality. A fave contention of mine is that moral rules aren't for the sake of rules. They are rules because they largely work to produce happy and prosperous people. She is all means/ends analysis. There is no sense or duty or right or wrong to temper her goal seeking, hence plastic surgery and loathsome maternity leave manipulation amongst sensible advice to have children a little earlier and focus on your marriage. She's all 'can this help me succeed as a woman' without any regard for whether the action is Right.

Now having read a subsequent post of hers on continuing domestic abuse, I feel for the poor woman who is obviously floating around without much but the practical to guide her. Again she makes some good points, essentially that it can be practical both to stay in such a marriage to avoid complications and difficulties of divorce or to leave to protect your physical welfare. The decision is in the weighing of the concerns. What worries me for her is that she doesn't seem to have any internal guidance beyond the practical for the weighing. Nor does she seem to have much check on her own actions. This poor woman is lost and unmoored.

I've added her to my blogroll because I think much of her writing can be informative, though not perhaps in the way she intends. Be aware, however, her blog is not easy reading.

The Failure of American Political Speech

2012-01-08T16:17:00.000-06:00

H/T to @Lynneguist for this article about the failure of American Political speech. While I agree with the overall premise, I have two comments. After explaining how misuse of the term "socialist" really, really bugs the author, he states:

As our Book of isms says, socialism is:
A political and economic theory that holds that the means of production and distribution in an economy should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole or by a central government.

Got that? The means of production. Owned by the government.

As one comment notes:

No, that's not what it said. "Owned *or regulated*". Got that?
So if the means of production and distribution are in private hands, but they have to abide by an overwhelming blizzard of regulations that nearly buries their ability to function the way a business in a free economy should function (namely, in response to the market), then by this definition it is completely fair to describe that situation as socialism.

The author then continues and falls into the confusion about the term "liberal". Noting that Burkean philosophy was called liberal at the time--and it was, "classical liberal" refers to Burke--the author makes the leap that conservatives are actually "liberal." They are, but what most people never notice is that modern American liberals aren't liberal in the historical sense of the term. They are progressives. One of the great failures of American political speech is this rarely known switch to calling progressives liberals.

Perry v. Perez, about the Texas redistricting

2012-01-08T12:00:00.000-06:00

On Monday the United States Supreme Court will here Perry v. Perez. Here is a good summary, but the upshot is that "regardless of the outcome of this litigation, it is unlikely that Texas will have fully legal electoral maps in time to administer the 2012 elections in a fair and efficient manner." Great.

If you must choose, choose wisely.

2012-01-07T16:41:00.001-06:00

The choices left to conservatives after Iowa are starker than most realize. In order to show how stark, I need to dissect the term conservative. Due in part to the significant overlap of the types of conservatives and in part to the media’s successful efforts to make Christian moral values the dominate understanding of the term, “conservative” hides two subparts.

Those two subparts are: theory of government and morality. The conservative theory of government is the classical liberal, Burkean, limited government position. I will call these "classical conservatives" because the traditional term "classical liberal" is confusing given that modern liberals are actually progressives and because I’ve read far too much Lauren Child and Dr. Seuss and have developed an alliteration addiction. The conservative morality is basically Christian morality. It is this type of conservative, the social conservative, that most people think of whey they hear the term "conservative."

While the overlap among the types of conservatives is significant, it is not complete. There are social conservatives who are happy to use government to achieve moral ends. These are the “big government conservatives”. On the other side, there are many classical conservatives who are socially liberal. Given, however, that the mark of a classical conservative is belief in limited government, the moral beliefs of classical conservatives matter less because they are not likely to impose them through law. In case you wondered, the Tea Party is predominately a classical conservative movement.

The current set of GOP nominees pits the classical conservative against the big government conservative, with an outlier in Paul.

The big government conservatives are Gingrich, Santorum, and Romney. They differ a bit on what they would like to achieve through big government, Santorum focuses more on traditional social issues, which is why some commentators say he is the most conservative in the race, while Gingrich is a bit of a wild card. Regardless, both are typically happy to use the current powers of the federal government to achieve their goals.

Romney is also a big government guy though not as conservative. He’d use the expansive power of the federal government to do conservative-ish/liberal-ish things. This is why he is stuck at 25%. He doesn’t inspire the big government conservatives because he isn’t conservative. He repels the classical conservatives (and libertarians, but more on them in a moment) because he’s a big government guy. And he doesn’t even capture many conservatives in the overlap because if we have to submit to big government, then we might as well get conservative policy. I’d guess that his 25% is mostly those who have bought into the risky conventional wisdom (more on that in a later post) that social conservatives can’t win and think that he is at least a better manager than Obama. In fact, outside of professional political commentary, I’ve heard no Romney supporter make any argument in his favor save these practical ones. There is little sense that anyone knows or prefers any of his actual policies. Frankly, that scares me more than anything else in this primary season.

The classical conservative is Perry because he believes in limited government, specifically our federalist system of government, which pushes as much power as possible to state and local governments. The general idea is that local government is more easily controlled and tailored to individual desires. When anyone says that Perry is only conservative in the race, they mean that he is the only classical conservative in the race. He happens to be the common type of classical conservative, one who is also socially conservative. This fact and his campaign’s panicked retreat to secure the base, commonly though mistakenly* thought to be social conservatives, after Perry’s debate gaffes has camouflaged his limited government beliefs.

It is only now, after Iowa, that classical conservatives have realized the opportunity we are about to lose. Throughout the world, progressivism is failing. This is an historic opportunity to restore limited government, not the time to compromise with a conservative take on big government. This is why Perry is staying in, and why it might work, though I will admit it is a long shot at this point.

As an outlier to the conservative battle stands Paul. He is a limited government guy, but in the extreme. A libertarian essentially holds that individual autonomy should trump in all but a precious few circumstances, like crimes. For various reasons I won’t go into here, he is too extreme to achieve a broad following. He will stay in a while longer. He will win respectable percentages, especially if Perry exits leaving Paul as the only limited government candidate. But if nothing else, his foreign policy positions will prevent him from gaining a large collation.

Therefore, to my libertarian friends I ask, wouldn’t fighting for libertarian government on a state by state basis be preferable to any form of big federal government? Sure, libertarians aren’t likely to take Massachusetts, but perhaps other states are possible, especially since the majority’s objection to libertarian foreign policy would not be in issue at the state level. I know this is a very conservative position, but you have to fight the war you are in, not the war you want. Libertarians can reform States, as long as a federalist restoration keeps the feds from messing things up from the top.

For the rest of us GOP voters, we must choose between big government with a conservative bent or limited government in restoration. True, each one is preferable to the present administration of big government of a socialist flavor. Also true, successful societies require moral men. But moral men must be won by persuasion, and that is the job of culture, not law. Morality compelled by law is no morality at all.

Most important, however, in the weighing of big-but-conservative government and limited government, remember this: laws can always bend the other way. After decades of living under the liberal reign of New Deals and Great Societies, of our tax dollars funding entities we abhor, we should know this. We should work to insure that it won’t happen again. US Federalism provided structural resistance to big government, which is why it took until the 1940’s to achieve big government. We should seek to restore it.

*The conventional wisdom holds that social conservatives are the go to base, but I think the CW is wrong. Classical conservatives are the base. The Reagan landslides were predicated on limited government. Social conservatives might do better in elections than RINO’s, but classical conservatives can find common cause with the widest spectrum of Americans.

A budding journalist

2012-01-07T11:00:00.000-06:00

Yasha opened his Dragon Dictation app this morning to dash off a bit on the politics of power for one of my upcoming posts. Apparently Christopher Robin has been using Yasha's iPad. This is what it said:

Daily Prophet.
[Cupcake] has just been sent to Azkaban for using the imperious curse on her younger sister. There has been a mass break out and that will be a problem. The aurors have been trying to round up the death-eaters for two years. There has been a robbery in the Ministry of Magic.

I'm impressed that Dragon Dictation obviously recognized the word "Azkaban."

An eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative

2012-01-04T13:06:00.000-06:00

Last night in Iowa did not go as I'd hoped. But now is no time for despair. Indeed, is there ever a time for despair?

Despite the battering, Perry is a fighter. He is staying in to make a last stand in South Carolina. It will either work, or it won't. Regardless, for me, the path is clear. We need an American restoration. We need federalism. But we can't get people to vote for federalists when they don't even know what federalists are. So, to the best of my ability, I will explain. Soon, I will have a new page above, Federalism 101.

The positive for non political junkie readers of this blog is that I will likely post fewer items on the election. (The number of posts on the nature of government, however, will explode.) The big government conservatism of Newt and Santorum vs. the big liberalism lite of Romney is far less interesting to me. As a conservative, I think all of them are preferable to the big liberalism of Obama. But they all are mere perspectives of big government, just for some, tyrannical for others, depending on whom is in power.

I'll make the last stand with Perry, and if that is the end, I'll go to work to prepare the way so the next time a federalist comes around, he will not fail.

"He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." GK Chesterton

British Warning Signs

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-06:00

Cleaning out my computer files over the holiday, I found some fun photos I'd forgotten to post. These are a few warning signs I found in a kids' furniture store. The second one is my favorite.

What is right?

2012-01-04T03:00:00.000-06:00

Not politics, but not at all light reading either. Two links to read and compare: Nice Nihilism and Memorandum from the Devil.

From the Nihilist:

Rosenberg is a fearless naturalist, whose ‘nice nihilism’ doesn’t imply that we can become nihilists. He disturbs the comfy domestication of the naturalistic world view. Evolutionism and physics gives us a nihilist universe, purposeless, meaningless, ultimately devoid of everything we think is important. But it has constructed us as having evolutionary reflexes that grant us illusions of freewill and purpose we cannot but believe.

From the Devil:

Well, what else is there around in the way of ethical argument these days? Naturally there is, as there has always been, that greatest of all favorites, "It is right to do X because it is right to do X." When (as I often do) I press people discussing ethics, I eventually get that response from almost everyone....Even if it were somehow discovered that mankind were so constructed that it was "human nature" to believe it was right to do a particular X, would that tell us anything more than any other universal fact, this time anthropological or psychological rather than physical? As usual, one could stipulate the evaluation. One could say that that's what "right" means. One could say that a particular existing state of affairs, in this case "human nature," is the good and go on from there. Indeed, that is pretty much what you did. But it is extremely instructive, I think, how much you hated your move after you made it, how desperately you sought to undo what you had been driven to.

US Federalism 101

2012-01-03T15:18:00.000-06:00

So it begins. No one knows how Iowa will go and almost anything is possible.

Yasha and I are rooting for Perry. During our trip to London, and at home frankly, we've gotten many questions about why we are for Perry. My answer: he's the federalist. Trouble is, few know what that means.

Federalism has been mostly dead since the New Deal. Outside of government, only lawyers commonly deal with federalism issues and even then only incidentally, witness Bachmann's misunderstanding about Masscare from one of the early debates. I've found myself explaining federalism often of late.

Early in the campaign, Perry said he would work to make the federal government as inconsequential to our daily lives as possible. Then he stopped talking about it. I have a hunch that the Perry campaign isn't directly talking about federalism because they'd have to explain it first (and the party has some some fair-weather federalists, which I will discuss in another post). A US federalism explainer does not lend itself to a stump speech, much less a 2 minute beauty pageant debate response.

I might be able to pull off a summary in a post, however.

This post is a general explanation of the federalist structure for laymen. I’m sure it will draw ‘actually’ comments from my dear Yasha because in order to reduce the complicated 200+ years of Constitutional jurisprudence to a coherent, short(ish) post, I cannot include all details. He doesn’t like not including the details. A few months back the Godfather, a Canadian expat lawyer currently living in the UK, was in Texas and casually asked Yasha about US Federalism while they drove from Houston to Austin. Yasha explained the concept the whole way there. Houston to Austin is about a 3 hour drive depending on how leaden is your foot. Therefore, the Godfather doesn't need to make the jump, but anyone else interested in US politics should. The best way to start is a quick read of the US Constitution. It isn’t a long document and shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. While reading, pay attention to whom the document addresses, the shalls and the shall nots. Then, jump...

A pattern emerges. The federal government has a list of things it is told to do and another list of things it is told not to do. The State governments are addressed sparingly to grant them powers not granted or prohibited to the federal government. That is, the federal government has specific limits. The State governments have everything else.

Breaking it all down, the Constitution starts with the Inherent powers (which most of Gen X can sing as a 70’s folk song). They are:

establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

These are the purposes for Union stated in the Preamble. They are “inherent” because they are the powers that underlie all national unions; they are the reasons societies organize governments.

Then the document moves to the Enumerated powers, the specifically mentioned items of Congress’s powers. (The Executive Branch has its own powers, political appointments, vetos, etc., but they are not considered part of the Enumerated powers and don’t affect the tension between the federal legislature and the state governments.) The Enumerated powers are:

Borrow money
Regulate commerce among the states
Regulate naturalization
Regulate bankruptcies
Coin money
Fix weights and standards
Punish counterfeiters
Establish post offices
Establish post roads
Record patents
Protect copyrights
Create federal courts
Punish pirates
Declare war
Raise an army
Provide a navy
Call up the militia
Organize the militia
Makes laws for Washington, DC
Make rules for the Army and Navy

Next come the Implied powers. The Constitution states that Congress can make laws “necessary and proper” to carrying out its powers. For instance, if Congress has the power to coin money, obviously it has the power to build a mint.

After the list of what Congress may do, comes the list of what Congress shall not do: the Bill of Rights. Congress shall not:

establish a religion or prohibit the free exercise of religion
abridge the freedom of speech or press
abridge the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government
infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms
quarter soldiers without the consent
conduct unreasonable searches and seizures
hold a person for crime without a Grand Jury
subject any person to double jeopardy
compel a person to testify against himself
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law
take private property without just compensation.
deny trial by jury
impose excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishment

At this point Congress has a pretty short list of things it can do, and a list of things it can't do. The document only limits Congress, and in fact plainly states in the 10th Amendment that the powers not delegated or prohibited to the United States, are reserved by the States or the people. The States could exercise any power not granted to Congress.

Subsequent amendments add to the Congress's list: abolish slavery, establish citizenship standards, provide the vote to women and 18 year olds, and allow a federal income tax. But the subsequent amendments make a more subtle change. By the wording of the 14th Amendment, most of the prohibitions of the Bill of Rights were Incorporated against the States. Prior to the Civil War, Massachusetts, for instance, had state churches. After the Civil War the prohibition against established religion applied to Massachusetts as well as DC.

In the end, Congress has a list of specific things it can do and another list of things it shall not do. The States, they can do anything not on either of Congress's lists.

Therefore, when Congress passes a law, we should ask whether it is within the power of Congress. This is a two part test: Is it within one of the powers granted to Congress? If yes, then is the action prohibited by any of the restrictions on Congress? If no, then it passes Constitutional muster. When Texas passes a law, however, the analysis is simpler. We only need ask if the action is within Congressional power or prohibited by the amendments. If not, then it passes US Constitutional muster. That is a subtle but significant distinction, though it is of little consequence these days because Constitutional jurisprudence has twisted up US federalism.

After reading the above short list of Congressional powers, one might wonder how Congress does all of the things it does--light bulb regulations, hearings on steroid use in the Major Leagues, etc. The tale is multifaceted and complicated but often involves the Implied Powers of the Necessary and Proper Clause. In Con Law, "necessary" doesn't mean necessary as English speakers understand the term. In fact, the Necessary and Proper Clause is nicknamed the Elastic Clause for it's ability to stretch to fit whatever the post-New Deal Congresses want to do. Lots of things are "necessary" to regulate interstate commerce, for instance. And by the way, "interstate commerce" doesn't have to be actual interstate commerce. Theoretical interstate commerce will suffice. Worse, due to federal preemption reasoning, States are often prohibited from acting in the expanded realm of Congressional power even if Congress hasn't legislated on the issue. (Query Dormant Commerce Clause for the prime example.)

In sum, the weight of presumptions set up in the Constitution have shifted, turning federalism on its head. Instead of limiting Congressional power, we presume Congressional power. Instead of presuming State power, we limit it.

The federalist wants to right the ship by restoring the proper balance of presumptions. The Constitution grants the States, the more local, more easily controlled entity, the greater leeway in legislation, not the distant federal government. If California and Massachusetts want social welfare states, they can have them. If New Hampshire wants a libertarian state, it can be done. This is the essential federalist position: make government more local and you make it more responsive to the people it governs.

Today, most of the GOP candidates simply want to mold the federal government to their ideal government. Even Paul would simply turn the federal government into a libertarian one, a change which would only last until liberals gained control again. Only Perry would seek to restore the balance between Congress and the States. He, like Justice Thomas, is swinging for the fences.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.--CS Lewis

The Twelfth Night, an Epiphany

2012-01-02T17:12:00.000-06:00

I've been importing some British things back to Texas, symbolic poppies, Usborne books for kids (play around with Usborne searches as they have some great books for all ages), interior decor, landscaping, vocabulary. I've found something new--or actually really old, naturally--to import. It is actually Irish, not British, but is such a good idea its origins aren't very important.

For those of us who did not grow up Catholic or Episcopalian, the Twelve Days of Christmas was a nonsense song. We didn't follow the church calendar; Christmas Eve was the 24th, Christmas the 25th, and Advent was the chocolate countdown. In the Christian calendar, however, Christmas lasts from the 25th of December to the 6th of January, or twelve days. In days of old, tress went up on Christmas Eve, the last day of Advent, and Christmas festivities were held during Christmas. Presents were exchanged on New Year's Day, etc.

When I became Episcopalian after marriage and then had children, I wanted to follow the liturgical calendar. It flows nicely, especially with the thoughtful season of Advent following US Thanksgiving. We can pause to give thanks for our blessings, and then spend a few weeks contemplating how to give blessings to others, and then celebrate the way God sent his Son for us. For the past 8 years, I've been trying to follow the actual Christmas season, rather than the commercial one. It isn't easy but this new import should help.

In Ireland in days of old, the last day of Christmas, Epiphany, was mini-Christmas, when the women folk threw a final celebration in part for making it through the busy Christmas season. Apparently, the mini-Christmas is reviving and has morphed into a night out for women, when they go to the pub for a pint to celebrate the end of the busy season. That sounds like a fine tradition to import, no?

I've asked some lady friends to join me to raise a toast to the three wise men (Epiphany was when Jesus was presented to the three magi). I'm posting this today in case others would like to do the same.

The State of Play

2012-01-02T12:00:00.000-06:00

You might not be ready for US presidential politics, but it is here all the same. Sorry to start here, but that long series of debates from last fall? Those were just the warmups. The actual, and long, primary season starts tomorrow. Blame the Romney camp for the marathon, part of their political stragety. It is what it is, though. A marathon is what is on offer this election.

I had hoped to be blogging from Iowa, but the main thing the Perry camp needs from supporters right now, volunteers in Iowa, is difficult for a mom of 4 young children to manage. I'll have to work from here.

So while we were celebrating...

Polling in Iowa, the first state to vote, is all over the place. No one knows what to expect because the players numbers are moving so much and because Iowa is a caucus state. GOP voters will vote in meetings tomorrow evening. Here are the basics of the Iowa procedure, but the upshot is that polling in Iowa is notoriously difficult. No one knows what is going to happen. Newt is cratering. Paul and Santorum are surging, though in Paul's case that is probably an illusion of polls. Perry is rising. The Great Conservative Blogger Freak Out is on.

Whatever does happen it only matters for momentum, really. Iowa has a quirky track record in picking winners. A solid Romney win would start the inevitable meme rolling again--or could panic conservatives in later states and turn them from Romney. Strong showings by anyone else simply keeps them in the game.

Since I'm a Perry gal, I will say that the possibility of a strong Perry showing is real. The world might see the debates and think he's an idiot, but meeting him or hearing a speech or a radio interview leaves other, more favorable, impressions. The most recent spot has Perry calling for a part-time Congress, like the one we have in Texas.

Positive Perry indicators have been creeping up since early December. I don't know if he will do well, but if he does, it won't be a surprise.

A new year and a fresh start

2012-01-01T22:42:00.001-06:00

I managed my blogging break, though quitting wasn't easy. More than once I resisted the urge to tweet how much time I had when not blogging. I was at least aware of the irony breaking my blog fast that way. I enjoy this little blog and thanks to the missionary zeal common to political blogging, stopping feels, well, like slacking. Yasha and I got a chuckle out of this Morning Briefing that hit my inbox a few days ago.

Dear Morning Briefing subscriber:So I’m supposed to be on vacation. Seriously. I hope you had a Merry Christmas. I’m still enjoying my Christmas vacation — my first vacation in four years from RedState.But yesterday my emails were piling up (over 4,000 unread since Sunday) and I kept reading RedState and twittering and had to fill in for Neal Boortz anyway. . . . okay, I’m addicted. I’m back early. Vacations are for ninnies.
Here we go . . . the Morning Briefing is back. Just don’t tell my wife I sneaked out bed this morning. She’s still asleep and convinced I’m still focused on vacationing, not Iowa. Pfffft.

I needed to be a ninny though. The move was harder than I thought. In many ways I hadn't played it right and needed to recharge. (I've a post coming on that.) My time was put to good use. As a mom of 4 young children on Christmas holiday, I did not lack for things to do. I did them and then some.

So I'm refreshed. I'm ready to get back to this little project, with a few changes. I'll have fewer big posts and more mini commentary on articles of interest. I also added a my twitter feed, which I usually use to link to articles of possible interest. The nomination battle is nigh, so there will be politics, but I promise much more other stuff. I spent some time getting ahead on various topics, so I won't be at the mercy or whim of the news cycle for inspiration. For my London friends, the motherhood rants are coming. I promise. For my Houston friends, the motherhood rants are coming. I'm sorry, but some things must be said. I still need to update the pages at the top as well as recreate the expat/mom blog roll, which I accidentally deleted when trying to add a new blog I'd found. These things happen when trying to concentrate when the children are home from school. Normal scheduling returns on Wednesday, wonderful Wednesday.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2011-12-18T20:32:00.000-06:00

My husband manages to take the last two weeks of the year off, sort of. He works a few hours from home each day. We have returned from London and I plan on doing the same. Have a lovely holiday.Cheers until the New year. AHLondon

Random things that I forgot about London

2011-12-16T11:07:00.000-06:00

We've been gone not quite six months. I did a whirlwind trip back in September to move house. Now I have been back in London for a little over a week. I thought I had not been gone long enought to forget anything. Not so. For instance, while I remembered the oppressive dark of winter, I had forgotten that The Dark makes a cup of tea. The British have a tea ritual because it is the easiest antidote to The Dark. The other antidote is a beach holiday for the Christmas break. In Texas, winter vacations are typically to winter locales. A trip to the Carribean in December is not unheard of, but isn't common either. We came to town for the final week of school so that the children could see their friends before everyone went home or to sun soaked lands. People need vitamin D.I had also forgotten the various health benefits of life in Chelsea. Yes, I am being scarastic. Within two days of our return, I started itching. It started, as always, on the arms. By mid week I was consciously trying not to scratch. The hard water usually stands accused of the itchiness, though the cold snd resultant heaters probably don't help. Christopher Robin has it. I have it. My friend Gigi has it. Then there is the cruddy congestion. With the exception of seasonal stuffiness, I rarely get congested--unless I am in London. It brought my twin pregnancy, weeks 11-28 spent in London, to a new level of misery. Day 4 I woke with the familiar pressure in my throat and chest. We fly home tomorrow, so I should be fine by Christmas. I figure that it must clear up quickly if I had already managed to forget it.

Shift Work Disorder

2011-12-15T03:00:00.000-06:00

The over the top warnings on meds in America amuse M&M. I've told her they are ever so much worse on radio and TV adverts. I have a new exhibit A. I didn't know there was a formal "Shift Work Disorder." We do like to medicalize everything. For this drug though, why bother advertising? The audio isn't online, but it was running on KGSR, which you can stream from a free app and listen to good tunes while waiting for the bizarre advert to come on. Trust me. You will know it when you hear it.

Introspection

2011-12-14T07:23:00.001-06:00

Bah humbug to character limits. I have to post to reply on Twitter. In reply to a surprised comment about yesterday's violence in Europe, I tweeted that Europe has more of such violence than people commonly realize. (See Knee jerk gun control.)

As readers know, one of my themes around here Europeans complaining about minor problems in the US while ignoring the same yet bigger problems in their own midst. Not only is this annoying, but also it disguises one of the reasons for America's much resented success: we instinctively confront our problems head on.

When outsiders tell us we are violent, rude, environmental menaces, greedy warmongers--the list of our alleged vices is long and growing--we immediately question out motives and actions. When Europeans are accused of rudeness, they have a national conversation on the Americaization of their culture. Blaming someone else or pointing to another's problem is avoidance, and is why, despite the depressing list of European mass shootings, most people think of mass shootings as an American problem. And as Americans often say, knowing you have the problem is much of the battle.

Sent from a device with occasionally odd spelling substutions. Reader beware.

The essence of the 2012 election

2011-12-13T08:09:00.001-06:00

I am in London having a fabulous time visiting friends. There are many expat obserevations to make, but for the moment, this trip has given me a chance to step back and see the upcoming election from the a broader perspective. I had been noodling various bits and bobs when Best of the Web and Redstate Morning Briefing hit my inbox and pulled some threads together for me. I recommend reading each 'whole thing'. Linking and posting are pains from my iPad, so I will have to do this the old way: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203430404577094520061706832.html?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb_h
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/12/13/3-weeks-and-counting-are-we-in-a-suicide-pact/

Together they hit upon the essence of the coming election, the first votes of which are coming far too quickly. This election is about the nature of government. That is the thing on everyone's mind, here in Europe where the Euro is soon to be a collectors' item and at home where conservatives have spent the past three years refreshing their knowledge of US federalism. When I discuss politics with Americans or others, the economy or social policy is a detail. More than I can recall in 5 yesrs, people are discussing the nature of government.

Upon that topic, people will make their choices. Intellectual proweress, that is a topic like fashion or gossip. It can be entertaining, but it isn't how people will make up their minds. Pro-government types will vote for Obama and nothing, no amount of social liberalism or intellectual mastery, will change that.

The nature of government is the question. All the rest is window dressing. The socialist experiments are in terrible peril. The Free World again, hesitantly, reluctantly, looks to us. What are we to do?

I, for one, think it has long past time to put them out of their misery.

Sent from a device with occasionally odd spelling substutions. Reader beware.

Car Seats

2011-12-10T03:00:00.000-06:00

Green types often complain of huge American cars. They usually complain of our self-centeredness, desire for all things big and convenient, or general boorishness. The real reason we have huge cars, however, is car seat regulations. We have huge carseats. New these days are three-n-ones, which go from buckets for infants to rear facing toddler to toddler booster. They are giants. Try to put more than one of these in a car, and the sedan market is not an option. Furthermore, the giant seats take up more room when rear facing, and the rear facing recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics recently went up to two years. Worse, the recommendations for the cars eats for older toddlers increased to 4 years. I have two small girls who are 3.5 years old. They find the seats uncomfortable. Their legs must be spread wide to fit the buckle, which often pinches their thighs. I have field stripped and rethreadded the seats multiple times to try and make them work. The girls are getting too big for the full car seats. I'm trying to hold off until the new year before switching them to booster seats, a few weeks shy of the 4 year recommendation. I'm pushing it.
Why is this not a problem in Europe? Car size is constrained by older and tighter roads. Giant carseats for 4 years aren't an option.

My gold is tarnished

2011-12-09T13:04:00.000-06:00

I finally got around to writing my Hill House review. I sent it to the moms I knew to troll for comments. They had great comments--mostly to me. One has a take on Tiger Mom vs. "alpha mom" that sounds interesting. When I see her, I'll make her flesh out the idea.
I've had some good discussions in my inbox or on FB, so this is a tale of tarnished gold, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of blogs with comments every post. I like open discussion. But I'll take one on one discussion.

Reverse Culture Shock: the welcome things

2011-12-07T03:00:00.000-06:00

I don't miss rudeness. People are polite around here. The other day, a man rushing forward to open a door for a woman with a stroller gave me a flashback of a typical school run. There was one particular school I passed on my route where the parents were all but oblivious to others. Grown men would squeeze in front of me only to stop to tap on a blackberry. It is hard to stop a double stroller on a dime. Momentum matters. A rare nanny would move a stroller or child so I could pass.

I don't miss this either. I never saw anything that dramatic, but I saw a fair bit of smaller offenses, one of which I mentioned on that blog. One day my Italian nanny and myself (white) and a few friends were letting our kids play in our communal garden. A little old lady popped her head out of her 3rd floor window to complain that this was an ornamental garden, not one for children. When we told her that this garden was for children (others on the estate had no kids rules posted) she informed my nanny that as a foreigner (she has Italian coloring) she didn’t belong in the garden anyway. She then came down to confront me to see if I had a key, and didn’t just jump the fence. My American accent did not sit well with her, either. I’m pretty sure she called the office to try and get my key revoked.

The Last Temptation of the American Isolationist Soul

2011-12-06T08:55:00.001-06:00

A post on Smart Girl Politics asks why Huntsman is not on top because and contends that he should be. I can't remember my password and don't have time for the reset password dance, so I'm posting here and will get it up there later.

Huntsman isn't on top because he has no faith in his ideas, and we therefore don't trust him. Granted the distrust is less than with Romney as Huntsman has a good and verifiable track record fiscally. But he ran from it. When he and his people did the math on winning the nomination and presidency, they threw his fiscal record under the bus. Now people want to consider him because he is a strong fiscal conservative? No he's not. He's a fair weather fiscal conservative.

He and Romney are the Colin Powells, the Republicans the media deems it acceptable to like. These are the men who give Dems pause. That's lovely sentiment and probably true among casual observers. The pros though, they know that the pause translates into precious few votes, which I think would be especially true this time as both media darling Republicans are Mormons. The instant one of them secures the nomination, the press will incessantly mention their religion and we will see a spate of stories the gist of which is Mormons are the people evangelicals think of as fringe. Throw them into that briar patch, they cry to us now.

As mentioned, I will vote for any of the GOP field against Obama, including Paul. My husband has used meticulous argument for 10 years to pull me from my isolationist leanings. The potential Eurozone bailout might push me, and many other Americans, over the edge. In a recent comment thread around here (see Rick Perry is a meerkat) someone took me to task for complaining about other counties advice to the US when we give advice all the time. I rebutted that my complaint was about conflicting advice. I forgot to mention that we also have more room to give advice because we underwrite (or straight up provide) the Free World's defense, which allows Europe to act smug about their superior social policies. Now, we might directly underwrite those social policies as well. The Last Temptation of the American Isolationist Soul. If we bail out the EU, I bet Paul will surge. But I digress.

A note for conservatives, of the current front runners, excepting Paul, we don't trust them. We will have to eye on them, make sure they don't buy it when the press waxes lyrical about anything Keynesian. I know that there is no perfect candidate, some combo of Newt and Perry. So under those circumstances, what is the best option? Is it getting behind someone untrustworthy and hope to keep them honest? Or is it dealing with moderately bad speeches from a solid conservative?

I have links for many points here but will have to add them later. Posting with links from an iPad is time consuming, and I have a busy day, school run, class, haircut, Perry reception, cancer treatment fundraiser, and desserts to make for nursery teacher appreciation luncheon tomorrow. Oh and packing Christopher Robin, Cupcake, and myself for London.

Sent from a device with occasionally odd spelling substutions. Reader beware.

Daddy, I want a golden goose now!

2011-12-06T03:00:00.000-06:00

Here is an interesting article on the Millennial Generation, the generation of Veruca Salts. You remember Veruca from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or at least you remember her if you have young children who love the movie. (The Gene Wilder one, of course. Why must Hollywood mess with icons? Did anyone even like the new Footloose? But I digress.) Veruca was the spoiled brat who sang "I want it now!"
Anyway, read the whole thing, but I note one little detail. She writes, "We are still in the mode of resume-packing extracurriculars." Funny, in my American motherhood reverse culture shock, I was just talking about this with a friend. Back in the day, we packed resumes because that set one apart from the pack. These days, wouldn't the resume with a mere 1 or 2 extracurriculars, better yet ones that show a degree of mastery, set one apart from the pack better than the 4 page variety?

For fun, here's Veruca.

Conservatives have principles, liberals have goals

2011-12-05T12:55:00.000-06:00

I recently had a comment trade with Iota about how conservatives have principles while liberals have goals making them more susceptible to an ends/means analysis. For timely illustration, here is Morning Jolt on democratic goal to reelect Obama:

Over in the New York Times, Thomas Edsall says that Obama can lose the white working-class vote and be okay in 2012:

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.
All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment -- professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists -- and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.

At Red State, Moe Lane marvels at the Democrats' shift in philosophy:

Whether you agreed with the New Deal program or not, you could always actually define it in terms that were internally self-consistent. Broadly speaking, it was a broad agreement among various groups that America's most pressing problems could be managed and ameliorated on a broad scale through 'expert' and judicious government intervention; and that such intervention dampened the uncertainty and anxiety that might otherwise cause societal panics and economic dislocations. Again: you don't have to agree with that (I don't) to recognize that it existed as a coherent policy.
But now that has gone by the wayside, to be replaced with a system that . . . apparently plans to trade support for permanent government dependency programs for minorities, in exchange for legislating the fringe progressive morality of affluent urbanites. Aside from the utter lack of an unifying intellectual or moral framework to such an arrangement, it's unclear exactly who benefits less from it; while it's certainly not in minority voters' long, medium, or short-term interests to become a permanent underclass, it's not exactly clear that minority voters are even particularly ready to vote for a progressive social policy (as an examination of recent reversals in same-sex marriage movement in California and Maryland will readily attest). But then, that is not really the goal, is it? The goal is to re-elect President Obama -- which is something that poor African-American and rich liberal voters both wish to do -- and if that is accomplished, then anything else is extra. Which is just as well, because nobody really expects Obama to have much in the way of coat-tails this go-round.

Ah, but look, today's Democratic party isn't really about addressing economic opportunity or even dealing with America's most pressing problems. For starters, many Democrats are not persuaded in the slightest that the annual deficit, accumulating debt, and ticking time bomb of entitlements are pressing problems at all. If Democrats really expected electing Obama would solve problems, they would be angrier with him than we are. No, for most Democrats, their political party is about a cultural identity. That identity is heavily based on not being one of those people -- i.e., Republicans or conservatives.

For the Morning Jolt, sign up here, top right corner.

The Most Feminist Muslim in Britain, Shaista Gohir

2011-12-05T11:04:00.000-06:00

This is the post that someone made a false copyright claim against. That is, after checking it appears that neither the author or The Times, entities with claim to copyright, made the complaint. Regardless, after I heard back from Stephanie Marsh, the author, I did not hear anything further. I have left this as a draft for a while, but have now removed more of the excerpt, as the complaint was I used too excerpted too much of the original article.

The Times paywall is a pain. Here is the link for subscribers. Here is an excerpt for everyone else:

By her own admission, forced marriage is not a subject that many British Muslims want Shaista Gohir to be talking about. But here she is at a conference in Birmingham where Gohir, a married mother of three with Pakistani roots and a degree in chemistry and physics, is to deliver a lecture on “taboo issues”.

Because Gohir is known to be more or less the only outspoken Muslim feminist in Britain today, the conference organisers have given her free rein — and she has decided not to pull any punches: as well as forced marriage, her chosen subjects today are homosexuality, child abuse, polygamy (“It’s on the rise in this country”), female genital mutilation and mental health — all subjects that, she reminds her audience, are not considered taboo in the wider British culture....

Friday night, the BBC News. Gohir has been asked to comment on women’s dress. She is defending their right to wear the veil. Later, she receives several e-mails. “How dare you come on national TV in full Western attire?” reads one. “Your head was not covered, you had lipstick and make-up on.”...

Later she tells me that she finds it frustrating how introverted Muslim girls can be. Yet it doesn’t surprise her: “We grow up with the idea that women can’t do this, can’t do that. The list of can’ts goes on and on. Where is the list of things women can do? As a Muslim girl you’re never told. Whatever the question, the answer is always no.”

In a way it feels odd calling Gohir a feminist. Many of the things she argues for — that women have a right to go to university, say, or that they should not be subjected to domestic violence — have long been taken for granted in mainstream British society. Not so in some Muslim communities, she says. It’s like a parallel universe....

Yet conservative extremists in liberal countries such as Britain have been advancing their agendas. “I mean,” says Gohir, “the idea that women need male chaperones — we’re moving back towards that in this country. I can’t believe it’s happening. In other countries women are fighting to take off the veil; in Britain they are fighting to put it back on again.”

I first met Gohir three years ago. Then, as now, she ran the Muslim Women’s Network, the aim of which is to educate Muslim women about their rights and supply the information they need, especially about Islamic texts, “to think for themselves”. I was fascinated by the amount of research she had undertaken and impressed by her sense of humour, passion and pragmatism (“I’ll stick my head above the parapet. If you want to make a difference you have to be prepared to take risks”).

At the time she had just returned from a Foreign Office trip to Egypt. Over coffee, she laughingly recounted an argument she’d had with a British imam: “He told me that most inhabitants of Hellfire were women. To back up this claim he quoted a Hadith (Hadiths are accounts of the words and deeds of the Prophet, categorised as strong, ie, likely to be accurate, or weak, ie, likely to have been made up). But I immediately said, ‘That’s a weak hadith. You shouldn’t quote that or you end up misleading people’.”

Gohir reminded the imam about a verse in the Koran that describes the inhabitants of Hell, “and nowhere does it say that there are more women than men”. The imam then began to list his intellectual credentials. “He was trying to make me feel unsure about my knowledge. But I was sure! So I kept pressing him, and eventually he admitted that it was a weak Hadith. ‘Well then,’ I said, ‘You shouldn’t have quoted it. It doesn’t make sense anyway — if you look at what’s happening around the world, most atrocities are carried out by men.”....

She grew up in Northampton and was the only Muslim girl she knew to go to university. Her mother worked as a seamstress in shoe and clothing factories, and Gohir knew instinctively that she wanted more for herself. By the time she met her husband-to-be (she describes him as a progressive Muslim), she was working in environmental health. But then her thoughts of a career evaporated. “When I was 30,” she laughs, “I just wanted to get married, have children and be a housewife. I didn’t have any ambitions about women’s rights.”

That changed once she had given birth to her three children. “In my mid-thirties I began to feel rather bored,” she says. “I’m a bit of a thinker.”

The was in 2003, two years before the July bombings in London and before Muslim extremism rose up the political agenda. Being at home a lot, Gohir often watched the TV news “and it would just be Muslim men commenting on Muslim issues. I kept thinking, ‘Where are the women?’ ”

She also found it frustrating that the Labour Government “engaged only with one or two prominent Muslim men, mainly from the Muslim Council of Britain.

Siri makes my life easier.

2011-12-03T03:00:00.000-06:00

It seems that every time I start wishing that I had some device that did this or that, I can usually wait 18 months and Apple has the solution. Siri and Apple’s dictation software on the 4s are making my life easier. The reminders are fabulous. I had tried everything from Things to Cosi. They had their individual strengths and weaknesses. For example, Things was great for repeating chores, and I still use it for that. Cozi was great for texting shopping lists to my husband or brother. Outside of those tasks, however, those programs didn’t work well with the life of a mom. When I think of something I need to do, sometimes the 30 seconds before an interruption is all I have to get the something on my to do list. Siri and Reminders appreciates that. The others don’t.

Between Siri and Dropbox (iCloud does not sync with a desktop or laptop, an egregious oversight) so I can keep my drafts up to date, I’m almost back to maintenance mode with this blog.

One drawback, Siri cannot handle a Texas accent. Y’all comes out as “you I’ll.” Always the anti-Texan bias, like lawyers...wrote the Texas lawyer. At least I’m not a feminist. They are currently upset that Siri will not find abortion clinics. Worse, to them, depending on what one searches for, Siri might direct women to pregnancy crisis centers, which of course are pariahs to feminists because they encourage women to carry the pregnancy and consider options like adoption.

I’m adopted. Steve Jobs was adopted. The pro-life tilt of Siri doesn’t surprise me in the least.

And I will admit that even before reading the 10 things Siri will do besides direct you to an abortion clinic, I had queried Siri on "42." Guess I still have some Geek cred even if I didn't wear an ethically taxidermied wolf suit to the movies.

An Ethically Taxidermied Wolf Suit?

2011-12-03T00:30:00.000-06:00

I feel completely inadequate in my fandom. This is new for me. I normally bow to no one in my fannish ways. I have a Princess Leia costume, which is tired from wear. I was the heavily pregnant 30something interviewed on the local news for being first in line at the final Harry Potter midnight book release. For our 2^nd “paper” anniversary, Yasha got me the Gone with the Wind Empire Strikes Back one sheet--and I was thrilled. It and the Star Wars D sheet hang in my office.

But this, I’ve never even attempted this. How does one “ethically taxidermy” a wolf, I asked. She replied, "It's ethical in that he wasn't killed. Just died of old age. It's recycling. Sort of. Terrible, terrible recycling."

I merely went with a friend and some of her friends to see Breaking Dawn. I feel so very lame.

So as penance I was looking at various quotes from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Thanksgiving episode Pangs. (It was Thanksgiving, so I had that episode on my mind.) My husband was incredulous that I was worried about my Geek cred as I sat there giggling over various Spike banter while sitting between two men wearing primal geek shirts.

While I did this my eight-year-old son, apparently the only serious one in the room, was reading The Spectator. (I use the same method for his political education as I do for his diet, simply have the good stuff is lying around the house. If apples are easy access, then they will eat apples. Seriously, I buy about 12 pounds of apples a week.)

My Buffy wanderings reminded me of a non-Geeky friend once asking me why I liked myths. I like them because they allow you to see old stories and Truth in new ways.

Take any Bible story, one heard over and over again from Sunday School. From familiarity, the stories have as much power as an microwave manual. How often do you even really listen to them? Then some modern myth comes along and does something similar but in a different way and makes you realize the depths of sacrifice or the inequity of some event or the silliness of some idea.

For example, in Pangs the gang has accidentally awakened the spirit of a Native American Indian. The Indian seeks revenge and Buffy has to figure out how to stop him.

Xander: I hate this guy.
Willow: He's just doing what was done to him.
Xander: I didn't give him syphilis!
Giles: No, but you freed his spirit, and after a century of unrest he saw you as one of his oppressors.
Xander: What, so he rises up and infects the first guy he sees? That's no fair.
Willow: Like you've never woken up cranky.

Anyone want to talk reparations? How about issues like Israeli settlements or La Raza's claim to Texas and other parts of the southwest United States?

Buffy: Will, you know how bad I feel about this. Okay? It's eating me up-
[to Anya]
Buffy: A quarter cup of brandy and let it simmer.
[to Willow]
Buffy: But even though it's hard, we have to end this. Yes, he's been wronged, and I personally would be ready to apologize, but I...
Spike: Oh, someone put a stake in me.
Xander: You got a lot of volunteers in here.
Spike: I just can't take all this mamby-pamby boo-hooing about the bloody Indians.
Willow: Uh, the preferred term is...
Spike: You won. All right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That's what conquering nations do. It's what Caesar did, and he's not goin' around saying, "I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it." The history of the world is not people making friends. You had better weapons, and you massacred them. End of story.
Buffy: Well, I think the Spaniards actually did a lot of - Not that I don't like Spaniards.
Spike: Listen to you. How you gonna fight anyone with that attitude?
Willow: We don't wanna fight anyone.
Buffy: I just wanna have Thanksgiving.
Spike: Heh heh. Yeah... Good luck.
Willow: Well, if we could talk to him...
Spike: You exterminated his race. What could you possibly say that would make him feel better? It's kill or be killed here. Take your bloody pick.
Xander: Maybe it's the syphilis talking, but, some of that made sense.

In the modern myths, within the archetypes popularized by Joseph Campbell, you can find insight into anything you want. Do the story well enough, and it resonates with individuals.

Less than masterful writing will not stand in the way of the timeless tale. And masterful writing, or cinematography, will not save a tale. (I still can’t get through all of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, though I loved the first book and King is a masterful writer.) Why, for instance, is Twilight popular? Because Stephanie Meyer let the stories write themselves, she let the archetypes rule. Same for JK Rowling who has commented that she was sometimes surprised where the characters went, directions she did not originally intend. Sadly, Lucas used to know this too, but has long since forgotten that if you deviate too far from the archetype, the story falls flat.

Han Shot First: a self-serving screenwriter strikes again, Breaking Dawn

2011-12-02T12:52:00.000-06:00

So I finally got to see Breaking Dawn and have a couple of observations, most of which only use the movie as illustration. That is, this isn't a movie review.
My long standing annoyance with screenwriters messing with stories got a stir.

From a screenwriter Rosenburg and director Codon interview, I note: [comments in red mine]

The Movie’s Alleged “Pro-Life” Message

Rosenberg: I am rabidly pro-choice and very much a feminist, and I would not have taken this book on if it was in some way going to violate my beliefs. No amount of money would have done it. And the book is very much Stephenie’s point of view, so I had to find out how I could tell this story without violating my own beliefs, and without violating Stephenie’s. So simply translating the book to screen isn't an option for her. She had to bend the story to her beliefs. Fans find this annoying. Conservatives find it par for the course. I really struggled with it. I talked it out with my sister, who is an ACLU feminist lawyer, and she pointed out that having a child is a choice, and that’s something that gets lost very often in the debate. So that was my way in. Pro choice is their mantra, yet the fact that carrying a pregnancy to term is a choice is often forgotten. I've been discussing this "choice feminism" over at the Dissenting Justice blog. Prof. Hutchinson thinks that "choice feminism" is the main feminism. But here someone like Rosenburg had to be reminded that choice might mean a woman makes a choice that she, herself, would not. Yes, she came around to that view, but it wasn't her instinct.

Condon: For both Melissa and me, that’s an area of discomfort. Talking to Stephenie, it was never her intent to make a political statement there. People see it as an abstinence parable, then she has sex, and pregnancy is the punishment for having sex, The complications of the fine distinction between punishment and simple consequences: pregnancy is a common, often sought, outcome of sex, not a punishment. Conservatives are often dismayed by the pro-choice proponents often reflexive assumption that pregnancy is bad. Sure, in some circumstances it is not desirable, but it isn't punishment. It is natural consquences. which I think is reading too much into it. It’s Bella’s stubborn sense throughout the films of always knowing what’s right for her that’s crucial here and not any political position.

Rosenberg: In the book, Bella doesn’t believe she has a choice; she’s going to have this baby at the expense of her own life. In the movie, that’s not the case. She honestly believes that she is going to survive this. Since I read this interview before watching the movie, I was looking for this distinction. It isn't really there. At first Bella thinks she might survive, but later knows she won't likely live, to the point that she tells Edward that he will at least have part of her, the baby, with him. In fact, book-Bella is far more optimistic about her chances than movie-Bella. I have friends on the right who have seen it who say, “Oh, this is a very pro-life movie,” and I have friends on the left who have seen it who say, “Oh, you really altered that point of view for the movie.” Bella says aloud, “It’s not your decision. It’s not any of yours.” And Edward says, “You chose this. You decided this without me. I don’t choose this.” It’s very much debated throughout. As mentioned, I don't think the issue was further debated in the movie than the book. I did notice something sadly common about this "my choice, not yours" attitude. In deviation from the book, Bella does tell everyone it is no one eles's choice but hers. Shortly thereafter, Edward, who has been angry with Bella for choosing to leave him through certain death, apologizes to Bella for leaving her alone in this, for not being there for her. All too often in modern relationships, men are simply supposed to accept the dictates of women. Women on the other hand are damn well entitled to Bitch status: a lover, a child, a mother, a sinner, a saint, who does not feel afraid. We aren't going to change. We aren't going to do anything for you. (Continuing with the pop music analogies, we won't even write you a love song.) You are a pig if you don't accept us just the way we are, but you had still better be there to support us. A bit of a raw deal, no?

As mentioned, I didn't find the edit nearly as clear cut after watching. As a practical matter, whether Bella doesn't see a choice or makes a choice, without Bella's inner monologue from the book, the difference is not noticeable. The whole idea in the book was that Bella is in love with her husband and instantly recognizes that the baby is the product of their union and something to be desired. Codon is a man. Rosenburg has no children. Neither recognize that in most circumstances pregnancy is a blessing. And they certainly don't understand that many women's reactions to pregnancy destroy the notion of "choice."

There is a reason, besides allegations of mass cougardom, that women my age love the books. Stephenie Meyer knows what it feels like to be a mother. We read the chapter when Bella learns she is pregnant, and completely understood it. Sometimes the transition to protective momma is that quick, and that soon. Women are often struck by how quickly they become mothers. Guys and single women think it happens when the baby is born, but often it happens the second you learn you are pregnant.

Rosenburg, in her need to serve herself rather than the story, has excised that element of Bella's character and reduced the pregnancy line to mere personal desire on Bella's part. Ironic that the leftist feminist is the one to gut Bella's strength, because of course feminists only see strength in acting for the self, being true to the self. And here is where feminism and so many other Sixties -isms fail. Strength doesn't lie in service of the self.

MR's self serving edits probably explain why the movies aren't nearly as good as the books, either. She's editing concepts that she doesn't understand. Cultivated relativists, Hollywood intelligentsia simply can't write myth. Why is Hollywood reduced to remaking comic books, cartoons, and critically slammed novels? Becauae those are the last places the chattering classes have looked to spread relativism. Joseph Campbell was right about the abiltiy of an archtype to propel a story forward. Deviate too far from the redemed rogue or the self-sacrificing hero and the archetype looses it's power to propel. This is one of the few advantages conservatives have left in pop culture. We can still write archtypes. And that is how Mormon Stephanie Meyer and Anglican JK Rowling fired up the book presses. They wrote the stories that sprang, almost fully formed into their heads. That is why SM can say that she didn't set out to make a political statment. She set out to tell the story in her head. Rosenburg set out to make the political statement.

The intelligentsia fancy that that can 'improve' the simpletons and capitalize on the successes. They don't see that they eviscerate the story in the process. And don't get me started on beautiful writing for beautiful writing's sake.

A final note, it is one thing to see Kristen Stewart mention that their honeymoon scene had to be recut because it earned the film an R rating. It is a bit creepy, however, to see interviews with Melissa Rosenburg and Bill Codon making the same point with a wait for the DVD hint. Its kinda like 'wait for the DVD for a Robsten sex tape.' It creeps me out.

Running households across the Pond

2011-12-02T08:44:00.001-06:00

When we first moved to London, I learned about the difficulties of running two households across the Pond. There are tax issues and maintenance issues, missed or stolen mail... It isn't so much difficult as time consuming. I'm back to that stage again as we kept a smaller house in Chelsea. For example, today I'm dealing with British Gas. It seems the gas was never cut off to the house for the year it was vacant, but no one paid the bill. Now that my name is attached to the property, they are trying to collect the past due amount from me. When Yasha arrived the other day, he was greeted with a deluge of mail about collection agencies and cutoffs.

Such life admin issues are fun enough. This time, however, I have multiple social lives to run on both sides of the Pond. It was months into our original move before I had any friends in London, and we only left town for long holidays when everyone else left as well. I'm not complaining that we have friends both places these days; I cherish that, which is why I am planning multiple playdates and cocktails for London, while doing the typical social stuff for Houston. I don't know what I would do without email and Facebook, or time zone support in iCal.

Domestic Feminism?

2011-12-01T23:25:00.001-06:00

A few days ago, I posted on a discussion in another blog about feminist views of domestic lives. The blogger, Dissenting Justice, contended that feminism has never devalued domesticity. I disagreed. My last comment is long enough to be a standalone post.

One of the foundational tomes of feminism, The Feminine Mystique implied that a women doing housework was like a mindless animal. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement of domestic work, and Betty Friedan spent considerable time in her later years trying to rehabilitate domestic lives which had shockingly, to her at least, been abandoned by women. (I think Jonah Goldberg said it best when describing some sixties advances. They sought to burn out undesirable elements of our culture but couldn’t manage a controlled burn and scorched the landscape instead.)

More recently, Linda Hirshman made quite a fuss about the damage wrought by what she saw as the newly fashionable and immoral “choice feminism,” which is the feminism you describe. Hirshman and some of the older line feminists think that the women of Gen X forward are betraying the cause by wearing high heels, embracing the “lavender menace” (their term, not mine), and staying at home with children. It is immoral for PhD’s to wipe butts. You can see similar themes from rank and file feminists in the pop culture examples I mentioned, and I’ll get you a few links soon as I’m finishing up my post on the movie and will find some examples, I’m sure.

Beyond the blunt Linda Hirshman types, the take home message of even choice feminism is that a domestic life is beneath intelligent, educated women. It condescends, as Chronicler so aptly noted. (I forgot I had another take on domestic work here.)

Look at the lives of modern women. Why do we seek advanced degrees, delay marriage, and childbearing, sometimes to the point of impossibility? Because we are told from an early age to establish our careers, to experience life ourselves, to do our thing before becoming tied down by a child. Why are children often viewed as a burden, pregnancy as punishment? Because they keep us from doing things which are implicitly better. Why did we even coin the term stay at home mom? Because, among other things, the domestic flavor of the word ‘housewife’ was degrading.

From childhood on, we have been told by parents, teachers, and peers that we can be anything we want to be. We were encouraged to get advanced degrees, to do something more than mere domestic or traditionally female anything. To do otherwise was a waste of our life. My dad, hardly a left leaning guy, arranged an intervention when I wanted to be a nurse because it was too domestic. It involved changing “bed pans and bedsheets.” Women who get married before 28 are pitied. Others who might desire to leave work when they have children are paralyzed by worries that they will be bored. Girlfriend interventions are often scheduled then. The idea, the “click” moment of that a domestic life is mind-numbing--its in the water supply. It informs everything modern women do.

In the feminist world, a domestic life is a second rate life, and only among young feminists is it accepted for the sole purpose of child rearing, by the way. (A quick search turned up this illustrative gem.) As the article that so annoyed you took pains to point out, she was home for her children’s nutrition and education. She focused on one of the creative tasks of domestic work, cooking. Had she mentioned anything about being home also to make sure the toilets got cleaned or that she wasn’t too tired to engage in maintenance sex, she would have become a pariah--among women. I should have mentioned "among women."

Giving Up Your Proper Job (bumped)

2011-11-29T00:00:00.000-06:00

A recent post at Dissenting Justice presented an opportunity to review a resignation letter I linked to a while back. I just bumped the post, see below.

The blogger and his commenters did not like that the original article seemed to assume that feminism discourages domesticity. They argued that feminism is about choices. I pointed out that in practice feminism is about making the approved choices. My comment (after hoping Professor Hutchinson doesn't have a character limit):

That is an awfully rosy view of what feminism did; it mentions only the benefits, not the cost. Matchar might not point to any feminist contrary that condemns domesticity, but not because she can't. It is hard give specific examples because the assumptions, for instance, that a woman is wasting her education if she stays at home once she has children, underpin the Mommy Wars. Go to a business function with your husband and mention you are a stay at home mom, and you become invisible. In my experience the worst offenders are older women. The younger ones usually want motherhood advice, though out of the earshot of the other women. Here's a letter of resignation I came across a while back. Note that her parents don't understand and that she worries that others will ignore her as just a mom. That is, she's on defense. We housewives deal with the social repercussions of not taking the approved path all the time.

I recall the angst a while back when data suggested that more women were leaving the workforce to return home. Feminists worried that the younger generation was throwing their achievements away. Surf women's issues blogs and that theme comes up often. If we don't do things as hard and fast as they did, then we are weak-willed sellouts.
Pop culture can provide some good illustrations, too. Because it is fresh right now, take a perusal of any feminist analysis of Bella Swan, the "heroine" of the Twilight books. Her choices to cook for her father, marry her boyfriend, and bear a child have earned her and her creator countless scorn. (Ditto if you try to defend her choices on blogs.) I'd bet you could find a considerable amount of snark for the talents of Martha Stewart, too.
As for the urban bias, I don't see that, but that might have something to do with your Italian men example. After years in London I know a fair few Italian men, none of whom do much traditionally domestic other than the school run.
I see a cooking bias though. Cooking, and gardening for that matter, enjoy a kind of creative domesticity exemption. Artistic things are cool, like power women obsessed with fashion. Try the same analysis with laundry or bum and nose wiping.
Of course, with the higher education bubble about to burst, hand skills are due for a revival, regardless of gender.

I post here because I had a hard time thinking of examples of feminist ire that weren't personal anecdotes. I blanked, not because the examples aren't out there, but because they are everywhere, part of the setting of modern womanhood. I feel certain some of you can think of others. UPDATE: Linda Hirshman, that's who I couldn't remember. There are more comments and an interesting link over at Dissenting Justice, which I hope I can get to today, but domestic life calls for the moment.

But feminist approval is not what caught my attention in the article. [emphasis mine]

As a young stay-at-home mom in Pennsylvania recently told me, “The only way to know what’s in your food is to make it yourself.” A stay-at-home mom in Iowa said she wants to try home schooling her son because she’s worried about the school environment: the cleaning supplies, the food in the cafeteria.
You could say these women are simply homemakers searching for a purpose beyond driving carpool. As work-life balance scholar Joan Williams tells me, extreme domesticity can be a refuge for educated women who’ve left the workforce: “You’ve been trained your entire life in a high-pressure, high-achievement atmosphere, and you need somewhere to put that,” she says. “So you turn your household into an arena for dazzling performance.”
But these extreme DIY-ers are also voicing a fear and frustration that resonates with anyone who worries about salmonella-tainted eggs or BPA in their kid’s sippy cup. Which is to say, most of us. Their domesticity can be seen as an effort to repair on an individual level what isn’t being fixed at a governmental or societal one.

In a coup de grace of the Law of Unintended Consequences, is it not ironic that the forces driving non-conservative women back home are the same forces that stoked fears of food fitness and Silent Springs in order to impose governmental regulations, which young woman see to be failing and seek to remedy with individual initiative?

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. Edmund Burke

Here is my original post:

I've mentioned the Mommy Wars, more than once or even twice, and the escalation of the work of motherhood in part because women feel that if we left such Proper Jobs then we must turn motherhood into a worklike endeavor. This has been on my mind a bit as a spate of moms in my set have recently left their Proper Jobs. (Suzanne Powers in particular is funny because she left her Proper Job but was so accomplished that she's now on several boards of directors. In a mere 5 days I got texts from Paris, New York, Amsterdam. The last one joked, "This is me, not working.") While surfing the expat/mommy blogsphere today, I came across this letter of resignation, and I thought I'd post it. I stole the "Proper Job" name from this Plan B lady. Brits come up with better names for things than we do.

The Elf on the Shelf: how he moves around

2011-11-28T17:46:00.001-06:00

It is time for Charlie, our elf, to start his nightly trip to and from the North Pole to check up on the children. My children are old enough to ask many questions about Charlie, including how he gets there and back each night. Answering "magic" doesn't have the same impact this year. I've figured out how Charlie moves around so quickly, Santa too for that matter. Remember the potential scientific discovery from a few months ago about neutrinos, which apparently moved faster than the speed of light and appeared to arrive at their destination before they left their origin? Well, that's how the Santa magic works. Granted the details of complex physics theories are a bit over the head of most kids, but we can tell them that we too wondered for years how Santa did it, and now scientists might have figured out a bit of his secret.

Of course, for me, this supposes that I remember to move Charlie. If I forget then I have to explain why he came back to the same spot, thought perhaps neutrino theory could explain that as well. I don't know what I'm going to do about traveling though. This year I'm taking the older kids to see friends in London for a week and leaving the Things with my mother. Where should Charlie go?

State of play for the GOP

2011-11-28T12:50:00.000-06:00

Nose back to the grindstone after the Thanksgiving weekend. Sadly, due to Romney's only hope--front loading the primary calendar--there will be no break from political news, though after this I'm going to write about a bunch of Something Else. Even I have politics fatigue. We have had 11--eleven--GOP debates. The good news is the eventual candidate will be well prepared come time to debate Obama. Each would be a stronger candidate, if only for the practice.

Admittedly, the media now has 11 debates worth of gaffes and other footage to use against the eventual nominee in the general. There is a silver lining, however. We have four years worth of counter examples of Obama's gaffes and are ready to expose the hypocrisy when the attacks on our nominee start up in the general.

Note that is volume 1. He's so bad off message that his teleprompter has a blog. I can't imagine that Obama will do well in debates against the GOP nominee.

As of now, I'm betting on Newt, Perry, or Romney--in that order, which I will explain in a sec--to get the nod. In a debate, Obama will get chewed up and spit out by Newt and would probably come off as less in command than Romney. Perry has such a reputation for debate disasters, any Obama misstep in a debate with Perry should finally puncture Obama's inflated reputation for intelligence. Obama also has a tendency to get flustered and brusque when pressed off prompter. In a Newt or Perry battle Obama could easily come off as an elitist jerk. (Romeny is too robotic to provide enough of a contrast on that.) Obama is an elitist jerk, but the media has done an excellent job hiding the decline on that as well.

As for my nomination predictions, Perry has messed up enough that he is no longer in control of his own fate, though he is still more viable than most think. Quick recap for non-political junkies, the New Hampshire Union Leader endorsement is important because it can give momentum to a candidate in the NH primary, which itself is important because it is early and can provide momentum in the other primaries. In the flurry of coverage over the New Hampshire Union Leader endorsement, note this:

In an interview on CNN, Union Leader editor page editor Andrew Cline said the paper narrowed down the candidates to a choice between Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

The conventional wisdom held that Romney will take NH, so the endorsement of Newt was a surprise. But the board's decision came down to Gingrich and Perry. Romney wasn't in the final analysis. If Newt stumbles, eyes will return to Perry. He has rehabilitated himself enough--he's rolling out positions that are easily the most consistent with the desires of the conservative base. His salesman ship is getting better, too.

Which is worse, anyway, good policies with poor advertising or horrible policies with deceptive advertising? Or, how smart should a president be? The world is full of politicians who excel at the latter, which of course explains much of the state of the world. Of course we want good policies with good advertising, but that isn't on offer this time.

Newt is in the strongest position for the nomination at this moment. He still has much baggage to carry, and it is a tad ironic that he has emerged as the not-Romney when he is similar to Romney. It is also strange to see friends who complained that Perry was too soft on illegal immigration flock to Newt with some of his ideas on immigration, but it will be fun to watch him debate Obama. I don't think that's a great reason to nominate him, which is why I'm still pitching for Perry. But Newt beats Romney. I think that we trust him more, if only to have more conservative instincts that we think Romney lacks. "But the next time a think tank or a blue-ribbon commission comes up with an idea this bad, can we trust President Romney to reject it?"

Romeny's only hope is the primary calendar. Romney has put much effort into early primaries of states he can win, which is why Christmas will not bring a break from politics. It might pay off, with early wins giving him enough momentum to finally break through his ceiling of support. I hope not, as a candidacy founded on the primary calendar is even worse than one founded on debate skills. It is possible, though.

For the moment though, I just want to stop thinking about it.

Reverse Culture Shock: Thanksgiving

2011-11-27T22:04:00.001-06:00

After 5 years in the UK, Thanksgiving had become just another day. I forgot what it felt like. I was unpleasantly shocked that the older children only went to school on Monday and Tuesday last week. When I was a kid, school was only out on Thursday and Friday. I naively drove the Things to nursery school on Tuesday morning, only to come upon an empty parking lot and dark building. I simply didn't consider that the Things would not have school for the entire week. I didn't even check the school schedule.

Moreso than any other holiday, because it is more universal than any of the other holidays, Thanksgiving is quiet outside of homes. Little is open. Most everything shuts down.

Yasha and I had made the wise decision to go to family for the holiday and, therefore, only had to cook pies and bring wine. If I had done the whole meal at my house, I might have cracked.

I mentioned on FB that my head wasn't in the holiday. A friend replied that a good dose of turkey should help. It did. Actually, the mere smell of turkey and stuffing did it. I walked into Sparkle's house and what Thanksgiving felt like came back to me.

Reminds me of a favorite quote of mine, which I use as my iPhone signature because I like the touch of irony:

Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible, it should be, um, smelly. Giles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Funnily enough, Buffy came up in my quest for the feel of Thanksgiving. The episode "Pangs" is certainly one of the funniest TV Thanksgiving episodes of all time. It contains this little gem:

Devil Squash and a pumpkin on a dining room table.

Thanksgiving, the ritual sacrifice, is now finished. The kids head back to school tomorrow (that's something to give thanks for) and I have composted my "devil squash" (That explains why I could never find decorative gourds in the UK. They don't appreciate them.) Now I can think about Christmas. This is the first time in 5 years I can decorate before the 20th. So I did it this weekend--except for the tree. I try to put that up close to Christmas so it will last through the Twelfth Night. Needless to say given the continuing move repercussions, I am pathetically underprepared for Christmas this year. That's before I'm taking Christopher Robin and Cupcake to London in two weeks. I think another relaxed Christmas is in the offing.

A parent review of Hill House International Junior School, London, England

2011-11-23T18:46:00.001-06:00

As of late November, London is finishing up assessment season, when children the ripe age of 4 have interviews for private, i.e. not state run, primary schools. Offers come quickly, as do decision deadlines. So while few in the US read blogs over Thanksgiving week, I offer this parent review of Hill House International Junior school in Chelsea.

The short take: We moved back to Houston because our entire family, both sides, lives here. Yet despite such significant ties, every day I question whether I have done the right thing by my children in moving home and leaving Hill House. I knew the school was a rare gem while I was there. I really had no idea how much of an oasis from modern parenting chaos it was until I had to go somewhere else.

HH is a 4 to 11 or 13 year old school for boys and girls located in Chelsea. When you see large groups of school kids in gold jumpers all over Chelsea, that’s HH. (I’ll comment on the uniform at the end.) Ask any HH family why they chose HH, and 9 of 10 will answer something about the school tour.

Admissions

To put a child on the list, parents must take a tour of the school. (Once on the list the children have an orientation day the term before entry. It isn’t a formal assessment, but a check that the 4 year old is socially ready for school.) Tours are given on weekdays at 8:30. When parents arrive at the school, they are greeted by an assortment of 13 year old boys, the eldest in the school. (Girls can stay until 13 as well, but most secondary schools for girls in England start at 11, so the eldest class usually has only a few girls, if any.) The 13 year olds give the tours. What struck most of us about these tours was the boys’ composure, competence, and confidence in speaking with adults. Most of us were sold in that encounter, reasoning that if the school knew to teach those kinds of life skills, then the rest was details.

With that fact, a significant advantage of HH emerges: it is self selecting for a certain type of parent. Choose the label, non-Tiger, slacker, free range, old fashioned, fans of The Hurried Child, Under Pressure, and Three-Martini Playdate, HH is full of families that do not buy into the modern parenting frenzy, who saw more value in the boys’ composure than claims of rigorous academic instruction. True, HH has Tiger Moms, but they are the exception, not the rule. There are over scheduled children, but they still aren’t as over scheduled as children in other schools. In a way, HH kind of immunizes parents against the frenzies of modern parenthood because of the school’s old fashioned attitude about education and the high concentration of parents who resist.

HH Personality

The school was stared in the early ‘50s by Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Townend, who by legend was a stubborn guy about education.

From the start Townend was determined that his new venture should not become just another preparatory school, keener on exam results than on development of character. Autocratic and unorthodox, his personal philosophy pervaded Hill House which, while it succeeded in sending children on to well-known senior schools, became most renowned for its emphasis on good manners, self-discipline and the happiness of its pupils.

This was not the school that tried new-math because merely because it was innovative. I have visions of the Colonel scoffing as each new educational fad emerged. A rumored statement of the Colonel’s regarding the modern fad for pushing early academics, “What good is it to teach a child to read if they drown on their summer holiday?” Swimming was a weekly activity. Reading was taught, but not pushed.

Another modern trend of questionable value is parental involvement in the class room. That topic will require its own post, but parental involvement in the classroom has some drawbacks not commonly acknowledged. Those shortcomings range from children behaving differently when their parents are present to parents gossiping about children to parents trying to control the classroom. In some circumstances it can be great, but when a school boasts about high parent classroom involvement, that isn’t always a good sign. No matter, because HH did not buy into that fad.

The reception headmistress, Mrs. Bright, trains the parents. We are told if the school needs us, they will call us. If we need the school, we may call the school. After a week or so transition, we are to kiss the children goodbye at the door and they are to greet Mrs. Bright and enter the building. At first, parents’ annoyance is common. ‘What are they eating at lunch?’ ‘But I need to help them put their stuff away and get settled.‘ In short order though, the children eat their lunches without much compliant (HH serves what it serves. If the children are hungry, they learn not to be picky.) They go into class happily with their friends; they seem to make friends quickly, in fact. Soon moms note that the children seem more confident and self-sufficient. The annoyance subsides.

That said, I will admit that HH does not excel at preemptive parent communication. The school certainly calls if there is a problem, but doesn’t do anything in the way of expectation management of the parents. For the record, I found the school helpful whenever I did call. Furthermore, having returned to the US where I receive 15 page newsletters each week and more opportunities for volunteering than I care to count, I desperately miss HH. The children were closer and more self sufficient for the lack of parent involvement in the classroom. (Again, I plan on addressing the merits of parent involvement in the classroom in a separate post, but the important fact here is that HH parents are typically involved at home. This is not a situation of completely uninvolved parents.)

The school facilities aren’t shiny, spacious, or anything else coveted by modern parenting attitudes. Those fancy electric white boards that populate modern private schools? HH has not the desire nor space for such gadgets. I can’t imagine the Colonel nor his wife and children, who now run the school, seeing much value in having fancy teaching tools in every classroom. The school did recently refurbish a historical building which has some nice computer stations amongst recital and gathering areas, but the school doesn’t see much value in pushing young children with computer learning. Children don’t need computers before they can type.

HH throws its resources at keeping their teaching staff and so, compared to other schools, have low teacher turnover. For example, last year they were about to lose a fabulous husband and wife team. They made them an offer too good to refuse. The school also has more male teachers. (In a significant advantage for the UK, there are still a good number of men in primary school teaching. HH has even more than the UK average, I’d bet.) For the early years, the male teachers are in sports and games, but in year 3 and 4 the children start going to classes taught by specialists, which results in both male and female teachers. For those of us with boys, this is most welcome.

A HH Education

In the early years, HH focuses on things like socialization, music, French, art, and swimming. HH teaches maths and reading and handwriting from Reception, but those subjects are not pushed until Year 4, when children are 9 rising 10. Homework exists, but until Year 3 homework is little more than the ubiquitous reading book. At the end of year 3, when the children are 8, they are tested for streaming, division into levels. Prior to then, they are taught all together, regardless of level or sex. In Year 4 the children are streamed in certain subjects according to ability. I think they start separating some classes by sex sometime in Year 5. The upshot of all of this, is that the school doesn’t get heavily academic until the children are 9.

Because of the later academic push and the lack of assessment and resulting non-selective admissions, many of us Hill House moms noted that HH had a lesser reputation. (We mothers also suspected that the lesser reputation might have something to do with the large number of expats and staff children who attended the school. Diversity is a fact, not a slogan, at HH and parts of British culture are more xenophobic than most Americans understand.) I heard one nursery head tell a parent that it was not a proper school. My husband heard the same rumors when asking around after I had informed him that I found the perfect school. He was concerned and asked for supporting arguments. (Fun with lawyer couples, no?) About that time, I received the admissions results for the exiting students. Yasha showed this list to a few British lawyers and was quickly told by some impressed lawyers, ‘With those admissions and scholarships, your kids will do fine.’

When I turned down one of the more popular schools in the area, I must say I did a gut check. I was banking my children’s early education on my ideas about later academics. From my early motherhood/parenting theory research days I remember that Socrates wrote that you shouldn’t teach a child to read until they are 10, that before 10 one should teach arts and athletics. (I am a product of my generation in that I consulted books rather than my grandmother, but at least they were books that mentors such as Maverick and Sherri suggested to me.) I balked the first time I read that 10 year old rule, came to understand it better in early childhood, and, by the time I found HH, was shocked and relieved to have found a school that wasn't an early education hot house. I’ve never regretted my decision to send the children to HH. My children’s performance has never given me cause to doubt.

About that uniform: the gold jumper

Everyone in Chelsea has seen the jumper. The uniform has taken some significant ribbing over the years, as it has never changed. It is a high gauge knit wool jumper in mustard yellow. It is paired with wide wale maroon corduroy knickers...and a hunter green puff coat with bright yellow lining. I call it the color blind golfer circa 1948 outfit. I hated buying it. The uniform guy says that the Italian mothers weep when their children are fitted.

But a funny thing happened in my years at HH. The uniform is wash and wear. No ironing required, which is not at all standard in London where some places require starched shirts and ties for 4 year olds. The uniform is easy to play in, or so the children tell us. A fair few do cut the knee elastic in the knickers and the complain about the itchy jumper until the weather turns cold enough to appreciate the warmth it affords.

I once asked Christopher Robin what his favorite part of the uniform was--the kid was trying to pack his entire HH wardrobe for the move to Houston. He answered, “my gold jumper.” I had already been taken in by the ease of the uniform, but that made me love it more. When I returned to London, sighting the see of gold jumpers made my heart ache.

Turns out, I love that uniform.

UPDATE: For my the Americans who must leave HH for home, beware. The reverse culture shock for motherhood is stunning.

Rick Perry is a meerkat

2011-11-23T13:34:00.001-06:00

Tim Stanley is the sort of know-it-all British intellectual that drives me to distraction. Here is his analysis of the recent GOP debate. Note the irony of a Brit sounding hopeful that the likes of Ron Paul is finally getting his due attention from the media. In fact, Paul has received proportionally more attention from the media than he deserves based upon his popularity in the GOP base. He is not exceedingly popular because he is an isolationist, i.e. one of those who wants America to pack up and go home from everywhere leaving everyone else to sort out their own messes and pay for their own defense, something the British government could not hope to afford these days.

But that irony was not what boiled my blood. This did:

Whenever Perry is being asked a question he doesn’t know the answer to, he does what a meerkat does: he stands up very tall and tries to pretend he’s the tallest thing on the landscape in the hope that his predator will get the frights and run away. Alas, it didn’t work and he was forced to answer a tough question on Iran's nuclear ambitions. According to Perry, the US can’t deal with Iran in isolation. You see, “There is an area over there of all of them working together” [one might call it, "the Middle East"], and if we’re going to tackle Iran as a nuclear threat then “we need to bring Syria into the mix.” His logic seemed to be that the only way to safeguard the world against the Shiite theocracy of Iran was to launch a war against the Sunni-dominated secular dictatorship of Syria. But there’s no point trying to make sense of what Rick Perry says, because there’s always a slim chance that he thinks Persia and Syria are two of the Kardashian sisters.

To start, imagine the outrage if the NYT dared such bald insults and dripping condescension at a prominent British politician. (Not reporters throwing insults, but related here.) Again, Americans merely have the reputation for being boorish, rude, and insulting while the accusers actually are boorish, rude, and insulting. (Did you see that a Russian reporter flicked off Obama?) But what really boils my blood is this: how many years have we spent hearing that Americans are too cowboy, too go it alone? Are we not incessantly faulted for not consulting allies, not respecting regional dynamics and not using diplomacy? Yet, now Rick Perry is an idiot for pointing out that there are complicated regional dynamics in the Middle East that we must respect and use in order to restrain a nearly nuclear Iran?

Would Mr. Stanley prefer that America go into Iran with guns blazing to constrain their nuclear ambitions? Or is Mr. Stanley more of the ostrich type who thinks that a nuclear Iran isn't the threat it is made out to be? What exactly is the idiocy in Perry's position on Iran's nuclear ambitions? Is it that America should launch a war on the Sunni-dominated secular dictatorship of Syria? That is the best answer, but note that it wasn't Perry's position. It is what Mr. Stanley imagines Perry's position to be.

Americans who are paying attention have long grow weary of such schizophrenic criticism. I don't want the press of the world to go into too much shock when it becomes evident that this time, a great many Americans don't give a damn about whom the rest of the world thinks we should elect. Their credibility is shot.

The old college try

2011-11-20T22:34:00.001-06:00

So I tried out the new Blogger dynamic formats. I liked them a bit, but the few readers who sent feedback were not impressed. This week I realized that I only really liked that the new formats showed more posts at a glance. Since I write about such different topics, I thought it would help if new viewers could see posts beyond the few clustered on top, especially since those clusters are often political. I think it did--my page views spiked significantly--but I can easily recreate that effect with page jumps on my posts. By reverting, I also can get back all the gadget functionality, mainly the ability to have snippets of posts on my blogrolls. It makes people more likely to jump somewhere else if they have an idea of what the site has on offer, otherwise Sandbox, with her cool blog name, will monopolize the jumps.
I've some more tweaking to do, but that will be easier in the traditional blog formats.

Boots

2011-11-15T13:22:00.001-06:00

I am a slacker Texan. I haven’t had a pair of cowboy boots since I was a kid. It is hot in Houston, and I don’t live on a ranch, so sandals were my footwear of choice. Then in 5 years in London, a place that depends on boots, I never bought a pair. I planned to about the time I got pregnant with the twins, but let’s just say that donning cowboy boots while pregnant is not easy. Since that pregnancy, my already muscular calves will not fit into most boot shafts. I cannot buy off the shelf. So for my 40th, my husband has treated me to a pair of custom boots.

Dear Yasha did his research, too. I was recently measured for a pair of RJ Boots, by Rocky Carroll. In the custom boot world, he is an artist. I am assured that these boots will fit me like socks. (That's what Gore told him about his boots.)

Like many good things in Texas, these boots come out of a cluttered hole in the wall of a shop.* Worse, leather preservative doesn’t smell too pleasant, kinda like urine. Rocky himself has a bit of that artist eccentricity. You never know what he might say (though I certainly didn’t mind when he expressed shock that I was 40.) With his clientele he can’t avoid name dropping. He loves making boots and he has made pairs for a long list of world leaders and celebrities, including 7 of the last 8 US Presidents and Queen Elizabeth. Clinton sold one of his pairs at a charity auction (for 6 figures!), so RJ replaced them. He did some for Elizabeth Taylor, and a slew of other actors I can’t recall. Rick Perry’s boots with “Faith” and “Justice” on them, those are RJ Boots. Texans remember the iconic Governor Ann Richards Texas Monthly shoot with the black boots and the motorcycle; those were RJ Boots. He wants to do a pair for Princess Katherine, just because he really likes her. He thinks she is the real deal. So, in case she is reading…

Me, I got a pair of what he called the prettiest boots he makes. (Yasha, says he could blindfold me in a room of whatever, and I would pick the finest, most complicated, most expensive...) It just so happens that I chose a leather that he had recently used to make a pair for George W. Bush. He’s going to use the other half of that hide for my boots. WooHoo! Bragging rights! I've got Bush boots! My husband says I’m such a groupie.

RJ couldn’t promise, but he’s going to try to have my Bush boots finished before I head to London in December.

*Burger joints are particularly prone to this hole in the wall truth. The best burgers in town come from Langford Grocery, which is a converted 4 car garage just outside downtown. There’s another place in an RV under highway 59 that is supposed to be fabulous. If I recall, Texas Monthly has a series on the best burger joints, which has a whole lot of holes in the wall.

The Wedding Night

2011-11-15T13:20:00.001-06:00

So the new Twilight movie opens tonight. I can’t see it until Monday at the earliest, but I have a few pre-release comments, which aren't really about the movie.

The publicity push for the movie has used the fact that the stars are real life lovers to stoke anticipation for the film, which of course has the first sex scene. A couple of things interest me about this. First, the film had to remain PG-13. Therefore, the scene might bomb if they don’t do ‘a bare shoulder is sexier than two naked bodies in bed’ right; it is true, but not easy to do. The fear that the scene will bomb for tameness is probably the reason that they are pushing the ‘Rob and Kristen got carried away’ story. UPDATE: still haven't seen the flick, but did just see on Twitter that the DVD release might have more footage of the honeymoon, when rating isn't such an issue. Stoking DVD sales much?

That makes me wonder, is it more awkward for actors to do love scenes with their actual lovers than with just their co-star? Of course there are the obvious weird situations, the weirdest of which must be having your husband direct you in an explicit love scene with one of your best friends. I suppose it is easier and more comfortable in the actual filming not to have your mere friend or acquaintance running their hands all over you. After the filming though, wouldn’t a love scene between actual lovers feel more like an invasion of privacy?

That gets me to my last wonder. Kristen Stewart is notoriously private about her love life. One would think that she must be fuming at using her love life to stoke demand for the film. My read is that she isn’t easily intimidated. So why hasn’t Kristen blown up about this?

I have a hunch that she’s making a little lemonade. With her privacy defenses, she left open constant speculation that Rob, teeny bopper eye candy, was a free agent, or poorly treated, etc. She is taking advantage of this less than desirable situation to tell the women of the world that Mr. Pattinson is not, in fact, a free agent. He is hers, and he is well cared for. That’s what I would have done...might have actually done, with completely different details, of course.

Sorry for the TMI, but I just have this Kristen Stewart reaction. You know how a certain smell can vividly bring back memories from years past? Whenever I read a Kristen Stewart interview, I can remember what my head felt like when I was 20. I don’t know why as I seem to have little in common with the young woman. She just reminds me of my 20something self.

Because we Texans work best under pressure

2011-11-14T11:26:00.001-06:00

I know that many of you wondered how I, or anyone else for that matter, could support Rick Perry for President. Finally, the Perry we knew was there has shown up to the debates. (If he'd shown up earlier, this would have been too easy. But easy is rarely in the cards, no?)
You can watch the whole thing if you like, but RedState does have a good summary.

Rick Perry’s debate gaffe last week will go in the annals of political history as one of the most embarrassing gaffes on a Presidential primary debate stage. His recovery the next day will be studied by future campaigns as the textbook example of damage control. His Saturday night debate performance in South Carolina gets him the complete redemption he needs.

If nothing else pay attention to one of the secrets of Texas's success, zero based budgeting, which Perry explained during the debate. Many people upon learning about what it is are surprised that this isn't how governments do budgets. It is so common sense that most lay people assume it is how budgets are done, by figuring out what you've got and then dividing it up.

Texas is an exception though. Most governments do baseline budgeting, figuring out what to spend based upon what was spent the year before with little regard for whether or not the government actually has the funds. This is why discussions about "cuts" are so complicated. Most people think of a budget cut as spending less than the previous budget cycle. Those are cuts, but so are rate of increase cuts, i.e. if the budget for the Department of Energy in 2010 was 10 million with a yearly increase of 10%, then a budget increase for 2011 of 5% is a "cut" in the political parlance, even though the amount distributed to the DoE in 2011 was more than in 2010. When liberals complain of draconian cuts while conservatives complain of exploding budgets, most of the time, this slight of hand is what they are arguing about.

Tales from Pop Radio

2011-11-14T09:35:00.001-06:00

I only listen to the radio in the car. Since I never drove in London, I lost touch with pop music. I did stream KGSR sometimes (the best music radio station in the world and it has live streaming), but otherwise I was cut off from new music. You might think that a blessing, but I like doing pop culture analysis. Therefore, a few random observations from a few months in the car.

Lady GaGa has a better voice than Madonna, though her fans, or a small number of her fans, lack qualities to be desired. Regardless of their insults to Adele, however, voice-wise she can mop the floor with Lady GaGa. The attacks make me like her more frankly. I first found Adele on my KGSR stream about a year ago. I had no idea she was so popular over here. She’s beautiful, confident, and pure talent. What is not to like?

Katy Perry’s Friday might be the most morally vacant song I have ever heard. It is a hard call with the also popular Pumped Up Kicks (see comment 'I used to think this was a song about shoes!'), but I think she inches it out because Friday speaks to ordinary people, not sick psychopaths.

The first time I heard it, Rebecca Black’s Friday popped into my head. From the video it seems that she intended the comparison. Rebecca Black is the friend that does the makeover:

Perry’s Friday is just as vapid, complete with the “TGIF’ chant to match the days of the week recital. Only Perry’s Friday is not at all innocent. It aspires to the traditional party girl, Girl Power, ‘do it because it feels good’ meme. Alanis Morissette’s You Learn is my favorite of this meme because it recognizes that ‘to learn’ is why mistakes are valuable. ("Why do we fall, Master Wayne?” Whoops. Crossing the pop culture streams.) P!nk’s Bad Influence looses the value of learning from mistakes but at least sees some value in occasionally cutting loose. That is, in both of those songs, and most others in the meme, the mistakes have some sort of purpose towards good. But in Perry’s Friday, an “epic fail” is just what you do on Friday. Next Friday you will “do it all over again.” There is no sense of consequence. There is no sense of redemption. It is supposed to be an upbeat party song, but it is stunningly depressing, the mundane consequences of Nietzsche’s philosophy reduced to a peppy beat. UPDATE: I first saw the video when writing this post. I've had a day to digest the video and now wonder if Perry intends to endorse the moral vacancy or damn it. My guess is the former, but I don't know enough about Perry to be sure.

There is a country song for everything, and I do mean everything. There’s home grown tomatoes (one of only two things that money can’t buy) and crime and punishment (I thought of linking to that song over the summer, but that is the sort of humor conservatives aren’t permitted to do. Willie himself is liberal, and Toby Keith has only donated to a Republican recently). Recently we have everything from breast cancer to red Solo cups (the plastic disposable cups? Yep. Those are the ones.) Now, I am proud to present to my British audience and Texpat, who is homesick, with Camouflage:

You can blend in in the country/you can stand out in the fashion world/be invisible to a white tail/and irresistible to a redneck girl

It's right up there with Ra Ra Rasputin. You need the lyrics for full effect:

Kevin wasn't really all that popular in school
But I remember well when I thought that guy is pretty cool
He pulled into the parking lot and everybody cheered
Because he had gone and painted his Chevy Cavalier

Camouflage
Camouflage it disappears when it pulls out of his garage
Camouflage-Camouflage

I asked Penny to the prom and her mom knew how to sew
so she made a matching tux and gown from Duckline Mossy Oak
We took pictures in the backyard before we went to the dance
And the only thing you can see is our faces and our hands

Camouflage, Camouflage
Camouflage you seen have seen the way it popped with her corsage
Camouflage, Camouflage, ain't nothing that doesn't go with Camouflage

You can blend in in the country
you can stand out in the fashion world
being invisible to a white tail and irresistible to redneck girl

Camouflage, Camouflage
Oh you're my favorite color Camouflage

You can blend in in the country
you can stand out in the fashion world
being invisible to a white tail and irresistible to redneck girl

Well the stars and bars offends some folks and I guess I see why
nowadays theres still a way to show your southern pride
the only thing is patriotic as the old red white and blue
is green and gray and black and brown and tan all over too

Camouflage, Camouflage
designed by mother nature and by God
Camouflage, Camouflage
Oh you're my favorite color Camouflage

Healthcare Links

2011-11-12T08:20:00.000-06:00

I'm bumping this post up for the Canadian expats I met at dinner last night. The kids were at Kids' Night Out while I was at Berryhills typing away. One of those cross table conversations with strangers so common in America popped up. I had my first experience of having someone I did not know recognize my blog. Of course, it wasn't in the "good" way as I don't think her friend follows me because she is like minded. She certainly didn't approve. That's fine by me as I started this blog in part to present the conservative position to the opposition, who will never stumble upon a principled conservative position in the traditional media. I'm actually happier to hear that someone who disagrees with me reads this stuff.

Anyway, their talk turned to the horribleness of American healthcare and specifically outcome statistics. I had to go get the children and they did not want a cross table debate anyway, so I mentioned on leaving that I had some posts on point for the other side. The statistical stuff is below, health and longevity. I have other discussions on healthcare here and here. (I need to beef up that Myth of Free Healthcare post, as the examples are snowballing. Most recently in the news was maternity care. As for this, I've seen it in action regarding breast cancer, almost 6 months from lump to lumpectomy and that is with a private consult to speed things along.)

If my dinner partners are so inclined, I thought I'd put this stuff up front so they don't have to go looking for it.

UNPACKING STATISTICS
One of the recurring themes around here is that liberals have the advantage of positions you can put on a bumper sticker, that is, their position usually sounds better at first glance. Conservatives on the other hand usually have to delve into deeper analysis, point out logical fallacies, analyze history and the law of unintended consequences, etc. Conservatives can't stick such arguments on a bumper sticker, or even in a headline. In the past week, I've dealt with a few prime examples.

Unions and Education
I'll start with Paul Krugman's article showing that the 5 states with the lowest union membership have the lowest standardized test scores. He concludes that union organization means better education. Sounds logical, no? Almost the opposite, however, is true. Union membership correlates with poorer performance on standardized tests across the board.

Summarizing Iowahawk: If you check out Krugman's top five and bottom five lists, and if you are familiar with American demographics, you will notice that the states with the highest test scores are the ones with the lowest minority population, specifically black and hispanic populations. The states with the lowest test scores, are the ones with the highest minority populations. Lower standardized test scores, in the black population in particular, is a chronic problem in the US. The union states have higher average test scores because they have fewer minorities. Furthermore, if you unpack the statistics, break them down by ethnicity, you will find that the non-union state minorities have better test scores than their union state counterparts, i.e. blacks in Texas have better test scores than blacks in Vermont. But by using total averages, elites in states like New York and Vermont can tell themselves that their policies work, when in fact they have left their minorities to flounder. The higher test scores of whites simply hide the problem in the average.

Iowahawk got a spike in traffic and counter analysis on that post. His rebuttal is here. A sampling, which ties into my earlier discussion about higher education:

As others have noted participation rates for SAT and ACT vary widely by state, and there is a negative correlation between a state's test participation rate and its average score. Case in point: Maine is the worst scoring state on the SAT. Whuh-uhhh? Lily-white Maine? The principal reason is that SAT testing is compulsory for Maine HS graduates, college-bound or not. In most all other states SAT is optional; in Iowa (ranked #1) only 3% of graduates took it. Similarly there are a number of states where ACT is compulsory (CO, IL, KY, MI, TN, WY) and they are, unsurprisingly, near the bottom.

The point here is that college board exams are sometimes optional tests taken by college-bound seniors, sometimes a standard requirement for anyone graduating high school. This also begs the question - what about all those high school graduates who aren't immediately going to college, and haven't been board tested? Are they going to a job? The military? How well are they prepared educationally for those careers? Public elementary and secondary schools educate all kinds of students, only about half of whom go on immediately to 4 year colleges. The ACT and SAT only give a weak indicator for a portion of those public school graduates.

Income Inequality
While the left is content to cover such test score disparity, they often complain about income disparity. A friend linked to these charts on income disparity from Mother Jones. Again, the left lumps all of the data together, averages it out, and jumps to a conclusion. Specifically, income disparity studies usually do not differentiate between such things as households of different sizes, ages of household members, number of household members employed, or cost of living in different areas. (For more, start here.) They compare an income of $50,000 for a single 28 year old living in Dallas to an income of $400,000 for a family of 4, adults in 40s and children under 10, living in New York City. Money wise, the twenty-something in Dallas probably has the better end of the deal even though their is a wide gap in income. Throw in other income gaps, for instance, the newly employed graduate or the retired vs someone in their late 40s and at the peak of their wage earning, and you can see how you will always see an income gap. You can also start to appreciate that just equalizing income disparity isn't a solution because specific problems hidden in the aggregate numbers will get covered up in the averages.

Health and Longevity
Same too for longevity comparisons. On healthcare the left often points to the fact that US longevity rates are not sufficiently better than rates in other countries given money spent on healthcare. Once again they lump all the data together and, as with the standardized test scores, they "rely" on misfortune in the black population too keep the averages down. First, longevity numbers are not simple to work with. Unpacking the longevity numbers in this instance means recognizing that not all deaths are related to healthcare. Auto deaths and crime related deaths come to mind. In fact, the US has higher auto fatalities and a higher homicide rate, both especially among youths, weighing down longevity numbers. We have more auto deaths because we have more cars and we drive more places. We have higher homicide rates in part because black youths have extremely high homicide rates. When you control the longevity numbers for auto deaths and homicide, however, the US leaps back to the top. A similar post for Jonah Goldberg and an excerpt from one of the links in Jonah's post:

In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don’t die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country.

And if we measure a health-care system by how well it serves its sick citizens, American medicine excels. Five-year cancer survival rates bear this out. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England—a striking variation.

More analysis and links here.

Besides the illusionary effects of lumping numbers together, the saddest pattern to emerge: the problems, largely ignored, of the US black community.

Some other sets of commonly misread statistics:
The obesity epidemic that isn't an epidemic. Back in 2000, we switched to BMI and moved the cutoff measurement. Also note in that link that not all countries have the same definitions of overweight, so comparing statistics is often comparing apples and oranges.
Abortion data. It is hard to read much into the data because it often is not available.

Oh, and I almost forgot to explain my use of the term "black". Black vs African-American is a complicated issue for Americans. When you live outside the US, you realize black is the only term that works. For Americans, the preferred, read PC, term is "African-American". Problem is it only works for Americans. For instance, there was is a painful exchange from the with an American newscaster repeatedly calling a British black athlete "African-American". Then, when living in a place like London, you see other potential problems. Could an Egyptian in the US call himself African-American? I doubt it even though he is an African-American in the literal sense. How about a South African in America? Most of the South Africans I know over here are white, and given the common knowledge of apartheid, I am certain that a white South African couldn't acceptably call themselves African-American in the states. For such reasons, I have gotten used to the British way of calling people who are black, black. The term African-American just doesn't work well.

In Flanders Fields

2011-11-11T07:29:00.001-06:00

In the US we know, vaguely, of November 11th as Veteran's Day, which follows the Marine Corps birthday by a day. Sadly, it isn't much noticed. Memorial Day in May is bigger in the national consciousness.

In the UK Remembrance Sunday is held the closest Sunday to November 11th, Armistice Day. The UK does it right. Starting November 1st, poppy sellers appear everywhere, like Salvation Army Santas. For a pound or more donation to the pensioners' funds (Here's the link to the USO), you get a red poppy to wear for the next few weeks. Bright red poppies are everywhere in early November as a bright and silent reminder of those who have given all. The poppy symbol comes from the poem In Flanders Fields:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Apparently it was an American professor, who started using silk poppies to remember the WWI dead. She wrote a poem in response, We Shall Keep the Faith:

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,

Sleep sweet - to rise anew!

We caught the torch you threw

And holding high, we keep the Faith

With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies,

But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead

In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red

We wear in honor of our dead.

Fear not that ye have died for naught;

We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought

In Flanders Fields.

In Flanders Fields we fought.

I am sad that we do not do the poppies in the US. Even if not spurred on by Christopher Robin, which given how much he has been awed by the story behind the poppy I'm sure he will insist, but I will forever do Veteran's Day the UK way, with poppies in November.

UPDATE on 11.11.11: I am failing in my mission to return the poppies to the US. I've got a silk poppy wreath, and one for my car. Christopher Robin is reading the poem to his class today. Maybe I will send to Cupcake's teacher as well. Anyway, I will do better next year. Perhaps I will talk to the USO...

A Trade Proposal

2011-11-10T18:42:00.001-06:00

A dispatch from Yasha to cheer his wife:

Skill as a debater is like sex in marriage: on the whole, it isn't necessary to be good at it, but if you're terrible, it makes it hard to close the sale, so to speak. Jonah is right here: if we were sold already, Perry's performance wouldn't matter much. But the polls indicate we were not sold on him - witness the steep gain when he got in and the equally steep decline as he stunk up the first few debates (or, to be more accurate, as the media narrative on Perry stinking up the first debates took hold; he actually wasn't that bad, particularly when you consider some of the historically bad debates there have been (Biden anyone? Ford? Gore in 2004?)).

That does not mean, however, that Perry couldn't win the general if he were to become the nom. That leads to the second point: the general is about winning two groups of people - the conservatives and enough of the independents to get to 271. The electoral math favors us, too, as we need fewer of the Indies to win than the left does. In an election against an incumbent, all we need is someone who won't scare the horses. If the incumbent is doing even fair, he wins; if not, we just have to qualify. Hence, Ron Paul is out, Bachman is iffy, but Perry, Romney and Gingrich all win.

So, the logical strategy for a conservative in this election cycle is this: (1) vote for the most conservative, non-loopy or -hopeless candidate in the bunch; and (2) vote for the Republican nominee in the general.

Perry has a strong claim on that primary vote under this analysis. Gingrich is up there, too. Not sure anyone else passes that test any longer (and it saddens me that Cain doesn't, but rightly or wrongly, he falls at the "hopeless" hurdle now). That's what the Perry campaign should be saying - heck, that's what Gov Perry himself should be saying. Take out air time and say just that "sorry, I am not a debater, I'm a governor. We've had three years of moderately nice speeches and seriously bad policy. I can give you four years of good policy and only moderately bad speeches. If you think that would be a good trade, please vote for me."

You gain absolutely nothing by breaking and not voting for the R just because he is not sufficiently C enough. There is too much at stake now (the list of Obaminations that might become permanent, and the crises that might remain unresolved, if we don't fire that fool is long and frightening) and in American politics, four years is effectively forever, or as near enough as doesn't matter. Forcing a loss because your candidate wasn't nominated isn't going to "teach" the "party elders" anything. The time for conservatives to make a difference is, logically, when they are the majority and can force change, and that means in the primaries. And besides, it's not very democratic to participate in an election amongst Republicans and then refuse to abide by the results.

I want to see Gov Perry as the nominee because I think he will get the policy right and I've had enough rhetoric. But, I will vote for Romney in the general if he is the nominee, because if my country is faced with a choice between him and Obama, well, that's just an easy question.

What federal agency would you like to forget?

2011-11-10T10:55:00.002-06:00

I couldn't watch last night's debate due to life craziness around here. So I caught up on Twitter. It sounded like, and probably was, the end for Perry and a disaster for supporters like me. But I must admit, after reading all of the comments, when I went to find out what had actually happened--that's it? A brain freeze? The world is full of "smart" leaders who are liars, cheats, and worse, but the Texan will go down for lack of public speaking polish. Considering the state of the world vs the state of Texas, maybe we know something about debate polish that everyone else doesn't.

Yes, I'm a bit bitter today.

Bless them, but the Perry camp is still fighting.

We’ve all had human moments. President Obama is still trying to find all 57 states. Ronald Reagan got lost somewhere on the Pacific Highway in an answer to a debate question. Gerald Ford ate a tamale without removing the husk. And tonight Rick Perry forgot the third agency he wants to eliminate. Just goes to show there are too damn many federal agencies.
The governor said it best afterwards: “I’m glad I had my boots on, because I sure stepped in it tonight.”
While the media froths over this all too human moment, we thought we would take this opportunity to ask your help in doing something much more constructive: write us to let us know what federal agency you would most like to forget.

This is good, but probably not enough to beat the Texans are stupid rap. Reagan and Ford made those mistakes before the blogsphere Twitterverse. Obama and assorted Democrats make such gaffes often, but only the right blogsphere cares and few outside the right read us. My favorite tweet from last night: “@Ben_Howe: It could be worse. Perry could've been caught on microphone talking crap about the leader of America's closest ally.” In case you don't know what that tweet refers to, try here.

Because I think that Perry is still the best man for the job in this field, unless my conservative friends want to start a write in candidacy for my husband, (I'm only half kidding) I'm going to fight with them.

Erick Erickson explained the problem in his Morning Briefing this morning:

I’ll spare you a formal post on the CNBC Debate. Let me just state that of all the stupid debates and all the stupid questions we have been subjected to, I do not believe there could be a more stupid debate with stupider questions than the CNBC Debate. It is the freaking business channel and we were subjected to 90 painful minutes of the Republican candidates explaining how business works to the moderators....
The clear winner is Newt Gingrich who will now become the alternative to Mitt Romney, though it is doubtful he will be able to weather the media storm into his personal life. Believe it or not, Rick Perry had the best damn debate performance of his entire Presidential career last night. He gave fantastic answers. And then . . . wow. What a disaster. It was like finally getting your sail boat out of dry dock to enjoy your first enjoyable sail only to sink. He’s going to need every penny of that $15 million after that.

For subscription to the Morning Briefing go here. Newt will surge now as the Romney ceiling holds. (Again, there is no way conservatives will vote for Romney until it is Romney v. Obama. For the record, I will vote for any of the GOP contenders against Obama in the general. I'll just be planning the third party split for when Romney looses.)

The question remains whether Newt will wither in the sunlight. Here are primers on all we will hear about Newt soon, the gossip mag variety and the more substantive. It is mild stuff compared to various Democrats or other world leaders, but the media tends to forgive such moral turpitude only in US liberals and worldly socialists.

Occam's Razor in Louisiana

2011-11-09T03:00:00.000-06:00

Morning Jolts and G-files, can't be tweeted or linked to. Annoying that. Nothing to do for it but quote and tweet myself. The Morning Jolt on Jindal:

3. That Horrible Record That Every Democrat Took a Pass on Contesting

Over in the Philadelphia Inquirer, I take a closer look at perhaps the single-most improbable aspect of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal's reelection victory: that he took 66 percent of the vote and had no significant Democratic opposition while cutting the government in a variety of ways:

His administration privatized the state's Office of Risk Management. Then the state's Division of Administration privatized claims management and loss prevention in the self-insurance program, saving $20 million over five years. The Department of Health and Hospitals privatized six inpatient, residential-treatment programs around the state, saving $2.5 million. Separately, patients were moved from state-operated institutions that cost $600 or more per patient per day to community-based services and private group homes that average $191 per day, saving an additional $23.8 million.

Consolidation was another key element: The state's Department of Revenue shrank from eight offices statewide to three. The Department of Children and Family Services consolidated its offices from 157 to 90, saving a total of $2.7 million.

But some of Jindal's cuts are the old-fashioned kind. The state sold 1,300 vehicles from its fleet of automobiles. Louisiana's Transportation Department shut down a ferry that was used by only 7,200 drivers per year, saving the state roughly three-quarters of a million dollars.

In fiscal 2011, Louisiana eliminated more than 3,500 full-time government positions. Add the 6,363 previous reductions during Jindal's term, and that means a total of almost 9,900 full-time positions reduced since he took the oath, a savings of almost $600 million. Louisiana now has the lowest level of full-time state government employees in almost 20 years.

I had a couple of liberals from outside and inside Louisiana write in, singing from the familiar songbook that insists the cuts were draconian and on the backs of the poor and middle class. Of course, I have yet to encounter anyone, of any political persuasion, inside or outside of Louisiana, who can explain why, if Jindal's reign was so ruthless and cruel, no Democratic officeholder at any level chose to run against him.

If Jindal's record is as bad as these detractors insist, why did no Democrat in the state legislature even try to run against what ought to be a winnable race? Why did no backbencher or ambitious mayor even try to run, if for no other reason than to build name ID for a future bid? Why did the Democratic Governors Association and DNC not back anyone? Why did the Democratic State Central Committee decline to endorse any of the relative no-name Democrats running against Jindal? Why did the entire state Democratic party effectively concede the race?

One argued that Jindal's reelection could be explained by the migration of African-Americans out of the state after Katrina. Except that the percentage of the state's population that was African-American remained the same from 2000 to 2010, at 32 percent. (Flabbergasting, I know, considering the media narrative, but take it up with the Census Bureau.) What's more, the state has enjoyed more in-migration than out-migration for the past four years. (Katrina only accelerated a 20-year trend.)

I suppose you could argue that after the hurricane, liberal African-American Democrats moved out, and the state's population influx during Jindal's term consisted of Republicans of all hues moving to the state. But why? Why would his policies be a magnet, but only for members of one political party? Why would Republicans see a state rebuilding and reinventing itself and see an opportunity for a better life, but Democrats wouldn't? In fact, as the state's unemployment rate drops, and schools and state services improve, why would the post-Katrina exile Democrats stay away?

Rather than some elaborate scheme that drives out African-American Democrats and attracts the rare, but thankfully less-rare-over-time African-American Republicans, wouldn't Occam's razor suggest that Jindal just did a pretty darn good job and that Louisianans are pretty pleased with what they've seen?

Then again, perhaps I'm persnickety at the moment, but I'm tempted to believe that the argument against what I lay out in my piece was well summarized by the Inquirer.com commentator "alotatea," who sneers, "Jindal has done it the old fashion way. On the backs of the lower and middle class. Stay where you are Jindal. In fact go back to India!"

Jindal, of course, was born in Baton Rouge.

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