Still reading the NY Times and finding more information for our gender discussions. What do you think?
Pat
May 26, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Liberated and Unhappy
By ROSS DOUTHAT
American women are wealthier, healthier and better educated than they were 30 years ago. They’re more likely to work outside the home, and more likely to earn salaries comparable to men’s when they do. They can leave abusive marriages and sue sexist employers. They enjoy unprecedented control over their own fertility. On some fronts — graduation rates, life expectancy and even job security — men look increasingly like the second sex.
But all the achievements of the feminist era may have delivered women to greater unhappiness. In the 1960s, when Betty Friedan diagnosed her fellow wives and daughters as the victims of “the problem with no name,” American women reported themselves happier, on average, than did men. Today, that gender gap has reversed. Male happiness has inched up, and female happiness has dropped. In postfeminist America, men are happier than women.
This is “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” the subject of a provocative paper from the economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. The paper is fascinating not only because of what it shows, but because the authors deliberately avoid floating an easy explanation for their data.
The decline of the two-parent family, for instance, is almost certainly depressing life satisfaction for the women stuck raising kids alone. But this can’t be the only explanation, since the trend toward greater female discontent cuts across lines of class and race. A working-class Hispanic woman is far more likely to be a single mother than her white and wealthy counterpart, yet the male-female happiness gap holds in East Hampton and East L.A. alike.
Again, maybe the happiness numbers are being tipped downward by a mounting female workload — the famous “second shift,” in which women continue to do the lion’s share of household chores even as they’re handed more and more workplace responsibility. It’s certainly possible — but as Wolfers and Stevenson point out, recent surveys actually show similar workload patterns for men and women over all.
Or perhaps the problem is political — maybe women prefer egalitarian, low-risk societies, and the cowboy capitalism of the Reagan era had an anxiety-inducing effect on the American female. But even in the warm, nurturing, egalitarian European Union, female happiness has fallen relative to men’s across the last three decades.
All this ambiguity lends itself to broad-brush readings. A strict feminist and a stringent gender-role traditionalist alike will probably find vindication of their premises between the lines of Wolfers and Stevenson’s careful prose. The feminist will see evidence of a revolution interrupted, in which rising expectations are bumping against glass ceilings, breeding entirely justified resentments. The traditionalist will see evidence of a revolution gone awry, in which women have been pressured into lifestyles that run counter to their biological imperatives, and men have been liberated to embrace a piggish irresponsibility.
There’s evidence to fit each of these narratives. But there’s also room for both.
Feminists and traditionalists should be able to agree, for instance, that the structures of American society don’t make enough allowances for the particular challenges of motherhood. We can squabble forever about the choices that mothers ought to make, but the difficult work-parenthood juggle is here to stay. (Just ask Sarah and Todd Palin.) And there are all kinds of ways — from a more family-friendly tax code to a more accommodating educational system — that public policy can make that juggle easier. Conservatives and liberals won’t agree on the means, but they ought to agree on the end: a nation where it’s easier to balance work and child-rearing, however you think that balance should be struck.
They should also be able to agree that the steady advance of single motherhood threatens the interests and happiness of women. Here the public-policy options are limited; some kind of social stigma is a necessity. But a new-model stigma shouldn’t (and couldn’t) look like the old sexism. There’s no necessary reason why feminists and cultural conservatives can’t join forces — in the same way that they made common cause during the pornography wars of the 1980s — behind a social revolution that ostracizes serial baby-daddies and trophy-wife collectors as thoroughly as the “fallen women” of a more patriarchal age.
No reason, of course, save the fact that contemporary America doesn’t seem willing to accept sexual stigma, period. We simply don’t have the stomach for permanently ostracizing the sexually irresponsible — be they a pregnant starlet, a thrice-divorced tycoon, or even a prostitute-hiring politician.
In this sense, ours is a kinder, gentler, more forgiving country than it was 40 years ago. But for half the public, it’s an unhappier country as well.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
So, Is April the Cruelest Month?
The vote was 3 to 1: April is not the cruelest month! Those in favor of April commented on its being the time "when everything seems so vigorous" and its actually being the "beginning of the year" Another did concede that April "could be crazy," with its changeable weather, but insisted that it does have very nice, warm days as well. This author loves the tulips of April, and the way they line up to bring cheer to her neighborhood; the cherry blossoms in DC; and the Easter celebrations. The third proponent of April considers it the second month of the year, since in her country the year starts after the events of Carnival. She pointed out that months have names: the bride month, the Christmas month, the vacation month, the "apart month" when many relationships end. That last one is scary! The lone dissenter to April's charm sadly described it as the month "without the glory of May" with its explosion of colors and life. Of course, he was writing on a very rainy day, when he would have preferred staying home and sipping coffee in his kitchen.
Instead of Poetry, Some Spring Prose
Editorial | The Rural Life
Perfectly Still
o
Article Tools Sponsored By
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: April 18, 2009
The sun went down half an hour ago, and there is a nearly perfect stillness in the evening. I stand outside and wonder how such a night is possible, how — in the great cycle of air masses thrusting and obtruding their way across the planet, boiling up from the oceans and scattering over the plains — this small-valley quiet comes to be.
The grass in the field is as thick as a woodchuck’s fur and just now giving up its green to darkness, which is settling like a cold dew. If there were leaves on the trees, they would show where the wind lies, turning slightly in the way I might quote a poet to describe. Instead, there are stiff blossoms, the buds of a spring that is about to happen. Every twig seems to end in a red knot. In the uplands, people are still dragging winter to the roadside — tangled hedgerows of ice-broken limbs. I got a glimpse today of the last snow slowly rotting on a ski slope. Winter has a stillness, but it’s nothing like the stillness of a spring evening, when it feels as though every living thing has stopped quivering with expectation just for the moment.
I passed a clump of deer on the roadside the other afternoon, and they looked as though they had been carved out of decaying wood. It was a trick of the light. A much more solid deer is walking along the high ridge-line that borders this property. It pauses and looks down over this house, or perhaps it’s looking to the sound of the river, which is nearly as quiet now as it will be at midsummer. The sound of the river takes over for the sound of the missing wind, which has been rattling the windows for the past few months.
I know what grows in the warmth and the expanding light of spring. But I wonder tonight what grows in this stillness. Perhaps it’s only the mosquitoes hunting for the first time this year, or the Diptera that will be rising and falling along the river’s edge tomorrow morning. But I think something human grows in the stillness of a night like this — fulfillment, if you like, or an untroubled hope. Soon the stars, and a late-rising moon, will add what they can to the calm outside.
Perfectly Still
o
Article Tools Sponsored By
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: April 18, 2009
The sun went down half an hour ago, and there is a nearly perfect stillness in the evening. I stand outside and wonder how such a night is possible, how — in the great cycle of air masses thrusting and obtruding their way across the planet, boiling up from the oceans and scattering over the plains — this small-valley quiet comes to be.
The grass in the field is as thick as a woodchuck’s fur and just now giving up its green to darkness, which is settling like a cold dew. If there were leaves on the trees, they would show where the wind lies, turning slightly in the way I might quote a poet to describe. Instead, there are stiff blossoms, the buds of a spring that is about to happen. Every twig seems to end in a red knot. In the uplands, people are still dragging winter to the roadside — tangled hedgerows of ice-broken limbs. I got a glimpse today of the last snow slowly rotting on a ski slope. Winter has a stillness, but it’s nothing like the stillness of a spring evening, when it feels as though every living thing has stopped quivering with expectation just for the moment.
I passed a clump of deer on the roadside the other afternoon, and they looked as though they had been carved out of decaying wood. It was a trick of the light. A much more solid deer is walking along the high ridge-line that borders this property. It pauses and looks down over this house, or perhaps it’s looking to the sound of the river, which is nearly as quiet now as it will be at midsummer. The sound of the river takes over for the sound of the missing wind, which has been rattling the windows for the past few months.
I know what grows in the warmth and the expanding light of spring. But I wonder tonight what grows in this stillness. Perhaps it’s only the mosquitoes hunting for the first time this year, or the Diptera that will be rising and falling along the river’s edge tomorrow morning. But I think something human grows in the stillness of a night like this — fulfillment, if you like, or an untroubled hope. Soon the stars, and a late-rising moon, will add what they can to the calm outside.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Speaking of American Culture
In class on Tuesday, we had an interesting discussion of consumerism and cleanliness as facets of American culture. Now you can take a look at marriage!
Spotlight:
Q&A: Can we be married, but independent?
Andrew Cherlin, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins, says in his new book, “The Marriage-Go-Round,” that Americans marry more, have more live-in partners and divorce more frequently than any other country. USA Today interviewed him about these findings:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-04-14-marriage-cherlin-QnA_N.htm
Spotlight:
Q&A: Can we be married, but independent?
Andrew Cherlin, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins, says in his new book, “The Marriage-Go-Round,” that Americans marry more, have more live-in partners and divorce more frequently than any other country. USA Today interviewed him about these findings:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-04-14-marriage-cherlin-QnA_N.htm
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Grammar Spot
The Comma Manifesto - Eats, Shoots & Leaves
"A panda goes into a café, orders a sandwich, eats it, takes out a revolver, fires it into the air, and goes out. When the waiter calls to ask what is going on, the panda plunks a badly punctuated wildlife manual onto the table and growls: "Look me up." ....
...The waiter finds the entry: "PANDA. Large, black-and-white, bear-like mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.""
Far from being a text on Pandas, Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a roaming, raving and sometimes ranting manifesto of comma violations across the English language - mostly from those who should know better. The author, Lynne Truss, also takes aim at the flagrant, inconsistent (and usually public) mis-use of apostrophes. She welcomes all of us to the Apostrophe Protection Society, a real organization that (along with Truss) is horrified by commercial signs that announce "Antique's" or "Apple's".
One of my personal favorites is the difference between - "Let's eat, mother" and "Let's eat mother".
It's all in the comma....
Or consider the classic romantic note below:
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy--will you let me be yours?
Jane
As opposed to -
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jane
Yes, it is all in those pesky little punctuation marks.
The current edition of Eats, Shoots & Leaves also includes an Emergency Punctuation Repair kit - stickers of commas and apostrophes to place over signs you might see. As Lynne Truss says - "Sticklers Unite!" It's available from Gotham Books (a division of Penguin Group).
For examples of mangled English not necessarily related to punctuation, check out http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-497544/Chinglish-Hilarious-examples-signs-lost-translation.html or http://fun-in-language.blogspot.com/2007/11/hilarious-chinglish-signs.html
"A panda goes into a café, orders a sandwich, eats it, takes out a revolver, fires it into the air, and goes out. When the waiter calls to ask what is going on, the panda plunks a badly punctuated wildlife manual onto the table and growls: "Look me up." ....
...The waiter finds the entry: "PANDA. Large, black-and-white, bear-like mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.""
Far from being a text on Pandas, Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a roaming, raving and sometimes ranting manifesto of comma violations across the English language - mostly from those who should know better. The author, Lynne Truss, also takes aim at the flagrant, inconsistent (and usually public) mis-use of apostrophes. She welcomes all of us to the Apostrophe Protection Society, a real organization that (along with Truss) is horrified by commercial signs that announce "Antique's" or "Apple's".
One of my personal favorites is the difference between - "Let's eat, mother" and "Let's eat mother".
It's all in the comma....
Or consider the classic romantic note below:
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy--will you let me be yours?
Jane
As opposed to -
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jane
Yes, it is all in those pesky little punctuation marks.
The current edition of Eats, Shoots & Leaves also includes an Emergency Punctuation Repair kit - stickers of commas and apostrophes to place over signs you might see. As Lynne Truss says - "Sticklers Unite!" It's available from Gotham Books (a division of Penguin Group).
For examples of mangled English not necessarily related to punctuation, check out http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-497544/Chinglish-Hilarious-examples-signs-lost-translation.html or http://fun-in-language.blogspot.com/2007/11/hilarious-chinglish-signs.html
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
More Free Writing Snippets!
in Just" !
I like the spring season, too. Flowers are blooming. I also remember that, when I was small, in the beginning of spring, my grandmom took us children to woods to dig out bamboo shoots. We left home in the morning and [came] back home in the evening with full baskets of bamboo shoots. We didn't only dig bamboo shooots; my grandmom also taught us how to recognize mushrooms and wild vegetables. We did have a wonderful time in the spring.
The meaning of the poem is all about atmosphere. One can not understand a poem without some kind of imagination. When we read it, we read it aloud and slowly at the same time. We try to see before our eyes the scenery the author was trying to describe, and most of all the feeling and the mental stage he is [on] when he was composing it.
It's amazing how changed those plaqns look. Their branches are now fat, full, and alive mamas! . . .
When spring is here, everything be comes alive again and every thing moves fast and happily. The children, . . . the wind, the noise, the balloonman, all jump, tilt, and make happy sounds.
All screaming and yelling hard, the spring is here and is here.
It is lush green and every thing
and every one wants to move and jump and have spring energy. It was . . . the lush green and the smell of the spring.
I like the spring season, too. Flowers are blooming. I also remember that, when I was small, in the beginning of spring, my grandmom took us children to woods to dig out bamboo shoots. We left home in the morning and [came] back home in the evening with full baskets of bamboo shoots. We didn't only dig bamboo shooots; my grandmom also taught us how to recognize mushrooms and wild vegetables. We did have a wonderful time in the spring.
The meaning of the poem is all about atmosphere. One can not understand a poem without some kind of imagination. When we read it, we read it aloud and slowly at the same time. We try to see before our eyes the scenery the author was trying to describe, and most of all the feeling and the mental stage he is [on] when he was composing it.
It's amazing how changed those plaqns look. Their branches are now fat, full, and alive mamas! . . .
When spring is here, everything be comes alive again and every thing moves fast and happily. The children, . . . the wind, the noise, the balloonman, all jump, tilt, and make happy sounds.
All screaming and yelling hard, the spring is here and is here.
It is lush green and every thing
and every one wants to move and jump and have spring energy. It was . . . the lush green and the smell of the spring.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Snippets of Free Writing
Snippets of Free Writing 2/17
When I came up to the building this evening, containers in different shapes and colors filled up the table at the center of the hall, beautifully decorated [so] that you could hardly overlook them. I told myself that I will sneak out during our intermission and maybe I will get to try some. M. . . was so excited when I shared my desire with my classmates. He jumped up and went to check the situation. Everyone else stayed and eagerly waited for the signal to join him.
. . . I wore my pajamas, a delicious women’s wear I received from my SOGRA and put myself into that soft and warm COBERTOR. Because my pillow is very big in height, I had to pull it from my husband’s head . . .
I love to live in a warm place. Last week we went to Miami to visit family. It was like being in Venezuela . . . I had the opportunity to eat cachitos, which is my favorite breakfast. I also [ate] fresh cheese – it was amazing. The thing I cared most from these days in Miami was being with my mom and sister. My sister came as a surprise. . . .
At this point we are somewhat stuck. . . . The reason for the situation is understandable: we are now job seekers. . . . M has a very well-defined career path. It means that here, in the US, she has more chances to obtain a good position despite the current situation. In fact, she is waiting for an answer from a very good company . . . This long wait has been exasperating, but we have realized that their problem is not about M . . . It seems the problem occurred because someone in Human Resources put off the applications. Meanwhile, as long I am more open to my position, I’ll wait until she gets a definitive job offer to start actively job seeking.
When I came up to the building this evening, containers in different shapes and colors filled up the table at the center of the hall, beautifully decorated [so] that you could hardly overlook them. I told myself that I will sneak out during our intermission and maybe I will get to try some. M. . . was so excited when I shared my desire with my classmates. He jumped up and went to check the situation. Everyone else stayed and eagerly waited for the signal to join him.
. . . I wore my pajamas, a delicious women’s wear I received from my SOGRA and put myself into that soft and warm COBERTOR. Because my pillow is very big in height, I had to pull it from my husband’s head . . .
I love to live in a warm place. Last week we went to Miami to visit family. It was like being in Venezuela . . . I had the opportunity to eat cachitos, which is my favorite breakfast. I also [ate] fresh cheese – it was amazing. The thing I cared most from these days in Miami was being with my mom and sister. My sister came as a surprise. . . .
At this point we are somewhat stuck. . . . The reason for the situation is understandable: we are now job seekers. . . . M has a very well-defined career path. It means that here, in the US, she has more chances to obtain a good position despite the current situation. In fact, she is waiting for an answer from a very good company . . . This long wait has been exasperating, but we have realized that their problem is not about M . . . It seems the problem occurred because someone in Human Resources put off the applications. Meanwhile, as long I am more open to my position, I’ll wait until she gets a definitive job offer to start actively job seeking.
Snark versus satire/irony
Hi,
Heard David Denby talk about his book,SNARK, on NPR Feb. 17 and thought it was a good topic of debate for writers like us. You may want to listen by going to NPR.org, clicking on archives, and searching for SNARK.
Snark Undermines Public Discourse, Author Says
Listen Now add to playlist
Morning Edition, February 17, 2009 · A new book says snark is threatening to take over how Americans converse. Snark is a tone of teasing or snideness. David Denby is the author of Snark. He talks with Ari Shapiro about how clever put-downs and cheap shots are coarsening public debate.
Heard David Denby talk about his book,SNARK, on NPR Feb. 17 and thought it was a good topic of debate for writers like us. You may want to listen by going to NPR.org, clicking on archives, and searching for SNARK.
Snark Undermines Public Discourse, Author Says
Listen Now add to playlist
Morning Edition, February 17, 2009 · A new book says snark is threatening to take over how Americans converse. Snark is a tone of teasing or snideness. David Denby is the author of Snark. He talks with Ari Shapiro about how clever put-downs and cheap shots are coarsening public debate.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
And you thought I had forgotten you . . .
who?
As you can see, I continue to feel much better and full of the "I've gotta share this" spirit. Notice how this author entertains us as she is teaching us something about memory. Do you like the method?
February 26, 2009
Wife/Mother/Worker/Spy
Where Did I Put That First Paragraph?
By MICHELLE SLATALLA
I HAD a great idea for a first paragraph for this column. I thought of it yesterday, and told it to my husband, and he nodded and said, “That’s a good way to start it.”
Now I can’t remember the thought, of course, and neither can he. He claimed he doesn’t even remember having a conversation about the topic even though I reminded him that we discussed it while taking a walk. “When did we take a walk yesterday?” he said.
Increasingly, we are behaving like the characters in “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” who lived in a tiny village afflicted by a mysterious memory disease. The only way they could remember things was to write down the names and affix them to the objects: “table,” “clock” and “chicken.” Or maybe it was “dog.”
I know some memory loss is a normal byproduct of aging. But I still hate the midlife experience of misplacing the car keys, or walking around looking for the iPhone my husband just bought me, or forgetting where I put the gin.
What’s really giving me anxiety, though, is the realization that I have reached a stage where I can no longer remember many of the details of the formative experiences I had when I was young.
It was unsettling recently, for instance, when my oldest daughter came home from college and tried to engage me in the very conversation I have been waiting all my life to be able to have with my children:
Zoe: I just finished reading “Bleak House.”
Me: One of my favorites!
Zoe: So, what did you think of the way Esther Summerson hid her feelings for Mr. Woodcourt?
Me: Who?
Zoe: The narrator.
Me: In what?
Zoe: “Bleak House.”
Me: One of my favorites.
Zoe (suspiciously): Are you sure?
Yes, I’m sure. Certainly, I’ve been saying so for years. I even sort of remember being so moved by the novel that I wrote a lengthy paper in graduate school — something about fog rolling in over England, obscuring the truth or some such — that addressed the major themes.
But now?
“Did you say the narrator was named Edith?” I asked.
“Esther,” Zoe said gently.
We are what we remember. At least that’s what the philosopher John Locke believed. And this raises a troubling question for those of us who have reached that nebulous stage in midlife when memory starts to fade noticeably. If my identity was built on top of all the big ideas I’ve encountered, who am I if I’ve forgotten Esther Summerson?
Maybe I’m a completely different person from the one who read “Bleak House” and underlined all those passages (I only know I did this, by the way, because I dug out my yellowed copy of the book, and the annotations looked exactly like my handwriting). Or maybe I shouldn’t have bothered reading the book in the first place?
“Oh, no, don’t say that,” said Rocco J. Gennaro, a philosophy professor at Indiana State University who has written extensively about the relationship between everyday memory failure and consciousness. “Even Locke wouldn’t say that you are expected to remember everything. You have to draw the line somewhere.”
“I’m drawing it at ‘Bleak House,’ ” I said. “I’m tired of not remembering things that I once knew well.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Dr. Gennaro said, adding that that is a common problem among people my age. “You need to realize that there are different kinds of memories, beyond just episodic memories of past events that you remember occurring, and you should give yourself credit for having those, as well.”
You can forget the details of something while still remembering the big lessons you learned from it, he said. The fact that I can state with certainty that I read “Bleak House” is actually another kind of memory, and who’s to say it’s any less valuable in its own way than remembering the experience of reading?
“Think of it like this,” he said. “Reading ‘Bleak House’ was one of those things that happened in your life that had a very positive causal effect on who you are now, even if you don’t remember what it was. Maybe it helped you choose a career, or some other path you took in life.”
This reminds me of a friend I have who is a certain age (O.K., mine) who says that nowadays he can remember books only in two-paragraph chunks. He claims he retains the memory of the paragraph he just finished only until he gets to the end of the next one.
“But does he enjoy reading?” Dr. Gennaro asked.
“Very much,” I said.
Another category of memories that I should be happy I have, he said, is procedural memories of knowing how to do things — how to ride a bicycle and how to type — that I’ve retained long after forgetting the episode of learning.
All of us forget much more than we remember, of course, even in the course of a single year. By the time we reach midlife, the weight of all those memories would overwhelm us if we didn’t shed them judiciously.
In other words, if Locke were wandering around the house looking for his iPhone, he would be perfectly happy just from the knowledge that he could remember a past version of himself who could remember where the cellphone was.
“You see, you have to expect episodic memory to fade,” Dr. Gennaro said. “People get by pretty well with a short-term memory.”
This was partly reassuring, although I don’t know yet if it will make me feel any better the next time I lose the gin.
But there are some positive steps I can take. Last week, I started reading “Bleak House” again. And, just to be ready, I scribbled “Otto” on a yellow Post-it note and stuck it to my brown dog’s head when he wandered past.
E-mail: Slatalla@nytimes.com
As you can see, I continue to feel much better and full of the "I've gotta share this" spirit. Notice how this author entertains us as she is teaching us something about memory. Do you like the method?
February 26, 2009
Wife/Mother/Worker/Spy
Where Did I Put That First Paragraph?
By MICHELLE SLATALLA
I HAD a great idea for a first paragraph for this column. I thought of it yesterday, and told it to my husband, and he nodded and said, “That’s a good way to start it.”
Now I can’t remember the thought, of course, and neither can he. He claimed he doesn’t even remember having a conversation about the topic even though I reminded him that we discussed it while taking a walk. “When did we take a walk yesterday?” he said.
Increasingly, we are behaving like the characters in “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” who lived in a tiny village afflicted by a mysterious memory disease. The only way they could remember things was to write down the names and affix them to the objects: “table,” “clock” and “chicken.” Or maybe it was “dog.”
I know some memory loss is a normal byproduct of aging. But I still hate the midlife experience of misplacing the car keys, or walking around looking for the iPhone my husband just bought me, or forgetting where I put the gin.
What’s really giving me anxiety, though, is the realization that I have reached a stage where I can no longer remember many of the details of the formative experiences I had when I was young.
It was unsettling recently, for instance, when my oldest daughter came home from college and tried to engage me in the very conversation I have been waiting all my life to be able to have with my children:
Zoe: I just finished reading “Bleak House.”
Me: One of my favorites!
Zoe: So, what did you think of the way Esther Summerson hid her feelings for Mr. Woodcourt?
Me: Who?
Zoe: The narrator.
Me: In what?
Zoe: “Bleak House.”
Me: One of my favorites.
Zoe (suspiciously): Are you sure?
Yes, I’m sure. Certainly, I’ve been saying so for years. I even sort of remember being so moved by the novel that I wrote a lengthy paper in graduate school — something about fog rolling in over England, obscuring the truth or some such — that addressed the major themes.
But now?
“Did you say the narrator was named Edith?” I asked.
“Esther,” Zoe said gently.
We are what we remember. At least that’s what the philosopher John Locke believed. And this raises a troubling question for those of us who have reached that nebulous stage in midlife when memory starts to fade noticeably. If my identity was built on top of all the big ideas I’ve encountered, who am I if I’ve forgotten Esther Summerson?
Maybe I’m a completely different person from the one who read “Bleak House” and underlined all those passages (I only know I did this, by the way, because I dug out my yellowed copy of the book, and the annotations looked exactly like my handwriting). Or maybe I shouldn’t have bothered reading the book in the first place?
“Oh, no, don’t say that,” said Rocco J. Gennaro, a philosophy professor at Indiana State University who has written extensively about the relationship between everyday memory failure and consciousness. “Even Locke wouldn’t say that you are expected to remember everything. You have to draw the line somewhere.”
“I’m drawing it at ‘Bleak House,’ ” I said. “I’m tired of not remembering things that I once knew well.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Dr. Gennaro said, adding that that is a common problem among people my age. “You need to realize that there are different kinds of memories, beyond just episodic memories of past events that you remember occurring, and you should give yourself credit for having those, as well.”
You can forget the details of something while still remembering the big lessons you learned from it, he said. The fact that I can state with certainty that I read “Bleak House” is actually another kind of memory, and who’s to say it’s any less valuable in its own way than remembering the experience of reading?
“Think of it like this,” he said. “Reading ‘Bleak House’ was one of those things that happened in your life that had a very positive causal effect on who you are now, even if you don’t remember what it was. Maybe it helped you choose a career, or some other path you took in life.”
This reminds me of a friend I have who is a certain age (O.K., mine) who says that nowadays he can remember books only in two-paragraph chunks. He claims he retains the memory of the paragraph he just finished only until he gets to the end of the next one.
“But does he enjoy reading?” Dr. Gennaro asked.
“Very much,” I said.
Another category of memories that I should be happy I have, he said, is procedural memories of knowing how to do things — how to ride a bicycle and how to type — that I’ve retained long after forgetting the episode of learning.
All of us forget much more than we remember, of course, even in the course of a single year. By the time we reach midlife, the weight of all those memories would overwhelm us if we didn’t shed them judiciously.
In other words, if Locke were wandering around the house looking for his iPhone, he would be perfectly happy just from the knowledge that he could remember a past version of himself who could remember where the cellphone was.
“You see, you have to expect episodic memory to fade,” Dr. Gennaro said. “People get by pretty well with a short-term memory.”
This was partly reassuring, although I don’t know yet if it will make me feel any better the next time I lose the gin.
But there are some positive steps I can take. Last week, I started reading “Bleak House” again. And, just to be ready, I scribbled “Otto” on a yellow Post-it note and stuck it to my brown dog’s head when he wandered past.
E-mail: Slatalla@nytimes.com
So, how would you save money in these tough economic times?
I had to laugh at this article in today's Washington Post. (Yes, I am finally up and about, even reading the newspaper and blogging.) It is cute how those free-spending American concumers are tightening their belts. Some are actually giving up their personal trainers! Oh my.
Home Economics of Anxious Times: Dyeing Your Hair in the Kitchen Sink
By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 26, 2009; A01
The economic downturn is forcing America's households to learn a tough lesson: how to fend for themselves.
Sales of starter sewing kits have shot up by 30 percent at Wal-Mart as families forgo the tailor. Landscaping companies have suffered a 7 percent drop in revenue over the past year. Procter & Gamble said that it has noticed more questions from customers about how to dye their hair at home to match salon coloring.
The recession has had a powerful effect on the American state of mind. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday shows Americans have grown increasingly insecure about their finances since mid-September, as fears about making mortgage payments have spread and more believe the economy is in a long-term, serious decline.
These feelings have helped set off a change in behavior so pronounced marketers and businesses have coined a name for it. They call it "insourcing": doing yourself what you once gladly paid others to do.
Two-thirds of those responding to the new poll said they've cut back on spending, including nearly a third who have pulled back "sharply." Americans across income groups said they are opening their wallets less often these days.
"There are many of us that have been spending money that we can't afford to spend and have taken on habits that we had no business taking on," said Paco Underhill, who studies consumer behavior and wrote the book "Why We Buy." "Those time-based trade-offs actually are some of the easiest forms of economizing that a person can do."
Spending on pet services, for example, is expected to grow 6 percent this year after jumping as much as 40 percent earlier in the decade, according to an industry trade group. A report by SBI, a market research firm, shows the number of landscaping firms dwindled by 5,600, or 3.3 percent, last year. And an analysis of a range of services companies compiled by research firm Sageworks showed sales growth slowed to 4 percent last year, the lowest level in at least six years.
"So much of it comes down to perception," said Gordon Miller, executive director of the National Cosmetology Association, a trade group. "Do I perceive the service that I'm getting as an added pampering, or do I need it?"
Miller said his members report clients stretching the time between appointments. Professional Consultants & Resources, a beauty consulting company, estimated the salon industry continued to grow last year, but at 2.8 percent, a historic low. Susan Gustafson, president of Ratner Cos., which owns national chain Hair Cuttery, said more clients are showing up for just a trim, coloring their hair at home.
Many are adjusting their behavior even though their financial circumstances are unchanged, motivated by fear over the future of the economy.
Overall, 70 percent of Americans anticipate a downturn lasting well into 2010 or longer, according to the Post-ABC News poll. More than a third see it lasting two or more years. Those who see an extended recession are more likely to say they've pared back their typical buying habits.
Take Chris and Mary Poleto of Haymarket, whose income is stable but who are trying to chip away at credit card bills.
Within one week, Mary changed the bulb in the headlight of her Mercedes, cutting out a $120 trip to the mechanic. The couple made a cake for their 11-year-old daughter's birthday party instead of spending $50 at the local bakery. And Chris, who works in a management job, picked up some cans of paint from the Sears in Fair Oaks to help a friend redecorate -- seven hours of work but a savings of roughly $1,000.
"We really had to look at the equation to build in additional efficiencies," Chris Poleto said.
Consumers are weighing similar decisions across sectors. Paola Domenge, 34, of Potomac canceled her lawn service last year and now mulches the yard and trims the wisteria herself, saving as much as $500 a month -- even before she was laid off from her marketing job about a month ago and started a bakery. Alina Zhukovskaya, 28, of Arlington dismissed her personal trainer to save $60 a week.
Camilla Bozzoli, 66, of the District decided $50 was too much to pay a tailor to dye one of her favorite, but well-worn dresses. Instead, she pulled out a bucket, gloves and a wooden spoon and did the job herself. "Fifty dollars is almost the price of a new outfit," she said. "It makes me feel good not only because of saving money, but as a philosophy of life not to waste."
Advertising agency Peterson Milla Hooks, which produces commercials for Target, noticed the insourcing trend last summer as gas prices began to rise. Thomas Nowak, agency director, likened consumers' response to the financial crisis to the stages of grief: First there was denial and anger. PMH wanted to help Target move them toward the final stage of acceptance. "People say, 'You know what? This is the new normal, and we need to make the best of it,' " he said.
PMH created a series of ads dubbed New Day for Target that depicted an $11.88 yoga ball as "the new gym," a $29.99 espresso maker as "the new coffee spot" and $1.97 glass cleaner as "the new car wash."
Sewing products manufacturer Prym Consumer USA was surprised when sales of its basic sewing kit -- a needle, thread and a few buttons costing $1.12 -- began to rise six months ago at Wal-Mart stores. Typically, sales remain stable, said Laura Mooney, director of marketing for Prym. Sewing kit sales are now up 30 percent. Sales of its popular fabric adhesive Liquid Stitch, which costs $2.93, have skyrocketed more than 50 percent.
Wal-Mart said sales of herb gardens and tomato and pepper seeds are up, an indication that shoppers are trying to save money by growing their own food, spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said. In Wal-Mart's auto department, sales of oil, filters, grease and funnels have also risen as more people opt to be their own mechanic.
Underhill, the retail consultant, predicts consumers' newfound self-sufficiency will last even after the recession is a distant memory. "Americans have always taken some pride in doing things for themselves," he said.
But there may be limits.
Brenda Waller, 42, of Herndon said her consulting firm has frozen salaries, and she's worried about the future. She has called off the lawn care service for the coming summer and asked the woman who does her nails to cut them extra short -- so the manicure will last longer. And no more pedicures. But she is holding on to DoodyCalls, a company that cleans up after her pets in the yard. Founder Jacob D'Aniello said his Charlottesville-based company grew by 21 percent last year.
"The only time I really felt we'd be in trouble," he said, "is if everybody woke up one morning and decided they liked picking up dog poop."
Home Economics of Anxious Times: Dyeing Your Hair in the Kitchen Sink
By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 26, 2009; A01
The economic downturn is forcing America's households to learn a tough lesson: how to fend for themselves.
Sales of starter sewing kits have shot up by 30 percent at Wal-Mart as families forgo the tailor. Landscaping companies have suffered a 7 percent drop in revenue over the past year. Procter & Gamble said that it has noticed more questions from customers about how to dye their hair at home to match salon coloring.
The recession has had a powerful effect on the American state of mind. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday shows Americans have grown increasingly insecure about their finances since mid-September, as fears about making mortgage payments have spread and more believe the economy is in a long-term, serious decline.
These feelings have helped set off a change in behavior so pronounced marketers and businesses have coined a name for it. They call it "insourcing": doing yourself what you once gladly paid others to do.
Two-thirds of those responding to the new poll said they've cut back on spending, including nearly a third who have pulled back "sharply." Americans across income groups said they are opening their wallets less often these days.
"There are many of us that have been spending money that we can't afford to spend and have taken on habits that we had no business taking on," said Paco Underhill, who studies consumer behavior and wrote the book "Why We Buy." "Those time-based trade-offs actually are some of the easiest forms of economizing that a person can do."
Spending on pet services, for example, is expected to grow 6 percent this year after jumping as much as 40 percent earlier in the decade, according to an industry trade group. A report by SBI, a market research firm, shows the number of landscaping firms dwindled by 5,600, or 3.3 percent, last year. And an analysis of a range of services companies compiled by research firm Sageworks showed sales growth slowed to 4 percent last year, the lowest level in at least six years.
"So much of it comes down to perception," said Gordon Miller, executive director of the National Cosmetology Association, a trade group. "Do I perceive the service that I'm getting as an added pampering, or do I need it?"
Miller said his members report clients stretching the time between appointments. Professional Consultants & Resources, a beauty consulting company, estimated the salon industry continued to grow last year, but at 2.8 percent, a historic low. Susan Gustafson, president of Ratner Cos., which owns national chain Hair Cuttery, said more clients are showing up for just a trim, coloring their hair at home.
Many are adjusting their behavior even though their financial circumstances are unchanged, motivated by fear over the future of the economy.
Overall, 70 percent of Americans anticipate a downturn lasting well into 2010 or longer, according to the Post-ABC News poll. More than a third see it lasting two or more years. Those who see an extended recession are more likely to say they've pared back their typical buying habits.
Take Chris and Mary Poleto of Haymarket, whose income is stable but who are trying to chip away at credit card bills.
Within one week, Mary changed the bulb in the headlight of her Mercedes, cutting out a $120 trip to the mechanic. The couple made a cake for their 11-year-old daughter's birthday party instead of spending $50 at the local bakery. And Chris, who works in a management job, picked up some cans of paint from the Sears in Fair Oaks to help a friend redecorate -- seven hours of work but a savings of roughly $1,000.
"We really had to look at the equation to build in additional efficiencies," Chris Poleto said.
Consumers are weighing similar decisions across sectors. Paola Domenge, 34, of Potomac canceled her lawn service last year and now mulches the yard and trims the wisteria herself, saving as much as $500 a month -- even before she was laid off from her marketing job about a month ago and started a bakery. Alina Zhukovskaya, 28, of Arlington dismissed her personal trainer to save $60 a week.
Camilla Bozzoli, 66, of the District decided $50 was too much to pay a tailor to dye one of her favorite, but well-worn dresses. Instead, she pulled out a bucket, gloves and a wooden spoon and did the job herself. "Fifty dollars is almost the price of a new outfit," she said. "It makes me feel good not only because of saving money, but as a philosophy of life not to waste."
Advertising agency Peterson Milla Hooks, which produces commercials for Target, noticed the insourcing trend last summer as gas prices began to rise. Thomas Nowak, agency director, likened consumers' response to the financial crisis to the stages of grief: First there was denial and anger. PMH wanted to help Target move them toward the final stage of acceptance. "People say, 'You know what? This is the new normal, and we need to make the best of it,' " he said.
PMH created a series of ads dubbed New Day for Target that depicted an $11.88 yoga ball as "the new gym," a $29.99 espresso maker as "the new coffee spot" and $1.97 glass cleaner as "the new car wash."
Sewing products manufacturer Prym Consumer USA was surprised when sales of its basic sewing kit -- a needle, thread and a few buttons costing $1.12 -- began to rise six months ago at Wal-Mart stores. Typically, sales remain stable, said Laura Mooney, director of marketing for Prym. Sewing kit sales are now up 30 percent. Sales of its popular fabric adhesive Liquid Stitch, which costs $2.93, have skyrocketed more than 50 percent.
Wal-Mart said sales of herb gardens and tomato and pepper seeds are up, an indication that shoppers are trying to save money by growing their own food, spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said. In Wal-Mart's auto department, sales of oil, filters, grease and funnels have also risen as more people opt to be their own mechanic.
Underhill, the retail consultant, predicts consumers' newfound self-sufficiency will last even after the recession is a distant memory. "Americans have always taken some pride in doing things for themselves," he said.
But there may be limits.
Brenda Waller, 42, of Herndon said her consulting firm has frozen salaries, and she's worried about the future. She has called off the lawn care service for the coming summer and asked the woman who does her nails to cut them extra short -- so the manicure will last longer. And no more pedicures. But she is holding on to DoodyCalls, a company that cleans up after her pets in the yard. Founder Jacob D'Aniello said his Charlottesville-based company grew by 21 percent last year.
"The only time I really felt we'd be in trouble," he said, "is if everybody woke up one morning and decided they liked picking up dog poop."
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
. . . and More to Think About!
February 15, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Yes, They Could. So They Did.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New Delhi
So I am attending the Energy and Resources Institute climate conference in New Delhi, and during the afternoon session two young American women — along with one of their mothers — proposition me.
“Hey, Mr. Friedman,” they say, “would you like to take a little spin around New Delhi in our car?”
Oh, I say, I’ve heard that line before. Ah, they say, but you haven’t seen this car before. It’s a plug-in electric car that is also powered by rooftop solar panels — and the two young women, recent Yale grads, had just driven it all over India in a “climate caravan” to highlight the solutions to global warming being developed by Indian companies, communities, campuses and innovators, as well as to inspire others to take action.
They ask me if I want to drive, but I have visions of being stopped by the cops and ending up in a New Delhi jail. Not to worry, they tell me. Indian cops have been stopping them all across India. First, they ask to see driver’s licenses, then they inquire about how the green car’s solar roof manages to provide 10 percent of its mileage — and then they try to buy the car.
We head off down Panchsheel Marg, one of New Delhi’s main streets. The ladies want to show me something. The U.S. Embassy and the Chinese Embassy are both located on Panchsheel, directly across from each other. They asked me to check out the rooftops of each embassy. What do I notice? Let’s see ... The U.S. Embassy’s roof is loaded with antennae and listening gear. The Chinese Embassy’s roof is loaded with ... new Chinese-made solar hot-water heaters.
You couldn’t make this up.
But trying to do something about it was just one of many reasons my hosts, Caroline Howe, 23, a mechanical engineer on leave from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Alexis Ringwald, a Fulbright scholar in India and now a solar entrepreneur, joined with Kartikeya Singh, who was starting the Indian Youth Climate Network, or IYCN, to connect young climate leaders in India, a country coming under increasing global pressure to manage its carbon footprint.
“India is full of climate innovators, so spread out across this huge country that many people don’t get to see that these solutions are working right now,” said Howe. “We wanted to find a way to bring people together around existing solutions to inspire more action and more innovation. There’s no time left to just talk about the problem.”
Howe and Ringwald thought the best way to do that might be a climate solutions road tour, using modified electric cars from India’s Reva Electric Car Company, whose C.E.O. Ringwald knew. They persuaded him to donate three of his cars and to retrofit them with longer-life batteries that could travel 90 miles on a single six-hour charge — and to lay on a solar roof that would extend them farther.
Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 5, they drove the cars on a 2,100-mile trip from Chennai to New Delhi, stopping in 15 cities and dozens of villages, training Indian students to start their own climate action programs and filming 20 videos of India’s top home-grown energy innovations. They also brought along a solar-powered band, plus a luggage truck that ran on plant oil extracted from jatropha and pongamia, plants locally grown on wasteland. A Bollywood dance group joined at different stops and a Czech who learned about their trip on YouTube hopped on with his truck that ran on vegetable-oil waste.
Deepa Gupta, 21, a co-founder of IYCN, told The Hindustan Times that the trip opened her eyes to just how many indigenous energy solutions were budding in India — “like organic farming in Andhra Pradesh, or using neem and garlic as pesticides, or the kind of recycling in slums, such as Dharavi. We saw things already in place, like the Gadhia solar plant in Valsad, Gujarat, where steam is used for cooking and you can feed almost 50,000 people in one go.” (See: www.indiaclimatesolutions.com.)
At Rajpipla, in Gujarat, when they stopped at a local prince’s palace to recharge their cars, they discovered that his business was cultivating worms and selling them as eco-friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers.
I met Howe and Ringwald after a tiring day, but I have to admit that as soon as they started telling me their story it really made me smile. After a year of watching adults engage in devastating recklessness in the financial markets and depressing fecklessness in the global climate talks, it’s refreshing to know that the world keeps minting idealistic young people who are not waiting for governments to act, but are starting their own projects and driving innovation.
“Why did this tour happen?” asked Ringwald. “Why this mad, insane plan to travel across India in a caravan of solar electric cars and jatropha trucks with solar music, art, dance and a potent message for climate solutions? Well ... the world needs crazy ideas to change things, because the conventional way of thinking is not working anymore.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Op-Ed Columnist
Yes, They Could. So They Did.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New Delhi
So I am attending the Energy and Resources Institute climate conference in New Delhi, and during the afternoon session two young American women — along with one of their mothers — proposition me.
“Hey, Mr. Friedman,” they say, “would you like to take a little spin around New Delhi in our car?”
Oh, I say, I’ve heard that line before. Ah, they say, but you haven’t seen this car before. It’s a plug-in electric car that is also powered by rooftop solar panels — and the two young women, recent Yale grads, had just driven it all over India in a “climate caravan” to highlight the solutions to global warming being developed by Indian companies, communities, campuses and innovators, as well as to inspire others to take action.
They ask me if I want to drive, but I have visions of being stopped by the cops and ending up in a New Delhi jail. Not to worry, they tell me. Indian cops have been stopping them all across India. First, they ask to see driver’s licenses, then they inquire about how the green car’s solar roof manages to provide 10 percent of its mileage — and then they try to buy the car.
We head off down Panchsheel Marg, one of New Delhi’s main streets. The ladies want to show me something. The U.S. Embassy and the Chinese Embassy are both located on Panchsheel, directly across from each other. They asked me to check out the rooftops of each embassy. What do I notice? Let’s see ... The U.S. Embassy’s roof is loaded with antennae and listening gear. The Chinese Embassy’s roof is loaded with ... new Chinese-made solar hot-water heaters.
You couldn’t make this up.
But trying to do something about it was just one of many reasons my hosts, Caroline Howe, 23, a mechanical engineer on leave from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Alexis Ringwald, a Fulbright scholar in India and now a solar entrepreneur, joined with Kartikeya Singh, who was starting the Indian Youth Climate Network, or IYCN, to connect young climate leaders in India, a country coming under increasing global pressure to manage its carbon footprint.
“India is full of climate innovators, so spread out across this huge country that many people don’t get to see that these solutions are working right now,” said Howe. “We wanted to find a way to bring people together around existing solutions to inspire more action and more innovation. There’s no time left to just talk about the problem.”
Howe and Ringwald thought the best way to do that might be a climate solutions road tour, using modified electric cars from India’s Reva Electric Car Company, whose C.E.O. Ringwald knew. They persuaded him to donate three of his cars and to retrofit them with longer-life batteries that could travel 90 miles on a single six-hour charge — and to lay on a solar roof that would extend them farther.
Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 5, they drove the cars on a 2,100-mile trip from Chennai to New Delhi, stopping in 15 cities and dozens of villages, training Indian students to start their own climate action programs and filming 20 videos of India’s top home-grown energy innovations. They also brought along a solar-powered band, plus a luggage truck that ran on plant oil extracted from jatropha and pongamia, plants locally grown on wasteland. A Bollywood dance group joined at different stops and a Czech who learned about their trip on YouTube hopped on with his truck that ran on vegetable-oil waste.
Deepa Gupta, 21, a co-founder of IYCN, told The Hindustan Times that the trip opened her eyes to just how many indigenous energy solutions were budding in India — “like organic farming in Andhra Pradesh, or using neem and garlic as pesticides, or the kind of recycling in slums, such as Dharavi. We saw things already in place, like the Gadhia solar plant in Valsad, Gujarat, where steam is used for cooking and you can feed almost 50,000 people in one go.” (See: www.indiaclimatesolutions.com.)
At Rajpipla, in Gujarat, when they stopped at a local prince’s palace to recharge their cars, they discovered that his business was cultivating worms and selling them as eco-friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers.
I met Howe and Ringwald after a tiring day, but I have to admit that as soon as they started telling me their story it really made me smile. After a year of watching adults engage in devastating recklessness in the financial markets and depressing fecklessness in the global climate talks, it’s refreshing to know that the world keeps minting idealistic young people who are not waiting for governments to act, but are starting their own projects and driving innovation.
“Why did this tour happen?” asked Ringwald. “Why this mad, insane plan to travel across India in a caravan of solar electric cars and jatropha trucks with solar music, art, dance and a potent message for climate solutions? Well ... the world needs crazy ideas to change things, because the conventional way of thinking is not working anymore.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
More to Think About
Education is getting 100 billiion in the US stimulus package. Where should the money go?
Studies show that teachers are important. Nicholas Kristoff, in a New York Times essay on February 16, wrote "First, good teachers matter more than anything; they are astonishingly important. It turns out that having a great teacher is far more important than being in a small class, or going to a good school with a mediocre teacher."
Care to comment?
Studies show that teachers are important. Nicholas Kristoff, in a New York Times essay on February 16, wrote "First, good teachers matter more than anything; they are astonishingly important. It turns out that having a great teacher is far more important than being in a small class, or going to a good school with a mediocre teacher."
Care to comment?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Check Out Thomas Friedman
Hello Writers and Thinkers,
I am sharing a persuasive essay by Thomas Friedman, a prolific author and Pulitzer-Prize winning Journalist whose columns appear regularly in the New York Times. He publishes a book on current events every two years; in 2007 he spoke at Hopkins about that year's tome: The World Is Flat. His 2009 book is Hot, Flat and Crowded. In Today's Times, he wrote a persuasive essay about stopping US protectionism. Are you persuaded?
February 11, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Open-Door Bailout
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Bangalore, India
Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.
“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”
While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”
While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.
Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower — anywhere? That’s called “Old Europe.” That’s spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D.
“If you do this, it will be one of the best things for India and one of the worst for Americans, [because] Indians will be forced to innovate at home,” said Subhash B. Dhar, a member of the executive council that runs Infosys, the well-known Indian technology company that sends Indian workers to the U.S. to support a wide range of firms. “We protected our jobs for many years and look where it got us. Do you know that for an Indian company, it is still easier to do business with a company in the U.S. than it is to do business today with another Indian state?”
Each Indian state tries to protect its little economy with its own rules. America should not be trying to copy that. “Your attitude,” said Dhar, should be “ ‘whoever can make us competitive and dominant, let’s bring them in.’ ”
If there is one thing we know for absolute certain, it’s this: Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression, but it sure helped to make it “Great.” From 1929 to 1934, world trade plunged by more than 60 percent — and we were all worse off.
We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs.
According to research by Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants over the last decade. These immigrant-founded tech companies employed 450,000 workers and had sales of $52 billion in 2005, said Wadhwa in an essay published this week on BusinessWeek.com.
He also cited a recent study by William R. Kerr of Harvard Business School and William F. Lincoln of the University of Michigan that “found that in periods when H-1B visa numbers went down, so did patent applications filed by immigrants [in the U.S.]. And when H-1B visa numbers went up, patent applications followed suit.”
We don’t want to come out of this crisis with just inflation, a mountain of debt and more shovel-ready jobs. We want to — we have to — come out of it with a new Intel, Google, Microsoft and Apple. I would have loved to have seen the stimulus package include a government-funded venture capital bank to help finance all the start-ups that are clearly not starting up today — in the clean-energy space they’re dying like flies — because of a lack of liquidity from traditional lending sources.
Newsweek had an essay this week that began: “Could Silicon Valley become another Detroit?” Well, yes, it could. When the best brains in the world are on sale, you don’t shut them out. You open your doors wider. We need to attack this financial crisis with green cards not just greenbacks, and with start-ups not just bailouts. One Detroit is enough.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
I am sharing a persuasive essay by Thomas Friedman, a prolific author and Pulitzer-Prize winning Journalist whose columns appear regularly in the New York Times. He publishes a book on current events every two years; in 2007 he spoke at Hopkins about that year's tome: The World Is Flat. His 2009 book is Hot, Flat and Crowded. In Today's Times, he wrote a persuasive essay about stopping US protectionism. Are you persuaded?
February 11, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Open-Door Bailout
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Bangalore, India
Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.
“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”
While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”
While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.
Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower — anywhere? That’s called “Old Europe.” That’s spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D.
“If you do this, it will be one of the best things for India and one of the worst for Americans, [because] Indians will be forced to innovate at home,” said Subhash B. Dhar, a member of the executive council that runs Infosys, the well-known Indian technology company that sends Indian workers to the U.S. to support a wide range of firms. “We protected our jobs for many years and look where it got us. Do you know that for an Indian company, it is still easier to do business with a company in the U.S. than it is to do business today with another Indian state?”
Each Indian state tries to protect its little economy with its own rules. America should not be trying to copy that. “Your attitude,” said Dhar, should be “ ‘whoever can make us competitive and dominant, let’s bring them in.’ ”
If there is one thing we know for absolute certain, it’s this: Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression, but it sure helped to make it “Great.” From 1929 to 1934, world trade plunged by more than 60 percent — and we were all worse off.
We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs.
According to research by Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants over the last decade. These immigrant-founded tech companies employed 450,000 workers and had sales of $52 billion in 2005, said Wadhwa in an essay published this week on BusinessWeek.com.
He also cited a recent study by William R. Kerr of Harvard Business School and William F. Lincoln of the University of Michigan that “found that in periods when H-1B visa numbers went down, so did patent applications filed by immigrants [in the U.S.]. And when H-1B visa numbers went up, patent applications followed suit.”
We don’t want to come out of this crisis with just inflation, a mountain of debt and more shovel-ready jobs. We want to — we have to — come out of it with a new Intel, Google, Microsoft and Apple. I would have loved to have seen the stimulus package include a government-funded venture capital bank to help finance all the start-ups that are clearly not starting up today — in the clean-energy space they’re dying like flies — because of a lack of liquidity from traditional lending sources.
Newsweek had an essay this week that began: “Could Silicon Valley become another Detroit?” Well, yes, it could. When the best brains in the world are on sale, you don’t shut them out. You open your doors wider. We need to attack this financial crisis with green cards not just greenbacks, and with start-ups not just bailouts. One Detroit is enough.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
This I Believe
Your second writing assignment is to write a paragraph for This I Believe. To get a better idea of what This I Believe is all about, see http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1082&ps=lm
Although the requirement for this writing is a minimum of one paragraph, it can be longer, but can not go over the limit indicated by This I Believe. I do want you to submit the writing!
Should be very interesting!
Also interesting is this article from today's New York Times. Isn't it rich?!
February 8, 2009
You Try to Live on 500K in This Town
By ALLEN SALKIN
PRIVATE school: $32,000 a year per student.
Mortgage: $96,000 a year.
Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year.
Nanny: $45,000 a year.
We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.
Five hundred thousand dollars — the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money — seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast.
“As hard as it is to believe, bankers who are living on the Upper East Side making $2 or $3 million a year have set up a life for themselves in which they are also at zero at the end of the year with credit cards and mortgage bills that are inescapable,” said Holly Peterson, the author of an Upper East Side novel of manners, “The Manny,” and the daughter of Peter G. Peterson, a founder of the equity firm the Blackstone Group. “Five hundred thousand dollars means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale.”
Sure, the solution may seem simple: move to Brooklyn or Hoboken, put the children in public schools and buy a MetroCard. But more than a few of the New York-based financial executives who would have their pay limited are men (and they are almost invariably men) whose identities are entwined with living a certain way in a certain neighborhood west of Third Avenue: a life of private schools, summer houses and charity galas that only a seven-figure income can stretch to cover.
Few are playing sad cellos over the fate of such folk, especially since the collapse of the institutions they run has yielded untold financial pain. But in New York, where a new study from the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit research group in Manhattan, estimates it takes $123,322 to enjoy the same middle-class life as someone earning $50,000 in Houston, extricating oneself from steep bills can be difficult.
Therefore, even if it is not for sympathy but for sport, consider the numbers.
The cold hard math can be cruel.
Like those taxes. If a person is married with two children, the weekly deductions on a $500,000 salary are: federal taxes, $2,645; Medicare, $139; state taxes, $682; and city, $372. With an annual Social Security tab of $6,621, the take-home pay is about $293,000 annually, said Martin Cohen, a Manhattan accountant.
Now move to living expenses.
Barbara Corcoran, a real estate executive, said that most well-to-do families take at least two vacations a year, a winter trip to the sun and a spring trip to the ski slopes.
Total minimum cost: $16,000.
A modest three-bedroom apartment, she said, which was purchased for $1.5 million, not the top of the market at all, carries a monthly mortgage of about $8,000 and a co-op maintenance fee of $8,000 a month. Total cost: $192,000. A summer house in Southampton that cost $4 million, again not the top of the market, carries annual mortgage payments of $240,000.
Many top executives have cars and drivers. A chauffeur’s pay is between $75,000 and $125,000 a year, the higher end for former police officers who can double as bodyguards, said a limousine driver who spoke anonymously because he does not want to alienate his society customers.
“Some of them want their drivers to have guns,” the driver said. “You get a cop and you have a driver.” To garage that car is about $700 a month.
A personal trainer at $80 an hour three times a week comes to about $12,000 a year.
The work in the gym pays off when one must don a formal gown for a charity gala. “Going to those parties,” said David Patrick Columbia, who is the editor of the New York Social Diary (newyorksocialdiary.com), “a woman can spend $10,000 or $15,000 on a dress. If she goes to three or four of those a year, she’s not going to wear the same dress.”
Total cost for three gowns: about $35,000.
Not every bank executive has school-age children, but for those who do, offspring can be expensive. In addition to paying tuition, “You’re not going to get through private school without tutoring a kid,” said Sandy Bass, the editor of Private School Insider, a newsletter that covers private schools in the New York City area. One hour of tutoring once a week is $125. “That’s the low end,” she said. “The higher end is 150, 175.” SAT tutors are about $250 an hour. Total cost for 30 weeks of regular tutoring: $3,750.
Two children in private school: $64,000.
Nanny: $45,000.
Ms. Bass, whose husband is an accountant with many high-end clients, said she spends about $425 every 10 days on groceries for her family. Annual cost: about $15,000.
More? Restaurants. Dry cleaning. Each Brooks Brothers suit costs about $1,000. If you run a bank, you can’t look like a slob.
The total costs here, which do not include a lot of things, like kennels for the dog when the family is away, summer camp, spas and other grooming for the human members of the family, donations to charity, and frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity, are $790,750, which would require about a $1.6-million salary to compensate for taxes. Give or take a few score thousand of dollars.
Does this money buy a chief executive stockholders might prize, a well-to-do man with a certain sureness of stride, something that might be lost if the executive were crowding onto the PATH train every morning at Journal Square, his newspaper splayed against the back of a stranger’s head?
The man would certainly not feel like himself on that train, said Candace Bushnell, the author of “Sex and the City” and other books chronicling New York social mores.
“People inherently understand that if they are going to get ahead in whatever corporate culture they are involved in, they need to take on the appurtenances of what defines that culture,” she said. “So if you are in a culture where spending a lot of money is a sign of success, it’s like the same thing that goes back to high school peer pressure. It’s about fitting in.”
By the way, the frozen hot chocolate costs $8.50.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Although the requirement for this writing is a minimum of one paragraph, it can be longer, but can not go over the limit indicated by This I Believe. I do want you to submit the writing!
Should be very interesting!
Also interesting is this article from today's New York Times. Isn't it rich?!
February 8, 2009
You Try to Live on 500K in This Town
By ALLEN SALKIN
PRIVATE school: $32,000 a year per student.
Mortgage: $96,000 a year.
Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year.
Nanny: $45,000 a year.
We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.
Five hundred thousand dollars — the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money — seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast.
“As hard as it is to believe, bankers who are living on the Upper East Side making $2 or $3 million a year have set up a life for themselves in which they are also at zero at the end of the year with credit cards and mortgage bills that are inescapable,” said Holly Peterson, the author of an Upper East Side novel of manners, “The Manny,” and the daughter of Peter G. Peterson, a founder of the equity firm the Blackstone Group. “Five hundred thousand dollars means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale.”
Sure, the solution may seem simple: move to Brooklyn or Hoboken, put the children in public schools and buy a MetroCard. But more than a few of the New York-based financial executives who would have their pay limited are men (and they are almost invariably men) whose identities are entwined with living a certain way in a certain neighborhood west of Third Avenue: a life of private schools, summer houses and charity galas that only a seven-figure income can stretch to cover.
Few are playing sad cellos over the fate of such folk, especially since the collapse of the institutions they run has yielded untold financial pain. But in New York, where a new study from the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit research group in Manhattan, estimates it takes $123,322 to enjoy the same middle-class life as someone earning $50,000 in Houston, extricating oneself from steep bills can be difficult.
Therefore, even if it is not for sympathy but for sport, consider the numbers.
The cold hard math can be cruel.
Like those taxes. If a person is married with two children, the weekly deductions on a $500,000 salary are: federal taxes, $2,645; Medicare, $139; state taxes, $682; and city, $372. With an annual Social Security tab of $6,621, the take-home pay is about $293,000 annually, said Martin Cohen, a Manhattan accountant.
Now move to living expenses.
Barbara Corcoran, a real estate executive, said that most well-to-do families take at least two vacations a year, a winter trip to the sun and a spring trip to the ski slopes.
Total minimum cost: $16,000.
A modest three-bedroom apartment, she said, which was purchased for $1.5 million, not the top of the market at all, carries a monthly mortgage of about $8,000 and a co-op maintenance fee of $8,000 a month. Total cost: $192,000. A summer house in Southampton that cost $4 million, again not the top of the market, carries annual mortgage payments of $240,000.
Many top executives have cars and drivers. A chauffeur’s pay is between $75,000 and $125,000 a year, the higher end for former police officers who can double as bodyguards, said a limousine driver who spoke anonymously because he does not want to alienate his society customers.
“Some of them want their drivers to have guns,” the driver said. “You get a cop and you have a driver.” To garage that car is about $700 a month.
A personal trainer at $80 an hour three times a week comes to about $12,000 a year.
The work in the gym pays off when one must don a formal gown for a charity gala. “Going to those parties,” said David Patrick Columbia, who is the editor of the New York Social Diary (newyorksocialdiary.com), “a woman can spend $10,000 or $15,000 on a dress. If she goes to three or four of those a year, she’s not going to wear the same dress.”
Total cost for three gowns: about $35,000.
Not every bank executive has school-age children, but for those who do, offspring can be expensive. In addition to paying tuition, “You’re not going to get through private school without tutoring a kid,” said Sandy Bass, the editor of Private School Insider, a newsletter that covers private schools in the New York City area. One hour of tutoring once a week is $125. “That’s the low end,” she said. “The higher end is 150, 175.” SAT tutors are about $250 an hour. Total cost for 30 weeks of regular tutoring: $3,750.
Two children in private school: $64,000.
Nanny: $45,000.
Ms. Bass, whose husband is an accountant with many high-end clients, said she spends about $425 every 10 days on groceries for her family. Annual cost: about $15,000.
More? Restaurants. Dry cleaning. Each Brooks Brothers suit costs about $1,000. If you run a bank, you can’t look like a slob.
The total costs here, which do not include a lot of things, like kennels for the dog when the family is away, summer camp, spas and other grooming for the human members of the family, donations to charity, and frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity, are $790,750, which would require about a $1.6-million salary to compensate for taxes. Give or take a few score thousand of dollars.
Does this money buy a chief executive stockholders might prize, a well-to-do man with a certain sureness of stride, something that might be lost if the executive were crowding onto the PATH train every morning at Journal Square, his newspaper splayed against the back of a stranger’s head?
The man would certainly not feel like himself on that train, said Candace Bushnell, the author of “Sex and the City” and other books chronicling New York social mores.
“People inherently understand that if they are going to get ahead in whatever corporate culture they are involved in, they need to take on the appurtenances of what defines that culture,” she said. “So if you are in a culture where spending a lot of money is a sign of success, it’s like the same thing that goes back to high school peer pressure. It’s about fitting in.”
By the way, the frozen hot chocolate costs $8.50.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Welcome to Growth Spurt
Spring classes are great. In January you come to class in the dark, braving the cold, buried inside heavy coats, thick scarves, and ice-breaking boots. In April, you come in the evening light, cotton shirt open to the breeze, flip flops flapping on the walk. In that thirteen week interval, you will accomplish so much: make friends, correct grammar, plant and develop ideas in clear, even fluid, English. You will transplant the thoughts blossoming daily in your native language to English, and watch them bloom.
I look forward to being part of the process.
Pat
I look forward to being part of the process.
Pat
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