an open letter to conservatives

Ouch.

An open letter to conservatives
March 22, 2010, 3:16PM

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you're going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you'll have to start by draining this swamp:

Hypocrisy

You can't flip out -- and threaten impeachment - when Dems use a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that's centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.

You can't vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it's done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against, is especially ugly) -- 114 of you (at last count) did just that -- and it's even worse when you secretly beg for more.

You can't fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.

You can't call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.

Are they "unlawful enemy combatants" or are they "prisoners of war" at Gitmo? You can't have it both ways.

You can't carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.

You can't refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn't meet with you.

You can't rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.

You can't rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.

You can't be for immigration reform, then against it .

You can't enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.

You can't flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent about white presidents doing the same. Bush. Ford.

You can't complain that the president hasn't closed Gitmo yet when you've campaigned to keep Gitmo open.

You can't flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn't even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed leaders of countries that are not on "kissing terms" with the US.

You can't complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt -- the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)

You can't attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn't issue any condemnation). *Obama administration did the day of the event.

You can't throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when -- in fact -- only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.

You can't condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his.

You can't mount a boycott against singers who say they're ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he's ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.

You can't cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it's too short.

You can't support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.

You can't demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.

You can't praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it "treasonous" under a Dem president.

You can't propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.

You can't be both pro-choice and anti-choice.

You can't damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you've paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.

You can't condemn criticizing the president when US troops are in harms way, then attack the president when US troops are in harms way , the only difference being the president's party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).

You can't be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.

You can't vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of 'open debate'.

If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it's 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you're taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God's stand, too.

When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can't send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).

You can't criticize Dems for not doing something you didn't do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.

You can't decry "name calling" when you've been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.

You can't spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare

You can't praise the Congressional Budget Office when it's analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it's unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don't.

You can't vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don't. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.

You can't call a reconciliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.

You can't spend taxpayer money on ads against spending taxpayer money.

You can't condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the mandates were your idea.

You can't demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don't.

You can't whine that it's unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party's former leader admits you've been doing it for decades.

You can't portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.

You can't complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you've routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain -- threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented -- and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.

You can't question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn't object when your own Republican president appointed them.

You can't preach and try to legislate "Family Values" when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer's wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheating on your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coerce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife's mother;

Hyperbole

You really need to disassociate with those among you who:

• assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million "isn't a lot of money";
• say that "Comrade" Obama is a "Bolshevik" who is "taking cues from Lenin";
• ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;
• liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and "this Muslim guy" that "offed his wife's head" or call then "un-American";
• say Obama "wants his plan to fail...so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy";
• equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;
• smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;
• say that the president wants to "annihilate us";
• compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot the attack on 9/11,or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators (update: it's also not Armageddon);
• equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with "what the Nazis did";
• call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, an unconscionable abuse of power, a violation of the presidential oath or "the end of representative government";
• shout "baby killer" at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing -- cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);
• prove your machismo by claiming your going to "crash a party" to which you're officially invited;
• claim that Obama is pushing America's "submission to Shariah";
• question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;
• claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;
• call a majority vote the "tyranny of the minority," even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority -- it's democracy, not tyranny;
• call the president's support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect "treasonous" (especially when you supported the same thing when the president shared your party);
• call the Pope the anti-Christ;
• assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;
• accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers or of being drunk and suicidal;
• equate family planning with eugenics or Nazism;
• accuse the president of changing the missile defense program's logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;
• accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists; terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and
• advocate a traitorous act like secession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we're clear: sedition is a bad thing).

History

If you're going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they're NOT synonymous!)

You can't cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you've decided you don't like his ideas.

You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word "terrorism" or say we're at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.

If you're going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.

You can't just pretend historical events didn't happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn't make it better.)

You can't say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from "socialist utopia"; health care reform is not "reparations"; nor does health care reform create "death panels".

Hatred

You have to condemn those among you who:

• call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot;
• elected leaders who say "I'm a proud racist";
• state that America has been built by white people;
• say that poor people are poor because they're rotten people, call them "parasitic garbage" or say they shouldn't be allowed to vote;
• call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don't like their politics ( re - pea -ted - ly );
• assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
• mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son's politics;
• declare that those who disagree with you are shown by that disagreement to be not just "Marxist radicals" but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
• joke about blindness;
• advocate euthanizing the wife of your political opponent;
• taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases -- especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;
• equate gay love with bestiality -- involving horses or dogs or turtles or ducks -- or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;
• casually assume that only white males look "like a real American";
• assert presidential power to authorize torture, torture a child by having his testicles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;
• attack children whose mothers have died;
• call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they've said or done something that would even smell like racism -- same for invoking racially charged "dog whistle" words (repeatedly);
• condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;
• complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americans because of their race;
• blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;
• celebrate violence , joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, "fun" political violence, hints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence or actual violence (and, really, suggesting anal rape with a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale); and
• incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a "bloody battle" with the president of the United States.

Oh, and I'm not alone: One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.

So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we'll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.

(Anticipating your initial response: No there is nothing that even comes close to this level of wingnuttery on the American Left.)

Written by Russell King

Update: removed the mouth kissing reference and tried to clean up spelling

Another update: It seems we've talked about this so much that we've clogged up the "Intertubes." I've created an open thread where the discussion can continue as you see fit.

english hothouse cucumbers and descending testicles

Like many pregnant women, I subscribe to several websites that provide weekly/ daily emails about fetal development. Today's "Your pregnancy: 26 weeks" from babycenter.com gave me the giggles.

Read the last two sentences, where the writer cleverly mentions the fact that my unborn son's testicles are now descending and that he is the length of an English hothouse cucumber (14 inches from head to toe).

See the big picture

How your baby's growing:

The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. He may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. He's inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of his lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when he's born and takes that first gulp of air. And he's continuing to put on baby fat. He now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel. If you're having a boy, his testicles are beginning to descend into his scrotum — a trip that will take about two to three days.

See what your baby looks like this week.

cardamom and orange blossom water rice pudding

This variation on the traditional Persian version (which uses rose water) pairs the delicate flavor of orange blossoms with the seductive flavor of green cardamom.

Orange blossom water is available at Middle Eastern food markets.

Ingredients:
1 cup rice (we used sticky rice)
4 cups milk
2 cups water
2/3 cup sugar
3 TBSP orange blossom water
2 green cardamom pods, seeds only - ground

Preparation:

1. Bring rice, milk, and water to a boil in a large heavy saucepan, then reduce heat.
   
2. Simmer for two hours, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Most of the liquid will be absorbed, but the texture should be slightly soupy.
3. Stir in the sugar, the orange blossom water, and cardamom.
4. Cook, stirring, for another five minutes. Transfer to a serving dish and let cool to room temperature.

Adapted from Under the High Chair: Cardamom and Rose Water Rice Pudding

aren't dogs supposed to warn you about earthquakes?

Ruby just stared at me from the couch as I grabbed my wallet, cell phone, the hard drives, and her leash after the violent shaking had been going on long enough that I thought we should get outside.

She was completely nonplussed during the 7.2 Baja quake -- and the multiple subsequent 3.9-5.1 aftershocks (centered within 60 miles of us) we've had in the past hour.

wouldn't it be nice, angeleyes?

For the past few weeks, I've been experimenting with the baby's response to music. I strap on my iPod and some portable speakers, hit shuffle, and wait for kicks and movement. My iPod's got all sorts of genres, and music in about 8 languages on it. The only trend I've picked out (so far) is that he responds to female voices/ voices in higher registers and pop songs.

This is particularly interesting, because he also gets quite active when he hears Leo's deep voice at bedtime. Although he hears the voice and kicks more, he invariably gets super-still the second Leo puts his hand on my belly ... another data point that makes me think he's got his father's contrarian temperament.

Anyhow, here are this week's winners on the music/ activity front:

The Beach Boys, "Wouldn't It Be Nice?"


ABBA, "Angeleyes"

kumquat oat muffins

These aren't super-sweet, but they are a nice wholegrain oat breakfast muffin. If you like them sweeter, add 1/4 cup extra brown sugar.

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup kumquat preserves (or 1 cup kumquats, halved & deseeded, then pulsed in food processor with 1/2 cup sugar)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 TBSP canola oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 TBSP vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup instant rolled oats
1 TBSP baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 TBSP cinnamon

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Mix dry ingredients.
3. Mix wet ingredients.
4. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold until just moistened.
5. Pour into greased muffin molds
6. Bake at 400F 10-15 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Adapted from Wholegrain Kumquat Muffins.

pork saltimbocca with polenta

What goes better with pork than pork? We made this tonight, substituting gruyere for the original recipe's fontina. It was awesome.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 1 stuffed chop, about 4 teaspoons sauce, and 1/2 cup polenta)

Pork:
6 (4-ounce) boneless center-cut loin pork chops, trimmed
6 very thin slices prosciutto (about 2 ounces)
6 large fresh sage leaves
1/3 cup (about 1 1/2 ounces) shredded gruyere cheese
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh sage

Polenta:
2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup instant polenta
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Butterfly the pork chops or pound them to 1/4-inch thickness using a meat mallet.
   
2. Arrange 1 prosciutto slice inside each chop; top with 1 sage leaf and about 1 tablespoon cheese. Fold chops in half to sandwich filling, and secure with wooden picks.
   
3. Sprinkle both sides of chops with pepper and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Place flour in a shallow dish; dredge stuffed chops in flour.
4. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chops; cook 3-5 minutes on each side or until done. Remove from pan; cover and keep warm.
5. Add wine to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits; cook until reduced to 1/4 cup (about 2 minutes). Add 1 cup broth; bring to a boil. Cook until reduced to 1/2 cup (about 5 minutes). Stir in 1 tablespoon sage. Reduce heat to medium.
6. Return chops to pan; cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, turning once.
7. Prepare polenta: bring milk and 1 can broth to a boil. Gradually stir in polenta and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 2 minutes.
8. Serve polenta immediately with chops and sauce.
   

CALORIES 404 (30% from fat); FAT 13.3g (sat 5.3g,mono 6g,poly 1g); IRON 1.6mg; CHOLESTEROL 85mg; CALCIUM 172mg; CARBOHYDRATE 30.8g; SODIUM 733mg; PROTEIN 34.9g; FIBER 2.8g

Adapted from Pork Saltimbocca with Polenta, Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 2003

work for a plonker crossed with a dipstick?

A little while back, I wrote a thank-you note to two former bosses. You see, I had what I fear are the best bosses of my life early in my career, when I was too green to know how lucky I was to have them as my managers. I thanked them for mentoring me, giving me autonomy with accountability, being flexible when needed, and treating me with genuine respect as a colleague.

I'd like to think that I'll find that again, but will admit to feeling a bit jaded as I watch my friends and colleagues endure odd situations with management that isn't really the kind of leadership to which I aspire. Over the years, I've learned to let it roll off my back and to focus on what's more important. I've also realized that I will probably be happiest (and do my best work) if I have the chutzpah to choose to work as a consultant or finally write that children's book I've been thinking about for the past few years.

For now, I'm staying put at my company, grateful for a paycheck in this economy and even more grateful for the other kindred spirits who brighten what could be just another soul-sucking corporate existence. Meanwhile, I'm doing good work, reminding my friends to focus on the fact that there has to be a light at the end of the tunnel, and counting my lucky stars that I don't work for the asstard described in the essay below.

Cubicle Wars: My Worst Boss (By Urban Cowgirl)
Monday, March 29, 2010
7:52PM

My job's sole redeeming feature is its salary. It's enough to live on, and I am grateful that in the Current Economic Climatetm I have a reason to commute two hours and hate the intervening eight hours with internal white-hot fury. The story of how I ended up here is lengthy and boring but suffice to say I had my dream job, that taxed the very limits of my intellect, and I gave it up to return to the UK because my mother was ill and I needed to be close.

I've been reaching for the gin bottle positivity-ing myself out of bed every morning, and last week I figured out that Anti-Bed leverage was enhanced by recalling that at least the people I work with are nice. Some of them are incompetent, but that's Dilbert's Third Law of Management. Nobody is actively nasty or intentionally destructive. No matter how much I hate my current job, it's not as bad as when I worked for My Worst Boss.

When I was a very young onion, I worked five years for a manager whose behaviour was so far over the line he couldn't have seen the line through the Hubble Telescope I imagined myself ramming up his backside.

When I'd been there a few months, on returning to my desk after lunch I found a copy of The Sun open at page 3 (the page The Sun dedicates to photos of topless women). Hilariously, that day's woman shared my first name. I threw the newspaper away and didn't report the sexual harassment, reasoning that my unimpressed glare had been sufficient to beat down any notions of future gender-abuse-related 'amusement'. I was right. But years later I wish I'd had the guts to march to the Director and threaten to take the organisation to court.

My Worst Boss had a drinking problem with a side of aggression. He would roll into the office at 10.30am with cadaver skin, groan at his desk until just after midday, and then proceed directly to a local drinking establishment. If I needed anything, that was my window, because after one of his special two or three hour lunchtime inhibition-busting sessions there was no point trying to interact. I attempted, once, to rescue reason from the jaws of Guinness at 3.30pm. I described a problem, and he suggested a solution so ridiculous that I queried his sanity. "Are you sure?" I said, "That might lead to the Earth being blown up and all its inhabitants dying a painful death." He told me that it would be 'fine'. It went pear-shaped the following week, whereupon I ended up back at his desk to be roared at. "Why did you do THAT?!"

Because you told me to.

"I never would have told you to do something so idiotic!"

I could only inwardly lament that during the conversation where he instructed me, only one of us was sober.

After lunches he would often come back bearing gifts of coffee and cake, because he knew he was doing wrong and he needed to feel better about leaving his staff to pick up the pieces of his shattered professionalism. When the telephone rang after lunch he would lean back and project his voice to the open plan office. Pity the poor fool on the line: they would be there hours later, listening to such effective relationship-management strategies as "Yes! It is under the enormous pile of incredibly URGENT million other things I have to do! WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME OVER AND LOOK AT MY DESK?". My colleagues and I would pretend we were deaf. I would get emails from people who had been trying to reach him for months, pleading with me to somehow have him respond to them.

Business was often transacted after work in the pub: if you didn't go, you would simply not find out things that were vital to the job. On one memorable occasion My Worst Boss had four too many drinks and got seriously bent out of shape because I'd arranged an external meeting with a client fully two weeks hence without yet mentioning it to him. It was in my calendar, which he could look at any time he could see straight, and he had previously told me to do whatever I felt was best. So I did, and now I was the recipient of a drunken rage in front of multiple colleagues. A senior colleague leapt to my defence, and I was so worried My Worst Boss would start throwing punches that I went home in tears.

The next day I explained to My Worst Boss's Boss that I didn't find it acceptable to be torn a new one in front of colleagues during a 'social' engagement outside the office. I didn't find it acceptable that My Worst Boss would tell me one thing one minute, deny it the next, and I could never be sure which way was up. I felt humiliated, hurt, and confused. I used the words drinking problem. I was told to go and see Human Resources Remains. Human Remains notified me that the only course of action was the dreaded formal complaint. I suggested that perhaps help (and a soft-skills course) for him could be productive as a first step. Could they instruct My Worst Boss's Boss to have a word with My Worst Boss? Why should this fall on my small, inexperienced shoulders? They might as well have washed their hands in front of me.

I returned to My Worst Boss's Boss, who gave me a book entitled 'How To Deal With Difficult People'. On my way home I realised that I was being asked to change my behaviour to accommodate someone who was an asshole and an alcoholic (probably the former because of the latter). This seemed neither sound logic for a long-term solution, nor fair. And the authors of the book had clearly never had to deal with My Worst Boss.

In ten years of working, for four months I was managed by someone whose integrity, intelligence, and professionalism I utterly respected. She made me want to leap out of bed every morning and hurtle to work. They are out there: but a rare breed.

Colonists, do you work for a plonker crossed with a dipstick? Please, share your tales from the trenches. Who was Your Worst Boss?

Urban Cowgirl is a Colony team member. You can read more about her here.

three more yanks before putting an end to this

How I love the Onion ... Dog To Allow Child 3 More Yanks On Tail Before Putting An End To This

smoky shrimp and cheesy grits

This is the closest we've ever been to channeling Paula Deen.

I say that because Leo tried to add butter to the grits, until I pointed out that shrimp + bacon + cheese = a cholesterol trifecta. We did serve it with a beautiful organic garden salad.

Total time: 20 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients
1 cup instant grits
1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
4 slices bacon
1 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 plum tomatoes, chopped (or 3/4 cup diced canned organic tomatoes)
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp kosher salt
Smoky Chipotle Tabasco sauce, to taste

Directions

1. In a skillet, brown 4 slices bacon over medium-high heat. Remove from pan, place on paper towels and cool. Crumble.
   
2. Prepare grits. Add salt and cheese. Stir until well combined.
   
3. Add shrimp and tomatoes to the bacon fat already in the skillet; cook until the shrimp are opaque, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in scallions and bacon.
   
4. Serve over the grits.
5. Add Tabasco sauce to taste.
   

Adapted from Smoky Shrimp and Grits by Kate Merker and Sara Quessenberry, Real Simple, April 2010

pickles and ice cream

Leo and I will become parents in July. I think it's fitting that a Francophile like me would have a baby due on Bastille Day (14 July). Whether he makes his debut on le quatorze or not, I'm very excited to meet our little boy.

modern love: my first lesson in motherhood

Life often hands us more than we think that we can handle. And somehow, we find we're more resilient and more capable than we thought.

My First Lesson in Motherhood
By ELIZABETH FITZSIMONS
Published: May 13, 2007

I SAW the scar the first time I changed Natalie’s diaper, just an hour after the orphanage director handed her to me in a hotel banquet room in Nanchang, a provincial capital in southeastern China.

Despite the high heat and humidity, her caretakers had dressed her in two layers, and when I peeled back her sweaty clothes I found the worst diaper rash I’d ever seen, and a two-inch scar at the base of her spine cutting through the red bumps and peeling skin.

The next day, when the Chinese government would complete the adoption, also was Natalie’s first birthday. We had a party for her that night, attended by families we’d met and representatives of the adoption agency, and Natalie licked cake frosting from my finger. But we worried about a rattle in her chest, and there was the scar, so afterward my husband, Matt, asked our adoption agency to send the doctor.

We had other concerns, too. Natalie was thin and pale and couldn’t sit up or hold a bottle. She had only two teeth, barely any hair and wouldn’t smile. But I had anticipated such things. My sister and two brothers were adopted from Nicaragua, the boys as infants, and when they came home they were smelly, scabies-covered diarrhea machines who could barely hold their heads up. Yet those problems soon disappeared.

I believed Natalie would be fine, too. There was clearly a light on behind those big dark eyes. She rested her head against my chest in the baby carrier and would stare up at my face, her lips parting as she leaned back, as if she knew she was now safe.

She would be our first child. We had set our hearts on adopting a baby girl from China years before, when I was reporting a newspaper story about a local mayor’s return home with her new Chinese daughter. Adopting would come later, we thought. After I became pregnant.

But I didn’t become pregnant. And after two years of trying, I was tired of feeling hopeless, of trudging down this path not knowing how it would end. I did know, however, how adopting would end: with a baby.

So we’d go to China first and then try to have a biological child. We embarked on a process, lasting months, of preparing our application and opening our life to scrutiny until one day we had a picture of our daughter on our refrigerator. Fourteen months after deciding to adopt, we were in China.

And now we were in a hotel room with a Chinese doctor, an older man who spoke broken English. After listening to Natalie’s chest, he said she had bronchitis. Then he turned her over and looked at her scar.

Frowning, he asked for a cotton swab and soap. He coated an end in soap and probed her sphincter, which he then said was “loose.” He suspected she’d had a tumor removed and wondered aloud if she had spina bifida before finally saying that she would need to be seen at the hospital.

TWO taxis took us all there, and as we waited to hear news, I tried to think positive thoughts: of the room we had painted for Natalie in light yellow and the crib with Winnie the Pooh sheets. But my mind shifted when I saw one of the women from the agency in a heated exchange in Chinese with the doctors, then with someone on her cellphone. We pleaded with her for information.

“It’s not good,” she said.

A CT scan confirmed that there had been a tumor that someone, somewhere, had removed. It had been a sloppy job; nerves were damaged, and as Natalie grew her condition would worsen, eventually leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Control over her bladder and bowels would go, too; this had already begun, as indicated by her loose sphincter. Yes, she had a form of spina bifida, as well as a cyst on her spine.

I looked at my husband in shock, waiting for him to tell me that I had misunderstood everything. But he only shook his head.

I held on to him and cried into his chest, angry that creating a family seemed so impossible for us, and that life had already been so difficult for Natalie.

Back at the hotel, we hounded the women from the agency: Why wasn’t this in her medical report? How could a scar that size not be noticed? It was two inches long, for God’s sake.

They shook their heads. Shrugged. Apologized.

And then they offered a way to make it better.

“In cases like these, we can make a rematch with another baby,” the one in charge said. The rest of the process would be expedited, and we would go home on schedule. We would simply leave with a different girl.

Months before, we had been presented with forms asking which disabilities would be acceptable in a prospective adoptee — what, in other words, did we think we could handle: H.I.V., hepatitis, blindness? We checked off a few mild problems that we knew could be swiftly corrected with proper medical care. As Matt had written on our application: “This will be our first child, and we feel we would need more experience to handle anything more serious.”

Now we faced surgeries, wheelchairs, colostomy bags. I envisioned our home in San Diego with ramps leading to the doors. I saw our lives as being utterly devoted to her care. How would we ever manage?

Yet how could we leave her? Had I given birth to a child with these conditions, I wouldn’t have left her in the hospital. Though a friend would later say, “Well, that’s different,” it wasn’t to me.

I pictured myself boarding the plane with some faceless replacement child and then explaining to friends and family that she wasn’t Natalie, that we had left Natalie in China because she was too damaged, that the deal had been a healthy baby and she wasn’t.

How would I face myself? How would I ever forget? I would always wonder what happened to Natalie.

I knew this was my test, my life’s worth distilled into a moment. I was shaking my head “No” before they finished explaining. We didn’t want another baby, I told them. We wanted our baby, the one sleeping right over there. “She’s our daughter,” I said. “We love her.”

Matt, who had been sitting on the bed, lifted his glasses, and, wiping the tears from his eyes, nodded in agreement.

Yet we had a long, fraught night ahead, wondering how we would possibly cope. I called my mother in tears and told her the news.

There was a long pause. “Oh, honey.”

I sobbed.

She waited until I’d caught my breath. “It would be O.K. if you came home without her.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“I just wanted to absolve you. What do you want to do?”

“I want to take my baby and get out of here,” I said.

“Good,” my mother said. “Then that’s what you should do.”

In the morning, bleary-eyed and aching, we decided we would be happy with our decision. And we did feel happy. We told ourselves that excellent medical care might mitigate some of her worst afflictions. It was the best we could hope for.

But within two days of returning to San Diego — before we had even been able to take her to the pediatrician — things took yet another alarming turn.

While eating dinner in her highchair, Natalie had a seizure — her head fell forward then snapped back, her eyes rolled and her legs and arms shot out ramrod straight. I pulled her from the highchair, handed her to Matt and called 911.

When the paramedics arrived, Natalie was alert and stable, but then she suffered a second seizure in the emergency room. We told the doctors what we had learned in China, and they ordered a CT scan of her brain.

Hours later, one of the emergency room doctors pulled up a chair and said gravely, “You must know something is wrong with her brain, right?”

We stared at her. Something was wrong with her brain, too, in addition to everything else?

“Well,” she told us, “Natalie’s brain is atrophic.”

I fished into my purse for a pen as she compared Natalie’s condition to Down syndrome, saying that a loving home can make all the difference. It was clear, she added, that we had that kind of home.

She left us, and I cradled Natalie, who was knocked out from seizure medicine. Her mouth was open, and I leaned down, breathing in her sweet breath that smelled like soy formula.

Would we ever be able to speak to each other? Would she tell me her secrets? Laugh with me?

Whatever the case, I would love her and she would know it. And that would have to be enough. I thanked God we hadn’t left her.

She was admitted to the hospital, where we spent a fitful night at her bedside. In the morning, the chief of neurosurgery came in. When we asked him for news, he said, “It’s easier if I show you.”

In the radiology department screening room, pointing at the CT scan, he told us the emergency room doctor had erred; Natalie’s brain wasn’t atrophic. She was weak and had fallen behind developmentally, but she had hand-eye coordination and had watched him intently as he examined her. He’d need an M.R.I. for a better diagnosis. We asked him to take images of Natalie’s spine, too.

He returned with more remarkable news. The M.R.I. ruled out the brain syndromes he was worried about. And nothing was wrong with Natalie’s spine. She did not have spina bifida. She would not become paralyzed. He couldn’t believe anyone could make such a diagnosis from the poor quality of the Chinese CT film. He conceded there probably had been a tumor, and that would need to be monitored, but she might be fine. The next year would tell.

There would be other scares, more seizures and much physical therapy to teach her to sit, crawl and walk. She took her first steps one day on the beach at 21 months, her belly full of fish tacos.

NOW she is nearly 3, with thick brown hair, gleaming teeth and twinkling eyes. She takes swimming lessons, goes to day care and insists on wearing flowered sandals to dance. I say to her, “Ohhhh, Natalie,” and she answers, “Ohhhh, Mama.” And I blink back happy tears.

Sometimes when I’m rocking her to sleep, I lean down and breathe in her breath, which now smells of bubble-gum toothpaste and the dinner I cooked for her while she sat in her highchair singing to the dog. And I am amazed that this little girl is mine.

It’s tempting to think that our decision was validated by the fact that everything turned out O.K. But for me that’s not the point. Our decision was right because she was our daughter and we loved her. We would not have chosen the burdens we anticipated, and in fact we declared upfront our inability to handle such burdens. But we are stronger than we thought.

Elizabeth Fitzsimons, who lives in San Diego, is a reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

health care reform passes

It's imperfect, but a start ...

quotable

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. - Albert Einstein

tips for photographing toddlers and children

For friends who want to take better pictures of their kids ...

Tips for Photographing Toddlers & Children: Amy Postle

1. Be a silent observer: Rather than instructing, positioning, and asking your child to smile - take a step back and enjoy the subtleties of your children. You will see, appreciate and capture the natural moments in your child’s life, rather than taking another staged “say cheese” picture.
2. Activities are important: Keep your child occupied and happy by giving them an activity or toy that they love. If your children are happy and active, great photos are sure to follow.
3. Get down to your child's level: Sit on the ground, or lay down if you need to. Physically moving to their level will give you a new and unique perspective. Move around and experiment with cropping. Make sure to come in close and observe the little things in those moments too- their hands, feet, smile, etc. Play around with the perspective and you'll find some amazing moments to capture that you would have otherwise missed standing up!
4. Be aware of the light source: When outside, avoid direct sunlight, which causes harsh shadows and squinty eyes (cloudy days are great). On a sunny day, find a shaded spot and turn off your flash (even snapshot cameras have this option). You'll get a much more realistic, beautiful and naturally lit image. When indoor, try and position your children near a window- window light provides beautiful natural light and helps you avoid the harsh light from a flash. (Avoiding flash photography also helps with tip #1- flashes tend to startle children, especially younger ones.)
5. Pay attention to the background: Try and avoid shooting towards backgrounds that are busy and distracting (poles in the background can often give the "skewered effect!") If the background is busy however, you can solve this simply by moving your own body and camera position even slightly- change the angle and you will change the photograph.
6. Ask them to do simple tasks: For example, ask your child to look out the window- you’ll have beautiful window light on their face, while capturing their sense of curiosity at the world.
7. Be a part of the moment: Have one parent (or friend) photograph while the other parent participates. Embrace the opportunity to interact with your child and be photographed with them. Do what they want to do, be a part of their world and enjoy it! A client told me once that the greatest gift was looking back at photographs of her playing with her children and being able to see the true joy she felt as a mother all over again.
8. Shoot in Black & White: Black and white strips away the “noise” of every day life and really brings focus to the child and the moment. It is classic, timeless, and always beautiful. Plus, if you are photographing your child indoors, it will help you avoid the normal color shifts that occur on film when shot without a flash under standard household bulbs.
9. Let them be themselves: Allow them to pick their own clothes for the photos. Even if it’s silly or sassy- capture that! Great photographs come from capturing the real moments that children experience not from the perfect smile, or a constructed moment. Ask them what ideas they have for photographs and indulge them. I bet they will surprise you.
10. Making faces is fun: One of my favorite things to ask children to do is make faces- every face they can think of from silly, to serious, mad, sad, and anything else they can come up with. It’s a good way to warm them up for picture taking while making them realize that taking photos can be fun! Chances are they will start laughing half way through and be a ham for the camera afterwards.
11. Make a contact sheet: Have a contact sheet made instead of prints. Contact (or proof) sheets show the story of the day- they are a fantastic way to see the personality of the shoot and your child, without having to choose one shot. Frame it as a single picture and it will be like having a mini movie on your wall.
12. Think like a professional: Think about the big picture- what’s in the background? What’s in the foreground? If you move slightly to one side or the other will the shot improve? How is the lighting? Would this be better as a horizontal or vertical image? Would B&W or color be more effective? What do I hope to achieve? Think like a professional and over time your photographs will improve. Have fun, be adventurous and trust your instincts!
    

Learn more about Amy:
Podcast - Amy Postle pushes the boundaries of her art by evoking passion, beauty and emotion with color and black and white films.
Visit Amy's website: http://www.amypostle.com

quotable

"They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price." -Kahlil Gibran, (1883-1931) Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer. Gibran is considered to be the third most widely read poet, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu, in history.

organic veggie quiche

A few weeks ago, I made this for a baby shower at work. Several folks asked for the recipe, so here goes.

You can make quiche with a variety of strongly flavored cheeses, including: sharp cheddar, gruyere, goat cheese, and French feta (the higher butterfat/ lower salt content makes French a better feta than Greek, Bulgarian, etc. for melting purposes; if using feta, reduce salt slightly). Traditional quiche recipes call for heavy cream, half-and-half, or light cream; I use 1% milk to reduce calories and cholesterol. Variations on this include spinach and onion quiche, broccoli and red onion quiche, chopped celery and leek quiche, etc. To save time, you can use leftover vegetables that have been sauteed in olive oil or butter. Just be sure to add some onion, garlic, or leeks for flavor.

Prep / cooking time: 20/40 minutes
Yield: Two 9-inch quiches, about 16 servings

Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs organic Swiss chard
1/2 lb beet greens (These lend a mild sweetness and a fun pink color to the mix. They may stain your cutting board.)
1 1/2 TBSP garlic, finely chopped OR 3/4 cup chopped onion
1 TBSP butter or olive oil (I prefer the butter for a richer-tasting quiche)
2 piecrusts (I use Trader Joe's piecrusts because they don't have the heavy taste of lard in them)
1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar, shredded
8 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tsp salt, divided
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper, divided
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 400F.
2. Remove leafy green portion of chard and beet greens and chop roughly. Set aside. Chop stems into 1/2 to 3/4-inch pieces and keep separate from leaves.
   
3. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt butter. Saute onion and chard/ beet green stems until just translucent (about 3 minutes). Note: if using garlic instead of onion, omit onion in this step.
4. Add leafy greens and saute for another minute, then cover pan and let greens wilt for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. If using garlic, add garlic, stir into greens and saute with the lid off for another 2 minutes.
   
5. Add 1 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp pepper and stir until seasoned. If very wet, move greens to the side of pan, tilt slightly, and press on the greens to remove excess juice, then spoon the greens out of the pan, leaving the excess juice behind.
6. Beat eggs, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, and nutmeg together until the eggs are well combined. Add milk and beat again until mixture is uniform in color and consistency.
7. Using a food processor on pulse setting, pulse the veggies until they are finely cut up (almost to the puree stage). Stir vegetables into egg mixture.
   
8. Place piecrusts in pie pans. Sprinkle 3/4 cup of cheese over mixture in each pan.
9. Pour egg mixture over filling. It should just cover the cheese, but a few bits may still be visible about the egg mixture.
   
10. Cook in 400F oven for 35 minutes or until filling is browned and set. When you take the quiche out of the oven, the filling will likely be puffed up, because you've essentially made a souffle with the eggs and milk. As it cools, the eggs will settle and become more dense. Let cool, and then enjoy. Refrigerate leftovers.
    

environmental links to autism, cancer, etc.?

I recently posted the article below to Facebook and got a few comments from friends. One called the article pure speculation. Another pointed out the danger of these types of articles to parents desperate to find a "cure" and improve the lives of their children with autism -- his parents tried chelation therapy on his brother, and it made things "10x worse". Here is how I responded to the comments that were posted, and more about my mindset and motives for sharing the article.

O, your family has endured so much. Over the years, I've been sad each time I hear about what's happening with your brother and the toll it takes on all of you. I can't begin to imagine what it has done to each of you.

D, I don't think pure speculation makes sense. I also don't think the tone of Kristof's article is about pure speculation. He's citing mainstream scientific work and makes a point of calling out that we just don't know enough yet to draw a conclusion. He's doing what he believes is his duty as a journalist, asking questions in the interest of the public. Lastly, he's not some fringe crackpot -- he's a responsible journalist who also happens to have won two Pulitzer prizes.

So where does this leave us? I've seen the FDA and other federal agencies fail to acknowledge the growing number of studies proving that phthalates, organic solvents, Bisphenol-A, etc. are hormone disruptors. Do these chemicals cause autism? Who knows? But when I consider that each study is looking at a chemical in isolation, and not evaluating the aggregate effect of all of the chemicals to which we're exposed, I cringe. And every so often, I cheer, as I did when public pressure forced the FDA to pay attention to BPA and other substances that are finally being acknowledged for making epigenetic changes that lead to cancer.

Meanwhile, like Nicholas Kristof, I've adopted the precautionary principle. That's for a few reasons. The biggest is my own health history (kidney cancer at 28 with no genetic factors in play -- as confirmed by recent tests). The others boil down to:

1. My skepticism about whether government interests beholden to lobbyists are really going to be neutral and act in the best interest of the public (DDT, smoking, and Agent Orange come to mind) -- which is why I tend to look at the EU's response to many of these policy questions
2. Luck in having the income level to afford to spend more (because all of this costs more)
3. My own tendency to choose the 'safer' option, rather than the riskier one.

For me, the precautionary principle means that:

• I eat on and drink out of glass/ceramic/ porcelain/ stainless steel, when possible. (And not just because it's phthalate-free, but because it's much greener than plastic or styrofoam.)
• I limit my exposure, when possible, to heavy metals [insert Beavis and Butthead joke here] because mercury and other heavy metals are known neurotoxins and I really don't need the mercury exposure that happens via conventional mascara and certain fish.
• I've eliminated most shampoos, lotions, and cosmetics that are chock-full of the nasties (phthalates, parabens, mercury, lead, fragrances). (The EU has much more stringent labeling requirements and has already banned most of these substances in cosmetics and requires much more stringent labeling than the US does.)
• I eat organic and local, when possible. I know my farmer and his family and trust the produce he delivers via my CSA share. I drink organic milk and eat organic meat whenever it's an option. Part of it is because there might be pesticide residues in the food. Part of it is because organic is much better for the environment and the people growing it than petrochemical-fertilized-and-transported food. And part of it is because I think the taste, quality, and freshness are better.
• I'll choose organic or second-hand clothes for my children (when I eventually have them), because they don't need to be exposed to the hormone disruptors and neurotoxins present in the flame retardants that conventional new baby and kid's clothes sold in the US have on them. (The EU has banned the flame retardants on kid's clothing, in mattresses, etc.)
• I'll vaccinate my kids, but will spread out those vaccinations as much as possible and probably postpone vaccines like Hep B until the children are older (it is given to every infant these days a few days after birth), because the probability of an infant contracting Hep B is so unlikely that it just doesn't make sense.

Op-Ed Columnist: Do Toxins Cause Autism?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: February 24, 2010

Autism was first identified in 1943 in an obscure medical journal. Since then it has become a frighteningly common affliction, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting recently that autism disorders now affect almost 1 percent of children.

Over recent decades, other development disorders also appear to have proliferated, along with certain cancers in children and adults. Why? No one knows for certain. And despite their financial and human cost, they presumably won’t be discussed much at Thursday’s White House summit on health care.

Yet they constitute a huge national health burden, and suspicions are growing that one culprit may be chemicals in the environment. An article in a forthcoming issue of a peer-reviewed medical journal, Current Opinion in Pediatrics, just posted online, makes this explicit.

The article cites “historically important, proof-of-concept studies that specifically link autism to environmental exposures experienced prenatally.” It adds that the “likelihood is high” that many chemicals “have potential to cause injury to the developing brain and to produce neurodevelopmental disorders.”

The author is not a granola-munching crank but Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, professor of pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and chairman of the school’s department of preventive medicine. While his article is full of cautionary language, Dr. Landrigan told me that he is increasingly confident that autism and other ailments are, in part, the result of the impact of environmental chemicals on the brain as it is being formed.

“The crux of this is brain development,” he said. “If babies are exposed in the womb or shortly after birth to chemicals that interfere with brain development, the consequences last a lifetime.”

Concern about toxins in the environment used to be a fringe view. But alarm has moved into the medical mainstream. Toxicologists, endocrinologists and oncologists seem to be the most concerned.

One uncertainty is to what extent the reported increases in autism simply reflect a more common diagnosis of what might previously have been called mental retardation. There are genetic components to autism (identical twins are more likely to share autism than fraternal twins), but genetics explains only about one-quarter of autism cases.

Suspicions of toxins arise partly because studies have found that disproportionate shares of children develop autism after they are exposed in the womb to medications such as thalidomide (a sedative), misoprostol (ulcer medicine) and valproic acid (anticonvulsant). Of children born to women who took valproic acid early in pregnancy, 11 percent were autistic. In each case, fetuses seem most vulnerable to these drugs in the first trimester of pregnancy, sometimes just a few weeks after conception.

So as we try to improve our health care, it’s also prudent to curb the risks from the chemicals that envelop us. Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is drafting much-needed legislation that would strengthen the Toxic Substances Control Act. It is moving ahead despite his own recent cancer diagnosis, and it can be considered as an element of health reform. Senator Lautenberg says that under existing law, of 80,000 chemicals registered in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing of only 200. “Our children have become test subjects,” he noted.

One peer-reviewed study published this year in Environmental Health Perspectives gave a hint of the risks. Researchers measured the levels of suspect chemicals called phthalates in the urine of pregnant women. Among women with higher levels of certain phthalates (those commonly found in fragrances, shampoos, cosmetics and nail polishes), their children years later were more likely to display disruptive behavior.

Frankly, these are difficult issues for journalists to write about. Evidence is technical, fragmentary and conflicting, and there’s a danger of sensationalizing risks. Publicity about fears that vaccinations cause autism — a theory that has now been discredited — perhaps had the catastrophic consequence of lowering vaccination rates in America.

On the other hand, in the case of great health dangers of modern times — mercury, lead, tobacco, asbestos — journalists were too slow to blow the whistle. In public health, we in the press have more often been lap dogs than watchdogs.

At a time when many Americans still use plastic containers to microwave food, in ways that make toxicologists blanch, we need accelerated research, regulation and consumer protection.

“There are diseases that are increasing in the population that we have no known cause for,” said Alan M. Goldberg, a professor of toxicology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. “Breast cancer, prostate cancer, autism are three examples. The potential is for these diseases to be on the rise because of chemicals in the environment.”

The precautionary principle suggests that we should be wary of personal products like fragrances unless they are marked phthalate-free. And it makes sense — particularly for children and pregnant women — to avoid most plastics marked at the bottom as 3, 6 and 7 because they are the ones associated with potentially harmful toxins.

feeling beautiful, inside and out

I was talking to some friends the other day about their pregnancies. One is having a boy. When she said that she was thrilled to be having a boy, I probed her as to why. Her answer: "It's easier to be a man in this culture than it is to be a woman." I agreed, and added that it's easier to be a man in pretty much every culture on this planet.

Another friend pointed out that there's something quite feminist about raising a compassionate son. I pondered that and have to say that I also agree with her viewpoint. Frankly, when I become a parent, I hope that my first child will be a boy, simply because (in general) they tend to internalize things less. The way I see it -- if I'm going to have a girl, I would love to have some parenting experience under my belt before foisting myself (and my psyche) on my daughter.

When I think back on the messages about body image I got as a girl and adult, my mother's own self-loathing (of her body) is more and more obvious, and I'm very sad for her. I have to believe that she said and did what she did because she loved me and hoped to shield me from some of the issues she had dealt with. But at the end of the day, a mother's voice is quite powerful and her negative messages about weight and "ideal" beauty colored my sense of self-worth in very ugly ways. The ensuing knots in my psyche took years to undo (with the help of several therapists, lovers, and friends), and are something I will always have to consciously work to dispel. Fortunately, I've finally learned how to move through life without craving approval and acceptance from authority figures and loved ones.

It's something I still struggle with, but that I am feeling more optimistic about as I move toward parenthood. I have to hope that when I'm a mom (to a boy or a girl), I'll be like Minnesota Matron. Her essay below helped me reframe my thoughts and feel a great deal more capable of raising kids who are healthy inside and out and who have a very positive sense of self.

Is it Really Getting Better Folks? (by Minnesota Matron)
Friday, February 19, 2010

My, my, my. . . the Matron read the Kevin Smith comments with a HIGH degree of interest. She chortled at Mrs. G’s temporary move from Switzerland to . . . well, at least Ireland.

But the outright vilification of flesh gave the Matron pause. Why? She’s thinking of our daughters. Yes, yes, the boys –and she has two of them—feel pressure to adhere to cultural ideals, yes, indeed. But she’s here to argue that there’s a unique condemnation of flesh in females. Is there any male counterpoint to Oprah’s battle of the bulge? Starr Williams? Ricki Lake? She could go on and on and on. For every Jared, there’s a Jenny Craig, Valerie Bertinelli, Kirstey Alley and every celebrity who has ever given birth. The Matron would love to take every “how she got her body back after baby” article to kerosene and torch. That would be one big bonfire. She’d toss in a few pages on Jennifer Aniston’s abs, just to make that flame burn brighter.

Every few days, she’s reminded of how cellular these issues are to women, how this deep-tissue condemnation of female flesh is being passed along to our daughters. You see, the Matron has a good friend – a rail-thin woman who, not unlike the Matron, works toward that condition--- who cannot get her daughter to be thin enough. The daughter is not fat. Not thin. She is firmly in the middle, a 12 year old with new breasts, hips, and a little bit of tummy. The Matron’s friend, Jay we’ll say, is routinely saying things like this:

“I’m taking Kay for a walk tonight to make sure she burns some calories.”

“Do you pack carbs for Scarlett's lunch? I’m just leaving carbs out of Kay’s diet unless she asks for something like a cookie.”

“I know, I know, I’m worried about the weight. But it’s so much easier to be thin. Your life as a woman is easier.” (True)

“Kay? Do you really need to eat a whole hamburger or is half okay?”

“Girls? Can we skip a snack after school and save our appetites for dinner?”

The Matron is not condemning Jay but putting her on a spectrum, a spectrum in which the Matron herself, survivor of an eating disorder, is firmly situated. With three spindly young ones, the Matron hasn’t (yet) navigated the land of ‘watch what you eat.’ But she sees plenty of mothers, not just Jay, fretting about their daughters’ physiques.

Last week, Jay’s daughter, Kay, said this to Scarlett. The Matron overheard from her secret spot out in the open two feet away from the kitchen table:

Kay: “Scarlett, let’s go on a cleansing diet next week. No carbs, no wheat, no diary, no meat, no sugar. What do you think?”

Scarlett: “Sounds good! We can get healthy just like our Moms!”

Oh darlings. It is a little more complicated. Please don't emulate your mothers.

Move beyond us.

What are your wars and/or wishes with a child's weight?

Minnesota Matron is a regular WC contributor. You can read more of her here.

loving the fates

I'm not a spiritual person and I don't put much credence in fate. But I do believe that some loves are simply meant to be.

Modern Love: Signs, Wonders and Fates Fulfilled
By STEPHANIE SALDANA
Published: February 20, 2010

THE first time I saw Frédéric, he was wearing a long monastic habit and carrying a battered teapot. “Would you like some tea?” he asked in English tinged with a French accent.

When I said “yes,” he smiled and lifted the teapot high, tipping it slightly so the tea poured in a long, steaming arc. The man clearly poured a lot of tea.

At 27, I had just arrived in Syria on a yearlong fellowship to study the Prophet Jesus in Islam. I was living in a dilapidated room in the Old City of Damascus with decaying wooden doors, a nonflushing toilet and a 73-year-old Armenian neighbor.

This was six years ago, when refugees from the war in Iraq were flooding the city, and my Arabic studies were progressing at a painfully slow pace. The cacophony of Damascus life exhausted me, not to mention the stream of admonitions from my neighbor: “What? Are you wearing that outside the house? People can see your legs! What? You’re from Texas? Do you know George Bush? Ha! Ha!”

By the end of each week, I was ready to escape to the desert.

The monastery of Deir Mar Musa is perched atop a mountain, and it can be reached only by climbing 350 stairs. The monastery had been built into the cliff some 1,500 years before, and the building occupies a space that appears to be nestled exactly between earth and sky. Soon I was visiting the monastery almost every weekend. Whenever I arrived in the courtyard, that young French novice monk would appear, asking me if I would like some tea.

I soon learned that Frédéric was in his third and final year of novitiate, having arrived on a journey through the Middle East several years before and more or less staying put. In that time he had come to look exactly as one might imagine a desert monk to look. He possessed a mane of wild curly hair, the requisite leather belt and sandals, and hands often swollen from beekeeping.

Beyond offering and accepting tea, he and I didn’t speak much. He seemed too otherworldly for me, and I had just had my heart broken by a man in Boston, leaving me suspicious of men in general, even novice monks.

We became friends only when I decided to become a nun.

Two months after I arrived in Damascus, I left the city for the monastery to undergo the monthlong Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. I spent weeks in silence. I prayed. In my afternoons on top of desert mountains, I wrestled with a difficult family past, a history of depression and the feeling of helplessness I experienced when confronting the chaos of a region I had come to love. Finally, I chose to offer up my life to God. In the words of my childhood religion teacher, I decided to “help carry the cross.”

I never knew if God accepted my offer. My body didn’t. A few weeks after I decided to become a nun, I grew so sick that it hurt to breathe. I spent two weeks in my bed in Damascus waiting to die, allowing my 73-year-old neighbor to ply me with 7-Up, which he insisted could cure any malady from flu to cancer. My neighbors referred to my illness as “the sickness of sadness.”

When I finally returned to the monastery, Frédéric found me sitting alone in the chapel, weak and overwhelmed. He approached quietly and sat near me for a long time. Finally, I began to speak about my month in the desert, about my confusion regarding my decision to become a nun. He listened.

Getting up to leave, he said, “I never really thought you should become a nun.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t believe in resurrection.”

He didn’t say it cruelly. In fact, he sounded sad.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s simple, Stephanie. You don’t love your life.”

And I didn’t — not the life I had left behind in America, and not the life I had assumed in Syria. But I wanted to start.

That February in Damascus, I set out in search of beauty. I studied the Koran, pausing to hear the music hidden in the verses. I watched children playing at the Ummayad Mosque at dusk, their bodies glowing golden as the sun set on the marble tiles. I began to speak Arabic, delighting in the cadence of the Syrian dialect. Then, on Thursday nights, I traveled to the monastery, where I prayed, walked in the desert and talked to Frédéric.

In the beginning, we spoke mostly about God. But we recognized something familiar in each other. Before long he was telling me about his childhood in Brittany, about his travels in Canada, the Far East and throughout the Arab world. I told him about sailing the Nile and walking across Spain. One Saturday morning we sang every Beatles song that we could think of while we washed the dishes.

Then we returned to the “life of the angels,” the monastic day that is siphoned off by bells and prayers. That evening after the meditation, when Frédéric picked up his guitar to play the hymn before the Mass, instead of “Alleluia,” he played the Beatles’ “Blackbird.” I knew he was telling me a secret.

There is no graceful way to fall in love with a man already engaged to God. By April, Frédéric and I knew that our relationship had passed the border of friendship. I blamed myself. Was I trying to compete with the divine? Was I temptation embodied, like those evil women who seduce monks in the legends of the Desert Fathers?

For his part, Frédéric tried to make sense of our relationship from the world in which he lived. “Remember, Stephanie: this is a spiritual love. Like the love between St. Francis and St. Clare.”

But Clare never daydreamed about retiring to a farmhouse in the French Alps with Francis and having three children.

“It’s clear we’re meant to be together,” he insisted. “But I’ve already been called to be a monk. Maybe this is God’s way of telling you that you should be a nun, after all.”

But if there was anything I was certain of now, it was that I was not meant to be a nun. For months I had agonized over whether or not I had a calling. Yet from the moment I fell in love with Frédéric, I had never questioned the truth of my emotions. I knew, for the first time in my life, that a calling felt like this.

So I tried to stay away from the monastery. I tried not to influence Frédéric in his choice. I even bought him a new monastic belt, as if donating to his ascetic wardrobe would somehow render me guiltless. He called me most evenings, and though we spoke of little other than studies and prayers, we knew that we did not want a day to pass without hearing from each other.

One afternoon he asked me to teach him the Koran.

That night, I sat down and opened my Koran to the story of the Prophet Joseph. A mystic, a stranger, he was so beautiful that the women who saw him became distracted from their work and cut their hands. His life was suffused with the memory of a night in his childhood when his brothers abandoned him at the bottom of the well. In the moment he lost hope, he received a message telling him the meaning of his life.

I could not tell Frédéric I thought he was beautiful. I could not tell him that sometimes the secrets of our lives do not belong to us but instead are given in the moment we feel abandoned at the bottom of the well.

Instead I sent him the passages on the Prophet Joseph. I added a note, saying that it contained the story of a beautiful young man, exiled far from his family, who dreamed great dreams and through those dreams understood the world.

It was the first love letter I ever sent him.

For the next two months, Frédéric and I courted each other through Koranic love letters. I hoped he would learn about me through the stories I loved.

I waited. I lighted candles, and then felt terrible about asking God for this favor. I tried to study. Most of all I wrestled with the uncomfortable fact that Frédéric was a novice monk who believed deeply in his vocation. But he was also in love with me. It was as though, he told me, he had been given two callings, and then asked to do the impossible: choose between love and love.

He decided to ask for God to send him a sign.

My lasting memory of that summer is of me in a crumbling room in the ancient city, and Frédéric in the desert, both looking out our windows for signs. For a few weeks everything became miraculous: ceramic tiles on old buildings, children holding hands.

On one of my last days in Syria, Frédéric passed me on the stairs of the monastery and handed me a note: “Maybe God finally spoke. I met you.”

I RETURNED to America as planned, and the next month Frédéric traveled to India to make a choice, far from the influence of abbots, monks and me. He wished to be invisible, so he wore his ordinary clothes.

In a crowded train station in Mumbai, he boarded a train to Kerala. Soon the countryside was flying past. He wrote in his notebook: “I can feel a miracle coming.”

The train slowed at the next station, and two elderly nuns boarded, followed by a young Indian girl.

How strange to see them here, he thought. They looked for the number on their ticket. It was next to his seat.

The two nuns approached him. “Are you going to Cochin?” they asked.

“Yes.”

“Then can you please take care of her? She’s traveling alone.”

Frédéric nodded.

It was quiet for a long time. When the train started moving, the girl glanced at him.

“Where are you going?” he asked her.

“I was a novice in a Carmelite monastery for three years,” she said. “And now I’ve decided to leave and return to my family.”

He looked at her in disbelief for a moment, and then smiled.

“Me, too,” he said.

And now we are a family.

Stephanie Saldana lives in Jerusalem. Her memoir about her life in Syria, “The Bread of Angels,” was just published by Doubleday.

quotable

Art is I; science is we. -Claude Bernard (1813 - 1878)

chess "hotties" and social stereotypes in the ultimate intellectual sport

According to Chess.com,

When Bobby Fischer was in a Japanese jail in 2004 for using a canceled passport, Boris Spassky wrote to President Bush to free Bobby or place him also in jail and supply them with a chess set. Bobby, in a rare display of humor, requested instead the young Russian model Alexandra Kosteniuk, whom they say is as beautiful as the young Elizabeth Taylor.

Alexandra is an International Grandmaster with a Fide rating of 2515.

Kosteniuk’s motto is “beauty and intelligence can go together”.

Kosteniuk is correct, yet female chess players are usually noted for their beauty, and not their brains. Take this contest, where viewers are encouraged to rate the most photogenic women chess players. More than half the women are master level and above, but they are displayed in order of their beauty (as determined by popular vote).

My understanding is that while there is definitely no shortage of professional female chess players, many tournaments and leagues are still separated by gender. This -- despite the fact that chess isn't usually a contact sport. (Yes, I know about chessboxing. I'm not referring to that.)

Finally, in Checkmate: The role of social stereotypes in the ultimate intellectual sport, a paper in the European Journal of Psychology, Dr. Anne Maass, et. al., pitted male and female players against one another to examine the role of gender in performance outcomes. In the study, women had a 50% performance decline when made aware they were playing male opponents. I find this interesting, but unsurprising, given the social pressures for women not to confront men in most cultures. If women and girls are socialized to be less confrontational (perhaps even submissive in some cultures) in their interactions with men, then it would likely carry over in competitive and other situations. I'm wondering how culture (religion, nationality, etc.) exacerbates this and if any other studies looked more in-depth at performance outcomes in societies where gender social constructs are especially rigid.

Thanks, Jimmy O.

losing my religion for equality

I've got nothing but love for you, Jimmy Carter.

Losing My Religion for Equality
By Jimmy Carter
Nov 2, 2009

Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

I have been a practicing Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices - as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasize the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world's major faiths share.

The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn't until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

choosing sanity

The first time, it felt like I was like cutting off my arm. The second time, it didn't hurt quite as much.

I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with my mother over the past decade. I've come to realize that she's a clinical narcissist, a woman whose hate and sense of entitlement know no bounds. After her Prop 8 shenanigans, I came to the slow, calm realization that I didn't want her in my life, because it was too painful and too poisonous.

Mind: When Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate
By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D.
October 20, 2009

You can divorce an abusive spouse. You can call it quits if your lover mistreats you. But what can you do if the source of your misery is your own parent?

Granted, no parent is perfect. And whining about parental failure, real or not, is practically an American pastime that keeps the therapeutic community dutifully employed.

But just as there are ordinary good-enough parents who mysteriously produce a difficult child, there are some decent people who have the misfortune of having a truly toxic parent.

A patient of mine, a lovely woman in her 60s whom I treated for depression, recently asked my advice about how to deal with her aging mother.

“She’s always been extremely abusive of me and my siblings,” she said, as I recall. “Once, on my birthday, she left me a message wishing that I get a disease. Can you believe it?”

Over the years, she had tried to have a relationship with her mother, but the encounters were always painful and upsetting; her mother remained harshly critical and demeaning.

Whether her mother was mentally ill, just plain mean or both was unclear, but there was no question that my patient had decided long ago that the only way to deal with her mother was to avoid her at all costs.

Now that her mother was approaching death, she was torn about yet another effort at reconciliation. “I feel I should try,” my patient told me, “but I know she’ll be awful to me.”

Should she visit and perhaps forgive her mother, or protect herself and live with a sense of guilt, however unjustified? Tough call, and clearly not mine to make.

But it did make me wonder about how therapists deal with adult patients who have toxic parents.

The topic gets little, if any, attention in standard textbooks or in the psychiatric literature, perhaps reflecting the common and mistaken notion that adults, unlike children and the elderly, are not vulnerable to such emotional abuse.

All too often, I think, therapists have a bias to salvage relationships, even those that might be harmful to a patient. Instead, it is crucial to be open-minded and to consider whether maintaining the relationship is really healthy and desirable.

Likewise, the assumption that parents are predisposed to love their children unconditionally and protect them from harm is not universally true. I remember one patient, a man in his mid-20s, who came to me for depression and rock-bottom self-esteem.

It didn’t take long to find out why. He had recently come out as gay to his devoutly religious parents, who responded by disowning him. It gets worse: at a subsequent family dinner, his father took him aside and told him it would have been better if he, rather than his younger brother, had died in a car accident several years earlier.

Though terribly hurt and angry, this young man still hoped he could get his parents to accept his sexuality and asked me to meet with the three of them.

The session did not go well. The parents insisted that his “lifestyle” was a grave sin, incompatible with their deeply held religious beliefs. When I tried to explain that the scientific consensus was that he had no more choice about his sexual orientation than the color of his eyes, they were unmoved. They simply could not accept him as he was.

I was stunned by their implacable hostility and convinced that they were a psychological menace to my patient. As such, I had to do something I have never contemplated before in treatment.

At the next session I suggested that for his psychological well-being he might consider, at least for now, forgoing a relationship with his parents.

I felt this was a drastic measure, akin to amputating a gangrenous limb to save a patient’s life. My patient could not escape all the negative feelings and thoughts about himself that he had internalized from his parents. But at least I could protect him from even more psychological harm.

Easier said than done. He accepted my suggestion with sad resignation, though he did make a few efforts to contact them over the next year. They never responded.

Of course, relationships are rarely all good or bad; even the most abusive parents can sometimes be loving, which is why severing a bond should be a tough, and rare, decision.

Dr. Judith Lewis Herman, a trauma expert who is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said she tried to empower patients to take action to protect themselves without giving direct advice.

“Sometimes we consider a paradoxical intervention and say to a patient, ‘I really admire your loyalty to your parents — even at the expense of failing to protect yourself in any way from harm,’ ” Dr. Herman told me in an interview.

The hope is that patients come to see the psychological cost of a harmful relationship and act to change it.

Eventually, my patient made a full recovery from his depression and started dating, though his parents’ absence in his life was never far from his thoughts.

No wonder. Research on early attachment, both in humans and in nonhuman primates, shows that we are hard-wired for bonding — even to those who aren’t very nice to us.

We also know that although prolonged childhood trauma can be toxic to the brain, adults retain the ability later in life to rewire their brains by new experience, including therapy and psychotropic medication.

For example, prolonged stress can kill cells in the hippocampus, a brain area critical for memory. The good news is that adults are able to grow new neurons in this area in the course of normal development. Also, antidepressants encourage the development of new cells in the hippocampus.

It is no stretch, then, to say that having a toxic parent may be harmful to a child’s brain, let alone his feelings. But that damage need not be written in stone.

Of course, we cannot undo history with therapy. But we can help mend brains and minds by removing or reducing stress.

Sometimes, as drastic as it sounds, that means letting go of a toxic parent.

Dr. Richard A. Friedman is a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College.

country-bumpkinish sophistication

It's interesting to see one's culture through the lens of another culture. While I make every effort to be polite abroad and at home, I'll admit to taking exception to this characterization.

Letter From London: My American Friends
By GEOFF DYER
Published: December 31, 2009

The first thing I ever heard about Americans was that they all carried guns. Then, when I came across people who’d had direct contact with this ferocious-sounding tribe, I learned that they were actually rather friendly. At university, friends who had traveled in the United States came back with more detailed stories, not just of the friendliness of Americans but also of their hospitality (which, in our quaint English way, was translated into something close to gullibility). When I finally got to America myself, I found that not only were the natives friendly and hospitable, they were also incredibly polite. No one tells you this about Americans, but once you notice it, it becomes one of their defining characteristics, especially when they’re abroad.

This is very strange, or at least it says something strange about the way that perception routinely conforms to the preconceptions it would appear to contradict. The archetypal American abroad is perceived as loud and crass even though actually existing American tourists are distinguished by the way they address bus drivers and bartenders as “sir” and are effusive in their thanks when any small service is rendered. We look on with some confusion at these encounters because, on the one hand, the Americans seem a bit country-bumpkinish, and, on the other, good manners are a form of sophistication.

Granted, these visiting Americans often seem to have loud voices, but on closer examination, it’s a little subtler than that. Americans have no fear of being overheard. Civic life in Britain is predicated on the idea that everyone just about conceals his loathing of everyone else. To open your mouth is to risk offending someone. So we mutter and mumble as if surrounded by informers or, more exactly, as if they are living in our heads. In America the right to free speech is exercised freely and cordially. The basic assumption is that nothing you say will offend anyone else because, deep down, everyone is agreed on the premise that America is better than anyplace else. No such belief animates British life. On the contrary. A couple of years ago a survey indicated that British Muslims were the most fed-up of any in Europe: a sign, paradoxically, of profound assimilation.

If the typical American interaction involves an ostensibly contradictory mixture of the formal (politeness), the casual and the cordial, what happens when one moves beyond the transactional? Like many Europeans, I always feel good about myself in America; I feel appreciated, liked. It took a while to realize that this had nothing to do with me. It was about the people who made me feel this way: it was about charm. Yes, this is the bright secret of life in the United States: Americans are not just friendly and polite — they are also charming. And the most charming thing of all is that it rarely looks like charm. The French put a rather charmless emphasis on charm, are consciously or unconsciously persuaded that it is either part of a display of sophistication or — and it may amount to the same thing — a tool in the service of seduction.

You can see all of this in operation on flights back across the Atlantic from America to Euroland. At first we are under the spell of America. Instead of plunking ourselves down next to someone without a word, we say “Hi.” Maybe even indulge in a little conversation, though this American readiness to chat is counterbalanced by the fear that once we’ve got into a conversation we might not be able to extricate ourselves from it. By the time we’re mid-ocean, a kind of preparatory freeze has set in. As the flight stacks up in the inevitable holding pattern over Heathrow, we begin to revert to our muttering and moaning national selves. But, for a week or so after landing, a form of what might be called Ameristalgia makes us conscious of a rudeness in British life — a coarsening in the texture of daily life — that had hitherto seemed quite normal.

For example. I pay a considerable sum of money to play indoors at Islington Tennis Centre. Eighty percent of the time, the next people to play indicate that your time is up by unzipping their racket covers and strolling on court, without saying a word, without a smile, without acknowledging your existence except as an impediment. In America that would be not just unacceptable but inconceivable.

What is the relevance of this anecdotal trivia to a serious debate about the status of America in the world?

Most of my American friends were depressed and gloomy about the Bush years. Several said that if Bush were re-elected in 2004, they would leave the country. He was and they didn’t. The bottom line is that given the choice, Americans love it rather than leave it. Day to day, American life remained as pleasant as could be expected, even in the midst of considerable economic hardship. There was even a bonding, anti-Bush feeling similar to the kind of consensual opposition that we experienced under Margaret Thatcher. A visiting American artist like Patti Smith found that while the usual torrent of name-­dropping — Rimbaud, Mapplethorpe, Kerouac et al. — got a smattering of appreciative applause, a single gibe about Bush brought the house down.

At the same time, either sterling went up or the dollar went down (I don’t really understand this stuff), and as a consequence, Americans felt poor when they visited our rainy little island. So, for a brief period, we felt richer — planeloads of us went to Mannahatta and bought up everything in sight — and ideologically and ethically superior. Man, that felt good. We had a less blinkered attitude to Israel, didn’t drive big gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s, and if we were chilly of an evening we put on a sweater rather than turning up the heating (or, more accurately, turning off the A.C.). Sure, Blair went along with invading Iraq, but wasn’t that partly because he hoped to restrain the crusading fundamentalism of Bush? Now the dollar is back up — or down, or whichever it is — Europe is no longer expensive, and with the election of Barack Obama, the brief cushion of political superiority has been permanently deflated.

The Obama election was a real kick in the teeth, because although we Britons still seethe with class hatred, we pride ourselves on our highly evolved attitude to the question of race that has consistently undermined the American dream. The slight problem is that racial intermingling in Britain is most conspicuous in the ethnically diverse makeup of the groups of yobs — Asian, black and white — who exercise their antisocial behavioral skills without any kind of discrimination as to whom they happen to be terrorizing. In this regard, as in so many others, we seem to be leading from the bottom up.

Across the board, the grounds for all our feelings of superiority have been steadily whittled away. It turns out that the qualities that make us indubitably British — that is, the ones that we don’t share with or have not imported from America — are no longer conducive to Greatness. They actually add up to a kind of ostrich stoicism that, though it can be traced back to our finest hour (the blitz, the Battle of Britain), manifests itself in a peculiar compromise: a highly stylized willingness to muddle on, to put up with poor quality and high prices (restaurants, trains), to proffer (and accept) apologies not as a prelude to but as a substitute for improvement. We may not enjoy the way things are, but we endure them in a way that seems either quaint or quasi-Soviet to American visitors.

A tiny example. There’s a fashionable gastro pub near where I live. You scrum at the bar, desperate to get the attention of the barman. After a while, he will raise his eyebrows and glare at you. Unschooled in our rough ways, a visitor from America might assume he is being threatened, but actually the glare means that your order can now be taken — as long as you’re quick about it. When a friend from California had managed to order, he was handed the credit card terminal, which showed the amount and the option to add something for service. Americans are predisposed to tip, but my friend was slightly taken aback because, far from being in receipt of anything that might be described as service, it felt as if he had been fighting for a place aboard the last lifeboat on the Titanic. “Welcome to England,” I said.

Geoff Dyer’s latest book is a novel, “Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.”