William James and The Ironing

I haven't included The Ironing as a category of activity in my life for many, many years now. It's not that I never iron anything; if something needs to be ironed, I iron it. But I have no Ironing waiting to be done, no unironed pile, no task called "Ironing" that intrudes on my consciousness until I complete it. (My mother would tell you that, despite her best efforts, this has always been true!)

For some years, as a young adult, I felt that perhaps I should have The Ironing in my life - all my female role models did so. It must be a generational thing; not many of my peers think of The Ironing in the way our mothers and grandmothers did.

The Ironing has ceased to be for my generation (and probably subsequent ones) what William James would call a "living option."

I was reminded of this by an excellent article by Jonathan Ree, in The New Humanist (Jul/Aug 2010), which reflects what I felt about reading William James in university:

I love William James. He’s just about the only philosopher who didn’t end up as either a pettifogging nit-picker or an overbearing egomaniac with delusions of genius. He was generous too – witty, honest, modest and flexible – and more interested in promoting productive conversations than hogging the last word. He was also a brilliant writer.

The discussion of options, from his famous essay "The Will to Believe" (1896) is my favourite "takeaway" from reading James.

A genuine option must be three things; living, forced, and momentous.

A living option has to have inner, emotional appeal: either this or that, where both this and that are subjectively meaningful. A dead option does not compel.  Either do The Ironing or be a bad housekeeper; the idea of being a bad housekeeper must be something to be avoided at all costs.

A forced option is a real either/or situation: no way out, no third choice. The Ironing is a forced option only if being a housekeeper is the only choice and only if being a housekeeper means doing The Ironing oneself.

A momentous option carries grave or serious consequences: for example not doing The Ironing will result in the total demise of western culture and society, financially and morally.

For some, for sure, doing or not doing The Ironing is still a genuine option. For many, it has ceased to be living, forced, or momentous. Being a housekeeper is no longer the only choice, or one of the few choices, for women. The idea of being a good, bad, or indifferent housekeeper is no longer so compelling.

And I have found that there are virtually no consequences at all for not doing The Ironing - except that my older female relatives sometimes roll their eyes at my rebelliousness.

The Answer in the Question

Elaine McArdle in her Boston Globe article ("The freedom to say 'no'") - May 2008 - writes about research in economics and the social sciences which shows that smart and highly educated (in math and science) women choose jobs other than those in IT, physics, and engineering. They self-select jobs in which they deal more with organic substances and language, and less with tools and inorganic substances.

These data apparently surprise researchers who sought the reasons for such choices in physiology, education, or at the door or glass ceiling of the workplace. But they found that it’s not about brains, aptitude, ability, or out-and-out barriers; it’s mostly about choice, they say. Women choose freely.

Yet, McArdle reports that researchers don’t know why women choose as they do. They don’t know how experience and socialization work in shaping women and their choices.

But doesn’t the answer about selecting jobs lie exactly there, in the answer to the question of how culture shapes women and their choices from infancy?

We have a willful and collective blindness, in certain quarters at least, about the role of ideology in shaping people’s choices, especially when it has to do with the role and place of women in our society.

We are not so blind when it comes to subcultures, though. It’s interesting that a couple of years ago in Texas, with the FLDS cult, we had no such trouble understanding how constant exposure to certain ideas from infancy shapes women’s beliefs and makes them accept behavior that is harmful to themselves and to their children.

I am frankly pessimistic that researchers will even look to see the results of exposure to beliefs about what it means to be a woman in a dominant culture. If they did, they might have to admit that women actually have less choice than they “find” in the research McArdle reports.

Researchers will continue to look everywhere but where the truth lies. The real answer to the Freudian question about what women want is that it’s only a rhetorical question.

Elaine McArdle is a writer in Cambridge, Mass. She has co-authored a book with Dr. Carolyn Bernstein called The Migraine Brain.

The Dusty Collection

I have a small art collection, a collection of books that grows no matter how often I cull, a spice and herb collection that has many deceased specimens. I gave my record collection away about five minutes before I learned of the turntable that plugs into a USB port. None of these collections is unusual.

The woman's dusty collection is not so familiar, and I wonder how many of us have or have had such a cache.

I call it the dusty collection because it is made up of sports/game equipment entirely related to a woman's former boyfriends/spouses/partners. Most of it is never used more than once or twice. Bye-bye- boyfriend, bye-bye gear.

Over many, many years, I have had badminton and tennis raquets, balls and shuttlecocks, golf clubs, softball paraphenalia, a rifle, shotgun, and hunting knife, various helmets, and hiking boots. I have dragged some part of the dusty collection between apartments and across the country more than once.

All of that stuff cost a fair chunk of change - I don't even want to add it all up! That's part of hanging onto all of it for a long time. It also is a kind of archive and part of one's identity.

I gave up my dusty collection many years ago, ironically, when I bought a house and finally had enough space to store it all. Perhaps it was an age thing, or maybe having enough distance from all that money spent or a stronger sense of identity.

Now my collection has skates, a bike, swimming goggles (all loves from childhood), and golf clubs. I also kept the hiking boots, as one can never have too many shoes.

If anything in my collection gets dusty these days, it's due mostly to procrastination - both about working out and about dusting!

Bad Boys: What You Gonna Do?

The Guy's Perspective has an interesting post about the curse of the bad boy which immediately reminded me of this commercial for Huggies (seems implausible, doesn't it?).

I'm not sure what it means for the fate and future of the bad boy.

Being spoofed in a diaper commercial could mean that the whole concept of the bad boy has had its day in the sun and has become the subject of jokes and not much else.

Being spoofed in a diaper commercial could also mean that the whole bad boy schtick is so ubiquitous that it has lost its oomph.

Being spoofed in a diaper commercial could mean that the whole bad boy thing is just a normal part of reality, and we are comfortable enough with it to joke about it.

Who knows?

And while I do have issues with advertising and have written about that not too long ago, this ad is very cute, funny, and analysis-worthy.

Plus, the little star has all the makings of a future successful bad boy, if nothing else. What a cutie pie!

Laughing All the Way

Throughout my childhood, my father could make me laugh with a subtle, or not so subtle, funny face, a look, a sound - frequently at the dinner table. I would laugh uncontrollably until my mother would send me away from the table, not as punishment, but to help me calm down and quite probably to prevent the sputtering of food around the room.

Any control I gained would be akin to trying not to laugh in church, an illusion, broken immediately as I would look at my father upon returning to the table - out of the room, again, I would go.

So, it's not a surprise that my father sent me a link to a Rowan Atkinson routine.

Rowan Atkinson, in his stand alone routines or as Mr. Bean or Black Adder, makes me laugh in much the same way my father did all those years ago - hysterically, uncontrollably, with tears. Often, he has to just appear and I start laughing.

People seem to fall into two camps regarding Atkinson's humour. Those who love him think that those who don't just don't get it and are too, too stuffy. Those who don't like him (often quite emphatically) think that those who do are infantile and weird. There is no in between.

Following is the Atkinson routine The Piano Player (compliments of my father).




Here are two more in the musical mode: Rowan Atkinson "conducting" Beethoven's 5th and Mr. Bean conducting the Salvation Army band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2tpBwVuSKc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzdUiwB-Fj0

Enjoy. But watch out if you have your mouth full!!!!

Goodbye to a Great Person and an Unforgettable Voice

Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester (1930 - 2010)  died this past week at the age of seventy-nine.

Her voice was truly awesome:

I also loved her attitude.

In an excerpt from an older interview played on CBC radio this week, Forrester was asked about the many lucky breaks that had come her way. She replied that she had, indeed, had lucky breaks, but that she had trained for years and prepared herself to be ready for those breaks when they came along.

And, I believe, that's the secret to THE secret.

Goodbye to a Canadian who blessed the world with her amazing talent.

Pretty Face, Ugly Cost

Pure, soft, natural, active, organic. Sounds good, doesn't it, for personal care and cosmetic products. Too bad those words are meaningless; too bad they so easily lull us into purchasing. The trouble is that many beauty products contain  ingredients that are carcinogenic, allergenic, can cause developmental abnormalites in fetuses, and can wreak havoc with the reproductive system (male and female - the boys aren't exempt!).

Things like lead in lipstick and formaldehyde in baby shampoo and baby body washes. New technologies are an issue as well, with not enough testing to know whether they are safe or not - like nanotechnologies:

"Beware personal care products that tout the use of nanoparticles, nanomaterials or nanotechnology. This emerging technology is almost entirely untested for its health effects, and no requirements exist for either testing or labeling these products." (Safe Cosmetics)

This, for me, is a case of both wanting to know and not wanting to know at the same time. Products I've used and loved for years turn out to be quite highly toxic - I want to continue using them, but feel that it's not that wise. A chance pick at the library gave me all this new information to deal with - the book Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry by Stacy Malkan.

Malkan lists several websites for more extensive information. One I find very helpful is The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics  which works to document the dangerous products in personal care products and promote improvement. They have developed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics for companies to sign - the PDF of all companies that have signed is available.

The Canadian government has created an ingredients "hotlist," not only of chemicals, but of appropriate concentrations of them. The European Union has enacted laws governing what can go into personal care products. Although many U.S. companies have also cleaned up their act and re-formulated products, many have not, and the FDA has no clout : "The FDA does not review – nor does it have the authority to regulate – what goes into cosmetics before they are marketed to salons and consumers."

Another find through Malkan's book is the Environmental Working Group which has a cosmetics safety database that shows hazard levels. You can search by product, ingredient, and/or company to see just what's in your personal care products and what the risk of using them is.

I have dug out from the dusty back of my bookshelves a book by Virginia Castleton called The Handbook of Natural Beauty that I have had for decades and is still available. Castelton has many recipes for beauty products made from food and food-grade ingredients. I remember using corn meal for a face scrub and olive oil as moisturizer - trust me Cream of Wheat is not a substitute for the corn meal!!!

I will probably ditch some products, make some products, and keep some - the overall chemical load is important, too.

My question from now on, though, when I see the words "pure," "soft," and "natural" will be pure, soft and natural what? A little research may save a lot of grief..

Serious Darts

The FIFA World Cup it definitely is not, but the game of darts has a huge following - 7000 in the audience at a recent televised tournament.

My experience with darts is almost entirely from playing in the odd pub many years ago. After a few rounds, someone would invariably decide to challenge everyone to a game, although no one ever seemed to know the rules. Triples are good; doubles too. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you.

There is a World Darts Federation, however, that has everything you always wanted to know about darts. The Federation is the world governing body for the game; there are 250,000 playing members from six continents. There are anti-doping regulations in the game. The very professionally done site has rules, regulations, archives, history, and lists of previous winners and pros.

Every two years, on odd numbered years, they hold the World Cup. Every two years, on even numbered years, are the Americas Cup, The Asia/Pacific Cup, and the Europe Cup (and more!).

A far cry from the pub experiences of my youth, the modern game of darts is professionally run and widely popular. To dart players, it probably is the real beautiful game. And no vuvuzelas!

Romancing the Diet

Quitting smoking was not easy, but in retrospect, it was far easier than losing a measly 15 pounds and keeping it off. To stop smoking (seven years ago), I had to change my thinking and my desires.

It turns out, though, that I had help I wasn't aware of. And I now believe that made all the difference, a difference that doesn't exist for the process of weight loss.

From two different perspectives, the article "Beating Obesity" by Marc Ambinder in the May 2010 issue of The Atlantic, and the book Savor, by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lillian Leung discuss the issue. Both discuss the interconnectedness of everything. Because of this interconnectedness, we are fat. Only together with everything, can we become healthy and less fat.

First, the bad news -  according to Ambinder, the forces of society, technology, industry, government policy, culture, genes, and demographics work in concert to make and keep us fat.

Technology changes work, changes behaviour, changes patterns and amount of movement; Industry constructs food - food molecules actually - that some suspect create virtual "neurochemical addiction...change our brain chemistry in ways that make us overeat;" non-food industries expose us to chemicals that correlate with obesity.

Society's demands create stress which leads to obesity; society's expectations affect sleep patterns which can help make us fat; society's planning and design of towns and cities affect our level of exercise; business production and distribution models make fast food not only the most calorically dense, but the cheapest and most widely available.

"Agricultural production and subsidies"  - corn fed beef, high fructose corn syrup, for example - increase our waistlines. Advertising with its images of food and the normalization of food as entertainment and acceptance help make us fat. Cultural norms regarding portion sizes have increased dramatically.

It's a wonder that anyone can lose weight and keep it off with all of this, and more, ranged against the individual. According to Ambinder, "America has erected two lines of defense: name-calling, and hectoring about diet and exercise."

Both of these defenses put the entire responsibility for health and weight loss on the individual - rather silly when you think about it. Even with Olympic-class will power, the individual fights a losing battle.

This is the point at which the Thich Nhat Hanh/Leung book Savor enters the picture. Drawing on Buddhist practices of mindfulness and meditation, the authors stress how we are not alone, how weight loss, like anything else, is together with everything. We cannot lose weight in isolation; people have to work together to create an environment that is healthful for all. We have to be mindful of eating - and of living.

That unseen help I had to stop smoking came from society - policy, regulation, advertising, education, technology, culture - many of the things ranged against the individual when it comes to weight loss. Society is against cigarettes in ways that it is not against cheap food, fast food, hypertasty food, large portions of food, junk food, processed food.

Right now we expect each single, tiny will to stand up to the whole of society. Many will say that the game isn't rigged, that each person can make a rational decision about what's beneficial. It doesn't work.

Only collective will power can get this done. And it's so easy to discuss it over a nice bowl of something and a supersized drink!

Coffee and Bordeaux? Neaux, Neaux!

According to a May 2010 article in the New York Times Style section by Eric Asimov, Bordeaux is no longer popular among younger wine drinkers, who perceive it as stodgy and fussy, a drink for rich older people, a wine with not much excitement to recommend it:

Bordeaux, some young wine enthusiasts say, is stodgy and unattractive. They see it as an expensive wine for wealthy collectors, investors and point-chasers, people who seek critically approved wines for the luxury and status they convey rather than for excitement in a glass...

''The perception of Bordeaux for my generation, it's very Rolex, very Rolls-Royce,'' said Cory Cartwright, 30, ... ''I don't know many people who like or drink Bordeaux.'' ...

To be fair, Asimov writes broadly of problems and perceptions of the Bordeaux brand. But according to the article: "For young Americans in particular, Bordeaux has become downright unfashionable."

Coffee is another product beginning to lose its lustre. An article in Mindfood (June 2010) - "Trendy Tea Consumers Revive Industry" by Miral Fahmy - suggests that tea is "attracting younger, more discerning fans."
Elsewhere on the web are instructions and suggestions for different kinds of tea parties (not the political kind!).

On a recent visit to the local mall, I was surprised to see a new tea store, selling prepared tea drinks and loose tea and bags to prepare at home. I was also surprised to pick up a package of Starbucks coffee and see the possible new branding Starbucks Coffee and Tea. Sounds like tea is a slam dunk already.

Trends are interesting things, based as they so often are on the tastes of one's peers and so often not on the actual objective attributes of any particular item, be it shoes, wine, or tea. We all succumb to it.

I have often wondered, though, with my own generation's trends and those of others, just what our preconceived notions keep us from experiencing. How much pleasure and knowledge do we let go by because it's not "in," because no self-respecting________(fill in your own blank here) would ever enjoy something so not in style, so old, so loud, so irresponsible? So passe.

Sometimes it is all about identity. I well remember a friend's then seventeen-year-old son having a near meltdown when his dad won the bet that the son's favourite band's so popular song was a cover of a song from a band of dad's era -  twenty years before.  It wasn't about the song, but about who was cool, who owned cool, who invented cool.

I'd like to have it all - the coffee and tea, the bordeaux and burgundy. Fashion also loses some of its lustre as I get older - but that's probably not so cool - and the word "cool" is probably s-o-o-o o old-fashioned!

Good, Bad, Ugly Television

The good is shrinking or barely holding its own, the bad and the ugly proliferate with amazing speed. Television is a cesspool with a few non-polluted islands.

I am not one of those people who never watches television. (That's another post - all the people who swear they don't watch television. Some I believe; many I don't. But it's a trendy kind of thing to disclaim being a viewer.) And I am not a knowledgeable critic. I know what I like, what I don't like, and what offends my ethics and my sensibilities.

Television is good for coverage of breaking news. I know no one who is old enough and owns a TV set who did not watch coverage of 911. Images of birds in the Gulf of Mexico covered with oil, still trying to move have impact in a way that even the most amazing still shots don't - one blink that signals a still beating heart says it all.

Television is good for live coverage of sports events - the Olympics, Stanley Cup, World Cup, Superbowl. Watching the play unfold and not knowing who will win is exciting. Radio just isn't the same.

Beyond that, it gets dicier. Reality shows ARE television to many, and they attract millions of viewers. Mostly, I don't care for them. Many are some form of competition. Many show people at their worst. All are voyeurism in a way that is worse than that in movies and fictional programs. Not only is much of the content idiotic, watching all that greed, naked ambition, and nastiness isn't much fun.

I refuse to watch any reality show with children - they have no say, no informed consent. Who wants to have the potty training episode turn up at the wrong moment in the future? Much worse - the fact of being on the show must shape the very essence of the childhood experience and can't help but give a child a somewhat skewed idea of his or her relationship with others.

Sitcoms insult the intelligence, most of them anyway. Dramas can have good storylines, backstory, and characters, but overwhelm us with the very most degraded aspects of human life. I don't want to spend any of my precious time watching endless twists on rape, murder, torturers, and serial killers; it's enough to stay informed about all the madness in real life.

Many shows on politics and current events devolve into partisan shouting matches, while some bring in an endless stream of celebrities with no expertise on the subject. If all else fails, bring in the psychics and mediums, the life coaches and charlatan healers - who else could better advise us on wars, disasters, and complex diplomatic issues.

There are some shows that I genuinely like and watch, but even those have advertising that is manipulative and intrusive. Some of PBS appeals. Perhaps I am just in a downward cycle with television.

Selectivity is the key. And the mute button, don't forget the mute button.

Minding Manipulation

It usually comes as a suprise to students to learn that in television, we, the viewers, are the product. That's right, us! Not the programs, not the products that are advertised, but the audience.

Television producers and executives make shows they hope will deliver enough product (audience) to make advertisers spend as much of their money as possible pitching their wares to us.

And selling our presence without being transparent and forthcoming about it isn't bad enough. We are subjected to manipulation, read that as marketing, through the creation of desires which, of course, product X will fulfill, and/or we are subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) shown how we just don't measure up to the make- believe world the advertisers create.

Magazines are the same.

It's everywhere - on television, radio, buses, blogs, websites, movies, taxis, billboards, magazines, and more. The basic methods may differ, but the goal is the same.

I am sick of advertising. No one ever asked me, or any of us, if all days, times, places could be filled up with advertising, if every time and space could be commercialized.

I've had enough. I am on a mission to endure as little advertising as possible.

It's not always possible - probably not best to close one's eyes while driving to avoid signage in various places!!! But there is a mute button on the remote or the option to not watch television at all (or to watch selectively), and there are computer programs that will block sidebar ads and pop-ups. I just won't buy some magazines, as I refuse to pay for all the ads.

I believe that many ads, images, and narratives affect us in negative ways; they certainly are manipulative, working around reason and critical thinking. One of my professors had research to show that we who think we are resisting ads are often the most susceptible.

Not all ads are bad. Some are funny, provocative, artistic, informative, enjoyable. I like those and will choose to watch.

But I am on a mission - I will no longer be a passive endurer of other people's manipulative attempts to sell me something.

To end on a lighter note, here is a Wendy's ad from the eighties, with Clara Peller - one of the famous "Where's the Beef?" ads. The slogan has become part of the culture.