May 2001

Hospital visiting
I apologize for not updating the site for awhile. I've been in Southern California.

My father had heart surgery Thursday morning, his third go-round. My mother had to be hospitalized Wednesday night with a dangerous infection, caused by a recurrent bile duct blockage.

My daughter Allison had driven in from UCLA, picking up my brother David, his wife Lisa and their toddler, Virginia at the airport. I flew down with my sister Peggy. We spent three days running from Mom in ER (she was lying in a curtained alcove for 14 hours waiting for a room to open up) to the surgical waiting room to Mom on the Oncology floor (it was a room) to Dad in Cardiovascular Intensive Care. Two hospitalized parents for the price of one. It was sort of funny.

Our father had to go back in surgery Friday morning to deal with excess bleeding. Mom went through two procedures to clear the duct; doctors told her they'd need a third try.

Saturday, we wheeled Mom down from the 8th floor to see him. He moved his swollen hand so she could hold it. She made cheerful conversation, so he wouldn't realize how painful it was for her to sit up. She didn't want him to worry. I stood there calculating how long they've been married: It will be 52 years in August. Later, she told us she'd nearly passed out from the pain.

Sunday, Dad was breathing on his own; his heart was beating without assistance. With the tubes out, he could speak, in a raspy voice. As I left, I said, "It's good to see you . . . ''

"Alive,'' he said. "That's the word you were looking for.''

My mother announced plans to market the High Pain Diet: Eat whatever you want. (You'll have so much nausea you won't want to eat.) No exercise. (Shuffling to the bathroom will be your limit.) "It's foolproof!'' Mom said.

We left Sunday night, except for Allison, who had no Monday classes. She called me Monday night to fill me in: Mom would need surgery. Soon. I thanked Allison for her competence, her cheerfulness, her grace under pressure. "You do what you have to do,'' she said.

If there were medals for this sort of thing, Allison would get one for endurance. So would David, who got Dad to the hospital at 5 a.m. and stayed all day, and Peggy, who spent those grueling hours with Mom in the ER waiting room. Virginia's commendation would read: "For extreme cuteness in hospital waiting rooms and corridors and good conduct above and beyond the call of duty for a two-year-old . . . " My mother's courage would be recognized: "Ignoring her own wounds, she came to the aid of her husband . . . ''

Of course, it's not heroic. You do what you have to do. It's family. -- 5/8

Zero tolerance for honor thy mother
No Mother's Day cards will be colored this year at Rodeph Sholom, a private school in New York City. The school has decided not to celebrate Mother's Day so as to protect the self-esteem of children from "untraditional" families. Father's Day also is verboten.

Jonah Goldberg, a Rodesh Shalom alum, reveals that his mother's method of marking his lunch bag -- a drawing of a whale -- also drew criticism from the school. Some kids didn't have easily illustratable names, or had drawing-challenged mothers. Andrea Peyser wonders how a Jewish school, even a Reform Jewish school, can sacrifice honor thy mother for political correctness. -- 5/8

After pre-school
Teach pre-schoolers their ABC's and they'll do better in school. Turns out it works. Poor, mostly black children taught pre-reading skills in the Chicago Child-Parent Center program were more likely than similar students to graduate from high school, a new study reports. They were less likely to need special education, to repeat a grade or to be arrested.

As in Head Start, the program includes health and family services. But, unlike Head Start, CPC also teaches a structured pre-reading curriculum, and provides follow-up for some students in elementary school. While Head Start's benefits fade away in a few years, CPC kids did better than the control group throughout the 15-year study by University of Wisconsin researchers. Those who participated through third grade did the best, but even those with only one year of CPC pre-school showed sustained gains.

This is the second study of intensive, high-quality, developmental child care to show long-term gains for very poor children. But CPC is a lot cheaper than the university-run Abcedarian project in North Carolina, which provides a full-day program starting with infants. CPC, run by Chicago's public school district, is a part-time pre-school offered at 23 centers.

CPC graduates didn't do well by middle-class standards. Only half earned a high school diploma. But equally poor non-CPC kids did worse: Only 39 percent were graduated. Seventeen percent of CPC grads were arrested as juveniles, 9 percent for violent crimes. Among the control group, 25 percent were arrested, 15 percent for violent crimes.

As the New York Times points out, the Bush administration is "preparing a scripted, pre-reading curriculum for the nation's 16,000 Head Start centers, a loose confederation that has traditionally been operated with few set rules. By contrast, the child-care centers in Chicago that are the subject of the study adhere to rigorous reading lessons.'' Child development advocates fear the Bush plan will be all-ABCs, with no attention to kids' health or welfare or even to parent involvement. Sounds like a straw man to me. -- 5/11

Junking science
Working moms hated the new study saying that day-care kids are more likely to be aggressive as kindergarteners. It just makes job-home jugglers feel guilty, critics said.

Gays hated the new study saying that some gays are able to function as heterosexuals. "Cruel'' to gays, said a headline in the San Jose Mercury News, quoting counselors.

In both cases, the researchers and the research is being attacked -- not for being unscientific but for coming up with unwelcome results. It's kill-the-messenger logic.

The day care study didn't really say that too many hours of circle time will turn your darling into a bully. It concluded that most day-care graduates do just fine; only 17 percent who were in care for 30+ hours per week grew into pushy kindergarteners compared to 6 percent of those who spent 10 hours or less a week in day care.

The study of ex-gays was done by Robert Spitzer, a Columbia psychiatry professor previously known for leading the campaign to stop defining homosexuality as a mental illness. Spitzer wanted to know whether people highly motivated to change their sexuality -- that is, not the average gay or lesbian -- could do so. Even in his selective sample, with many interviewees referred by Christian "gay conversion'' ministries, it wasn't easy being straight: While 66 percent of males and 44 percent of females said they were able to sustain heterosexual relationships, few had eliminated their homosexual desires. "They didn't all change completely, in fact a relatively small number changed completely, but they did change substantially,'' Spitzer said on CNN's "Live at Daybreak."

So a few unhappy gays can change, or believe they've changed, to some degree. Most gays don't want to change and surely won't. This is not a stop-the-presses moment. -- 5/12

Broiling in the dark
Just about everyone is complaining about paying more for electricity. But residential users won't pay that much more, unless they're very high users. The San Jose Mercury News ran a curious story May 16 profiling two familes who are trying to conserve -- most lights off, laundry hung to dry, limited dishwasher, TV and computer use, etc. They're still above 130 percent of the (very low) baseline rate, and so will face a rate hike. Here's the curious part: One family will pay $6 a month more on an electric bill just under $100. The other will pay $6.50 a month more on a $107 bill. If they want to save money, the best tactic isn't to pay for insulation, solar panels, fluorescent bulbs or a new energy-efficient refrigerator. It's to use a bit more power: Eat in more often.

I've switched to fluorescent bulbs myself, but it's not to save money. (They'll pay off eventually but it will take awhile.) I just want to do my bit to keep the power on. I'd pay considerably more to have power when I need it. But that's not one of my choices.

Here's a song, to the theme of the old TV show "Rawhide,'' which is going around the Internet. I've changed a few words but it's otherwise by that great author, Anonymous.

Rollin', rollin', rollin',
Though the state is golden,
Keep them blackouts rollin', statewide.
A little hotter weather,
And we all broil together,
Wishin' more plants were on the line.
All the things I'm missin',
Like lights and television,
Are waiting 'til we can pay the price.
(Chorus)
Turn 'em on, turn 'em off,
Shut 'em down, block 'em out,
Turn 'em on, turn 'em off, statewide!
Brown 'em out, black 'em out,
Charge 'em more, give 'em less,
Let the polls fix the mess, statewide!

-- 5/16

Bashing bullies
Bullying has a bad name these days, blamed for turning shy, awkward boys into killers. But we need to define bullying carefully, argues Benjamin Soskis in the May 14 New Republic. The line-fuzzers are at it again, insisting that bullying isn't just physical violence; it's any behavior that hurts someone's feelings, such as "refusing to include a klutz in a recess basketball game.'' This overbroad definition "risks pathologizing behaviors that, however unpleasant, are in some sense normal parts of growing up and learning how to interact in the world.''

Soskis also criticizes the tendency to see school shooters as hapless victims, excusing them for taking out their frustrations by murdering classmates.

I don't think bullying had much to do with any of the school shootings. None of the shooters targeted kids who'd teased them. They shot random victims. Andy Williams apparently was teased -- but by skateboarders he met outside of school. He shot his classmates. The Columbine killers courted hostility by sporting Nazi swastikas. They were looking for a fight, not a hug.

My daughter will be working for California's School Violence Prevention Project this summer as an (upaid) intern. Among other things, she'll be sorting through research to find programs that work to make schools safer. If she finds anything good, I'll let you know. -- 5/16

Evil is as evil does
Check out a fascinating discussion by a forensic psychiatrist on the problem of defining when a crime is "heinous,'' "depraved," "vile,'' "horrible,'' "outrageous,'' etc. Michael Weiner is working on a "depravity scale'' to help judges distinguish between bad guys and really bad guys. Criteria include intent to prolong suffering, cause emotional trauma and inflict maximum damage; there also are evil points for blaming the victim.

Newsweek also has a cover story on evil, but it's pretty ho-hum. We all have the potential to do evil, it says, as an unsupported assertion. What's eerie are the perfectly normal photos of little Timothy McVeigh standing by the Christmas tree, playing with a balsa airplane, etc. Cute kid. Why did he grow up to be a self-satisfied killer? No answers. Based on the diagnostic categories in Weiner's paper, McVeigh is a "malignant narcissist.'' But so what? The description is not an explanation. -- 5/17

Read Kaus
Mickey Kaus explains cogently why Katherine Boo's story on a welfare mother turned D.C. cop shows that welfare reform is working. "Cookie'' Jones is working two jobs to support her three kids, with no help from their fathers. She's exhausted. Her kids' schools are lousy. The neighborhood is still dangerous. But her life is better.

Boo suggests that Jones' children may suffer because their mother has less time to spend with them. That's what the critics have seized on. Kaus points out that an old friend of Jones, profiled in Boo's earlier story several years ago, decided to stay on welfare, augmented by foster-care and disability payments. Being a full-time mother didn't protect her kids, though. Her son was shot to death by a drug dealer for stealing cocaine money. -- 5/18

Silencing women's voices
There's another ad flap in academe: Some campus newspapers have refused to run an ad by the Independent Women's Forum, which challenges "The Ten Most Common Feminist Myths.''

The forum is factually accurate on some of the points, such as the prevalence of campus rape, the percentage of female ER patients who are domestic violence victims and women's earnings. The ad cites the studies on which its counterclaims are based. Other points are arguable: Is gender socially constructed? Does Women's Studies empower women? IWF, a "power feminist'' group, says no.

The Columbia Daily Spectator and the Harvard Crimson rejected the ad, reports National Review Online. The Crimson then said it would run the ad but didn't. UCLA's Daily Bruin did run it, and came under attack by student feminist groups. Tina Oakland, director of the UCLA Center for Women and Men, told the Daily Bruin the ad was factually incorrect. When her factual claims were proven wrong, she told National Review Online that, "The statistics don't really matter that much in the big picture." Oakland criticized the ad for being political. "Anytime you have an ad this big, a full page, it costs a lot of money," Oakland said. "That entails wealth, the upper class, and that translates to certain political ideas."

So if you can afford to place an ad expressing your opinions you must have the wrong opinions and shouldn't be allowed to express them. Does this apply to groups that wish to support legalized abortion or oppose biotechnology? Don't be silly. -- 5/20

Rainbow thugs
Gangs are celebrating diversity too. According to the May 20 San Jose Mercury News, Milpitas police are seeking a young white man who they believe helped a young Vietnamese man commit an assault on behalf of their gang, Barrios Milpitas Nortenos. -- 5/20

Nuclear power
Why is the media so eager to proclaim the death of the nuclear family? Newsweek's cover on the "New Single Mother'' starts out heralding the ascendancy of one-parent families and casting married parents as so last century. Keep reading past the profile of the never-married mother who -- surprise! -- loves her child and Newsweek admits that children are far more likely to grow up in poverty if they grow up with only one parent -- especially if their parents were never married. Children born out of wedlock are far more likely to fail in school, go to jail, end up on welfare, abuse drugs, etc. Children of divorce do better, but worse than those raised by two married parents. Most turn out fine, of course. Humans are very resilient. But it's not true that single parenting is just as good.

Some of the woman profiled say they don't need a man. But their kids do. In the course of my career, I've met quite a few young men and women who grew up without a father. They feel abandoned, worthless, sad. They say things like "I really miss my dad.'' And then when you ask when they last saw him, they say, "Never.'' Or, "Not since I was two so I don't remember him.'' One young man said: "I met my father for the first time when I was 15. He was drunk.'' A young woman: "It took me a long time to realize he didn't care about me.''

The no-nuclear-family stories also show journalists' ineptitude with statistics. Newsweek highlights stats it knows are misleading: Only 25 percent of American families fit the "Leave It To Beaver'' model, says the magazine. But such families weren't a majority even in Beaver's heyday. The number of households changes with all sorts of factors such as the aging of the baby boomers (Wally and the Beav grow up and move out), prosperity (more young adults can afford an apartment of their own) and longevity (better medical care extends the time span of elderly householders).

However, some journos got it right. "The two-parent family is still the norm in America," writes E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post. Three out of four American children live in a two-parent family, if adoptive and step-parents count. Some 62 percent of children are living with their married biological parents, notes John Leo of U.S. News & World Report. That number didn't change in the '90s, a census official says. -- 5/23

Vote for more than one
What's known as "approval voting'' -- letting voters vote for multiple candidates for one job -- is the best way to improve elections, argues reader Bart Ingles.

Approval voting allows the election of a candidate that most voters find acceptable, even if he's not the majority's first choice. Democrats vote for Gore and Nader; some add McCain. There's no spoiler effect. Republicans vote for Bush and McCain; few pick Nader. Independents choose McCain or Nader; some add Gore or Bush. Who wins? McCain's got a chance. And Nader can see the true extent of his support. Plus there are no run-offs.

"Approval works by harnessing the voter's tendency to use strategy to achieve the best possible result,'' Ingles writes. "The voter is always free to vote for a favorite without penalty, and may vote for additional candidates if she thinks this will improve the chances of a desirable outcome. Voting for these additional candidates requires compromise, which can be viewed as a cost of strategy. This market-like weighing of strategic value against strategic cost insures that votes are only cast when they represent a meaningful level of support."

According to Ingles, approval voting "costs nothing to implement, works on any existing voting equipment, and requires no changes to ballot design (except to replace the instruction 'Vote for one' with 'Vote for one or more'). Discover Magazine featured approval voting in its November 2000 issue." Also see the Approval Voting Home Page and academic links here and here. -- 5/25

No sex for Sullivan?
Writer and me-ziner Andrew Sullivan's public persona -- "rightly or wrongly'' -- is conservative, moral and Catholic, writes his political foe Michelangelo Signorile in LGNY, a gay newspaper. Apparently, that means Sullivan -- also very public about his homosexuality and HIV-positive status -- has no right to a private persona. Signorile attacked Sullivan as "Virtually Reckless'' and hypocritical for allegedly posting personal ads on two gay web sites, one devoted to condom-free sex.

"Sexual McCarthyism" on Sullivan's web site provides his response to Signorile's story, which was based on anonymous sources. It's neither reckless nor hypocritical for an openly HIV-positive man to seek sex with other HIV-positive men, argues Sullivan. If they're both infected already, there's no need for a condom. And it's nobody's business what he does in private with consenting adults.

Signorile claims he's writing only because Sullivan might be endangering other gay men, both by having unprotected sex and by espousing incorrect ideas on AIDS prevention.

Sullivan says that's nonsense, writing that Signorile "sent me an instant message two weeks ago, telling me that I should think twice before I 'attack gay people' again if I wanted my private life to remain private. I think a fair assessment of these tactics would be blackmail and intimidation."

In "Letters'' on Jim Romenesko's Media News site, Signorile denies sending the IM to Sullivan. Also see Seth Mnookin's article on the attempt to destroy Sullivan's reputation.

If Sullivan had claimed in the past to be chaste or monogamous, well maybe his personal tastes in sex partners would be fair game on grounds of hypocrisy. If he really was exposing uninfected gay men to the risk of AIDS, his morality would be in question. As I see it, he's guilty only of independent thinking.

I admire Sullivan's writing and enjoy andrewsullivan.com, but I'd never realized how much courage it takes for a gay writer to be a conservative. -- 5/31