Sunday, September 12, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Emmys Fashion
My loving sister sent me this link this morning, and herewith are my comments. The numbers correspond to the number of the photo in the slideshow.
8. Tina Fey looks about as good as she ever does on the red carpet. It's like she's embarrassed that she's good-looking.
22. Kate Gosselin gets to go to these things? What is the world coming to?
30. I have seen the dress Dianna Agron is wearing before. I can't place it. She's looked better; it's a little too much look for a small girl like her. She remains gorgeous, though.
31. Kelly Osborne has lost a massive amount of weight since the last time I paid attention, which, admittedly, was probably a few years ago. But she always styles herself to look older than she is, I feel.
34. Jewel looks awful. The whole thing is just unfortunate.
35. Carrie Preston looks awesome. Do you know she's married to Ben Linus in real life? Do you know I once saw Ben Linus on stage? Ask me all about it some time.
43. Seriously, Rita Wilson (Tom Hanks's wife) has been doing this for a while. Doesn't she know better?
57. You know, the thing is, that's not even a very good Mad-Men-esque dress. And furthermore, even if it were a better version of itself, it's what Joan Harris nee Holloway would wear to work. On a Saturday. Not what she'd wear to a fancy event. We've seen Joan get dressier than that for a night of clubbing with her lesbian roommate. So not
only is it not a nice dress, and not a fancy enough dress, it misses the point of the early '60s lifestyle that people who like Mad Men fetishize, the point of being more formal and glamorous than we ever are in daily life.
58. That's nicer than I've ever seen Jenna Ushkowitz look on a red carpet.
1. Heidi Klum be looking skinny.
2. January Jones needs hair and makeup (and maybe jewelry) to stand up to that dress. Which is quite a dress. Which is not to say I like it. Or that I don't. I'm undecided on the dress. But from the neck down, it's, "I'm an edgy TV star at a glamorous event!" and from the neck up (facial expression included), it's "What? I brushed my hair, didn't I? What more do I need to do for a simple run to the grocery store?"
3. Peggy looks slim! The dress is fine. It would look better on a taller woman but it's inoffensive.
6. I love the color of Kyra Sedgwick's gown.
7. Anna Paquin . . . that is . . . You know what that is? Much like January Jones, it is a lack of commitment to a look, only on her, the lack of commitment is all in the garment. What did they do, run out of metal coins? Her boobs are ready to go to war against Troy; the rest of her is still being pinned in preparation for a fashion student's "Draping 101" class. If you're going to go for a look, particularly a crazy one, GO FOR IT.
8. Tina Fey looks about as good as she ever does on the red carpet. It's like she's embarrassed that she's good-looking.
9. I was going to leave Neil Patrick Harris and his partner alone, because, boys, who cares? But I'm sort of bothered by the term "expectant father." Isn't only a pregnant woman "expectant"? Couldn't they be "expecting a child" rather than "expectant"? But as a note, I hope the sperm came from Neil Patrick Harris. We need more of him running around.
10. Sofia Vergara looks awesome! I think the haters who accuse her of pageant-ness are jealous of those curves.
10. Sofia Vergara looks awesome! I think the haters who accuse her of pageant-ness are jealous of those curves.
11. Julie Bowen . . . is usually so pretty. What is going on here? Does her stylist secretly hate her? I hate every moment of that look.
12. I'm not so huge a fan of Claire Danes's look. I mean, the dress is pretty and she looks fine, but she looks like every pretty blonde Hollywood extra ever. She doesn't really look like *her*.
13. When I first glanced at the photo of Lea Michele I thought she was Penelope Cruz. And I thought, "Well, Penelope Cruz always looks awesome, of course." So good job, Lea Michele! The bangs look okay to me.
14. Eva Longoria Parker needs some lipstick.
15. Jennifer Westfeldt (the girl lucky enough to be with Jon Hamm) is blonder than she used to be. Which is also contributing to a certain generic-ness. But she does have the night's best accessory.
16. I don't know who Nina Dobrev is but damn is she itty-bitty. Like the dress, though.
17. I thought Edie Falco was Helen Mirren at first. I need to keep reminding myself that these are the Emmys, not the Oscars. She looks nice, but she, too, could do with a little lipstick.
18. Oh no! I hate Christina Hendrick's dress! I love her so much! How could she go out looking like Dolly Parton in a nightgown circa 1974? (Which is a look Dolly Parton could rock. But only Dolly Parton.)
22. Kate Gosselin gets to go to these things? What is the world coming to?
23. I like Toni Colette's dress, but seriously, what is with hair and makeup tonight? Are hair and makeup artists on a strike?
24. Juliana Marguiles looks frickin' tiny. Like, out of proportion tiny. Is she leaning towards the camera?
26. SUE SYLVESTER LOOKS MAD HOT.
27. Keri Russel looks nice but . . . she knows she's at an awards ceremony and not her sister's bridal shower, right?
28. Wanda Sykes has much bigger boobs than I thought.
29. Julia Louis-Dreyfus looks unfortunate. I hate flat hair on her. I hope she hasn't been listening to Patti Stanger.
30. I have seen the dress Dianna Agron is wearing before. I can't place it. She's looked better; it's a little too much look for a small girl like her. She remains gorgeous, though.
31. Kelly Osborne has lost a massive amount of weight since the last time I paid attention, which, admittedly, was probably a few years ago. But she always styles herself to look older than she is, I feel.
32. Cheryl Hines - LIPSTICK. The dress is nice, though.
33. What is going on with Lauren Graham? She's so pretty! That dress sucks! Maybe she shares a stylist with Julie Bowen. Maybe said stylist was made fun of a lot in high school for being ugly and not wearing normal clothes, so now she gets her revenge on pretty actresses by making them look HORRENDOUS.
34. Jewel looks awful. The whole thing is just unfortunate.
35. Carrie Preston looks awesome. Do you know she's married to Ben Linus in real life? Do you know I once saw Ben Linus on stage? Ask me all about it some time.
43. Seriously, Rita Wilson (Tom Hanks's wife) has been doing this for a while. Doesn't she know better?
44. I love Julia Ormond's dress and color.
47. Padma Lakshmi looks awesome!
48. I hate Emily Deschanel's bangs. I'm not sure how I feel about the dress.
51. Jayma Mays looks awesome! Her hair looks great!
55. I think Santana looks a lot more pageanty than Sofia Vergara. Especially with those bangs.
57. You know, the thing is, that's not even a very good Mad-Men-esque dress. And furthermore, even if it were a better version of itself, it's what Joan Harris nee Holloway would wear to work. On a Saturday. Not what she'd wear to a fancy event. We've seen Joan get dressier than that for a night of clubbing with her lesbian roommate. So not
only is it not a nice dress, and not a fancy enough dress, it misses the point of the early '60s lifestyle that people who like Mad Men fetishize, the point of being more formal and glamorous than we ever are in daily life.
58. That's nicer than I've ever seen Jenna Ushkowitz look on a red carpet.
I am now perhaps recognizing that my extreme dislike of the makeup on display might not be the fault of these ladies or of their make-up artists. It might just be that they do these red carpets in the blazing California sun and that's what's washing everyone out. But I stand by the rest of my opinions.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
What Ideal?
I was just forwarded this by someone and boy am I annoyed. I'm sure other people have covered this territory but here goes my line-by-line annoyance anyway:
1. "The default family arrangement in many cultures, modern as well as ancient, has been polygamy, not monogamy." False. False, false, and false. Of course polygamy is not the default, in any culture. In many cultures it is acceptable under certain circumstances - like if you are the sultan, or like if you are already married but then your older brother dies, leaving a childless widow who would otherwise have no place to be, or there are places where a woman will (sometimes) marry two brothers so that their father's land doesn't have to be split, but it's never the default, and it's never the default for good reasons. One is that you have to be rich to be polygamous; you have to have plenty of extra income to support the extra wives and especially the extra children. And I know people say that in older, agrarian societies, children were economic helps, not economic burdens, but that's sort of bullshit. In agrarian societies, your
child could be an economic help AT THE VERY EARLIEST by age five and probably more realistically by age seven, and even then, their economic help probably doesn't even break even with their economic burden until (for boys) 15 or 16 and (for girls) when they get married and bring in a bride price. Which is only any good if you don't have sons who will have to pay for brides. And of course, reverse it for societies that have dowries. Which are already societies where children are economic burdens, not economic helps. Because if children are economic burdens, you demand money from a woman's family to support her and her children (dowry); if children are economic helps, you have to pay to get the woman and her reproductive labor (bride price). And pregnant women are of limited economic help and significant economic burden. So only the rich in a society that supports polygamy can actually afford to do it, and there is no such
thing as a society where everyone is rich. The concept of "rich" doesn't exist without "poor." Second, where polygamy - and specifically polygyny, which is much more widely practiced than
polyandry - is the "default," as in the fundamentalist Mormon circles depicted on "Big Love," you have to either exile a large number of young boys, import a large number of young girls, or both. And that's really problematic and unsustainable, especially the first part. So it's never the "default," in any society.
2. "The default mode of child-rearing is often communal, rather than two parents nurturing their biological children." That's true, but problematic. The nuclear family as we know it is very much a modern invention, but what one means by "communal" needs to be teased out. First of all, it's rather unusual for two adult persons to live with no other adult persons - in many societies, you live with either the husband's, or, less frequently, the wife's, family of origin - along with siblings and cousins and whatnot. This arrangement has its pros and cons, and when the cons get to be too much, frequently, one or another brother moves out and establishes his own household. But it needs to be complicated further because it's not like all of human history before 1945 was a monolith. It's not like heterosexual marriages or child-rearing practices are a monolith now. And it's not like we don't rear our children communally now; we just consider such things unnatural or abnormal or not what we're "really" doing. What are we doing, after all, when sure, we are the idealized heterosexual family with the mom at home and the dad at work, but the kid goes to preschool, and his/her "rearing" is assisted by the teachers there, and on Mondays and Wednesdays, Grandma comes over for a few hours, also assisting in the rearing, and there's a babysitter across the street who comes over Saturday nights, and then, when the kid is five, the kid is in school for 30 hours a week, being partially "reared" by teachers, principals, classroom aides, lunch ladies, and even the state, which mandates what the child will learn and when. I mean, we have communal rearing now, is my point, but we don't call it that. And we treat many forms of it - like day care and nannies - like they are the marks of bad parents who are refusing to enact this bizarre ideal. And going back, child-rearing has been handled in many different ways by many different cultures across time, just as now, but across those times parents have not been subject to this impossible-to-achieve ideal of being "reared" exclusively by the biological parents of said child. Which is not to say they didn't have their problems. But talking about a single default mode and the nubby concept of "communal" child-rearing is misleading or at least
not particularly thoughtful. Also, "communal" child-rearing sounds better to me - and t0 many people - than the nuclear ideal.
3. "If “natural” is defined to mean “congruent with our biological instincts,” it’s arguably one of the more unnatural arrangements imaginable. In crudely Darwinian terms, it cuts against both the male impulse toward promiscuity and the female interest in mating with the highest-status male available." There is some evidence that this is not true. I mean, some scientists support the notion that men need to "spread their seed" and women need to gold-dig, but others disagree, finding this explanation rather self-serving and culturally, rather than scientifically, mandated. Jared Diamond, one of my favorite guys in the whole wide world, has written really interesting stuff about that, but his major point is that human reproduction (EVEN FOR MEN) is not a numbers game; it's a raise-them-to-adulthood game, and that doesn't necessarily fit with this notion of men spreading their seed, because they still need to be sure that their children make it to adulthood. He does say that for some relatively small percentage of males in any given society (say 5-10%), that is best served by sleeping with married women whose husbands (if adequately tricked) are better suited to supporting those children, but it's not a good strategy for most men. For the most part, since it's impossible to tell when a woman is ovulating without major equipment and attention to detail (and even then . . .), it's evolutionarily best to stick with one woman for a while, to make sure you get her pregnant and nobody else does, and then hang around to make sure your kids make it into adulthood. Furthermore, precisely because humans don't know when ovulation is happening, and can and do want sex even when it's not (which is NOT THE NORM for mammals), sex isn't mostly about reproduction for humans; it's mostly a bonding experience to keep adults attached to each other so they'll be willing to raise those kids together. He says that what we actually do IS the most "natural" for the way we are built - we are mostly monogamous, with some instances of cheating, some instances of polygamy, and some instances of serial monogamy.
4. "This ideal holds up the commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings — a commitment that involves the mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest — as a uniquely admirable kind of relationship." This is so much nonsense. Why is the ideal so much more ideal because the two adults are sexually different? If a heterosexual marriage does, in fact, involve the mutual surrender of reproductive self-interest
(which, as I've argued above, I think is not true), how much MORE SO does the same commitment by two people of the same sex? Yes, committing to one another for a lifetime is admirable, I suppose, although, let's be serious, there are things that are more admirable,
like for instance being a doctor for cancer-ridden children or something. I also feel - and this is a sidenote - that there are certain people who think when they get married, "Oh no! I'll never have sex with anyone else ever again!" and then there are people who feel, "Thank God I never have to go through the effort of enticing anyone else to have sex with me." Both of those people might, in the end, turn out to be wrong. But I think these are just very different perspectives on marriage and not everyone things they are surrendering anything when they make a lifelong commitment to one other person. Anyway, total nonsense.
5. "It holds up the domestic life that can be created only by such unions, in which children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents, as a uniquely admirable approach to
child-rearing." Leaving aside that this is a rather rose-colored view of families, and does not translate to most people's realities, even if they have, on the face of it, an "ideal" nuclear family, why is it "uniquely admirable"? Why is it better than when children do have an entire community they can rely on, rather than the two people out of whose loins they've sprung? Why is it better than living in a larger family household where, in addition to whatever "intimate contact" you have with your parents, you also have grandparents and aunts and uncles deeply invested in your life? Conversely, why is it so much better to have both of your parents - who, after all, have their own relationship with each other, which, good or bad, may take precedence
over their relationship with you - than to have one parent, soley and exclusively invested in a relationship with you? I'm not saying all these other arrangements don't have their problems; I'm saying, so does this "ideal" nuclear family, and that none of them are more admirable than the others. It's admirable when a child is well-loved, well-respected, and becomes a benefit to society as an adult. It's unadmirable when a child is neglected, disrespected, and turns into a
burden on society. Most children fall in the middle, and that's fine. Also, I think he thinks that because something is "unique," it is therefore "admirable." That's not really true.
6. "The point of this ideal is not that other relationships have no value, or that only nuclear families can rear children successfully. Rather, it’s that lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best can offer something distinctive and remarkable — a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations — that makes it worthy of distinctive recognition and support." Really? Really? Heterosexual marriage is a "microcosm of civilization," but he's not saying no other relationships or families are valuable? That's bullshit. I'm sorry, but if you're going to say something, say it and mean it; don't say it and then pretend to back out of it. This is the NYT equivalent of "No offense, but . . ." Also, what does it even
mean to be a microcosm of civilization? More nonsense.
7. "Again, this is not how many cultures approach marriage. It’s a particularly Western understanding, derived from Jewish and Christian beliefs about the order of creation, and supplemented by later ideas about romantic love, the rights of children, and the equality of the
sexes." Again, he's eliding many things without being thoughtful about it. Let's start with, for many centuries, Judaism wasn't considered a full participant in Western civilization. Second, Jews and Christians had VERY different ideas about marriage, so you can't lump them together. Third, these older forms of marriage were not "supplemented" by ideas about romantic love and children's and women's rights; those ideas RADICALLY changed what was considered "traditional" marriages at the times that these ideas were introduced. Romantic love was the same-sex marriage of its day, the thing that was going to destroy traditional marriage forever (and, if one looks at what one meant by marriage before romantic love in marriage became
so idealized, it did, in fact, destroy it). So were ideas about equality of the sexes, which, for heaven's sake, Ross Douthat should be aware of, since those days were, oh, yesterday.
8. "Or at least, it was the Western understanding. Lately, it has come to co-exist with a less idealistic, more accommodating approach, defined by no-fault divorce, frequent out-of-wedlock births, and serial monogamy." Look, he obviously hasn't read a single word by Stephanie Coontz, the leading authority on marriage history. I have read many words by her, and enjoyed all of them. But what it all boils down to is, there is no time and place when the "traditional" marriage/family of our imagination actually existed. Okay, maybe there was a decade, the 1950s, sort of, but even then it was not for everyone and it was always already going to be
short-lived, as it contained the seeds of its own destruction. It has always co-existed with less idealistic forms, albeit more or less accommodatingly.
9. "If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary." It has already done so. Gay marriage is morally necessary as long as straight marriage exists.
10. "But if we just accept this shift, we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve. And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different: similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their
potential fruit." Why, why, why is heterosexual marriage "one of the great ideas of Western civilization"? Why is it worth honoring, why is it worth striving to preserve? And preserve what, the marriages or the ideal? The marriages aren't going anywhere, or, at least, their departure is not being particularly hastened by same-sex couples. In fact, one could argue that the gay population's desire to imitate heterosexual lifelong romantically oriented marriage IS preserving it far better than heterosexual couples are doing it. And why be so concerned about preserving an ideal that's not being lived up to anyway? What is so ideal about it? I mean, I support preserving the ideal that a person ought not commit murder, because I see why that is beneficial, even if people are still murdered. But I don't see what's beneficial about the ideal of a heteronormative nuclear family - or at least what's more beneficial than myriad other arrangements. Nor do I see how allowing same-sex couples to marry will take anything away
from opposite-sex couples, in support or honor or anything. Also, ALL relationships are distinct. Yes, same-sex couples as a whole deal with a different set of issues than opposite-sex couples, although a lot of them come from living in an environment where one type of couple is thought more worthy and a better example of the awesomeness of Western civilization than the other. Ugly couples have a different set of issues than attractive couples, and both of these couples
differ from couples in which one partner is attractive and the other ugly. Wealthy couples have different issues than poor issues, and I bet that it's along those lines that one will find the most fractious differences. Okay? Acknowledged? Can we shut up now?
1. "The default family arrangement in many cultures, modern as well as ancient, has been polygamy, not monogamy." False. False, false, and false. Of course polygamy is not the default, in any culture. In many cultures it is acceptable under certain circumstances - like if you are the sultan, or like if you are already married but then your older brother dies, leaving a childless widow who would otherwise have no place to be, or there are places where a woman will (sometimes) marry two brothers so that their father's land doesn't have to be split, but it's never the default, and it's never the default for good reasons. One is that you have to be rich to be polygamous; you have to have plenty of extra income to support the extra wives and especially the extra children. And I know people say that in older, agrarian societies, children were economic helps, not economic burdens, but that's sort of bullshit. In agrarian societies, your
child could be an economic help AT THE VERY EARLIEST by age five and probably more realistically by age seven, and even then, their economic help probably doesn't even break even with their economic burden until (for boys) 15 or 16 and (for girls) when they get married and bring in a bride price. Which is only any good if you don't have sons who will have to pay for brides. And of course, reverse it for societies that have dowries. Which are already societies where children are economic burdens, not economic helps. Because if children are economic burdens, you demand money from a woman's family to support her and her children (dowry); if children are economic helps, you have to pay to get the woman and her reproductive labor (bride price). And pregnant women are of limited economic help and significant economic burden. So only the rich in a society that supports polygamy can actually afford to do it, and there is no such
thing as a society where everyone is rich. The concept of "rich" doesn't exist without "poor." Second, where polygamy - and specifically polygyny, which is much more widely practiced than
polyandry - is the "default," as in the fundamentalist Mormon circles depicted on "Big Love," you have to either exile a large number of young boys, import a large number of young girls, or both. And that's really problematic and unsustainable, especially the first part. So it's never the "default," in any society.
2. "The default mode of child-rearing is often communal, rather than two parents nurturing their biological children." That's true, but problematic. The nuclear family as we know it is very much a modern invention, but what one means by "communal" needs to be teased out. First of all, it's rather unusual for two adult persons to live with no other adult persons - in many societies, you live with either the husband's, or, less frequently, the wife's, family of origin - along with siblings and cousins and whatnot. This arrangement has its pros and cons, and when the cons get to be too much, frequently, one or another brother moves out and establishes his own household. But it needs to be complicated further because it's not like all of human history before 1945 was a monolith. It's not like heterosexual marriages or child-rearing practices are a monolith now. And it's not like we don't rear our children communally now; we just consider such things unnatural or abnormal or not what we're "really" doing. What are we doing, after all, when sure, we are the idealized heterosexual family with the mom at home and the dad at work, but the kid goes to preschool, and his/her "rearing" is assisted by the teachers there, and on Mondays and Wednesdays, Grandma comes over for a few hours, also assisting in the rearing, and there's a babysitter across the street who comes over Saturday nights, and then, when the kid is five, the kid is in school for 30 hours a week, being partially "reared" by teachers, principals, classroom aides, lunch ladies, and even the state, which mandates what the child will learn and when. I mean, we have communal rearing now, is my point, but we don't call it that. And we treat many forms of it - like day care and nannies - like they are the marks of bad parents who are refusing to enact this bizarre ideal. And going back, child-rearing has been handled in many different ways by many different cultures across time, just as now, but across those times parents have not been subject to this impossible-to-achieve ideal of being "reared" exclusively by the biological parents of said child. Which is not to say they didn't have their problems. But talking about a single default mode and the nubby concept of "communal" child-rearing is misleading or at least
not particularly thoughtful. Also, "communal" child-rearing sounds better to me - and t0 many people - than the nuclear ideal.
3. "If “natural” is defined to mean “congruent with our biological instincts,” it’s arguably one of the more unnatural arrangements imaginable. In crudely Darwinian terms, it cuts against both the male impulse toward promiscuity and the female interest in mating with the highest-status male available." There is some evidence that this is not true. I mean, some scientists support the notion that men need to "spread their seed" and women need to gold-dig, but others disagree, finding this explanation rather self-serving and culturally, rather than scientifically, mandated. Jared Diamond, one of my favorite guys in the whole wide world, has written really interesting stuff about that, but his major point is that human reproduction (EVEN FOR MEN) is not a numbers game; it's a raise-them-to-adulthood game, and that doesn't necessarily fit with this notion of men spreading their seed, because they still need to be sure that their children make it to adulthood. He does say that for some relatively small percentage of males in any given society (say 5-10%), that is best served by sleeping with married women whose husbands (if adequately tricked) are better suited to supporting those children, but it's not a good strategy for most men. For the most part, since it's impossible to tell when a woman is ovulating without major equipment and attention to detail (and even then . . .), it's evolutionarily best to stick with one woman for a while, to make sure you get her pregnant and nobody else does, and then hang around to make sure your kids make it into adulthood. Furthermore, precisely because humans don't know when ovulation is happening, and can and do want sex even when it's not (which is NOT THE NORM for mammals), sex isn't mostly about reproduction for humans; it's mostly a bonding experience to keep adults attached to each other so they'll be willing to raise those kids together. He says that what we actually do IS the most "natural" for the way we are built - we are mostly monogamous, with some instances of cheating, some instances of polygamy, and some instances of serial monogamy.
4. "This ideal holds up the commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings — a commitment that involves the mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest — as a uniquely admirable kind of relationship." This is so much nonsense. Why is the ideal so much more ideal because the two adults are sexually different? If a heterosexual marriage does, in fact, involve the mutual surrender of reproductive self-interest
(which, as I've argued above, I think is not true), how much MORE SO does the same commitment by two people of the same sex? Yes, committing to one another for a lifetime is admirable, I suppose, although, let's be serious, there are things that are more admirable,
like for instance being a doctor for cancer-ridden children or something. I also feel - and this is a sidenote - that there are certain people who think when they get married, "Oh no! I'll never have sex with anyone else ever again!" and then there are people who feel, "Thank God I never have to go through the effort of enticing anyone else to have sex with me." Both of those people might, in the end, turn out to be wrong. But I think these are just very different perspectives on marriage and not everyone things they are surrendering anything when they make a lifelong commitment to one other person. Anyway, total nonsense.
5. "It holds up the domestic life that can be created only by such unions, in which children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents, as a uniquely admirable approach to
child-rearing." Leaving aside that this is a rather rose-colored view of families, and does not translate to most people's realities, even if they have, on the face of it, an "ideal" nuclear family, why is it "uniquely admirable"? Why is it better than when children do have an entire community they can rely on, rather than the two people out of whose loins they've sprung? Why is it better than living in a larger family household where, in addition to whatever "intimate contact" you have with your parents, you also have grandparents and aunts and uncles deeply invested in your life? Conversely, why is it so much better to have both of your parents - who, after all, have their own relationship with each other, which, good or bad, may take precedence
over their relationship with you - than to have one parent, soley and exclusively invested in a relationship with you? I'm not saying all these other arrangements don't have their problems; I'm saying, so does this "ideal" nuclear family, and that none of them are more admirable than the others. It's admirable when a child is well-loved, well-respected, and becomes a benefit to society as an adult. It's unadmirable when a child is neglected, disrespected, and turns into a
burden on society. Most children fall in the middle, and that's fine. Also, I think he thinks that because something is "unique," it is therefore "admirable." That's not really true.
6. "The point of this ideal is not that other relationships have no value, or that only nuclear families can rear children successfully. Rather, it’s that lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best can offer something distinctive and remarkable — a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations — that makes it worthy of distinctive recognition and support." Really? Really? Heterosexual marriage is a "microcosm of civilization," but he's not saying no other relationships or families are valuable? That's bullshit. I'm sorry, but if you're going to say something, say it and mean it; don't say it and then pretend to back out of it. This is the NYT equivalent of "No offense, but . . ." Also, what does it even
mean to be a microcosm of civilization? More nonsense.
7. "Again, this is not how many cultures approach marriage. It’s a particularly Western understanding, derived from Jewish and Christian beliefs about the order of creation, and supplemented by later ideas about romantic love, the rights of children, and the equality of the
sexes." Again, he's eliding many things without being thoughtful about it. Let's start with, for many centuries, Judaism wasn't considered a full participant in Western civilization. Second, Jews and Christians had VERY different ideas about marriage, so you can't lump them together. Third, these older forms of marriage were not "supplemented" by ideas about romantic love and children's and women's rights; those ideas RADICALLY changed what was considered "traditional" marriages at the times that these ideas were introduced. Romantic love was the same-sex marriage of its day, the thing that was going to destroy traditional marriage forever (and, if one looks at what one meant by marriage before romantic love in marriage became
so idealized, it did, in fact, destroy it). So were ideas about equality of the sexes, which, for heaven's sake, Ross Douthat should be aware of, since those days were, oh, yesterday.
8. "Or at least, it was the Western understanding. Lately, it has come to co-exist with a less idealistic, more accommodating approach, defined by no-fault divorce, frequent out-of-wedlock births, and serial monogamy." Look, he obviously hasn't read a single word by Stephanie Coontz, the leading authority on marriage history. I have read many words by her, and enjoyed all of them. But what it all boils down to is, there is no time and place when the "traditional" marriage/family of our imagination actually existed. Okay, maybe there was a decade, the 1950s, sort of, but even then it was not for everyone and it was always already going to be
short-lived, as it contained the seeds of its own destruction. It has always co-existed with less idealistic forms, albeit more or less accommodatingly.
9. "If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary." It has already done so. Gay marriage is morally necessary as long as straight marriage exists.
10. "But if we just accept this shift, we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve. And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different: similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their
potential fruit." Why, why, why is heterosexual marriage "one of the great ideas of Western civilization"? Why is it worth honoring, why is it worth striving to preserve? And preserve what, the marriages or the ideal? The marriages aren't going anywhere, or, at least, their departure is not being particularly hastened by same-sex couples. In fact, one could argue that the gay population's desire to imitate heterosexual lifelong romantically oriented marriage IS preserving it far better than heterosexual couples are doing it. And why be so concerned about preserving an ideal that's not being lived up to anyway? What is so ideal about it? I mean, I support preserving the ideal that a person ought not commit murder, because I see why that is beneficial, even if people are still murdered. But I don't see what's beneficial about the ideal of a heteronormative nuclear family - or at least what's more beneficial than myriad other arrangements. Nor do I see how allowing same-sex couples to marry will take anything away
from opposite-sex couples, in support or honor or anything. Also, ALL relationships are distinct. Yes, same-sex couples as a whole deal with a different set of issues than opposite-sex couples, although a lot of them come from living in an environment where one type of couple is thought more worthy and a better example of the awesomeness of Western civilization than the other. Ugly couples have a different set of issues than attractive couples, and both of these couples
differ from couples in which one partner is attractive and the other ugly. Wealthy couples have different issues than poor issues, and I bet that it's along those lines that one will find the most fractious differences. Okay? Acknowledged? Can we shut up now?
Monday, August 02, 2010
Random, Passing Thought
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/16/AR2010071606839.html?hpid=artslot
There's a line in this article that's bothering me - I want a tankless water heater SO THAT I can take longer hot showers.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
More Zoe Cuteness
1. She now sings "Summer Nights" from Grease, which she refers to as "Tell Me More," but the best part is, she does the male vs. female voices. She goes up high (to the extent that a person with such a naturally high voice can) for the girls' parts and then down low, with her lips all smushed up, for the boys' parts.
2. She has added "Show you" to her "Come here" and hand gesture.
3. Whenever I ask her, "What did you do today?", no matter what we actually did, she says, "Ani, Akes (Alex), and Vanessa." Ani and Alex are her buddies and Vanessa is their mommy - my buddy. Yesterday, she also started talking about Ani's face-painting - which in fact happened over a month ago, but was very traumatizing for Zoe. She mentioned that Ani (who is older than Zoe; she just turned four) got her face painted, that they looked at it in the mirror, that it was flowers, and that it hurt Ani. I have been trying to convince her for this entire month that it did not, in fact, hurt Ani, and that Ani wanted her face to be painted, but I don't think I'm getting anywhere.
4. She calls (and has called for many months now) her magna-doodle-thing her "idea." Which is a good name for it.
5. She's full of complimentary speech lately. When Jason finishes vacuuming, she says, "Good job, Daddy," or "Nice job cleaning." She also tells me I've done a good job of various things - putting on her diaper, preparing her Cheerios and milk. She follows up suggested (by me or her) activities with "That'd be fun," or "Let's do that." When she mentions seeing Daddy, she always includes the phrase, "So happy to see you."
6. When she was missing Daddy the last few days, she spoke about sharing a pop with him. "We'll see Daddy tomorrow, Zoe." "See him? Share pop? Share green pop with Daddy?"
7. She played Curious George games on the computer with her Zeyda on Monday, and then on Wednesday, asked to play again. "Play Zeyda? Curious George on computer? Play nicely?" She also observed that Esmerelda and Quasimodo on the cover of her Hunchback of Notre Dame book were "sharing nicely."
8. She identified a coloring book picture of Esmerelda as me. :-) She also, about a month or so ago, identified the picture of Snow White on the cover of a coloring book as Grandma Lisa.
9. She LOVES the over-the-top girly things that her grandfather and her Zii Tara (her Zii Tara who chose Zii because it felt more gender-neutral) buy her.
10. She continues to say of various clothing items, "Oh, cute," and "Beau-ful dress!" She and I shared an Elle magazine today; quite a momentous occasion. She expressed extremely strong opinions on various items of clothing, good and bad, and not always but sometimes in agreement with my opinions. (In other words, she was neither agreeing with me blindly nor just saying "No" for the sake of it.) She also pointed to a drawing of a woman in a hair ad and said, "Beau-ful woman."
10a. Aunt Kate tells me that when she had Zoe helping her pick out an outfit for work, Zoe rejected a skirt of hers that I, also, do not like.
11. She does say "No" a lot now, in this very dramatic fashion, a very long, "Noooo!" with her head bent forward and her lips in a big pout.
12. When she likes something you've suggested, she says, "Oh, yeeeeaaaaah," or "Ummmmmmm . . . . sure!"
13. All the dancing and jumping she does is so damn cute I can't even explain.
14. She says, "Good girl" to dogs (even male dogs) and humans.
15. Friday night, when we got in to Newark at 1:30 in the morning, she was asleep on my shoulder. When we tried to put her in the car seat, she wailed and wailed and wailed for about five minutes, and then suddenly looked up and said, "I see moon?" Then she jabbered happily for the whole way home about the moon and other things she could see. (Then she jumped on the beds when we got home, and stayed up until 3-f-ing-30 in the morning. Which means so did I. One day, I'll be sad when all she does is sleep all day and not hang out with me, right?)
16. This is a little sweet and a little sad - a few times this weekend, she's thrown absolute fits at being put in the car. When I finally get her in, I put my hand on her cheek to comfort her. This is having an increasingly quick effect. She even sometimes holds my hand there, to keep it in place. The first time I noticed she really liked it was when I did try to take my hand away, and she grabbed it and put it back. Then I noticed when she got nervous on the Ferris wheel on Saturday (she does not really like rides yet) that she was holding her own hand to her cheek to comfort herself.
17. She's using the words "gibbous" and "crescent" to describe the moon. Not always accurately, but still, that's awesome.
18. When we disagree on a point - like whether the moon is gibbous or crescent, or whether the shirt is orange or purple, or whether Sparky is a boy or a girl, she is quite adamant in her opinions and does not back down. You say willful and stubborn, I say strong-minded and confident.
19. She LOVED her first sight of the ocean. She was cautious at first, but very, very interested, and soon was having a ball, splashing around, pointing at the waves and shouting, "You! You! You!" and being tossed up and down over the waves by her Aunt Kate. Also she enjoyed throwing sand on her Aunt Kate.
20. I knew she was a Jersey girl at heart - she ate better pizza in Ocean City than I've ever seen her eat anything before, and she was very eager for it even before she got her share. Also, she has a shirt that says "Jersey Girls don't pump gas!" and she insisted on keeping her "Jersey Girl" shirt on for quite a while. (She also insisted on keeping this casino bead necklace on much of the last few days.)
21. For a not-yet-two-year-old, she's really doing well with "Please," "Thank you" (or "Thanks") and "Your welcome." I think I've even heard an "Excuse me."
22. Of course she's got the concept of "My turn!" and "For Zoe!" pretty down, too. And she's started being picky about what foods are in what location on her plate.
23. Even when she's watching a movie or something, she looks so intent and interested. I rarely see that slack-jawed absorbing-mindless-media look in her face; she's always studying, responding, and commenting on what she sees.
I could go on all night. What am I supposed to do? She is the cutest, sweetest, smartest, most awesome baby ever.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Zoe Went Peepee in the Potty!
She's such a big girl!
Now, some will accuse me of trying to claim that she's potty-trained now at 22 months old. No such thing. Also, some will be expecting me to really push potty-training on her now. Also not happening.
The truth is, I really wasn't expecting this. She's always been "interested" in the potty and so we bought a potty chair and a potty insert. She prefers the insert so she can sit in the same place Mommy sits; the potty chair I think she just considers a regular chair. So especially lately, she's been very insistent on sitting on the potty insert and the truth is that I hate this activity because it means I have to sit on the floor in the bathroom for up to half an hour (at which point I lose patience and drag her out, as I did this afternoon) and it's not pleasant or comfortable but I can't leave her because a) she might fall, and b) she definitely will pull out all of the toilet paper and shove it in the toilet. So tonight she made a stinky and I went to change her and once she was clean, she asked to sit on the potty. So I let her. And lo and behold, not five minutes later - PEEPEE!
So now I will make these unpleasant trips to the bathroom more frequently to give her lots more opportunities. But we're not officially "potty-training" yet.
Want more cute Zoe things? How about these:
- She lies back on the couch arm and demands kissing. Best. Game. Ever!
- She puts my hands on her cheeks and says, "So happy!"
- She has started wishing us "Congratulations" all the time.
- Today at Old Navy, she chatted with the mannequins, hugged the toddler-sized mannequin, tried to touch the "daddy" mannequin, petted the doggie mannequin, and danced to the music in the store. So cute.
- She takes my books and "reads" them, repeating "ajah book" as she does so and then sometimes making up what the book says and reading it in a very "story-telling" kind of voice.
- She gives me this big grin and says, "Precious!"
In general, she continues to be the most awesome creature ever.
Now, some will accuse me of trying to claim that she's potty-trained now at 22 months old. No such thing. Also, some will be expecting me to really push potty-training on her now. Also not happening.
The truth is, I really wasn't expecting this. She's always been "interested" in the potty and so we bought a potty chair and a potty insert. She prefers the insert so she can sit in the same place Mommy sits; the potty chair I think she just considers a regular chair. So especially lately, she's been very insistent on sitting on the potty insert and the truth is that I hate this activity because it means I have to sit on the floor in the bathroom for up to half an hour (at which point I lose patience and drag her out, as I did this afternoon) and it's not pleasant or comfortable but I can't leave her because a) she might fall, and b) she definitely will pull out all of the toilet paper and shove it in the toilet. So tonight she made a stinky and I went to change her and once she was clean, she asked to sit on the potty. So I let her. And lo and behold, not five minutes later - PEEPEE!
So now I will make these unpleasant trips to the bathroom more frequently to give her lots more opportunities. But we're not officially "potty-training" yet.
Want more cute Zoe things? How about these:
- She lies back on the couch arm and demands kissing. Best. Game. Ever!
- She puts my hands on her cheeks and says, "So happy!"
- She has started wishing us "Congratulations" all the time.
- Today at Old Navy, she chatted with the mannequins, hugged the toddler-sized mannequin, tried to touch the "daddy" mannequin, petted the doggie mannequin, and danced to the music in the store. So cute.
- She takes my books and "reads" them, repeating "ajah book" as she does so and then sometimes making up what the book says and reading it in a very "story-telling" kind of voice.
- She gives me this big grin and says, "Precious!"
In general, she continues to be the most awesome creature ever.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Retro
Well, it's finally happened. My own coming-of-age years are now retro fashion. I'm not even thirty! And yet, as we all know, the famous "It's a dress!" "Says who?" "Calvin Klein." "It looks like underwear. Go put something on over it." "Duh, I was just going to!" dress from Clueless is being reissued by Calvin Klein. And this month's Elle features fashion inspired by Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love, Empire Records, and Reality Bites. On the one hand, I feel very, very old. On the other hand - I can wear flannel shirts and Doc Martens this winter, right? This can't be one of those "If you were the right age for the trend the first time, you're too old the second time" things, because it's the opposite of revealing. Right? It's entirely possible I still HAVE my Doc Martens.
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