Helen Henderson's column in today's Toronto Star compares Ashley (the severely disabled girl whose parents are giving her medical treatments to make her small and infertile) with one Rebecca Beayni, who, as a child, had the same diagnosis as Ashley, but is now involved in the community and has a supportive social circle. Without saying so explicity, the article rather implies that "the Ashley treatment" is ill-advised, because if her parents would only do something different, Ashley could end up like Rebecca.
With respect for Ms. Henderson's consistently excellent work, I think this comparison is something of a red herring.. What we know about Ashley has to do entirely with the physical aspects of her treatment. What Ms. Henderson writes about Rebecca has to do entirely with her intellectual, social, and professional life. The two are not incompatible. If Ashley does end up being capable of making the same progress that Rebecca has, "the Ashley treatment" will not hinder her. She will be smaller and infertile, yes, but this does not affect her mental or social capacities. If she ever becomes capable of maintaining a social circle and being involved in the community like Rebecca is, this will not be affected by the presence or absence of her ovaries or by her physical size.
Although it would be interesting to learn what Rebecca thinks of Ashley's treatment...
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
Maybe sleeping next to the elephant is impairing our judgement?
The other day, I heard an interview on The Current with a British doctor who's working on developing cheap knock-offs of drugs for developing countries. (It's under Ethical Pharmaceuticals if you want to listen.) What really struck me was how this doctor seemed convinced that drug costs are simply not an issue for patients in developed countries. He thought of it more as something that a hospital administrator would have to worry about. The interviewer noticed this too, and asked him about it. He didn't seem to understand what she meant, so she gave the example of the United States. The doctor said he didn't know much about the United States, but he considered the situation there as a one-off, and clearly thought that drug costs weren't a patient issue in the rest of the developed world. You have your indoor plumbing, you have your electricity, you have your drug coverage.
This makes me wonder if our medical coverage in Canada is really as good as we think it is. In my world, everyone knows how much their drugs cost, even those of us with insurance. Drug costs are most definitely the patient's issue here. This makes me think that maybe our medical coverage isn't actually good at all compared with Europe. Maybe we just think our medical coverage is good because we hear about things like this, and we're glad our is good in comparison. Ultimately though, I don't think that's a fruitful attitude. I think if our health coverage doesn't meet our needs, we should openly feel that it's insufficient and lobby for it to be improved, thus raising the bar for everyone. I also think we should be able to readily compare our health care with the rest of the world, not just the US (and the media should help us get to the point where we can do this.) Just because we're not the worst doesn't mean we're good enough.
This makes me wonder if our medical coverage in Canada is really as good as we think it is. In my world, everyone knows how much their drugs cost, even those of us with insurance. Drug costs are most definitely the patient's issue here. This makes me think that maybe our medical coverage isn't actually good at all compared with Europe. Maybe we just think our medical coverage is good because we hear about things like this, and we're glad our is good in comparison. Ultimately though, I don't think that's a fruitful attitude. I think if our health coverage doesn't meet our needs, we should openly feel that it's insufficient and lobby for it to be improved, thus raising the bar for everyone. I also think we should be able to readily compare our health care with the rest of the world, not just the US (and the media should help us get to the point where we can do this.) Just because we're not the worst doesn't mean we're good enough.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Things They Should Research: plastic bags' route to the landfill
With all this talk of banning plastic grocery bags, I'd really like to see a user-centric study of how they end up in the landfill. A lot of the suggestions I've seen for grocery stores' alternatives to plastic bags seems to be based on the assumption that people bring their groceries home, unpack them, and then throw the plastic bags straight into the garbage. However, 100% of the anecdotal evidence I've collected (by asking everyone I've been talking to the last couple of days) indicates that people save their grocery bags and then use them to wrap their garbage or clean up after their pets. The bags do end up in the landfill, but as garbage bags, not as garbage. If we didn't have the plastic bags, we'd still need some kind of plastic bag to wrap our garbage and clean up our pet's waste, and that plastic bag would still need to go into the landfill. I'd really like to see some research or stats on user behaviour to see if these anti-plastic-bag people are way off, or if there's actually a "throw out the plastic bag" contingent out there somewhere.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Little Mosque Part Deux
The second episode of Little Mosque just didn't do anything for me. It didn't entertain me, I didn't laugh, I found it formulaic, and a few times I even muted the TV because the characters were making such fools of themselves. If I had found this show while flipping channels, I would have kept going.
They will get my attention for one more episode because I like what they're trying to do, and I want to give them a chance to do it well. This isn't an ultimatum or anything, I still might look at it, but I don't plan on making a point of watching it if the quality doesn't improve. A Simpsons rerun is more appealing.
Actually, come to think of it, that's why I watched Enterprise too. The Star Trek prequel concept was interesting, and I watched to see how it would be carried out. It was okay - I did make a point of catching up with every episode in reruns - but most episodes I wouldn't watch twice unless I was bored. In comparison, major sitcoms like Seinfeld or MASH I can watch in reruns 5-10 times before I get bored of them.
They will get my attention for one more episode because I like what they're trying to do, and I want to give them a chance to do it well. This isn't an ultimatum or anything, I still might look at it, but I don't plan on making a point of watching it if the quality doesn't improve. A Simpsons rerun is more appealing.
Actually, come to think of it, that's why I watched Enterprise too. The Star Trek prequel concept was interesting, and I watched to see how it would be carried out. It was okay - I did make a point of catching up with every episode in reruns - but most episodes I wouldn't watch twice unless I was bored. In comparison, major sitcoms like Seinfeld or MASH I can watch in reruns 5-10 times before I get bored of them.
Things I don't understand
Residents of the Beach(es) were opposed to having an Out of the Cold program in their neighbourhood. They quoted one of their major concerns as "safety."
I really cannot understand that. I simply cannot put myself in that headspace. I mean, I can see how you might feel less safe with homeless people around. I'm sure it makes me sound posh and over-privileged to say so, but I do grok the fact that walking down a street with zero homeless people feels safer than walking down a street with one homeless person, whether or not that feeling is justified.
But the thing is, for the homeless people this is a matter of survival. They are giving them shelter from the cold, in the winter, which has become an actual Canadian winter this week. They are letting them sleep in a building with walls and a roof and heat instead of sleeping on the street in -10 with a windchill of -20.
They aren't putting them in residents' homes or anything, they're putting them in a church that isn't otherwise occupied at that time. Residents can still go home and lock the doors. The only difference is that 12 homeless people will definitely be in their neighbourhood that night, which I'm assuming doesn't usually have a lot of visible homeless people or they wouldn't be complaining.
The Out of the Cold program rescues homeless people from a definite threat to their survival. The worst it presents to the residents is a small potential threat to their safety. Survival is below safety on Maslow's pyramid, and normally that includes in our dealings with others. It's like how you wouldn't talk to a strange man walking down the street, but you would give him the Heimlich manoeuvre or CPR if he needed it.
I can get not being 100% thrilled with this program in your neighbourhood (although there is one in my neighbourhood and it's no problem whatsoever). I can get sort of quietly deciding to yourself to avoid the church on those nights. I can even get quietly grumbling about it to your spouse if you feel the need. What I don't get is going out and complaining about it to the church and the organizers. Even if you don't like it, it's the sort of thing that you just suck it up and recognize that it's for the greater good, no? They're not in your home, they're just in your neighbourhood. Even if you do think homeless people are a threat to your property values, and you do think your property values are more important than not freezing to death, why would you want to announce this to the world?
I really cannot understand that. I simply cannot put myself in that headspace. I mean, I can see how you might feel less safe with homeless people around. I'm sure it makes me sound posh and over-privileged to say so, but I do grok the fact that walking down a street with zero homeless people feels safer than walking down a street with one homeless person, whether or not that feeling is justified.
But the thing is, for the homeless people this is a matter of survival. They are giving them shelter from the cold, in the winter, which has become an actual Canadian winter this week. They are letting them sleep in a building with walls and a roof and heat instead of sleeping on the street in -10 with a windchill of -20.
They aren't putting them in residents' homes or anything, they're putting them in a church that isn't otherwise occupied at that time. Residents can still go home and lock the doors. The only difference is that 12 homeless people will definitely be in their neighbourhood that night, which I'm assuming doesn't usually have a lot of visible homeless people or they wouldn't be complaining.
The Out of the Cold program rescues homeless people from a definite threat to their survival. The worst it presents to the residents is a small potential threat to their safety. Survival is below safety on Maslow's pyramid, and normally that includes in our dealings with others. It's like how you wouldn't talk to a strange man walking down the street, but you would give him the Heimlich manoeuvre or CPR if he needed it.
I can get not being 100% thrilled with this program in your neighbourhood (although there is one in my neighbourhood and it's no problem whatsoever). I can get sort of quietly deciding to yourself to avoid the church on those nights. I can even get quietly grumbling about it to your spouse if you feel the need. What I don't get is going out and complaining about it to the church and the organizers. Even if you don't like it, it's the sort of thing that you just suck it up and recognize that it's for the greater good, no? They're not in your home, they're just in your neighbourhood. Even if you do think homeless people are a threat to your property values, and you do think your property values are more important than not freezing to death, why would you want to announce this to the world?
Things Blogger Should Invent: first-time only word verification
Blogger should have an option where users with blogger accounts are asked for word verification only the first time they post a comment on any given blog. Then Blogger takes that word verification to mean "Yes, this is a real person," and that user doesn't have to verify any more. That would still deter the spammers, because I doubt they want to go through in person and verify at each blog, but it would make things easier for regular commenters.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Rimmel is better than Maybelline, pass it on
I've been using Rimmel mascara for years, ever since my mother read somewhere that it's on par with department store brands. However, this time around, I couldn't find the kind of Rimmel I wanted in waterproof. Then, last weekend, I saw an article in the Globe and Mail about the best cheap beauty products, and they picked Maybelline Great Lash mascara, mentioning in passing that many professional makeup artists use it. I remembered reading that factoid about professional makeup artists somewhere else before, so I decided to give Maybelline a try.
It's not that great. I mean, it's perfectly effective, it coats my lashes in black and makes them look somewhat longer and thicker, and the waterproof version doesn't run during the course of a normal day, but Rimmel does all that better, and for only a couple of dollars more.
It's not that great. I mean, it's perfectly effective, it coats my lashes in black and makes them look somewhat longer and thicker, and the waterproof version doesn't run during the course of a normal day, but Rimmel does all that better, and for only a couple of dollars more.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Parents Today!
A letter in today's Globe and Mail in response to Saturday's Kids Today article. I can't seem to find it online, so I'm going to type it out here. Any typoes are my own. The original can be found on page A16 of the Jan. 15, 2007 Globe and Mail under the headline "Licence to plead"
I could deconstruct this, but I'd just be repeating stuff I've said before. Instead, I'd just like to draw attention to the sections I've bolded. We're working in reverse order because it flows more smoothly that way.
1. "They're paying their own rent and food", but "they have no interest in finding a 'real' job". If their job allows them to pay their own rent and food, it sounds "real" enough to me!
2. "Their apartments look like dorm rooms" is presented as an "attitude" from which they "suffer". This is a problem why? "Dorm room" is a bit subjective, but I'm taking it to mean a cheaply-furnished space that looks like it's inhabited by a young adult. What would you have their apartments look like instead? Given that you feel the need to explicitly state that they pay for their own rent and food, I'm inferring that they're not rolling in money. So isn't using cheap furniture the responsible thing to do when you have no money?
/me puts on Crotchety Gramma Hat
Parents Today! When will they learn to stop being so damn unappreciative? Why, in my day, parents were happy that their kids had a job, any job that could support them, without fussing about whether it's a "real" job that they can show off to all their little parent friends! In my day, if parents weren't happy with the furniture their kids could afford with their hard-earned paycheques, they either showed some initiative and bought them some better furniture as a gift, or they kept their damn mouths shut!
/me takes off Cortchety Gramma Hat
Seriously though, one thing I find really disturbing about all this is all these parents who aren't giving their kids any credit for their own life decisions. This lady is taking all the credit for the elements of her kids' lives that she approves of, and getting all judgeosaurus on their asses for the elements she thinks are suboptimal. This makes me wonder if, somewhere out there, my parents are taking all the credit for my life, when in reality everything good I achieved by going against their wishes (studying translation) or behind their back (mi cielito).
Re Flirting With Disaster (Jan 13): Are parents of adult off-spring not exacerbating their own problems by allowing the kids to move home (or never move out) in the first place?
How does a "child" live at home if the parents don't want him to be ther? And then have the nerve to complain about it?
I have adult children who suffer from some of the attitudes written about in Alexandra Shim's Article. Their apartments look like dorm rooms and they have no interest in finding a "real" job, despite having university degrees. They still dress like skateboarders, party like co-eds, and shake their heads in disbelief when a friend gets married or buys a house or condo. But they pay their own rent and buy their own food. They know that the only way they can live at home, rent free, is if they are in school. And that offer only stands until age 30.
Parents: Just say no! Decide what is best for you and your family and stick with it.
COLLEEN COOKE, Brockville, Ont.
I could deconstruct this, but I'd just be repeating stuff I've said before. Instead, I'd just like to draw attention to the sections I've bolded. We're working in reverse order because it flows more smoothly that way.
1. "They're paying their own rent and food", but "they have no interest in finding a 'real' job". If their job allows them to pay their own rent and food, it sounds "real" enough to me!
2. "Their apartments look like dorm rooms" is presented as an "attitude" from which they "suffer". This is a problem why? "Dorm room" is a bit subjective, but I'm taking it to mean a cheaply-furnished space that looks like it's inhabited by a young adult. What would you have their apartments look like instead? Given that you feel the need to explicitly state that they pay for their own rent and food, I'm inferring that they're not rolling in money. So isn't using cheap furniture the responsible thing to do when you have no money?
/me puts on Crotchety Gramma Hat
Parents Today! When will they learn to stop being so damn unappreciative? Why, in my day, parents were happy that their kids had a job, any job that could support them, without fussing about whether it's a "real" job that they can show off to all their little parent friends! In my day, if parents weren't happy with the furniture their kids could afford with their hard-earned paycheques, they either showed some initiative and bought them some better furniture as a gift, or they kept their damn mouths shut!
/me takes off Cortchety Gramma Hat
Seriously though, one thing I find really disturbing about all this is all these parents who aren't giving their kids any credit for their own life decisions. This lady is taking all the credit for the elements of her kids' lives that she approves of, and getting all judgeosaurus on their asses for the elements she thinks are suboptimal. This makes me wonder if, somewhere out there, my parents are taking all the credit for my life, when in reality everything good I achieved by going against their wishes (studying translation) or behind their back (mi cielito).
Things that make a snowy day easier
First major snow of the winter, mixed in with some freezing rain. (Yes, in mid-January. It's been a mild winter).
However, thanks to the nice grippy soles put on my boots by Centre Shoe Clinic at Yonge-Eg Centre, I was able to walk around in 2.75-inch heels with no difficulty whatsoever. Elly Patterson, take note.
Last month, I bought a cashmere sweater on sale at Fairweather. Why cashmere? Because I was in the market for a black sweater, and the best one readily available happened to be cashmere at a very good price. My mother told me cashmere is especially warm, but I didn't believe her until today. I was wearing just a simple blouse and this thin sweater under my usual winter coat and scarf, and I was perfectly comfortable. Usually when the windchill drops below -10, I add a hat and tall boots, but today I was hatless with short boots, and perfectly fine. The only difference is that my sweater was cashmere instead of my usual proletarian poly-cotton blend.
The TTC is a mixed blessing. Of course, it lets me have my nice underground commute, making a snowy day no more difficult than a sunny spring day. However, because the TTC is so on top of things, snow days are very rare in Toronto. Growing up in a part of the province that enjoys lake-effect snow, we usually had about three snow days a year when I was a kid. That's one of the few aspects of childhood I'm nostalgic about - waking up in the morning to the radio telling me that I don't have to go to school today, rolling over and going back to sleep, then waking up again when I'm done, watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and Price is Right (even well into adolescence), drinking hot chocolate, usually there'd be some failed attempt to make a snowman in there and our nice snowy lawn would end up looking all ugly afterwards. We had all these rules and rituals: you had to finish your homework and chores the night before or the snow day wouldn't come, you had to get to bed on time, no looking out the window to check on the snow after dark, you have to set your alarm for the usual time - we'd do our little voodoo and hope for the best, and a few times a year it would work. I did my voodoo last night, went through all the usual rituals, followed all the usual rules, but there was no snow day. The standards are much higher when your commute is a one-block walk outside followed by an underground section that isn't affected by snow at all.
However, thanks to the nice grippy soles put on my boots by Centre Shoe Clinic at Yonge-Eg Centre, I was able to walk around in 2.75-inch heels with no difficulty whatsoever. Elly Patterson, take note.
Last month, I bought a cashmere sweater on sale at Fairweather. Why cashmere? Because I was in the market for a black sweater, and the best one readily available happened to be cashmere at a very good price. My mother told me cashmere is especially warm, but I didn't believe her until today. I was wearing just a simple blouse and this thin sweater under my usual winter coat and scarf, and I was perfectly comfortable. Usually when the windchill drops below -10, I add a hat and tall boots, but today I was hatless with short boots, and perfectly fine. The only difference is that my sweater was cashmere instead of my usual proletarian poly-cotton blend.
The TTC is a mixed blessing. Of course, it lets me have my nice underground commute, making a snowy day no more difficult than a sunny spring day. However, because the TTC is so on top of things, snow days are very rare in Toronto. Growing up in a part of the province that enjoys lake-effect snow, we usually had about three snow days a year when I was a kid. That's one of the few aspects of childhood I'm nostalgic about - waking up in the morning to the radio telling me that I don't have to go to school today, rolling over and going back to sleep, then waking up again when I'm done, watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and Price is Right (even well into adolescence), drinking hot chocolate, usually there'd be some failed attempt to make a snowman in there and our nice snowy lawn would end up looking all ugly afterwards. We had all these rules and rituals: you had to finish your homework and chores the night before or the snow day wouldn't come, you had to get to bed on time, no looking out the window to check on the snow after dark, you have to set your alarm for the usual time - we'd do our little voodoo and hope for the best, and a few times a year it would work. I did my voodoo last night, went through all the usual rituals, followed all the usual rules, but there was no snow day. The standards are much higher when your commute is a one-block walk outside followed by an underground section that isn't affected by snow at all.
Thoughts from the first 3 seconds of Little Mosque on the Prairie
That's an awful lot of trees for a prairie.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
This book didn't do it for me. The concept was good - the beautiful people decades later when they're old and haggard and wasted with STDs - but it lost my sympathy early on. The first part of the book deals with the protagonist's life as a young model, and it completely lost my sympathy because every decision she made was presented as something that happened to her, rather than an actual decision. That's a pet peeve of mine, both in fiction and in life, so it caused me to lose all sympathy for the book and finish reading it just for the purpose of getting to the end.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Things the Globe and Mail missed
I finally finished reading the Globe and Mail's Kids Today article (Don't know how long until it is put behind the firewall), and I noticed there are quite a few salient points they didn't mention at all.
- They present adult children living with their parents as pure laziness on the part of the kids. They never mentioned that sometimes parents want their kids to live at home. When I was starting university (at 18), my family considered it irresponsible for me to move out and live in res instead of continuing to live at home to save money). Some of my peers have families that consider it irresponsible to move out and rent rather than living at home until they save up a downpayment. (I was once in a training with some people from another department, and some older ladies I'd just met were lecturing me for throwing money away by living on my own.) I know other families that expect their kids to live with their parents until marriage, and still other families where all parties simply prefer living together because they don't like living alone.
- They don't even mention the role of employment insecurity in all this. The article seems to assume that because the economy is good on paper, anyone can just go out and get a nice secure full-time job whenever the hell they want, and not doing so is due entirely to laziness. They completely ignore the fact that even if economic indicators are good, more and more jobs today are insecure, term or contract positions, increasingly low-paid and without pension or benefits. Jobs for life stopped existing in the 90s. This has the dual effect of a) making it riskier for people to move out of their parents' (would you move out and sign a one-year lease if your job was just a three-month contract?) and b) giving people fewer reasons to stay in whatever job they have (imagine, in the first person, the difference between quitting a job with benefits, disability, and a pension because it sucks, and quitting a job with no benefits whatsoever because it sucks).
- The article briefly mentions that even in adolescence, Kids Today are generally more dependent on their parents, but it fails to mention the role of suburban sprawl in this. With suburban sprawl, kids have to be driven everywhere. There's no choice, because there's insufficient public transit and walking is too far and not really safe. In the 1990s, with the introduction of graduated licencing, the minimum age at which one could drive alone was raised to 16 years and 8 months with driver's ed or 17 years without, and a few years ago Grade 13/OAC was eliminated, so kids now spend only four years in high school. The result of these two changes is that, compared with previous generations, suburban kids necessarily spend the majority of their high-school years dependent on their parents to drive them around, which changes the whole dynamic of high school compared with when OAC was still around, when the majority of high school kids were old enough to drive alone, and before graduated licencing, where even the oldest Grade 10 students could drive alone. Understand, however, that even though kids are old enough to drive alone, that doesn't mean they can. The family might not have enough cars for the kid to drive to school or work or a friend's house, so a parent might have to drop them off and bring the car back home for someone else to use. Or the parents may not approve of the kid having their own car and thus forbid the kid to even buy a car with their own money. (I've even heard of some parents who deliberately prevent their kids from having a car - or even for learning to drive - so they can better monitor their comings and goings.) Also, the shorter driving-in-high-school time makes it less cost-effective to buy a car for the kid's use in high school, (whether the kid buys it themselves or the parents buy it), because most people don't take their cars to university with them. Before graduated licencing and before OAC was removed, the oldest kids in the year could start driving halfway through grade 10, and drive until the end of the summer after Grade 13, when they'd go away to school. Now, the oldest kids can start driving alone at the beginning of Grade 11 if they've done driver's ed, and can use that car until the end of the summer after Grade 12, when they go away to school. Every time that an adolescent has to ask their parents for a ride because there's no way for them to get from Point A to Point B independently is one missed opportunity for increasing their independence. This influences every single person who grows up in suburban and rural areas, but the article doesn't mention it at all.
- In the print edition, there's a blurb saying "Do you know of any young people who aren't making what they could of their lives? Please share your stories at globeandmail.com." That's a very strange thing to say. "Not making what they could of their lives." Guess what? You're not making what you could of your life! You could be a lumberjack! (If you are a lumberjack, you could be a barber! (If you are both a barber and a lumberjack, please post in the comments - I want to meet you!)) Me, I could be a nun or a lawyer or a trophy wife. But instead I'm a translator, to which I'm much better suited. However, I'm sure that there is someone out there somewhere who thinks I would be better off as a nun, and someone else who thinks I would be better off as a lawyer, and another someone else who thinks I would be better off as a trophy wife. But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with how I'm living my life now.
- They present adult children living with their parents as pure laziness on the part of the kids. They never mentioned that sometimes parents want their kids to live at home. When I was starting university (at 18), my family considered it irresponsible for me to move out and live in res instead of continuing to live at home to save money). Some of my peers have families that consider it irresponsible to move out and rent rather than living at home until they save up a downpayment. (I was once in a training with some people from another department, and some older ladies I'd just met were lecturing me for throwing money away by living on my own.) I know other families that expect their kids to live with their parents until marriage, and still other families where all parties simply prefer living together because they don't like living alone.
- They don't even mention the role of employment insecurity in all this. The article seems to assume that because the economy is good on paper, anyone can just go out and get a nice secure full-time job whenever the hell they want, and not doing so is due entirely to laziness. They completely ignore the fact that even if economic indicators are good, more and more jobs today are insecure, term or contract positions, increasingly low-paid and without pension or benefits. Jobs for life stopped existing in the 90s. This has the dual effect of a) making it riskier for people to move out of their parents' (would you move out and sign a one-year lease if your job was just a three-month contract?) and b) giving people fewer reasons to stay in whatever job they have (imagine, in the first person, the difference between quitting a job with benefits, disability, and a pension because it sucks, and quitting a job with no benefits whatsoever because it sucks).
- The article briefly mentions that even in adolescence, Kids Today are generally more dependent on their parents, but it fails to mention the role of suburban sprawl in this. With suburban sprawl, kids have to be driven everywhere. There's no choice, because there's insufficient public transit and walking is too far and not really safe. In the 1990s, with the introduction of graduated licencing, the minimum age at which one could drive alone was raised to 16 years and 8 months with driver's ed or 17 years without, and a few years ago Grade 13/OAC was eliminated, so kids now spend only four years in high school. The result of these two changes is that, compared with previous generations, suburban kids necessarily spend the majority of their high-school years dependent on their parents to drive them around, which changes the whole dynamic of high school compared with when OAC was still around, when the majority of high school kids were old enough to drive alone, and before graduated licencing, where even the oldest Grade 10 students could drive alone. Understand, however, that even though kids are old enough to drive alone, that doesn't mean they can. The family might not have enough cars for the kid to drive to school or work or a friend's house, so a parent might have to drop them off and bring the car back home for someone else to use. Or the parents may not approve of the kid having their own car and thus forbid the kid to even buy a car with their own money. (I've even heard of some parents who deliberately prevent their kids from having a car - or even for learning to drive - so they can better monitor their comings and goings.) Also, the shorter driving-in-high-school time makes it less cost-effective to buy a car for the kid's use in high school, (whether the kid buys it themselves or the parents buy it), because most people don't take their cars to university with them. Before graduated licencing and before OAC was removed, the oldest kids in the year could start driving halfway through grade 10, and drive until the end of the summer after Grade 13, when they'd go away to school. Now, the oldest kids can start driving alone at the beginning of Grade 11 if they've done driver's ed, and can use that car until the end of the summer after Grade 12, when they go away to school. Every time that an adolescent has to ask their parents for a ride because there's no way for them to get from Point A to Point B independently is one missed opportunity for increasing their independence. This influences every single person who grows up in suburban and rural areas, but the article doesn't mention it at all.
- In the print edition, there's a blurb saying "Do you know of any young people who aren't making what they could of their lives? Please share your stories at globeandmail.com." That's a very strange thing to say. "Not making what they could of their lives." Guess what? You're not making what you could of your life! You could be a lumberjack! (If you are a lumberjack, you could be a barber! (If you are both a barber and a lumberjack, please post in the comments - I want to meet you!)) Me, I could be a nun or a lawyer or a trophy wife. But instead I'm a translator, to which I'm much better suited. However, I'm sure that there is someone out there somewhere who thinks I would be better off as a nun, and someone else who thinks I would be better off as a lawyer, and another someone else who thinks I would be better off as a trophy wife. But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with how I'm living my life now.
When people go to prison
I wonder if, when people go to prison, there's some mechanism for taking care of their personal affairs. I know that if you are going away for several months or years, you have to arrange for your bills to continue to be paid, you have to stop your newspapers, you have to get someone to water your plants and take care of your pets and children etc. etc. But when you go to prison, they just come in and arrest you - there's no time to take care of any of these things. For example, if the police came and arrested me right this minute and I was put in prison for several years, my landlord would notice that I'm not paying rent and evict me. But they couldn't find me, so they'd probably sell or auction or keep all my personal possessions. Bell would still bill me for phone and internet every month, and Look would still bill me for TV. The Star and the Globe would still each deliver a newspaper to my door every day (and bill my credit card for it), and the TTC would still send me a Metropass each month (and debit my bank account for it). So unless there's some way to stop all these things from happening, I'd come out of prison homeless, possessionless, and in heavy debt with my credit rating destroyed.
Now I know prisoners are allowed to write letters, so maybe it would be possible to fix some of these things by mail. But the thing is, I have no idea where to write. I manage my personal affairs online, and have no idea of the mailing addresses of any of the companies I deal with, or if they're even prepared to handle customers by mail. I wonder if in prison they help prisoners work this stuff out, or if they just leave them to their own devices?
Now I know prisoners are allowed to write letters, so maybe it would be possible to fix some of these things by mail. But the thing is, I have no idea where to write. I manage my personal affairs online, and have no idea of the mailing addresses of any of the companies I deal with, or if they're even prepared to handle customers by mail. I wonder if in prison they help prisoners work this stuff out, or if they just leave them to their own devices?
Open letter to media outlets everywhere
Every so often, some media outlet or another does an article on "failure to launch" among Kids Today. Media people, whenever you feel the need to do one of these articles, please think critically about the indicators of adult independence you cite, and ask yourself if they really are necessary to adult independence, or if they're just things that grownups tend to do.
The lastest offender is the Globe and Mail. Just looking at the blurbs, they mention living with one's parents (which I agree is generally a sign of failure to launch, although there may be extenuating circumstances such as if the parents are ill or can't support themselves without the kid's income) or "delaying [one's] career" (for which I agree with the point they're trying to make, but it's worded a bit vaguely - some people can still support themselves with a big capital-c Career).
However, they also include not buying a house and not getting married. Buying a house is so optional! You can also buy a condo or rent a house or rent an apartment, and in all these cases you're living independently. Some people prefer to live in a high-density urban area, or don't want the extra work of a house, or want to rent so they aren't responsible for repairs, but they're still grownups! Think about the characters on Seinfeld - they might be immature at times, true, but they have definitely launched. Except for the period when George lived with his parents, they are all independent, self-sufficient adults. Similarly, getting married is not only highly optional, but also beyond one's full control as an individual. Someone can live their entire life in a way that is by all standards exemplary and beyond reproach, and simply happen to never meet someone who would make a suitable marriage partner. Or they could find a suitable marriage partner, but marriage is unfeasible for one of any number of reasons, and they prefer to continue loving their soulmate rather than ditching their soulmate and taking up a marriage of convenience with someone they don't love. Or they could have found their soulmate and be enjoying conjugal bliss, but not be allowed to marry because they happen to be of the same sex and live somewhere that's stuck in the dark ages. Choosing to marry only when it's the right thing to do rather than marrying someone, anyone, just for the sake of getting married, is a mature, adult way to carry out your life. Making getting married your primary goal and focusing everything on finding someone, anyone, to marry so that you can Be Married simply doesn't belong in the 21st century. Therefore, you cannot judge people as immature or unadult for not being married. Certainly no one would think that, say, Condoleeza Rice has failed to launch!
If you use examples like this, things that aren't actually problems but you're presenting them as problems, it ruins the credibility of your entire article. Use indicators of adult independence that actually indicate adult independence, rather than arbitrary factors. If you can't find enough concrete examples using only appropriate indicators, then maybe that means the "problem" isn't big enough to be writing an article about it.
The lastest offender is the Globe and Mail. Just looking at the blurbs, they mention living with one's parents (which I agree is generally a sign of failure to launch, although there may be extenuating circumstances such as if the parents are ill or can't support themselves without the kid's income) or "delaying [one's] career" (for which I agree with the point they're trying to make, but it's worded a bit vaguely - some people can still support themselves with a big capital-c Career).
However, they also include not buying a house and not getting married. Buying a house is so optional! You can also buy a condo or rent a house or rent an apartment, and in all these cases you're living independently. Some people prefer to live in a high-density urban area, or don't want the extra work of a house, or want to rent so they aren't responsible for repairs, but they're still grownups! Think about the characters on Seinfeld - they might be immature at times, true, but they have definitely launched. Except for the period when George lived with his parents, they are all independent, self-sufficient adults. Similarly, getting married is not only highly optional, but also beyond one's full control as an individual. Someone can live their entire life in a way that is by all standards exemplary and beyond reproach, and simply happen to never meet someone who would make a suitable marriage partner. Or they could find a suitable marriage partner, but marriage is unfeasible for one of any number of reasons, and they prefer to continue loving their soulmate rather than ditching their soulmate and taking up a marriage of convenience with someone they don't love. Or they could have found their soulmate and be enjoying conjugal bliss, but not be allowed to marry because they happen to be of the same sex and live somewhere that's stuck in the dark ages. Choosing to marry only when it's the right thing to do rather than marrying someone, anyone, just for the sake of getting married, is a mature, adult way to carry out your life. Making getting married your primary goal and focusing everything on finding someone, anyone, to marry so that you can Be Married simply doesn't belong in the 21st century. Therefore, you cannot judge people as immature or unadult for not being married. Certainly no one would think that, say, Condoleeza Rice has failed to launch!
If you use examples like this, things that aren't actually problems but you're presenting them as problems, it ruins the credibility of your entire article. Use indicators of adult independence that actually indicate adult independence, rather than arbitrary factors. If you can't find enough concrete examples using only appropriate indicators, then maybe that means the "problem" isn't big enough to be writing an article about it.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Um
A blurb on the Globe and Mail's Facts and Arguments page advises avoiding using "um" or "like" "during job interviews or when asking for dates or raises".
Job interviews, I can see avoiding like. Some people are very anti-like. But would they even notice the um? Um seems kind of unmarked to me. I've never had a job where asking for a raise is an option, but I'd imagine that if you've been there long enough to ask for a raise, your boss would be used to your normal speech patterns. If you used your usual um and like, your boss would probably cognate it as your normal speech pattern, and if you used them more than usual because you're nervous, she'd probably just cognate it as you being nervous. If she's a decent boss, she'd judge you on your general performance, not your nervousness when asking for a raise. If she's a judgeosaurus vulture waiting to pounce (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) the instant you show a bit of nervousness, the problem is really your boss, not your ums.
But asking for a date? Since when is a bit of nervousness or uncertainty a problem when asking for a date? Are there really people who would turn down a date because of a few ums or likes, but would accept if the invitation is umless? I think if someone rejects your date invitation because you're nervous, they're not worth dating anyway. What's the point of a boyfriend/girlfriend you can't be dorky around?
Job interviews, I can see avoiding like. Some people are very anti-like. But would they even notice the um? Um seems kind of unmarked to me. I've never had a job where asking for a raise is an option, but I'd imagine that if you've been there long enough to ask for a raise, your boss would be used to your normal speech patterns. If you used your usual um and like, your boss would probably cognate it as your normal speech pattern, and if you used them more than usual because you're nervous, she'd probably just cognate it as you being nervous. If she's a decent boss, she'd judge you on your general performance, not your nervousness when asking for a raise. If she's a judgeosaurus vulture waiting to pounce (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) the instant you show a bit of nervousness, the problem is really your boss, not your ums.
But asking for a date? Since when is a bit of nervousness or uncertainty a problem when asking for a date? Are there really people who would turn down a date because of a few ums or likes, but would accept if the invitation is umless? I think if someone rejects your date invitation because you're nervous, they're not worth dating anyway. What's the point of a boyfriend/girlfriend you can't be dorky around?
Remember when they said that everything would change?
I'm watching the South Park movie, which was made in 1999. At one point, some guy falls off a tall New York skyscraper. That now seems way in poor taste. (Yes, I know the whole movie is in poor taste, but that one scene seems in way worse taste than it was originally intended to be.)
Things Salon should invent: searchable letters
Often I read an article in Salon and I think of something fruitful to say in reply. Salon has a letters page for each article that allows you to do just that. However, sometimes by the time I get there there's already a metric shitload of letters on the letters page, and it would take forever to read them. I know there's no point in posting my letter if someone else has already brought up the point I want to make, but sometimes I just don't have time to read through dozens of other people's letters to check whether my point has been made. However, in my experience, any point that I think of will not be addressed by anyone else about 50% of the time, so it might be worth posting anyway. On the other hand, as a reader, I hate it when people post who clearly aven't read the other letters.
Salon could easily fix this problem by including a search engine for each article's letters page. If this isn't feasible, they could also give us the option of seeing all letters on one page, and letting us use our browser's serach function to find whatever we need to find.
Salon could easily fix this problem by including a search engine for each article's letters page. If this isn't feasible, they could also give us the option of seeing all letters on one page, and letting us use our browser's serach function to find whatever we need to find.
Comment experiment
Because word verification has been being a real bitch in some other blogs I read, I've turned it off for the time being. If I start accumulating spam, I'll turn it back on.
My questions for you, the person who's reading this: has word verification ever refused to verify you in my blog? Has the need to do word verification ever stopped you from commenting because it's too much trouble?
My questions for you, the person who's reading this: has word verification ever refused to verify you in my blog? Has the need to do word verification ever stopped you from commenting because it's too much trouble?
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