Megan McArdle's Class Skirmish

It's not often I read or contemplate Megan McArdle. She is one of the reasons I stopped subscribing to the Atlantic - I can read James Fallows online - but is such a low-hanging piece of fruit that parsing her word salad is just too easy to be fun. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, though, I followed TBogg's link to her WSJ review of two books, Shiny Objects by James K. Roberts and Against Thrift by James Livingston. I haven't read the books, so I am commenting on her review of them. If I misunderstand the authors' points, it's because I'm relying on McArdle's reporting of them. You could parse her review sentence-by-sentence, but life is too short, so I'll just make a few points.

McArdle tells us For decades, Americans have wallowed in credit, shunned savings and delighted in debt. In 1982, the personal savings rate was 10.9% of disposable income, by 2005 it had fallen to just 1.5%. It has since rebounded, but remains a measly 5%. What she doesn't tell us is that wages for most Americans have stagnated over that time period. Collectively, we have dipped into the equity in our houses - the only asset most of us possess - to maintain our consumerist lifestyle. For some, assuredly this fueled some foolish choices on spending for vacations or higher-end clothes and gadgets, but for many home equity has been the only source of funds for home maintenance, necessary automobiles, and education.

[Roberts] still exudes that particular sanctimonious anti-materialism so often found among modestly remunerated professors and journalists. Ooh, Megan does snark. For Megan, money is the measure of worth, and those "modestly remunerated" must just be jealous of her toys.

One of the running themes of the economist Robin Hanson's excellent blog is that arguments like the ones found in these books are actually an elite-status proxy war. Class warfare! Which, as we all know by now, is only a bad thing if the peasants are attacking the nobles.

Mr. Livingston . . . claims that the "Bush tax cuts" caused the housing bubble by leaving those over-saving rich with too much money to play with even though three-quarters of the lost tax revenues stayed in the hands of people making less than $250,000 a year—the de facto threshold for "rich" established by the Obama administration. According to the Census Bureau, 2.6% of families earned $250K or more, in 2009 dollars (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0696.pdf), and there are 111,806,000 households (publication 2-9.xls at census.gov). Let's say the Bush tax cuts returned $1 million in total (I'm using round numbers so it's easy for Megan to follow.) 2.6% of households shared $250,000, and 97.4% shared %750,000. The rest of my work is shown below:

111,806,000 X .026 = 2,906,956.
250,000 / 2,906,956 = .09, or 9 cents each

111,806,000 X .974 = 108,899,044
750,000 / 108,899,044 = .01, or 1 cent each

Multiply those pennies by the number of millions the Bush tax cuts returned, and it's obvious who got enough money to play with, and who got enough to pay a few bills. I'd look up the actual number, but I've already spent more time on this than McArdle deserves.

Do read TBogg's post and the excellent comments! They focus on McArdle's framing device for her review - her purchase of a $1500 food processor - and properly eviscerate the pretentious twit. Anyone who needs a $1500 food processor to make bechamel is not a cook, and anyone who can't use a calculator is not fit to be an economics and business editor.

Thanksgiving Rant

This time of year, the subject on the cooking pages is turkey. Nearly every article on how to cook a big bird starts out by declaring turkey to be dry and tasteless, but if you must have one on the Thanksgiving table for whatever benighted reason, the author's method (which is more involved than a NASA moon launch) is the only one that will yield a moist, flavorful bird. The two main parts of the author's argument will be (1) don't stuff the bird! you will die of food poisoning! and (2) the legs and breast cannot possibly both be properly cooked at the same time.

Hooey.

I've eaten and/or cooked 50-some turkeys by now, and with few exceptions*, they have been moist and flavorful. Here's how to cook a delicious turkey:

1. Stuff the damn bird. Stuffing adds flavor and moisture (duh). If you prefer dressing cooked in a separate pan, fill the bird's cavity with chunks of onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and if it sounds appealing, an apple or lemon or two. The pan drippings, and thus your gravy, will be all the better.

2. Baste the bejesus out of it. Smear butter all over it to start, and add some stock or wine to the bottom of the pan if you like the idea. Once the cooking gets going, use the juices in the pan.

3. The bird is done when the thigh joint is loose. Use a meat thermometer if you're not confident about judging when the bird is done. Don't rely on the pop-up timer if the bird has one. It's probably calibrated to cook the bird to operating-room levels of sterility. Remember the bird continues to cook for a while after it's out of the oven, so allow for resting time.

And that's it. If you're taking timing directions from a recipe and the bird comes out dry, the directions are wrong. Since I cook a smallish bird if I cook one, I like the directions in Joy of Cooking: start with the oven heated to 450, then turn it down to 350 for 20-25 minutes per pound. And baste the bejesus out of it.

*One exception was a bird produced by an indifferent cook who didn't stuff it, and then followed the timing directions to the minute rather than relying on testing the bird. She used Stove Top pre-made dressing, too, which shows she was not a real cook. A couple of others have been off-years from otherwise good cooks. It happens to the best of us.

These people are playing with the fate of the country, and do not care about the consequences. There have been many changes in America since the 50s - civil rights, women's rights, environmental protection - and all of these were accomplished by working to achieve majority support. None of them were accomplished by taking the country hostage, determined to wreck things completely if they aren't allowed to wreck selectively.

What I've Been Reading on the Intertubes

I just caught the Taibbi-McArdle smackdown at Tbogg’s place, and my mind is further boggled by McArdle’s career ascent. She is woefully unprofessional: a serious lack of preparation, a shifty-eyed demeanor, and a distractingly unattractive hairstyle.

She doesn’t do research, so she is left with only the most threadbare of arguments. Of course, Goldman Sachs ripped off their clients – every seller does! She accepts a second-hand report that GS perfomed proper disclosure; Taibbi, who actually read the pertinent documents, says no they didn’t. Who should the audience believe? She finally falls back on her classic assertion that everything is very complicated, so no one can really understand it.

Anyone in the public eye knows that you need to look at the camera, not off to the side as if at a shiny object, and not have your hair hanging limply in your face. I’m not elevating style over substance; it’s called engaging the audience. This is basic advice she should have gotten in any class where she had to make a presentation, but then I’m assuming she paid attention in school.

It's the Teachers' Fault Schools Are Bad

This NY Times article is about Brockton (Mass.) High School, where featherbedding, change-resistant union teachers have brought the school from failing to outperforming 90% of Massachusetts schools in the past 10 years.

Major rant

Yelling at the news on the radio today -

Why are 1 out of 8 Americans on food stamps? Why are people on years-long waiting lists for subsidized rentals? Why can't average working people afford health care?

The wages of middle- and working-class Americans have stagnated over the past 30 years, while the incomes of the top 1% or 2% have skyrocketed. Maybe that has something to do with it? I'm not an economist, so how can I know?

Unions are demonized - teachers' unions fighting for decent salaries and working conditions, auto workers' union fighting to hang on to previously agreed to pension and health benefits - while the Wall Streeters get to keep obscene bonuses based on contracts signed before they drove the economy into the swamp. Contracts are legally binding, except when they're contracts with working stiffs. Full disclosure: I worked for the Commonwealth for a couple of years; the union contract was meaningless because the legislature simply declined to fund it.

Wall Streeters, banksters, and the other fraud artists at the top of the economic heap don't need unions. Political contributions do their talking for them.

Class warfare, anyone? Eat the rich.

Hong Kong Market

I have often shopped at the Hong Kong Market (formerly Super 88) in Allston, with mixed results. The produce seems to stay on the shelf until it's either bought or gone frankly bad. As for seafood, if it's whole fish, you can tell if it's fresh. Unfortunately, with some items, you can't.

I was burned today buying scallops. They were not labeled as having been treated with chemicals (in fairness, they were not labeled as not treated, either). When I rinsed them, they produced a little sudsiness. Oops, I thought, but dried them on paper towels and sauteed them in some olive oil. Just a couple of bites proved them to be bitter and nasty tasting. I tossed them out.

Lesson learned.

Update: I should explain that the Allston Hong Kong Market is still the go-to market in my area for packaged, frozen, and dried Asian foodstuffs, and the food court can't be beat. The fresh produce is hit-or-miss, but they reliably have things like lemongrass as well as Asian fruits and vegetables you never see in Stop and Shop - you just have to pick out the fresh stuff. The meat section regularly stocks animal parts you don't see in American markets at pretty low prices.

Remarks on the Tiller Murder

It can't be said often enough - anyone who thinks abortion is morally wrong doesn't have to have an abortion. Ever, under any circumstances. You can give birth to a doomed baby, you can risk your own life if you have medical complications, you can have as many children as you want.

It's only the irresponsible and selfish who want the right to abortion, isn't it? Women want abortions for "convenience," so they can fit into a prom dress. Why bother with condoms and pills when you can just have a surgical procedure once or twice a year? Pregnant women routinely wait until the third trimester to decide if they really want a kid, then waltz off to abort as casually as they would go to have their teeth cleaned.

The responsible and unselfish, on the other hand, think it's moral for a 13-year-old incest victim to give birth. It's moral to give birth to a child who will likely die shortly afterward; likewise if the child is merely severely handicapped and will spend its life in an institution. It's unselfish to have a child you can't care for, even if you have other children whose care will also suffer. They told me in catholic school that there is a special place in heaven for women who die in childbirth, so aborting for medical reasons is just pure selfishness. Do you think you have a right to life?

The moral and unselfish think abortion is wrong because god said "Thou shalt not kill." In a little-known footnote, god added "Unless you disagree with them on the abortion issue."

Catholics in the News

I admit to an addiction - no matter how often I swear off reading anything about the catholic church, I fall off the wagon when I see an article like this one in Slate about the late John Neuhaus. Granted, "catholic intellectual" is a contradiction in terms, but whenever I feel low on adrenaline, the church can be counted on to give me a boost.

Neuhaus's views, as summarized by Winters, are so intellectually flawed I hardly know where to begin. Pro-choice advocates are not in favor of eugenics; tarring us with Sanger's views from nearly a hundred years ago is intellectually dishonest. If blacks are disproportionately opposed to legalized abortion, why do black women have a disproportionate share of abortions performed? I have heard the accusation that they are pressured into it repeatedly since the 1970s, but have never read a statistic or even heard an anecdote about how this is happening. Sorry, a vague accusation that society is responsible is not proof. There is a disparity between "blacks" being largely opposed to abortion, and "black women" choosing abortions. Is the opposition to abortion inflated by the opinions of men, while the decision to actually abort is made by women? Society should address poverty, but until that glorious day comes, women are faced with decisions about their very particular lives. Should individual women be forced to take on a burden that society shows little inclination to help them bear?

The Catholic Church's dogma about human dignity is a canard. The true social policy of the Church is a hierarchical one - rules are made from the top, by wealthy men who claim particular insights into the mind of God. Woman have no dignity in this view - they are simply to obey, and to let their bodies be subject to the whims of nature in a way that no man facing illness or hardship is expected to.

Classic Bobo

This is classic Bobo - he gives the reader reason after reason why his premise is wrong. McCain/Palin lack a clear governing philosopy; most problems are not battles between virtue and vice; personality is not enough.

If you read this essay not knowing that Brooks is a Republican hack, you might think he's a Democratic hack.

The Pope's Visit to the US

I've sworn off following the exploits of the Catholic Church many times, but I keep falling off the wagon. It's hard to ignore something like Benedict's visit to the US when it takes over the news. It's equally hard to fathom why this is such a media event. No other religion gets so much favorable press for so little substance. Except maybe the Republican party.

I fear that people are taken in by the spectacle and shiny objects. Or maybe people are just confused by a statement like this:

“What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?” the pontiff asked on the first full day of his US visit.

I think he's saying that parents are responsible for the sexual abuse scandal by watching porn on the Internet with the kids. I do admire his ability to string words together in a way that mimics, but doesn't actually make, sense.

For a much better and infinitely funnier take on the Pope, see the inestimable World o' Crap. Best comments:

So if the priest acts as Christ and the head of the Church is male, doesn’t that make the Eucharist a gay wedding?

Hysterical Woman

and:

Well, they *are* dressed for it…

D. Sidhe

Martin Luther King

I was only 14 and not very politically savvy when King was killed. In the many years since, I have come to admire him as a great American and activist for civil rights. He advocated non-violence, but never advocated accommodation or surrender. He was in it for the fight.

The sins of white America are many, going back to the beginnings of slavery and on to its awful offspring: Jim Crow, de facto segregation, and racial discrimination in so many areas of life. What is not understood by racists is that by trying to diminish others, they only diminish themselves. Slaveholders fought for freedom for themselves but bondage for others. The cruelties of slavery and Jim Crow only revealed the shriveled souls of the perpetrators.

We have made strides toward equality since the 60s; some have been large - it is illegal to proclaim discrimination; some have been smaller - young people today are much more comfortable in mixed-ethnic groups than my generation. Or that may be actually the other way around. It's easier to pass a nice sounding law than to actually effect change in society, but they are linked.

There is a place for white guilt - white America has been guilty. White America should be proclaiming: Forgive us, we know what we have done wrong, and we are trying to make amends.

My Political Two Cents

I'm not anti-Hillary, but am afraid that, if she is the Dem nominee, the media's hate-frenzy will make their treatment of Gore and Kerry look like schoolyard taunting. Can you say President Huckabee?

Here's a politician to watch for the future. Thanks to Thoughts from Kansas.

Angry Salt Guy, Happy Pepper Pal

Random Neuronal Firings, New Year's Edition

I know I'm writing this only for myself, but sometimes writing one's thoughts as if someone were going to read them helps to get the pesky things in order.

My New Year's musings have been particularly melancholy this time around. There have been ups and downs, but some of the downs have been been very low, and the highs were mostly just middling. Just say 2007 wasn't one of my favorite years.

One of the tasks I usually do around New Year's is tending my large collection of houseplants. I have had many plants for 10 or more years; the very oldest, for about 30 years. So you see these are old friends, not just household decorations. Early winter is a good time to evaluate what needs repotting, pruning, or general TLC, and the habit of evaluating them leads to thinking about my own state at this junction of the years.

Haworthia grows in a shallow clay pan decorated with incised markings. The pot came from a favorite farm stand/nursery that has gone the way of much too much fertile land - sold for development. I don't even remember the name of the place, but I vividly recall the shock of overhearing two men on the bus talking about how the place was being bought up by the college across the road. "Say it ain't so!" I inwardly cried, and drove out a couple of weeks later to find that it was indeed so.

And that's what this year has been like for me. A couple of rugs pulled out from under me, some events entirely out of my control, and the creeping realization that I'm no spring chicken anymore. (Yes, I should have probably have caught on to that one some time ago.)

So what does this have to do with Angry Salt Guy and Happy Pepper Pal? Happy is always Happy, never seeing the smallest cloud in the sky, and Angry - nothing can cheer him up or soothe him. But they're just salt and pepper shakers; our moods aren't indelibly painted on our faces. We can adapt, and we can cause change as well as be passive before it.

The old adage to change what you can, and accept what you cannot change, is a good thing to repeat to one's self every now and then. So I'm going to go out into the gloomy weather, lay in some provisions for the long winter ahead, and plan a quiet New Year's Day with my plants, a good dinner, and a nice bottle of wine. I'll prune and repot, browse the seed catalogs and dust off the gym shoes. Another year is coming.

Feminism, Environment

A posting at Feministing brought up the topic of reusable menstrual products.

One of my pleas for the environment is for women to reduce the amount of disposables they use. Even if menstrual cups or flannel pads aren't for you, choose products that use the least toxic, polluting, or non-biodegradable components as possible. Especially don't use plastic applicator tampons - cardboard or manual insert only. You don't need pads individually wrapped in plastic - to carry supplies with you, keep a few pads or tampons in a clean zippered bag that gets reused and can be washed.

Plastic is forever. Once a plastic product is made, it persists in the environment forever as trash. Plastic items accumulate in areas of the open ocean where currents create eddies, creating an ugly soup. Beaches on remote islands have pill bottles and tampon applicators wash up on them. Plastics don't "biodegrade" but they do leach chemicals into the water and soil. Some of these chemicals are suspected of being endocrine disruptors. See Science Blogs and Deep Sea News for more particulars.

Grammar Czarina

I'd been musing about a post on bad spelling, punctuation, and grammar when I found this link, thanks to Twisty:


The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks

Making Fun of Bad Punctuation since 2005.


My own pet peeve is the misuse of the apostrophe, not just the ubiquitous confusion of it's and its, but the random sprinkling of apostrophes like parsley on mashed potatoes. Or should I say, the random sprinkling of apostrophe's like parsley on mashed potatoes'.

My grammar alarm was set off by a particular blog writer who posted a snivel (not up to the rate of a rant) about those nasty, snobbish guidelines for good writing. His/her blogulation in general is rather muddy, and shows a need for those aforesaid nasty guidelines. Reading the rambling sentences, illogical topic jumps, poor proofreading, and misused apostrophes made this English major's head hurt. (I'm not linking to the post, since it is by just one poor writer on an otherwise excellent blog.)*

So, to keep me from getting the vapors, remember these simple rules:

• its is a possessive pronoun; it's is the contraction for it is
• plural nouns do not use apostrophes: books, not book's
• singular verbs do not use apostrophes: Poor grammar bothers me, not Poor grammar bother's me

Of course, by the Murphy's Law of Blogging, there will be at least one egregious misspelling or grammatical error in this post, and Wild Roses will finally get a hit.

*Yes, I know I tend to use a lot of comments in parentheses and dashes, but this is informal writing meant to more-or-less sound like conversation. I am much more persnickety in formal writing.

David Brooks, Bobo for Hire

Some of the leftish blogs I read take pot shots at obviously loony, deservedly obscure wingnuts. Alicublog takes on David Brooks, who inexplicably has a column in the New York Times. There's so much wrong with Brooks' May 18 column that it boggles the mind. I'll only mention a couple of main points. (Sorry the column is behind the paid wall, but read Alicublog and you'll get the gist of it.)

(1) "Compassionate conservatism" was never meant to be any more than a political slogan. Pretending otherwise after six years of CC is disingenuous at best. A few bucks were tossed at the marriage initiative, faith-based programs, and abstinence education to con voters; the only beneficiaries of the programs were Republican candidates and cronies.

(2) Brooks, as usual, devolves into delusion.

(2a) He sees nothing wrong with a system that provides obscene rewards to "the top 0.01 percent," whose taxes must be kept low to provide "opportunity" to the remaining 99.99%. That 99.99% must be in hiding, by the way, because we have a shortage of people to invest in.

(2b) Brooks' human capital agenda simultaneously cuts across left and right, and exploits the divisions between left and right. And spins plates on a stick while riding a unicycle, no doubt.

(2c) The measures Brooks favors are weighted toward Republican shibboleths: low taxes, school choice, and encouraging marriage. How are we going to pay for investing in a human capital agenda, if we can't tax wealth? School choice is a meaningless concept, unless parents have quality schools to choose from in the area where they live. How do you encourage marriage? By making divorce harder? Americans of all classes and religions have voted with their feet on that issue - they want to be able to end failed marriages. Woman have the economic freedom to choose marriage or not, and the social freedom to have families without the consent of the patriarchy. We're not going back.

Falwell Still Dead

A plain reading of the new testament tells us that Jesus taught his followers to disdain riches and to help those less fortunate. Anyone who uses the pulpit to amass riches is not a christian. If a religious person lives plainly and does good to others, I respect them and their acts. If they flit about in private jets and live in mansions, well, no. I hope Falwell's last thoughts were about camels and needles' eyes.

One Last Word

Some Notes on Revolution

Can't believe I forgot to put Twisty on the blogroll.

Can't Take the Heat

Anyone who reads feminist and political blogs is already aware of this, so I won't recap the details. Relevant links are at: Feministing, Amanda at Pandagon, Chris Clarke at Pandagon, and elsewhere.

I left this comment on Creek Running North, Chris Clarke's blog. Edited slightly here.

I don’t suppose I have anything new to say about all this, except maybe that Markos and his ilk have no idea how thick women’s skins really are. We must constantly monitor ourselves and our surroundings, judging this to be not worth worrying about, that a risk not worth taking, and the other thing just plain scary. If our skins were all that thin, we’d never leave the house.

I was talking with some friends - all of us middle-aged women - about the recent murder of a young woman who made a bad choice of companions. We all teetered on the precipice of “we don’t blame the victim, but what the hell was she thinking?” We started toting up the ways our behavior has changed since our days of youthful invulnerability - not walking alone after certain hours or in certain areas, not being friendly to strangers in bars, etc. Age and experience have made us all too aware that the world is particularly dangerous for women, regardless of age or beauty.

I admire an earlier commenter for confronting her harrassers, but the fact is my fat middle-aged ass is not capable of such a response. I’ll forgo the pleasure of a walk on a hot summer night rather than risk being tomorrow’s headline. I hope Markos is satisfied.