Cranky Meep Rant

17 April 2002

I just deleted a bunch of stuff on Bayesian statistics, because I
realized I didn't have the really interesting stats (and besides, I said
my piece on livejournal and am in no mood to repeat myself today.)  I
will do something about Simpson's paradox and weighted averages, in
particular applied to suicide rates and election turnouts.  But let me
talk about the mundane now.

It's an odd time of year -- creeping up on my birthday (and I'm creeping
up on 30).  I never really thought about my birthdate in history until I
read a column on Hitler's birthday recently. Stu's birthday is right
after Christmas, which is annoying enough, but that's generally a happy
time had by most (in my family, at least).  However, lots of unhappy
things have happened near and on my birthday.  Nixon died on my birthday
(or perhaps it's officially the day before or after, I can't remember. I
was bowling at the time the news came through.)  The Peruvian president
sicced the army on the Tupac Amaru (I believe, and not to be confused
with Tupac Shakur... but I guess they're all dead now) on my birthday.
My birthday is a week after Tax Day, and 2 days aways from Hitler's
birthday, thus having a date near the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine,
David Koresh's untimely end, and all that happy stuff.

Oh yeah, and I share my birthday with the hippie-dippie Earth Day
(though it's usually scheduled for the weekend closest to my birthday).
My birthday has been on or near Easter several times.

For the past two days, the temperature has hit records in NYC, but it
hasn't really felt all that hot.  Perhaps the humidity isn't that bad,
but the promised thunderstorm hasn't rolled in tonight, and there's not
been enough elevated temperatures to raise the temp in subway stations
as of yet.  The trains push a refreshing breeze as they arrive, and as
many people seem to skipping out on work, the trains haven't been as
crowded as usual.  Other than that big roll of sweat that runs down my
side every half hour or so, and other than the annual blooming of
inappropriate clothes for people blessed with rather more surface area
than others, it's been hard to feel these summer temps as summer.  I've
sarcastically remarked to many that nature has decided that one week of
spring is enough and skipped direct to summer, but it really doesn't
have that feeling.  The sun doesn't have that insistent feeling, and the
air doesn't have the sense of July solidity.

In other news, I've noticed quite a proliferation of other news.  I can
see how talk of old pedophilia scandals is popular now, as well as talk
on the politics of the Middle East, but there's so many unresolved
issues that seem to have been dropped -- has anything been found out
about the anthrax mailings?  An Osama bin Laden video has popped up, but
it seems old -- still, one wonders... what's going on in Afghanistan?
For the longest time a tangible miasma of sadness had settled on this
city, but I don't see it anymore.  We're back to the usual peevishness.
On the radio a week or so again, a historian told Brian Lehrer that
Sept. 11, 2001 would just be a blip in history - that there hasn't been
much of a permanent impact on the American psyche.  I have to agree with
him - it's not that people are talking Gary Condit or Lizzie Grubman,
but everyone is back to the usual distracted state.  The incipient
recession that preceded September seems to be receding itself, and the
usual self-absorbedness of the American people comes back into play.

I suppose those having an interest in the Americans being humbled are
feeling pretty pissed now; it's not as if we're cowering in fear, or
really took a big economic hit.  But there are plenty of societies in
the Arab world on the brink of trouble due to instability of oil prices.

Speaking of which, I got some interesting mailings of late.  Because I'm
addicted to subscribing to magazines when they have good deals on, I'm
on lots of mailing lists. Once upon a time I subscribed to =Mother
Jones= and =Free Enquiry=, and now I have subscriptions to =Foreign
Affairs=, =First Things=, =Discover=, =Scientific American=,
=Entrepeneur=, =Wine Spectator=, =Games Magazine=, and =Knitter's
Magazine=.  You can well imagine I get an eclectic mix of junk mail.

So I get pleading letters from all sorts of nonprofit organizations
which are tangentially related to the magazines I subscribe to.  On one
day, I got solicitations from Planned Parenthood and The Heritage
Foundation (think: Steve Forbes).  Both asked for donations, with
specific info on what political campaigns the money would be used for.
In addition, for the purpose of market research I suppose, they had
"surveys" included, which could be returned with (or without) donations.

The Planned Parenthood "survey" was somewhat amusing.  It was a list of
items for action that Planned Parenthood actively supports, like
international family planning, sex education, government financial
support for abortions for poor women, with blanks next to each one.  You
were supposed to check off the items one thought it was important for
Planned Parenthood to support.  I suppose they'd use the info to better
sculpt the letters to get money out of people.  I had to say that only
one item on that list I thought was extremely important, but I don't
think my interpretation was what they had in mind.  The wording of each
item was very positive, and in some cases, vague in order to escape the
negative ways one could interpret stuff... like one wouldn't want to
talk about forced sterilization and abortions in China.  That wouldn't
do.  But you could talk about international family planning groups, even
if they were complicit in the imposition of unwanted "medical treatment"
on women and men in other countries.

Now the survey included in The Heritage Foundation's mailing was a
little more like a real survey.  It was mainly about energy and
immigration policy in the U.S. and covered a wide range of answers.  For
example, if they asked a yes/no question, though the members of the
Foundation definitely skew one way, they allowed both the yes, no, and
no opinion options.  (Perhaps there was a "maybe" as well).  However,
there were missing choices, and their positive wording for some items
was misleading.  I had to agree that American policy should push toward
not being dependant on Middle Eastern oil, except there are
oil-producing countries, like Russia and Venezuela, that aren't in the
Middle East.  Of course, there seems to be a standard of corruption in
these oil-producing nations, but I will conveniently ignore that. Still,
who would push for dependance on OPEC oil, Middle Eastern or not?

So the next question was what I thought was the best way to reduce this
dependance.  The choices were: more nuclear plants, drilling for oil in
ANWR (and other protected places in the U.S.), research into
clean-burning coal (which I've heard is a pipe dream in more ways than
one), and tax credits for alternative energy.  For some reason, the
obvious short-term strategy of reducing energy demands (like, oh, people
not air-conditioning the great outdoors, and forbidding useless SUVs (NO
ONE needs those damned things!  It's just because yuppies didn't want to
drive station wagons or minivans!)  As well, one of the obvious
incentives to reducing oil use, taxing it as much as Europe does, wasn't
an option.  I suppose that tax credits for those installing windmills
was their idea of the liberal position.

Obviously, neither group is going to get my money.

I'm a news junkie, and though I mentally comment on every dumbass thing
I read, I don't necessarily share with people in general.  The main
reason is I forget what I was going to say, as I've been distracted by
something in the interim, and the other reason is that I don't
particularly feel like sharing my thoughts with the world.  I know what
will not be appreciated by most people (which is why I don't write about
the tradition of celibacy in the Catholic priesthood.  Most people don't
care.  They just want to yell about "how unnatural" it all is.)  Still,
I've noticed a convergence of articles treating the subject of marriage
lately, and though I've been married for less than two years, I've got
to stick my oar in.

Here are the items in the news: Maureen Dowd bitching about intelligent,
ambitious, middle-aged women not being to snare themselves men, because
men of the same stature want pretty, young, ignorant things; the idea of
"starter marriages", which are less than 5 years in duration, involve no
kids, and are usually terminated by the wives when they decide they're
dissatisfied with the man they picked; promotion of marriage in welfare
policies; and a friend's pragmatic approach to finding an appropriate
marriage partner.

I can't say I agree with Dowd, as I think these women are looking for
the wrong men -- for crying out loud, if they're already making plenty
of money, why look for a man who makes even more money than they do?  If
you want to have kids, why pick a man who has even less time than you do
to apply to child-rearing?  I think these women should take a clue from
the men who are their professional equals - find a mate who will be able
to spend time to take care of you and the home.  Find a man who will
cook you dinner, bring up the kids, and can take care of the day-to-day
practical problems of running a household - who will work outside the
home only on a part-time basis.  These men exist, but if you can't find
any who are willing -- take a hint!  Don't be picky about inessentials -
why do you care if your man has a MBA from Harvard?  What will that get
you in your personal relationship?  Women have used the excuse that men
don't like being around women who are more accomplished or more
intelligent than they, but that's ridiculous.  I'm outrageously scary as
a person, I know, and I have cultivated a very intimidating personailty
from time to time, but I've managed to attract many eligible men -- and
I'm not particularly physically attractive!  and I wear glasses!  What
men =can't= stand are women who will do nothing but criticize them;
being overly critical isn't a sign of intelligence - it's a sign of
being unrealistic and unbearably bitchy.  Be pleasant, dammit!

As for starter marriages, I just have to shake my head.  I think the
blame for starter marriages is the idea of the storybook wedding that
chicks want.  And I do mean chicks, as they are immature biddies in my
mind.  Life isn't about registering for Ralph Lauren linens at Macy's,
girls.  The wedding is just a party for celebrating the fact one is
getting married -- people are supposed to enjoy it.  In fact, though
many brides like to throw a fit and say it's "their day", it's not. It's
for the enjoyment of the guests, not the bridal party.  The honeymoon is
solely for the enjoyment of the wedding couple.  I wanted to shirk any
responsibility for planning the wedding, which annoyed my mother to no
end, mainly because my personal tastes shouldn't dictate what would be
imposed on the guests.  I really loved the beef dishes the caterer
brought out, but I knew most people who came would prefer chicken
dishes, so I had to choose the chicken for the rehearsal dinner.  The
only thing I wanted to choose was my dress and my hairdo.  Some of the
music I picked didn't get played, but I didn't care.  People left early
to go to football games or to watch the World Series, but I didn't
notice - I could've huffed and puffed over the rudeness of others, but
so many were invited that I couldn't keep track of everybody.  Wwddings
are supposed to be great parties, enjoyment shared by all.

Marriage, on the other hand, isn't a party (unless your husband bitching
at you for being messy every day is your idea of fun.)  A day-to-day
life of romantic haze is unworkable.  At some point, something will
happen like a wife leaving a wet, color-bleeding red shirt on top of the
clean clothes (um, sorry).  Or the husband will leave the oven on broil
all day long on a hot day because he had been seasoning the cast-iron
dishes.  Neither is a romantic situation, no matter how you try to wedge
it into a "When Harry Met Sally" scenario.  When one invariably drifts
lust-wise, the person who bought into the Prince Charming/Cinderella
theory of matrimony will decide they made a mistake and shift to someone
different.  To a large extent, I don't even see why most people get
married anymore.  It must be the tax benefits, because it doesn't seem
to be out of any religious or traditional humanistic reasons, otherwise
divorce wouldn't be so prevalent.

I have nothing good to say about the pro-marriage welfare policies, as
I've known many people on welfare, and in most cases marriages would
have done nothing good for their situations.  Here's a good abuse of
stats - politicians note that those children who have married parents
are much less likely to be in poverty.  Ergo, reason the pols, if we
make welfare single mothers marry, their children will benefit!  This is
mistaking cause and effect.  Perhaps the fact that the parents are doing
well economically is what keeps parents married or provides social
pressure for parents to be married.  As well, there are plenty of single
mothers who have children from different men - which one are they to
marry?  All of them?  None of them, if there's another man to take her?
I've noticed studies that indicate that children tend to do less
materially well if their mothers marry a men who aren't their fathers.
The only thing I could see beneficial in this look at marriage policy is
the reduction of a penalty against welfare recipients who are married.

As for my friend's practical considerations in marriage, I totally agree
with her.  There needs to be love, but not every person one loves is an
appropriate spouse.  You need to consider whether you can deal with your
mate should they be a smoker, or an early-riser, or an inveterate
gum-chewer.  If you're living with a person on a long-term basis, small
considerations like these become highly important.  What practical info
and common sense do you require of a mate?  For example, I would
recommend avoiding any person who claims to not be able to do wash,
cook, or wash dishes;  any adult who can't do these basic things is more
helpless than a person who can't read.  You may think educational and
career credentials are more important in choice, but it's not as if
you're interviewing for a business partnership.  You're going to be
dealing with this person when they're not looking their most polished,
you'll see them when they have the flu -- it's like trying to pick a
good roommate, except one has to share stuff like your bed and your
dresser and closet.  That can be tough for some to consider.

Anyway, it's getting late, and I've rambled on long enough.  I feel like
a cranky old lady, except I have no white hairs to show for it.


Night-night.