The Battle for Hearts and Minds Rages on.

Reuters reports that US soldiers shot and killed the 17-year-old son of Hamad al-Qaisi, the governor of Northern Iraq’s Salahuddin Province. The killing took place during a raid on a family home, where the governor’s son was staying. One other relative of the governor’s was also killed and three people were wounded.

A US military statement says that an al-Qaeda financier was wounded and captured during the raid. The statement also explained the killing of the governor’s son thus:

As they entered the target building, coalition forces encountered two armed men. Perceiving hostile intent … they shot and killed the men. It was subsequently determined that the two … were related to the governor.”

But it seems there’s some uncertainty around the circumstances that resulted in the killings. According to the Boston Globe, Hussam—the governor’s son—was shot in the head, stomach, and shoulder while he slept. Hussam’s cousin, Uday Khalaf, was killed as he tried to enter Hussam’s room.

This is precisely the sort of thing that makes the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq an unwinnable one. The deputy governor of Salahuddin province reported at least two other attacks that followed the same pattern, accusing US soldiers of using excessive force when conducting raids. The attack was also condemned by the Salahuddin provincial council as an indication of “how the American forces disregard the souls of Iraqi citizens.”

If Iraqis get the sense that US soldiers don’t value their lives, it’s going to be pretty tough to win their hearts and minds. After all, what happens when US soldiers storm a house in search of al-Qaeda operatives? Regardless of who the soldiers are looking for, when they enter an Iraqi home, they’re going to encounter Iraqis. Whether or not they’re armed or affiliated with al-Qaeda doesn’t change the fact that they have friends, neighbors, and relatives who are not going to be happy when they are captured, wounded, or killed. And the killing of any Iraqi has the potential to alienate and radicalize countless others, whose deaths will only anger and radicalize even more Iraqis. It’s worse than a vicious cycle: It’s more like an avalance that picks up greater mass and momentum as it moves down the mountain!

In the short term, brute force might carry the day in Iraq. In the long run, though, it’s a losing game unless the intent is to kill everyone in Iraq. The other option, of course, is to withdraw US troops and put an end to this war.

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In My Other Life, I’m an Addict.

It’s not every day that I blog about celebrities but sometimes, I stumble upon an especially juicy story on a certain gossip blog. Today was one of those times.

Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (aka the Olsen twins) have always been in the spotlight but the attention has not always been good, with stories coming out about eating disorders and less-than-sensible dating choices . In fact, it seems the one solidly good thing they have going for them is their fashion business. But even that’s drawing negative attention now that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has decided to go after them. Apparently, the Olsens’ fashion line includes a lot of fur and, if there’s one thing PETA hates more than hunting, it’s fur.

So I guess it was only a matter of  time before the twins had to answer to PETA.

As part of the anti-fur campaign launched against the Olsens, PETA came up with a video parody of Full House, the family-friendly sitcom that launched Mary Kate and Ahley into celebrity. Back when it was still on the air, I was already in my cynical, angst-ridden, f*ck-everything teens, so I can’t say I cared much for Full House. I found the clean, traditional-values humor a little too syrupy and cheesy for my liking.

But I have to admit, the PETA parody is surprisingly watchable.

As for PETA’s message . . . well . . . judge for yourselves.

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Surprise! A Person’s Intelligence is Not so Closely Linked to Genetics After All.

Writing in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell argues that IQ is not fixed, and it has nothing to do with race but everything to do with the environment in which a person is raised. And also on the type of IQ test administered. Apparently, the standard IQ test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), has been modified four times over the last century or so, because it gets easier for each generation that takes it.

Gladwell’s a much better writer than I am, and he’s done a lot more research on the subject, so I urge you to read the entire article.

Here’s an excerpt:

[I]t shouldn’t make much of a difference where a mixed-race child is born. But, again, it does: the children fathered by black American G.I.s in postwar Germany and brought up by their German mothers have the same I.Q.s as the children of white American G.I.s and German mothers. The difference, in that case, was not the fact of the children’s blackness, as a fundamentalist would say. It was the fact of their Germanness—of their being brought up in a different culture, under different circumstances. ‘The mind is much more like a muscle than we’ve ever realized. It needs to get cognitive exercise. It’s not some piece of clay on which you put an indelible mark.’ The lesson to be drawn from black and white differences was the same as the lesson from the Netherlands years ago: I.Q. measures not just the quality of a person’s mind but the quality of the world that person lives in.”

Read the full article here.

I don’t imagine the people who’ve been arguing on this blog that Black people are genetically less intelligent will read Gladwell’s article in its entirety. It’s got too many big words.

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Dawn of the Foodies, America’s Most Obnoxious Clique.

I don’t remember when exactly I first heard of foodies, but I do remember the exact moment at which I decided they were my new least favorite group. I was in my car, listening to The Splendid Table on National Public Radio (NPR). Right about now, those of you who are familiar with my thinking are probably muttering “listening to NPR was mistake number one” but, whatever. I like to try new things. After all, isn’t variety the spice of life? But I digress.

This particular episode of The Splendid Table featured James Oseland, self-appointed foodie and author of Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Listening to this guy talk about his experience of living in Southeast Asia and “discovering” Indonesian cuisine instilled in me an overwhelming desire to reach inside the radio, grab him by the shoulders, and shake him until his head fell off. Now, those of you who know me must know that I am not normally prone to violent impulses but hopefully, by the time you’re done reading this post, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

I tried in vain to find the audio from James Oseland’s segment, but the best I could come up with was an excerpt from his book. It’s a recipe for beef rendang which, by the way, he pronounced with the most dreadful American accent despite his many months in Southeast Asia. After all, he made a point of credentialing his “expertise” on Indonesian cooking by mentioning the several months he spent in the country, staying at the family home of a friend. As he tells the story, he got sick just as his host family was going out of town for a couple of weeks, so he had the chance to hang out with the family’s cooks in the semi-outdoor kitchen, where the staff spent all day cutting, pounding, grinding, and cooking ingredients to make some of the delicious dishes that are now featured in his book. Here’s a description of beef rendang, taken from his recipe:

This extravagantly rich, dry-braised beef curry is a signature dish of the Minangkabau highlands of West Sumatra, Indonesia. It’s a triumph of flavor, with lime leaves, nutmeg, and cloves. The dish is cooked by a process that inverts normal braising. The beef is slowly simmered in a spiced coconut-milk broth until the broth evaporates and the meat is left to sauté in the intensely flavored rendered coconut and beef oils left in the pot.”

There you have it. This excerpt really gets to the crux of my beef—pun intended—with foodies. Nothing annoys me more than the habit—almost unique to the affluent—of exoticizing and intellectualizing everything. After all, it’s food we’re talking about here! Isn’t eating one of the most basic human activities? Yet this jerk cannot help but elevate it to the level of haute culture. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m as much of an intellectual snob as the next guy but . . .. OK, that’s clearly not true. But my greater point is that, for the millions of Indonesians who are lucky enough to eat beef rendang, it’s just a meal, not an artistic or intellectual experience.

But to this self-annointed foodie, what people eat in Indonesia is not just food. It’s also a commodity that can be packaged, marketed, and sold in the West. He has to intellectualize and exoticize other people’s food so that he can not only make himself an expert on it, but so that he can also sell his cookbook. I mean, how different is this book from the travelogues of the earliest Europeans who first set out to “discover” the rest of the world? Also, let’s not forget, this desire for knowledge is not merely curiousity. It is nothing less than the desire to know in order to own! Are we supposed to believe that James Oseland knows more about Indonesian food than the millions of people who daily cook and eat it? But how many Indonesians are earning a living from publishing books about their own cuisine in the West? Luckily for James Oseland, he got sick right as his hosts were leaving town. Otherwise, he might never have deigned to enter that kitchen and discover all those wonderful Indonesian recipes, whose publication has now enabled him to sell so many of his cookbooks.

Because I’m too lazy to write more on this, and because I know some of you will deny that James Oseland is exoticizing, here’s a random excerpt from his Web site:

We turned off the main road onto a smaller, bumpier one that wound its way toward Karma’s home . . .. The rain had stopped. The chirping of crickets filled the air. [Karma] was in his late 30s and had skin the color of tea with milk.”

If you read the full, unexcised text, you will see the full extent of the exoticization and orientalization of not just the locale, but also the people who inhabit it. But more on exoticization later.

Listening to this guy go on and on about how cozy and warm and aromatic his host family’s outdoor kitchen was, I was also infuriated by his seeming obliviousness to the social, economic, and political dynamics of the situation in which he found himself. I mean, what percentage of Indonesian families live in a house big enough to actually have a fully staffed kitched where cooks spend all day preparing ingredients? Did it occur to James Oseland that perhaps these workers were not even getting paid for their labor? Did he ever wonder where/what all these people ate? Did they eat at the same table as him or his hosts? Did they even eat the same food? If Indonesia is anything like Sierra Leone, I’d say the answer is probably no. But does James Oseland care about all these things? If he does, he certainly didn’t let on during his time on the radio. After all, he spent more time talking about wonderful aromas and pungent spices, giving barely a mention to the people whose labor was the essential ingredient in the preparation of that delicious bounty.

I’m sure by now, you’re all beginning to wonder what any of this has to do with foodies. Well, besides the obvious fact that this guy is a self-appointed foodie who appeared on a self-described foodie program, his attitude, in my opinion, is typical of the foodie worldview. But first, a dash of epistemology. “Foodie” first entered public parlance in 1984 after Paul Levy, Ann Barr, and Mat Sloan published their book The Official Foodie Handbook (wittily subtitled “Be Modern, Worship Food”). Although the book was at least partly meant to be a satirical, tongue-in-cheek look at the new fine-dining craze that was spreading among Londoners, the term has since come to have only positive connotations. For some, at least. But not for me.

Which brings me right back to the foodie worldview. To me, foodies are people who attempt to take one of humankind’s most basic interests (food) and activities (eating) and put them “on a level with painting and drama.” I, like millions of other people, eat because I need to stay alive. While it’s nice to eat something exotic (and usually expensive) once in a while, my primary motivation for eating is to make hunger pangs go away. Food and eating are not art, nor were they ever meant to be. Portraiture, photography, theater, music, and film are arts, which is why we need our huge brains to appreciate these things. But our brains were not created to help us enjoy food or eating, only to trigger the hunger impulse and help us remember which foods might kill us.

Foodies, on the other hand, view food and eating as an art. This is because foodies—like most people who favor high culture—are so well off, so comfortable, that eating is no longer a basic activity that is essential for survival. To them, eating is leisure. It’s something they do for fun, in much the same way one might see Shakespeare or go to the opera. So affluent are foodies that they can now afford to intellectualize not only food, but also the process of preparing and eating it. Foodies also love to try new restaurants and talk about the food. Going to a restaurant with a foodie, I imagine, would be a lot like going for a drive with a car enthusiast and learning much more than you ever wanted to know about torque, horsepower, traction, and RPMs. Or, it would be like going over to watch a movie at your friend’s place on her new 60-inch plasma television, only to have to listen to her talk about how great the sound and picture quality are.

Of course, you will never see a foodie at the local Sudanese joint—which, by the way is where I spend most of my time—banging on about how zesty, moist, and tender the lamb is. You will catch a foodie nowhere near the Sierra Leonean place asking whether the fufu is made from yams, plantains, or cassava (my favorite), and which of the three is best. No! The foodie would not be caught dead anywhere near where real people eat. For the foodie, it’s not just the quality of the food that matters. The foodie must be able to discuss every aspect of the eating experience, including the price. Because, when it comes to food and eating, the foodie seeks the exotic and the exclusive. I’ve heard the argument that foodies are merely people who enjoy [good] food, but that’s clearly not the case. Everyone enjoys food. I’m sure the homeless guy last week enjoyed the steak and cheese sub I bought him. The difference is, he ate it because he was hungry, not because it was fun. Intellectualizing food is not a luxury he can afford. This is what separates him—and millions of regular people—from foodies. And it is precisely this desire to be separate, to be different, that makes foodies nothing more than a clique. An obviously above-average-income clique, but a clique nonetheless.

More aggravating than the obvious affluence and pretentiousness of self-described foodies is their very hypocritical attempt to pass for ordinary. Even the word “foodie” sounds so innocent, so simple, so unpretentious; something a child could have come up with—mommy, daddy, baby, foodie. It’s not as if there weren’t already plenty of words that could be used in place of “foodie.” After all, gourmet, epicure, and aficionado are all synonyms and acceptable—if not perfect—substitutes for “foodie.” But part of the foodie illusion is the everydayness of it all, from the quotidian nature of the word itself to the very pedestrianism of some foodies’ culinary concerns. Using words of French or Italian origin might, after all, give the impression that foodies are . . . well . . . pretentious and not just like other people, which is a total no-no, especially in America, were everyone strives to be average.

In reality, foodies are the farthest thing from ordinary people. They are a huge consumer market for wines, cheeses, farmers’ markets, cookbooks, television shows, and expensive restaurants, along with the celebrity chefs who run them. Emeril, Jamie Oliver, and the very, very, zesty and delectable Nigella Lawson would all be unemployed if not for foodies. Foodies seek out exotic and exclusive foods and recipes, not simply because the food tastes good, but because they value the exoticism of the food and the exclusivity of the restaurant. This makes a foodie no different from any other affluent consumer who craves the newest car, the latest cell phone, or the most sought-after condo in the trendiest neighborhood. For foodies, the food and drink they consume are not meant merely to sate their hunger or quench their thirst. For foodies, food and drink are luxuries, a sign of affluence, a badge of status. 

At the end of the day, in today’s world in which millions of people go to bed hungry, and millions more make do without three balanced meals a day, the foodie lifestyle is grotesque in its magnification of inequality, and foodies themselves are an affront to compassion and the spirit of communitarianism.

EDIT: It seems some readers have been confused by my definition of “foodies,” and wanted to know where I got my characterizations. Please see below for my working definitions which—although I recognize are not universally applicable—cover a sufficient range of my understanding of foodies and the foodie lifestyle.

I came across this definition of “foodie” on dictionary.com:

A person who has an ardent or refined interest in food; a gourmet: “[someone] in the culinary fast lane, where surprises are expected and foodies beg to be thrilled” (Boston Globe).

And here are a couple more definitions from Wikipedia:

Foodies are a distinct hobbyist group in the United States. Typical foodie interests and activities include the food industry, wineries and wine tasting, food science, following restaurant openings and closings, food distribution, food fads, health and nutrition, and restaurant management. A foodie might develop a particular interest in a specific item, such as the best egg cream or burrito. Many publications have food columns that cater to foodies. Interest by foodies in the 1980s and 1990s gave rise to the Food Network and other specialized food programming, popular films and television shows about food such as Top Chef and Iron Chef, a renaissance in specialized cookbooks, specialized periodicals such as Gourmet Magazine and Cook’s Illustrated, growing popularity of farmers’ markets, food-oriented websites like Zagat’s and Yelp, publishing and reading food blogs (a number of people photograph and post on the Internet every meal they ever make or consume), specialized kitchenware stores like Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table, and the institution of the celebrity chef.

Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, foodies differ from gourmets in that gourmets are epicures of refined taste who may or may not be professionals in the food industry, whereas foodies are amateurs who simply love food for consumption, study, preparation, and news.[1] Gourmets simply want to eat the best food, whereas foodies want to learn everything about food, both the best and the ordinary, and about the science, industry, and personalities surrounding food.[2]

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Is it Possible That Progressives are Finally Growing a Pair?

I don’t know what I’m more excited about, the fact that I’ve yet again been vindicated or the fact that it appears progressives in the US are finally stepping up to the plate. Back in May, I wrote a post entitled “Conservatism has failed wherever it has been tried,” in which I basically called the right wing out on some of its bullsh*t rhetoric.

Then today, I got a video from a friend of mine who lives out on the West Coast. The video was put out by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank based in Washington, DC. It starts off with a couple of White dudes, one wearing a tag that says “Con” and the other a tag that says “Pro.” The “Pro” guy identifies himself as a progressive and then lists all the great stuff progressive thinkers and movements have accomplished for society. The “Con” guy, identifies himself as conservative concedes that the only thing he’s for is tax cuts for the rich.

Wow! I need to pinch myself. Am I dreaming? Is it possible that, after decades of silence in the face of conservatives’ outrageous claims and acts, the left is finally waking up? Can it be true that progressives, after 30 years of being on the losing side of the culture war, have again found their voice? Dare I hope that liberals will quit trying to remove the differences between themselves and conservatives, and put an end to the ridiculous righward shift in modern American politics?

One can only hope.

In the meantime, enjoy the video.

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Not in a Thousand Years: Ian Smith Dies at 88.

The Guardian reports that

Ian Smith, the former Rhodesian prime minister who unilaterally declared independence from British rule, has died aged 88.

Smith ruled the country for 15 years from 1964 to 1979, in an ultimately futile effort to prolong white minority rule. During that turbulent time he fought a guerilla war against fighters from the majority black population.

. . .

So confident was Smith that white rule would go unchallenged that he famously declared that he did not believe in black majority rule over Rhodesia, “not in a thousand years”.

Here’s the BBC’s take on the same story.

Ian Smith died of old age, with dignity, and in his family’s home in South Africa.

Let us take a moment to remember the countless Africans who died at the hands of White colonialists, and who were denied such a peaceful and luxurious death. Their stories will never be covered by the Guardian and the BBC, and their names, if the were known at all, have faded into nothingness, remembered only by their closest friends and relatives.

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Compassion Does Not Recognize State Boundaries.

 

You know, sometimes I wonder if this whole war on ignorance business was such a good idea. I mean, most days, it seems like I’m preaching to the choir, like everyone’s on the same page as me. At such times, I consider just hanging up my warrior hat for good, and blogging only about really important stuff. Like Beyonce. Or Kim Kardashian.

But then I get a comment like the one below (in response to my Bangladesh flooding post) and suddenly, my life has meaning again. I know, I know, I really need to just let some things go and not take everything so seriously. Believe me, I did my best to let this one go. But this particular comment so irked me that I had to devote an entire blog post to it.

To the person who posted a comment under the name Maruti Turbo, thank you. Thank you for giving me something to blog about on this slow day.

Maruti Turbo
Why you showing interest in Bangla Desh Suddenly??
What is your hidden agenda?
Dont try and say you always have loved Bangla Desh!
Maruti Turbo,

You can see my response to Maruti Turbo here.

There is so much I can write in response that I don’t even know where to begin. So I’ll begin where I always do, with pseudo-intellectual nerd talk.

Clearly, Maruti Turbo seems unable to comprehend the notion that someone like me could post a compassionate, sensitive post asking readers to donate money to victims of the flooding in Bangladesh. After all, how could a non-Bangladeshi who has dared to openly criticize some some negative aspects of Bangladeshi society—specifically wife beating and domestic violence (which I’ve always maintained are not unique to Bangladesh)—possibly be sincere when writing about the misfortune and suffering of so many Bangladeshis he’s never even met?

The simple answer is that I care when other human beings are suffering and in need of help. They don’t have to have the same skin color, nationality, religion, or culture as me. We don’t have to speak the same language. Their humanity is all the reason I need to feel compassion. It’s the reason I care about domestic violence and violence against women.

In fact, somebody would need to be a pretty despicable person—and I mean on the level of mass murderer, genocideur, or tobacco lobbyist—for me to just turn away in the face of their suffering without trying to do something to help. I mean, if Bangladesh were full of Hitlers, Goerings, Pol Pots, interahamwe, and Phillip Morris executives, then maybe I would feel differently about the flooding. But I don’t have to be from Bangladesh to know that nobody deserves to endure what these people are going through. As human beings, they deserve better. They deserve more than my sympathy and my donations, but it’s all I can give them. Like people in Sierra Leone and elsewhere in the developing world, they deserve better housing, better sanitation, and better flood protection. They deserve better disaster preparedness, and better disaster relief from their government and the international community. But at a minimum, they deserve sympathy. That’s what they got from me in my blog post, and that’s why Maruti Turbo questioned my intentions.

The greater point is that, as human beings, we’re endowed with the largest brain-to-body ratio of any mammal, though comments like Maruti Turbo’s make me question whether this is a universal truth. Notwithstanding the possibility that it isn’t, I believe most people are capable of feeling positive emotions like love and compassion. Even the most emotionally stunted individuals are capable of feeling concern. But if we so readily feel these emotions for our family and our close friends, how can we not feel them when we see other human beings in distress? The fact that these other people are not in our immediate social or familial circles should not be an excuse? Why stop at family and friends? Why not expand the circle of compassion to neighbors and countrymen? Why even stop there? Why not include people in other countries? Our brains are certainly big enough to process the information that produces these positive emotions? Why limit ourselves?

Which brings me back to Maruti Turbo. Why would he/she have such a hard time accepting the sincerity of my post, or my motivation for writing it? Is it because of my non-Bangladeshiness? Maybe it’s because I’m from Sierra Leone? Or is it because I’m part Jewish? Who knows. Who cares. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that people—regardless of who they are or where they’re from—are capable of feeling compassion for others, even if they are geographically distant. That’s something to celebrate, not question.

As the thousands of Bangladeshi peacekeepers demonstrated during their time in Sierra Leone, compassion knows no national boundaries. Nor should it. If Maruti Turbo is Bangladeshi, I urge him/her to follow the example of his/her compatriots.

The planet’s too small for us to only care about people who share our blood, nationality, religion, or language.

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Death Toll Rises From Flooding in Bangladesh.

Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh on Thursday, generating a six-meter-high tidal wave and causing widespread flooding and massive destruction in coastal communities. The flooding has been declared a national calamity by the government, and relief agencies are reporting that over 3,000 people have lost their lives. Aid workers fear the death toll will continue to rise as they gain access to the more remote areas that have been cut off by floodwaters. Aid groups are also voicing concerns about outbreaks of waterborne and other diseases. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society is appealing for $5.7 million to cope with the disaster.

The Red Crescent Society predicts that, based on past experience, the death toll from this flood might surpass 10,000. And, according to news reports, relief aid has been slow to arrive because, in some remote areas, there is no government or relief-organization presence on the ground. The Chicago Sun Times reports on one farmer who has not received any aid for himelf or his family because food dropped by military helicopters is immediately carried off by mobs.

I don’t even know what to say. I know this catastrophe has something to do with global climate change, shifting weather patterns, and rising sea levels, but it seems pointless to get into that right now. The most important problem right now is that people are dying.

There’s not much I can do to help victims from here, but I will send money to aid groups that are in a better position to help people in Bangladesh. In the early days of the 2004 Asian Tsumani, donations from individual American donors surpassed the amount pledged by the US government. Individual giving can make a huge difference.

Below is a list of organizations that are raising funds for flood victims. If anyone knows of local Bangladeshi aid groups that are raising money IN Bangladesh, especially in remote rural areas, please give me their names and web addresses so I can add them to this list.

If my community were ever flooded, I’d hope people wouldn’t just shake their heads and turn away. Do unto others . . ..

Drishtipat

Bangladesh Red Crescent Society

Save the Children – US

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

AmeriCares

Oxfam – UK

World Food Program

Also, I found this on the Adhunika blog:

BRAC
BRAC has committed Tk 20 crore towards relief operations. Unfortunately BRAC is not accepting donations online. As most of you know, BRAC has a remarkable track record and is very cognizant of local conditions given that they are engaged in grass-roots activities. Human rights organization, Drishtipat, is collecting online donations for Phiriye Ano Bangladesh and BRAC on their website (see below).
http://www.brac.net/
http://www.brac.net/news_files/news_2007_020.htm

Drishtipat
Drishtipat is collecting donation for the flood victims. It also has put together a list of credible organizations that are engaged in flood relief efforts
http://www.drishtipat.org/flood/

There’s also a Facebook group with an EXTENSIVE LIST of organizations that are accepting donations.

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Materialistic People Have Low Self-Esteem.

 

It’s not every day that one of my strongly held beliefs is proven right by science . . . actually, that’s not true. Just yesterday, science explained why curvaceous, voluptuous women are so hot. I never knew why this was but now, science has cleared up that little conundrum for me. Yay science! Now I can move on with my life.

But I digress.

Apparently, researchers have also discovered a link between materialism and self-esteem. That’s right. People who have low self-esteem tend to buy more stuff or, if they’re kids, want more stuff. These researchers studied a bunch of kids and discovered that as their self-esteem declines—usually around the start of adolescence—kids become more materialistic.

By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth.”

You can read the whole article here.

Eureka! As kids’ self-consciousness and insecurity increases, they become more interested in acquiring material things to help them feel better about themselves. This must explain why so many people are so desperate to have the newest pair of shoes or the trendiest mp3 player or the latest video game system? Personally, I’ve always been suspicious of anyone who always had to have the latest, greatest something or other. But you know, there is light at the end of the tunnel. In about 10 years, these kids will be old enough to no longer need to use material possessions to cope with feelings of low self-worth. Trust me, I speak from experience. I too used to rely on material things—clothes, shoes, cars, my gym membership—to make up for my insecurity. But not anymore. Not since I discovered alcohol. Or “liquid confidence,” as I like to call it.

Speaking of confidence, you know what? Life is SO unfair. Just think about all those kids who don’t need to wear the coolest clothes or have the latest iPod or cell phone. When I think about how these kids are mocked and jeered and taunted in school, it just makes my blood boil! After all, these are the confident kids, the ones who don’t need flashy things to compensate for their insecurities. THEY should be the cool and popular kids, NOT the ones with the latest and trendiest stuff. What kind of society do we live in? To all you nerds who might be reading this blog, next time some cool kid comes along and tries to show off how cool he/she is because he/she just got the new iPod mini or the latest Nikes, here’s what you should do. Tell them that you don’t need any fancy schmancy gadget or expensive footwear to make you feel good about yourself because you’re totally cool and awesome inside, and you know it. You can also tell them they’re adopted and that their parents don’t really love them. That’ll show ‘em!

But who cares anyway? I’m just happy that once again, science has vindicated me. For years, I’ve been saying that people who constantly need to buy new stuff are overcompensating for some deep-seated sense of inadequacy. And for years, I was ignored, mocked, or worse. I’ve also been saying lots of other stuff too, but no-one ever listens to me. Thank God for science though. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of my “conspiracy theories” and “crazy ideas” are proven to be true. Soon, we’ll see who’s crazy and who’s just plain stupid. That’s right, guy who sat next to me on the flight to California! You heard me! WHO’S CRAZY NOW??!!

While we’re at it, here are a some of my other “theories” for the scientific community to consider:

1. The loudness of a motorcycle’s engine is inversely proportional to the size of the motorcyclist’s penis.
2. Lobbyists are assholes.
3. There is an inverse relationship between a shopper’s IQ and the amount of money he/she spends on designer shoes.
4. Guys who drive expensive sports cars are soul-less (also, see point #2).

To the scientific community, I want to say, “There’s no need to thank me for these ideas.” Contributing to the advancement of science is all the thanks I need. And perhaps a motorcycle with a REALLY loud engine.

All in all, though, I have to say that going to the mall will never be the same again. I mean, who wants to spend that much time around a bunch of pathetic, insecure people?

Thanks to a certain someone who shall remain unnamed for passing this story on to me.

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Spousal Rape is Widespread, and No-One is Immune.

 

From a recent episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show:

It’s the ultimate betrayal…a crime so disturbing, many victims never tell a soul. According to reports, about 1.5 million women are raped or physically assaulted by their partners every year.

Although spousal rape is punishable by law in all 50 states, many offenses go unreported. Two women who hid their shame for years are finally speaking out. They want every woman in America to know it can happen to anyone.

In 2005, Tascha, a wife and mother, was crowned Mrs. Oklahoma. “Whenever someone sees the crown they think, ‘She has it all together, she’s beautiful, she’s well spoken, she’s well rounded and educated,’” she says.

What many people don’t know is that Tascha is a spousal rape survivor. “Underneath it all, there was a really dark period in my life that no one suspected, because I didn’t share with anyone,” she says. “Friends didn’t know, family didn’t know. It was something that I basically took on myself, by myself.”

Read more about Tascha’s and other women’s stories here.

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