This Obsessed American (Life)

I fully realize that I have linked to podcasts way too many times.  But I'm going to keep doing it because podcasts really are one of the best inventions of the last 10 years.  It's a free way to hear people talking about really interesting things that you can take with you and listen to whenever it's convenient.  Brilliant.


So on This American Life this week, the theme was "Reap What You Sow".  The first act was about the Alabama immigration law, HB56, which is the strictest in the nation.  The idea of it is actually the same as Romney's "self-deportation" idea.  Essentially, let's make life so so miserable for people that they choose to leave on their own.  In the podcast, they talk about immigrants who can't get protective orders from abusers, can't send money to relatives, can't get their water turned on, all because they involve some kind of contact with some kind of citizen and thus require proof of citizenship.


Surprisingly, given my overall way-to-the-left political leanings, I'm a little conflicted on this issue.  I think I was highly affected by two things.  First, my own mother had to go through the immigration process, and it was really hard and they were not very nice to her (or so I've heard), so it bothers me that some people just skip it all together.  Second, I remember staying after school once and chatting to my high school Spanish teacher, whose family had moved to the States from Mexico when she was young.  This had apparently been a very scarring experience for her - it ripped her family apart, it took forever, and they were discriminated against when they got here.  She actually still had members of her family (some 20+ years later) who were waiting for visas back home.  She was very, very in favour of harsher punishment for illegal immigrants.


Now, part of me says, "Well, that's why we don't let the murderer's victim's family decide the appropriate punishment - it's understandable that she would have strong views, but that is one side of bias, and there is always more than one side."  But part of me says, "But...yeah, why would we reward people for cheating?"


However.


This whole "self-deportation" idea is a terrible one.  It's inhumane, it's unAmerican, it's inefficient and it punishes lots and lots of innocent bystanders.  It reminded me of Germany's approach to driving the Jews out before they opened up the labour camps - just make life miserable so they'll want to leave on their own.  Ok, ok, I know I just pulled the Holocaust comparison and that is totally unfair because the Jews were not doing anything illegal by being Jewish.


However.  (Again.)


I think heading down the road where we stop treating people as people is dangerous, regardless.  And for a party that is so obsessed with the "Judeo-Christian values" infused into the Constitution, they are awfully willing to let Creator-endowed rights stop with citizenship.  The right to be treated fairly and humanely, to be protected from abusers, to have a fair trial...either we believe those are rights from God or we don't.  I do.


Thanks for the food for thought, Ira Glass.

Debates 4 Lyfe

I went to a party last night and got sucked into a conversation with this guy I really didn't want to talk to - he seemed okay at first (worked on the hill, had an interesting background, was from the Midwest...I love people from the Midwest).  But then he started doing this weird conversational tick that some people do, that I have never understood.  He started bashing everything I said.


I told him I lived in Southwest.  He said it was a shitty neighborhood that would maybe be cool in 10 years.


I told him I worked on the Hill for a while, too.  He said the Senate side was a waste of time and nothing ever got done.


I told him I wasn't really into sports (even though this is isn't strictly true anymore...).  He said people who don't like sports are just pretentious.


I told him I loved watching the Republican debates.  He said I was wasting my time and that I probably didn't have any friends.


That was the last straw.


So two things on this exchange:


1) Why do people think it's funny to act this way in a conversation?  It's maybe funny to take the contrarian, combative point-of-view for a couple issues, but it gets old really, really fast.  And at some point...I do actually like all of those things, so if you really feel that way about all of them, then maybe we should just stop talking.


2) I LOVE DEBATES.  His argument was that it was a waste of time because you could learn everything you needed to know by watching the coverage afterward.  But why do people watch sporting events live?  Because it's just more exciting that way.  Yes, I know the clip of Newt yelling at John King is going to be played over and over again on every news network until the next debate.  But I want to see it when it happens!  Like that amazing football catch that will be on every highlight reel from now until the superbowl.  You can see it on ESPN, sure.  But it's so much better to see it happen right in front of your eyes.  Also, I want to form my opinions on the debate before I hear what Rachel Maddow has to say about it.  That way, if she agrees with me, I feel extra smart, and if she doesn't, it gives me food for thought.  I don't know what the sports equivalent of this is, but I'm sure it exists.  


So screw you, Guy at Party.  And also, deepest apologies, Roommates.  You're going to have to put up with a lot more debates before this is all over.

Crime and Punishment

I have now had 2 different podcasts discussing the same idea, so I am taking it as a hint from the universe and discussing it here.  Yes, The Universe has specific blog requests.


Just to get this out of the way, here are the links to the two podcasts.  The first one I've already linked to in a previous post, but it's so good it gets a double-link.


1) Radiolab's "The Bad Show" episode.  Discusses the Milgram experiments, sociopaths and other bad people type issues.
2) Start the Week's "Justice" episode.  Discusses a new play about an international criminal, a survey about the youth's view of the police and the state of the prisons in the UK.


Both of these podcasts deal with this issue: what does justice look like?  And both come to a similar conclusion: at the end of the day, most people don't care about a specific punishment, they care about understanding why a crime was committed.  


This makes a lot of sense to me.  Even as kids, when we're falsely accused, we're mostly interested in getting an apology, being vindicated - finding out why our parent or our teacher or whoever assumed we were the guilty party.  I know as an adult, when I recently had my phone stolen, I was more fascinated with the psychology of how someone just takes something that isn't theirs than I was with reporting them to the police or anything like that.  


A friend and I were recently watching this youtube video that Casey Anthony put out.  It is really, really weird.  Mostly because you can't see into her head at all.  When OJ released his "how I did it" book, it was frustrating and kind of shockingly ballsy, but at least it confirmed that he did see what he did as a big deal.  He was somewhat on the same page as the rest of us, in that sense.  If you watch that video, you'll see...she is not even vaguely on the same page as the rest of us.  She's chatting about her computer, about her day, about her new haircut.  It's like she's just another one of those teenagers doing a really bad vlog.  A vlog. But the point is, it is truly bizarre to feel like someone committed this horrible crime, and there was just no reason behind it.  No floods of rage, no political aspirations, nothing.  Just 100% random and a year later, she's over it.  That is extremely unsatisfying and unsettling.


All of this also makes me think we need to take another look at our justice system.  We focus 99.99% of our energy on making sure the punishment is correct - we refer to this as victim's rights, as true justice.  But maybe true justice is getting to the bottom of why crime was committed in the first place.  If someone commits a murder in the midst of a drug deal, is justice putting that person away for life, or figuring out and addressing why he or she was involved in a drug deal in the first place?


I should add, I feel a little weird writing this, given that I've never had anyone close to me involved in a violent crime.  I'm sure I would feel differently if I did.  But when I read how much money and time and energy we put toward punishing criminals, and how unsatisfied most victims' families end up feeling, I just think there has to be a better way.


And then I think for .15 seconds about going to law school.


And then I laugh at myself and get back to watching Brothers and Sisters.

Four More Beers!

Let me just say, I love me some Obama.  He's smart, he's articulate, he's darned good looking (a very rare presidential trait).  In my politics and the media class, thought, we were discussing the "who do you want to have a beer with" question for the Republican candidates.  Obviously, the overwhelming favourite was Ron Paul.  Duh.


But then I started thinking, "Would I want to have a beer with Obama?"  And, while I love the man, (and agree with him on almost everything) the answer is definitely "no".  I was watching him speak this morning at the University of Michigan, and he was trying to be his old 2008 campaign self ("Hey I still remember how much I paid in student loans!  I know the names of students and stuff! I'm young!  Have you guys seen that youtube video?!")  I appreciate what he's doing.  I would like him to win, so I get that he needs college students to get out the vote.  But he seems like his two modes are "super serious policy wonk" and "attention needy over-charismatic crowd worker".  I love the first guy, understand why the second guy needs to exist, and really don't want to hang out with either one.


But then I started thinking, "Would I want to have a beer with Hillary?  What about Cory Booker?  Dianne Feinstein or Barbara Boxer?"  No, no, no and no.  I would definitely love to just talk with any of these people.  But I don't want to hang out or be their friend.  (Rahm Emanuel is clearly a different story.  Any drink, any meal, any time, anywhere.  Let's hang out always.)


So there are two possible explanations for this.  1) I can be a little anti-social sometimes.  I cancel a lot of plans and if my choice is between Downton Abbey snuggled in my bed or going to a loud bar, I will definitely tend to choose the former.  I don't think this is the reason, though.  Because I would love to have a beer with Ron Paul or Chris Christie or even John Boehner.  Mostly I would want to see if I could make him cry.


This brings me to possible explanation 2.  2) I only like having beers with people with whom I disagree.  Well, political beers.  I want Obama and Hilary and Feinstein and Boxer and Booker to go govern.  I want Paul and Christie and Boehner to sit with me and chat about politics because I would way rather hear a totally different way of viewing the role of government and improving our country.  So I don't think that "Who would you want to have a beer with?" question is valid at all.  You know who I really want to go to a bar with?  Peter Sagal from Wait Wait.  Because he's hilarious.  And yet I really really don't want him to be president.  I want the people governing my country to be so wonky and wrapped up in their work that they seem like the worst happy hour buddies ever.  We need a new go-to question.


Another possible explanation for my drinking companion choices: maybe if I'm liquoring up all the Republicans, the Democrats will actually get something done.

A Moment of Quiet

I have had jobs all along the spectrum of work.

As a teacher, I never rested.  Ever.  I was up and going and certainly not taking a bathroom break.

As a nanny, part of my day was taking a nap.  I should have appreciated that more.

And I've had all kinds of jobs in between.  The internship I just started is proving to be one that's a little closer to the teacher side of things - I am busy busy all day, and I am certainly not comfortable enough yet to take a coffee break.  But I did eat lunch today, so that's a step in the right direction.

So even though I'm sure you're all fascinated with my daily routine of the past and present, that is not, in fact, the purpose of this post.  The purpose is to say this:

What actually makes up your workday is a really under-discussed matter in the debate on teacher compensation.  Because, yes, teachers do get summers off.  And while there are incredibly dedicated teachers who stay until 5, 6, 7 PM, most teachers do go home at around 3:30 or 4, a luxury for those with office jobs.  However, those hours from 8 AM to 3 PM are nothing like the hours the rest of the world experiences.  There is no coffee break, clearly.  But there is also no bathroom break, no quiet break, no sitting down break.  I think if you wanted to make this somehow equivalent to an office job, it would be like giving a presentation at a meeting of your colleagues all day every day.  No, it's not as high-stress as giving a presentation to your bosses, and yes, it gets easier eventually.  But there's no having an off day.  You have to be on point, all the time. 

So maybe it's time to stop discussing how much teachers work, when they work, etc.  At the next meeting of the district or central office, perhaps we should ask administrators (/Republicans everywhere): how much would we have to pay you to give up any kind of down time during your day?  How about the privelege of ever leaving your office or chatting with other adults between 8 and 3?  Ok, now add a little boost for the privelege of leaving your job and having everyone tell you you don't work hard enough.

Now do teachers seem overcompensated?

Weekend Promises

The title is a way of saying...sorry for this post.  It is going to be short and boring because it already way past my bedtime and I have Day #2 of my internship tomorrow so I need some sleep.  But I will not give yet another podcast link this time.  Even though it just so happens I listened to a fascinating Start the Week podcast on the gold standard.  No link.


In fact, my plan was to give a wikipedia link, but then I couldn't find the right article.  So maybe someone can help me.


Tonight, I got into the zone.  I had about 10 pages I needed to write in my thesis (still so far from done...) and I banged those suckers out.  In 3-ish hours, I got it all done and it was actually relatively painless!  I got The Smiths playing, and Morrissey's lovely voice just carried me from page to page until suddenly it was finished.  What is that called, that thing that's the opposite of writer's block and/or procrastination?


Whatever it is, I love it.  And Morrissey.  God bless them both.


Also...here's that podcast.  I couldn't help it.

Quickie with a Good Excuse

This is going to be yet another very quick entry, but here's why:

1. State of the Union tonight! One of the most exciting nights of the year!

2. I just had the first day of my new internship, which means I was too uncomfortable to take any kind of a break so my brain is a little dead.

3. I have 90 pages of reading I still need to do.  That will almost certainly not happen.

So here is the quick entry, and it is yet again a podcast recommendation. Everyone should download and listen to this episode of This American Life on the European debt crisis. It will make you smarter and better.

Gerrymandering Schmerrymandering

In spite of my promise of a weekly summary of Paul Begala's class, I am not going to talk about that one this week.  Don't get me wrong, it was a fabulous class.  We learned about the inner working of press conferences and that Clinton had to be dissuaded from doing a photo op with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders ("Sometimes he didn't think the optics through").  But this week, I was really struck with my reading for my class with Alice Rivlin (yes, I do have the best professors).


The class is called "Policymaking in a Polarized Environment", and so far, we've been just getting introduced to the class and doing reading about the history of political polarization and current research on its causes, etc.  One thing is for sure: our Congress is about as polarized as it has ever been, and that shift has been almost entirely on the right.  As in, Republican members of Congress have moved decisively to the right, while Democratic members of Congress have become more cohesive, but have remained ideologically consistent.  But both sides are less likely to vote across party lines or agree to compromising decisions.


The question is why.  A popular theory  has been gerrymandering; the idea being that as districts have been carved up to support one party or the other, candidates have less incentive to appeal to swing voters and moderates.  Before doing my reading, this is what I thought.


Now I just wish it were true.


Turns out, (1) people are just moving into more ideologically confined districts; cartographers don't have to do a whole lot of work to group us by party.  (2) It's people's preferences that are getting more polarized, not the districts.  People who are politically active and engaged are more likely to hold extreme views and express them more loudly, and moderate voters are more likely to align their voting patterns with these more active members of their community, rather than "waste" votes.


I find this incredibly depressing.  I would love to blame our deep divides on state governments and commissions, etc.  But no.  We just don't want to be around each other.  It makes me increasingly grateful that I grew up in a Republican household, where I learned how to respect views I disagree with, and then went to school in Texas, where I learned how to live around people who were culturally radically different from me.  Maybe it should be a requirement that everyone from the South has to move to hippie dippy Ojai for a year, and vice versa.


Says the girl who now lives in a 75% Democrat city that voted 92% for Obama.  Oh well.

Football Fandom

I am not into American football.*

-----

The previous sentence was one I've believed to be true about myself pretty much my entire life.

Fact: I am not a fan of violence.

Fact: I am not a fan of stopping and starting.

Fact: I am not a fan of competition/excessive testosterone

Fact: I am not a fan of close-up shots of men's asses.

I thought all of these facts added up to me never being able to enjoy football. None of these facts have actually changed. I am still not a fan of any of those things. But man, learning the rules of the game really makes a big difference.

To be fair, I should have learned this much faster. The same thing happened to soccer at age 17 (although the appearance of Cristiano Ronaldo may have also been a factor) and to baseball at age birth (thank you Mom). Not that that made me good at sports or especially willing to participate. When I was 8, I remember being forced to play baseball in PE and standing out in far, far left field (my specialty position) picking flowers, when I heard our teacher and some boys getting into an argument about what happens when a ball bounces on field and then into home run territory. (Note: it is highly likely this happened because I was supposed to catch something and didn't) I shouted, "It's a ground rule double" and promptly got back to my flower picking.

Anyway, this makes me want to learn the rules of other sports I find boring. As in, all of them. What new worlds will be opened up to me? Basketball? Hockey? Curling?

I think I'll start with rugby. Let me have some more quality time with my dad. I would say cricket for the same reason but, well...I've watched that sport my whole life and still don't understand what a point is. Or a run. Or a wicket or whatever. Pretty sure it's a lost cause.

But the point of all this is: I was actually sad the 49ers lost tonight. Because I was watching (until Downton Abbey came on, obviously). And I cared. I am very proud of myself.

*I don't include the "American" descriptor because, like most people who use such a phrase, I am a pretentious jackass. I do so because I have big chunks of family who honest-to-goodness need the clarification. They can't help being born in the wrong country.

Fair game?

Last night was the final Republican debate before the South Carolina primary. So obviously Parks and Rec (even though it featured Paul Rudd...) had to go by the wayside. Republicans, you better be damn grateful. Even though I'm not going to vote for you. And I spent most of the debate yelling at you through the TV. So maybe what I meant by "be grateful" is "wonder why this is how I choose to spend my time".

The very first question of the debate was about Newt's open marriage scandal. He really let John King have it in a very entertaining way. At one point, he tells John King "To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine." In the words of Paula Poundstone...he has a very limited imagination.

In all seriousness, though, I really wondered about his point that it was an inappropriate topic for the debate altogether. So here are all of my thoughts about it, in a list, because that's how I like to organize things.

1. I don't think this is going to make any difference to his numbers one way or the other. The scandals of 90's-Newt are well known and well documented. They sort of add to/make his story of fallenness and redemption. People who think he's now a different person are going to add this extra piece of scandal into the mix and probably chalk up its timing to the "lamestream media". People who care about his past, well, is this really such a surprise? I mean, why does it matter if he asked for an open marriage? He was cheating on her either way, right? In some ways, maybe it's better if he was asking for the open marriage. He was kind of having one with or without her, so it seems like the asking was more of a nicety. He wanted to make her an honest woman!

2. I hate that we're incapable of staying away from personal character issues. As I've talked about in previous posts, I think the post-Watergate world sees politics and politicians in a fundamentally different way than the pre-Watergate generations. If I could pick my dream candidates, they would be technocratic robots who just make the most economically sound decisions for the long-term. I don't care if they go to church, cheat/don't cheat on their wives, play ball with their kids, etc, because we've shown repeatedly that none of that matters. And also that people will always lie about that kind of stuff, so why bother to get worked up about it? The morality of Newt Gingrich that I care about is whether or not it's moral for him to want to limit unemployment benefits past 4 weeks. He can have as many women as he would like in the Lincoln bedroom, but is he going to be balancing our economy on the backs of the poor? It looks like he will. That's the morality I care about.

3. But in this one particular case...I think it's maybe fair game? Here's why: (Yes I have subpoints)


A) He led the impeachment trial against Bill Clinton. While he was cheating on his wife. Now I understand that the impeachment was for lying and not for the sexing, but still, Gingrich had the balls to look the American people in the face and with no shame say that the President should be impeached for lying about something about which he was lying. At that very same moment. No, he was not under oath. But still. No shame. I just...I just think that if I were in that situation, I would not cop to my cheating ways at that point, but I would maybe take a backseat on the manslut shaming.


B) He doesn't want to allow gay men and women to get married. Supposedly because he cares about the sanctity of marriage. I think if you're going to put that out there, well, the sanctity of your own marriage gets to be on the table, too. To draw an Obama parallel, he said he went to church regularly, when he clearly didn't. He definitely lied. I don't care. However, if he was proposing legislation that said everyone had to go to church, immediately, I would care. Even apart from the 1st amendment issues. So if Newt takes marriage off the table, I think I would, too.

Endorsement

This is going to be a very, very brief entry.  Everyone should make it their business to download these two podcasts and listen to them ASAP.

1. This interview with Rachel Maddow.  Even if you don't agree with her (I don't always!) I guarantee you will find her charming and funny and full of really interesting insights.

2. This episode of Radiolab.  This is consistently one of my favourite podcasts, but in this particular edition, they discuss serial killers and the Milgram experiments and such.  I now think about the Stanley Milgram experiments in a totally different way, and I bet you will, too.

High Quality Advice for Life

Disclaimer: I am going to sound like a horrible, self-centered, shallow, vain bitch through the majority of this post.  Please read to the end.  I swear I improve slightly.

**

This is my advice for an easier, happier life: be attractive.

Today, I was walking into Georgetown and was stopped on the street by this guy I kind of thought I recognized but not nearly enough to actually talk to.  Turns out I recognized him because we sat by each other on my plane ride back from CA after Thanksgiving and we had chatted for a good part of the flight.  It was a decent conversation.  Clearly nothing life-changing - I only half remembered him all of 2 months later.  From what I recollect, we discussed fun places to go out in DC, whether or not I liked my iPad and how crappy the movies were that were playing.

But he apparently remembered me well enough to say, "Kathryn!  How are you?" and then, observing my half-confused, half-terrified expression, to press on with, "Remember, the flight back to DC?  I'm in cybersecurity blah blah blah..."

So I pushed my way through the conversation, lied about being late to class and walked away with an email I'll never, ever use.  And my first thought, because the pressure of this 30-day challenge is overwhelming me a little, was, "I'm totally writing a blog post about how being able to remember faces and names is a double-edged sword - it's convenient if the other person is good at it, too, but can also come off super creepy."  Because this guy came off as super creepy.

But then I started thinking about how much I wished I could have such an amazing conversation with, say, Adam Scott that he would remember it weeks later and want to give me his email so we could talk again.  This guy was more of an uglier, pimplier version of Mark Hamil, who is just not my cup of tea.  To be fair, he also had the conversational skills of one of my 7th-graders.  But to be even more fair, Adam Scott could have the conversational skills of a stone wall and I would have wanted his email.

I think the moral of the story of my run-in with my plane buddy is this: you can get away with just about anything if you are attractive.  You can be dumb, smart, smarmy, socially inept, too loud, too quiet, whatever, and people will assume the best of you and let you get away with just about anything.  That last article was a more dry explanation.  This article speaks to a more pop-culture-y, fun explanation.  But either way, the point is that if you look like Zooey Daschanel or Adam Scott or whoever, you can pretty much act the way you want and people will let you get away with it.  So if I could give one piece of advice to someone just starting out in life, it would be this: become attractive early, and stay that way.

I say this 100% as someone who cannot get away with anything.  I feel awkward and embarrassed all the time.  I just felt I needed to publicly acknowledge my own prejudices.  And have an excuse to look up pictures of Adam Scott.

Alternate Universe Debate

I was wrong!  I was wrong!  The Republicans were all over the race issues last night.

Sort of.

They were all over the early 90's race issues conversation of "welfare queens" and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and such.  Hence the title of this post: I think the candidates were having a debate in some sort of an Alternate Universe, where the entire country of Mexico gets booed, and apparently it's insane to think that if we bomb countries they might want to bomb us back.  But here is my actual evidence that this debate was being broadcast from another dimension:


1. Dodd-Frank is too strict and we are being "strangled by regulations".


In my universe, our entire financial system went into a meltdown because of lack of regulation.  Income disparity is at its highest in 50 years because of lack of regulation.  We've had to bail out banks and investment firms and AIG because of lack of regulation.  I grew up in a Republican household.  The concept that tax breaks and deregulation can encourage growth and help everyone is not foreign me and I do not believe is always wrong.  But come on.  I think at this point, we've learned that taking away all regulation is a terrible, terrible plan.


2. Government regulators are the enemies of free enterprise.


Obama just appointed the ex-head lobbyist of Monsanto as the chief of the FDA.  SEC lawyers walk out the door and straight into jobs at Goldman Sachs.  I wish this were far, far more true than it is.


3. People are staying unemployed because we're letting them have unemployment benefits for too long.


Yes, companies are just begging for new employees and all those lazy low-income folks are saying, "No thanks, I'll take my barely livable unemployment benefits here and pass up that excellent job with health insurance.  But seriously, thanks anyway!"


4. Obama has made government way too big, but also, has not spent enough on defense, building up the border or creating jobs.  Which he can't do because the government doesn't create jobs.  But still, he's doing a bad job at that.


Yup.


5. Obama hates the troops because he wants gay soldiers to be able to serve openly.


The troops don't really care.  Military leaders, sociologists and psychologists all say it does nothing to negatively affect troop morale or cohesion.  And Obama actually setting an end date so troops can go home to their families...to me that says he cares about them as people a hell of a lot more than our previous president did.




I could keep going, but I would just like to conclude with this point: I think all of these items show that Republicans are horribly out of touch and out of date with their policies.  This is also evidenced by the fact that the Fox News moderator looks like a 1950's football cartoon.

MLK Thoughts

My day off started with seeing this article on Politico.  And yes, I start my days with visits to Politico.  It's primary season!  Where else would I be?

First of all, I had no idea there was a debate tonight.  It's my own fault for categorically ignoring Fox News Anything.  But it's because they pull shit like this.  In case you missed the icon in the corner, the meeting between Obama and the GOP was happening live.  They were cutting off the actual dialogue and explaining how combative he was being before it actually happened.  But my point here is not to bash Fox.  Lots of other people do that much, much better than me.  My point is simply that I don't tend to ever know what's happening on that channel and now I'm a little sad about that.

Second, I don't usually agree with Jesse Jackson.  I usually find his methods way too aggressive and narrow-minded and I think he purposely alienates people.  In this case, however, I think he may be right.  A recent piece in the Times discussed how the US currently has worse socio-economic mobility than Europe.  Given that this mostly affects the low-income, this also disproportionately affects African-Americans.  Surprisingly, Rick Santorum is one of the only candidates who is actually addressing this reality head-on, even if it is in an incredibly stupid way.  But to continue to pretend like the poor economy is equally hard on everyone and race plays no factor and it's all about the middle class is just stupid and blind.  The unemployment rate for African-Americans is almost double that of whites and has remained unchanged, even while the overall unemployment rate has dropped.  The sort-of-a-point that I'm trying to get to is that Republicans like to blame their poor numbers among African-Americans on the fact that Obama is black, or that they have outdated party loyalty.  I think they would be doing us all a favour if they would recognize that African-Americans aren't voting for them because of policy, rather than politics.  Republicans have made perfectly clear that they don't care about anyone but the rich.  It's nice to talk about the power of small business and the American Dream etc when that works.  But it doesn't.  Europe has better socio-economic mobility than we do, and it's tough to deny that our lack of a safety net is having a huge impact on that reality.

I have no real hope that any of the Republicans actually will talk about race issues tonight.  But I genuinely do think MLK would have wanted them to.  Not because Jesse Jackson said so, not because that was his passion, but because it's the only way the conversation is going to have any real substance.  It's the only way to inject some actual policy into an otherwise totally political discussion.  So I'll end with one of my all-time favourite MLK quotes, one that hung in my classroom and I made my kids write an essay about:

"A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan."

I am Not About Originality

I am stealing the format of this post pretty much directly from mi amiga Nancy and her blog.  In case you were wondering, yes, I am going to keep linking to it until everyone reads it.  It is brilliant and funny and will make your life better.  Also I'm hoping all this pressure will force her to update all the time.

Anyway, in case you don't like clicking things or you don't know how, this is essentially what I'm stealing from her for this entry: 

"I could talk all day about what my life is about or the things I want to accomplish.  The challenge, as Ms. Niequest explains, is to decide what your life isn’t and who you are not.  What can you commit to not doing?  What can you commit to not worrying about and not feeling guilty over in order to make time in your life and space in your mind and heart for the things that really are important?  So Shauna and I both made lists of things that we will not be doing.  (She made hers first, and I stole a few of her ideas).  This list can always change and I can add and take away from the list as I see fit depending on the season of my life.  But for today, this is my list of things I will not be about.  Enjoy!"

 So this is going to be my short list of things I am not about.  The first clearly being originality.  Building on that, just like Ms. Higson stole from Ms. Niequest, so I will steal from Ms. Higson.

1. I will not keep my opinions to myself.

This one came to me as I was recently listening to the annual "Conundrum Gabfest" that the Slate Political Gabfest puts out at the end of the year, where they just debate random etiquette/political/philosophical topics because everyone just loves to hear them talk so much.  That sounds mean and sarcastic, but I mean that seriously.  I could listen to those three all day.

One of the topics brought up by Emily Bazelon was this question: When someone you care about is getting serious (like engaged) to someone you think is wrong for them, is it ever OK to speak up? What about other big decisions, such as buying a house?

The overwhelming answer from the other two people was "Obviously not, no one wants to hear that.  Maybe for a house it's ok, but relationships, keep it to yourself."  And I know they're right.  I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in living rooms/cars/metros/on the phone and heard my friends complain about significant others who are clearly awful, and just repeated to myself over and over, "Do not say anything.  Do not say anything.  Ask neutral questions.  Do not say anything."  

I always say something.  I can't help it.  This has hurt friendships, this has led to some very uncomfortable moments, but at the end of the day, I care about my friends so much more than whether or not they particularly want to be friends with me.  And I think everyone needs someone who they know will give them an honest opinion, even when it hurts.  So sorry, friends of past, present and future.  Maybe don't ask me to give wedding toasts.

And PS, friends who are reading this, if you're thinking that I'm talking about you...you're probably right.  All of you.  I over-share my opinions all the time always.

2. I will not watch nature documentaries.

First of all, I don't like nature.  It's full of bugs and dirt and we spent a long time getting the hell away from it and I, for one, don't want to spit in the face of all that hard work.  But even just watching TV about nature, while I understand it is bug-free, is incredibly depressing.

My brother once tried to share this video with me and my mom, in part because it's a cool nature-y thing and in part because it takes place at Kruger Park, a place my family has visited quite often.  Supposedly, at the end, some lovely thing happens with the baby water buffalo getting rescued or something, but we didn't make it there.  I started crying at around the 7-second mark, or whenever the buffalo gets cornered, because that is awful.  AWFUL.  I understand this is the real world and that nature is cruel and there are predators and blah blah blah.  I hate it and I don't want to see it.  I don't want to live around lions or crocodiles and baby anythings shouldn't be preyed upon.  And I feel like every nature documentary ends with some baby something getting eaten or almost eaten or abandoned.  No.  Thank you.  At least in stories of human cruelty, there is some lesson to be learned about humanity, a species that is a part of my daily life.  Learning about lion cruelty is disheartening and makes it really hard to enjoy how much they look like giant kittens.

3. I will not cook for myself.

I love cooking when I'm home with my family, or when friends come to visit.  There are few things I enjoy more, in fact, than getting together with friends and preparing a huge meal.  But when I'm on my own, I think cooking is stupid.  I microwave vegetables, I buy pre-made meals, I put cheap-o garlic salt on just about everything.  And (this is stealing from Nancy) I will eat the same thing every night, without shame, and if I could afford to make that thing a Chipotle salad, I would definitely do it.  As it is, that thing will likely be a bag of microwaveable green beans.

4. I will not stay in relationships past when I get bored in a conversation.

This is almost certainly why 3 months is my current all-time record, and this is also almost certainly something I should work on.  But not yet.  Right now, at this "season of my life", I don't want to waste my time with people who bore me.  In part, this is totally unfair.  I happen to have insanely funny, smart, witty friends who make every conversation a stomachache-inducing laugh-fest, or a mind-blowing deep-thought-inducing exchange of ideas, or some mix of the two.  No man should have to compete.  But if I'm thinking about how much laundry I need to do during our date...well...maybe try harder with the next gal.

So thank you, Nancy, for this idea!  I really enjoy declaring things I won't do.  I wish I could have the balls of one of my ex-students, who told me he just wasn't a "homework person".  Somehow I feel like my thesis advisor isn't going to go for that one.

Arrogant Jerks vs. Sanctimonious Idiots

I should probably just go ahead and warn now that this blog may very well turn into a summary of my Begala class on a weekly basis.  But who wouldn't want to read that?

So first of all, I didn't really realize until yesterday that when I get nervous, my voice gets very waver-y and very, very quiet.  He had us go around the table and introduce ourselves, and asked a lot of questions (he was incredibly friendly) about our families and our undergrad experiences, etc.  Turns out his neighbor growing up went to my undergrad, he knows the head of our poli sci department, and is generally  a big fan of the Wildcats.  I'm really surprised our conversation even got to this point, though, because my introduction basically consisted of the following: "My name's um....Kathryn...and um....Texas."  Imagine this at the volume of a small mouse.  I'm usually a pretty competent public speaker but this was one of my heroes.  And he was smiling.  It was too much.

The rest of the class was amazing.  He told us some great stories, and it turns out he does pretty fabulous impressions of Bill Clinton, James Carville and Barack Obama.  And he still calls Clinton "Mr. President".  Just like on West Wing.  *Tear*.

So now on to the actual content of the class.  Mostly we talked about the concept of "rational ignorance".  The basic idea is that most people stay uninformed about politics and political strategy because they don't see how it affects their day-to-day lives.  This made me think of my grandmother in Israel.  When asked what she thought about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, her response was, "Well, I do wish they would be better about taking care of their trash bins".  This is, first of all, my grandmother in a nutshell.  In the middle of an incredibly racially divided Zimbabwe (Rhodesia at the time), she was the only white woman in her college class and was elected student body president.  She cares about people as people, and their political affiliations or societal stature mean little to nothing.  I wish I had inherited more of those genes.

But in relation to my class, this is also a prime example of rational ignorance.  The broader political implications of the peace (ha) process are meaningless in her daily life.  What matters is their trash habits.  In the same way, all those polls that say that "only x% of Americans can name a Supreme Court justice!" or "most Americans don't know when the election is!" mostly show that politicos have done a really bad job convincing people that these facts have any impact on their daily life, not that anyone is stupid.  Begala's contention was that people on the left are particularly prone to this kind of arrogance.  If you hold an argument for long enough with a liberal, the argument will eventually break down to, "The American people are too stupid to know what to do on their own and they should just leave it to me.  If you disagree, you are clearly stupid, too."  I may or may not have been guilty of this sentiment.  Of course, this is not to say the right is without its own problems.  His claim was that an argument with conservatives will eventually break down to, "Everyone who tries to give power to the government is anti-American and elitist.  If you disagree, you are clearly a bad Christian/bad patriot."  Either way, not a very productive conversation.

All of this made me think of the discussion happening in ed policy circles.  I'm sure this could be applied to pretty much any area (seems like a pretty fundamental divide) but of course, for me, ed policy seems the clearest example.  On one side, we have arrogant anti-union folks.  Unions are clearly the cause of every problem (they cause cheating, they prevent accountability, they demand unreasonable salaries) and if you disagree you are caught in the past and don't know how this new generation of teachers is going to work.  On the other side, we have sanctimonious pro-union folks.  Unions are the only thing holding our schools together (TFA teachers are incompetent, school "reformers" hate teachers and want to take away their benefits, teachers are paid peanuts) and if you disagree you are a terrible person who doesn't care about children or teachers.  This leaves very little room for collaboration or even just a reasonable conversation.  Just recently, Matt Damon's mother turned down an award from the NEA (not my favourite organization) just because their president had written an article with (yup, written an article.  Not started a new organization with, not gotten married to, not became blood brothers with) Wendy Kopp, the founder of TFA.  All the original article said was that we should make sure we're holding teacher prep programs accountable - it didn't even really go into how we should do that, or what specific standards should be.  If we can't even agree on that basic point (maybe we should make sure we're preparing our teachers well?  No?) then where the hell are we?  

Like I said, I'm sure ed policy is not the only arena in which this kind of fundamental disagreement is happening.  I guess it just stands out more because the accusations always come down to caring/not caring about "the children".  Those children to whom we're supposed to be teaching the value of empathy and cooperation and seeing the world in shades of grey, right?  Right.

New Semester, New Inappropriate Professor Obsessions

Today I start my final semester of grad school.  It will be full of thesis lamentations, desperate job searching and (almost certainly) way too much TV watching, followed by complaints that somehow I don't have enough time to do any work.  Looking forward to it.


Mostly, I'm looking forward to the class on Politics and the Media that I'm taking with Paul Begala.  Yup.  This guy.  My goal for the semester is to work up enough courage to (a) talk and (b) get him to sign my copy of The War Room.  If you're not into politics, imagine being into sports and taking a class with...let's switch to movies.  It would be like being into movies and taking a class with Roger Ebert.  In other words, awesome.


Another goal for this semester is to apply to at least one job per week and to fully enjoy being a student.  Because I remember the first year out of undergrad, thinking I had not appreciated how amazing being a student really is.  You work with little to no pressure, there are very few real consequences for being unprepared and no one expects you to even be conscious on the weekends.  I am taking full advantage of this this time around.


One more goal: work on finishing my DC checklist.  There are all kinds of places around the city I have been meaning to visit but haven't put the effort into making happen.  For example: more than 5 minutes at the Vietnam Memorial, Spike's food truck (it's kosher!), a live Political Gabfest, tour of the C-SPAN offices.  If this list/the rest of this blog had left it unclear...I am a nerd.

The Primar-mageddon

I learned on CNN this morning (they repeated about 6 times in case I missed it at any point) that Newt Gingrich called the SC primary the "armageddon" of the race in his interview last night with Piers Morgan.  As in, everyone is pulling out all the stops, a crazy amount of money is being spent, etc etc.  It's all or nothing.  Or at least, that's what Newt has decided.  In this one, very specific instance, I wish he were right.  Unfortunately, Ron Paul is calling Florida the real decider, Perry won't be satisfied until he's lost every Southern state, and Huntsman is going to need the race to move back North again before he declares defeat.  We're in for several maybe-geddons.  And of course, we all love the drama of it, and all the speculation that we're just praying will be totally wrong.


So this is the point I'm slowly ambling up to: I wish prognostications about voting patterns were more wrong.  I wish newspapers with incorrect headlines were practically an annual pattern.  Pundits are often wrong about who exactly is going to win, but they seem to get voting patterns scarily correct.  Young people vote this way, old people vote that way, Christians vote this way, Jews vote that way.  And I think we all want them to be wrong.  After all, I am a young person, and if you listened to pundits you would think my top issues are education loans, the environment and vodka-soaked tampons (ok, I'm a little old for the last one...we moved on to whiskey.  Classier.)  Those are, in fact, not at all my top issues.  And yet I can't seem to stop voting how they tell me young people vote.  Most Jewish people I know (my mother included) care about more issues than Israel.  And yet, as a block, you wouldn't know it.


Today, also on CNN, I saw this pastor from a megachurch in La Mesa, CA talking about how he was publicly endorsing Newt Gingrich (and apparently had done so from the pulpit) because he was the only candidate who cared about the "foundational Christian issues".  Turns out these things are abortion and gay rights.  Funny, I thought he was going to say, "caring for the poor" or "social justice".  Don't know why I would imagine such a thing.


Anyway, apparently a bunch of evangelical leaders are getting together tomorrow to discuss who they are going to collectively endorse.  And obviously this is going to lead to pundits deciding how evangelicals as a whole are going to vote.  It seemed like in the past few years, we had finally moved away from this "religious right" domination, where Christians could care about all kinds of issues and vote in different ways and still be part of that "evangelical base". I hope that's still true.


Come on evangelicals, in all those Southern Primarmageddon states, give us a "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment.  Or at least, please don't vote for Gingrich.  Seriously.

Phones and Scones

Today, I made scones.  For those of you who know me, you know this is far from an unusual occurrence.  Baking in general is a love of mine, and scones in particular make frequent appearances in my kitchen.  In fact, my roommate and I talk sometimes about starting a Tea and Scone food truck.  This is a joke, obviously.  Except for around finals time.  Then I'm super serious about it.

But today I was making scones with a special purpose.  They were "thank you scones" for one of my roommates, who somehow managed to understand my techno-illiterate instructions and log on to my laptop while I was out in CA and track down a mysterious non-serial-number serial number that allowed me to replace my stolen iPhone.  And all of this work just because I sent an email and asked.  Clearly he deserved many, many scones.

So two thoughts about this whole experience, from stolen phones to scones.

1. I am eternally grateful to my mother for being obsessive about cleaning before leaving on long trips.  I remember the day before we would leave for months-long vacations to Zimbabwe, I knew I was going to spend all my time cleaning my room and making sure the rest of the house was spotless.  In general, my mom is no neat freak, but for some reason, some sort of pre-travel adrenaline would always kick in and she would go on a tear.

Turns out, she knew what she was doing.  When I got the email from my roommate that he had gone in my room and gotten the number for me, all I could think about was how many piles of clothes he had had to step over, or whether or not I had left make-up spread out all over my dresser or possibly just part of it.  I cannot describe the joy that swept over me when I arrived home on Monday to find that, apparently, my mother had trained me well and my room had been cleaned prior to my departure.  Like, my bed was made and everything.  Apart from that pre-travel surge of cleanliness, this is never true.  For the most part, I have stopped apologizing for this - I am not a neat person, and I am ok with that.  I have better things to do than make sure all my laundry is in a basket.  However, I am going to steal my mom's trick of cleaning before vacations.  Clearly it's worth it.

2. I think I am okay with things being stolen from me.  I have had two major things ever stolen: a camera when I was in France during middle school, and this cell phone.  I had the same reaction both times: "But...but...it was mine.  Someone just looked at this thing that didn't belong to him or her and took it?  But...how?"  I realize that by now, after living in Brooklyn and working in Newark and living in Sketchville SW DC, I should maybe start wrapping my mind around these things.  And stop owning bags without zippers.

However, the whole time I worked in Newark, I never had a single thing taken from me.  I mean, besides pencils, which somehow managed to leave my classroom in droves on a daily basis.  I don't even know what the kids were doing with all those pencils.  Certainly not their homework.

I maybe should have gone in with the mentality that a lot of these kids had been raised with a sort of "finders keepers" mentality, and so I needed to have my guard up a little more than usual.  Or to put it even more generously, that the socioeconomic conditions of the neighborhood meant that they could probably justify taking whatever they wanted from my purse - they needed it a lot more than I did.  But I didn't.  It wasn't until a year later that I really realized it was maybe dangerous to walk from my school to Newark Penn by myself after dark.  Or that I shouldn't have left my purse anywhere in sight in my classroom.  But I'm glad I didn't think those things at the time.  It left me open to new perspectives on the city and on the people in my school and neighborhood.

So basically what I'm saying is, I'd rather pay for the new phone and keep my faith in people, all things considered.

However, I may invest in a purse with a zipper.

30 Day Mind Cleanse

As I've mentioned before, I'm very easily influenced and distracted.  And yes, I would like to be in charge of taxpayer money.  What?

Anyway, one of my favourite internet writers was recently asked "How do you get over writer's block?" (I would link to this specific entry but I can't figure out how.  Here is his blog.  The question is somewhere in there.) His answer was essentially, "Write.  A lot."  This was nothing I hadn't heard before.  I was an English major.  We were told that all the time.  I just never thought it applied to me because (a) I had no desire to be a writer writer and (b) I usually solved writer's block on  papers by not writing them.

But the thing is, at the moment, I almost exclusively write memos and and policy briefs and regression results and legal summaries.  While I am glad for these skills, I would like to maintain my ability to write an interesting, funny paragraph without too much sweat and tears.  Also, there's a part in his answer where he says this: "if you’re experiencing writer’s block...your brain is telling you that it’s being lazy; force it to work anyway. Ninety percent of people who go to a gym don’t want to work out ninety percent of the time they go, but they force themselves to and, after ten minutes or so, their muscles are invested in the workout, the body is releasing endorphins that make them feel good, and they forget why they ever didn’t want to work out in the first place. Your brain’s the same way."  I felt like he was calling me out on both my lack of blog-updating and gym-visiting.

In addition, one of my good friends started her own blog.  It is brilliant and you should absolutely add it to your own blogrolls.  She does not update nearly as much as I would like her to (hint hint) but, as mentioned in one of her entries, she is a big fan of 30-day challenges and sets them for herself about every 30 days.

So put this all together and what do you get?  A long, rambling piece that's made up mostly of other people's writing, you say?  Well, yes.  But also, I am setting myself a 30-day blogging challenge.  I will write every day for 30 days.  These might not actually get published every day, but I will be writing, and at the end of 30 days, there will be 30 blogs.  And I will be 30 days closer to being able to write a really great Christmas letter that people actually want to read, which is, of course, the ultimate goal.