Balls and Walnuts

Sociobiology of Boobage 101

2005-08-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

You're at the old site, folks. For the properly formatted version of this post, click here. In 1983, Vincent Sarich taught a course at Berkeley called "The Evolution of Human Behavior." He let us know on the first day that the class was experimental. He had some rough ideas about course content -- some things he wanted to talk about, a handful of ideas he wanted to share. Sounded like good clean fun, and we really did have a blast, too. Professor Sarich (that grizzly teddy bear on the left) was good to his word. He talked, we listened -- and argued with him, of course. For a final exam, he asked us to write three short essays on topics of our own choosing. They had to be somewhat relevant to the course, but beyond that, we were on our own. My three topics: Genius, a maladaptive trait Why are hiccups contagious? The Road Warrior: a sociobiologic perspective I got an A+. Funny thing, though. I've only retained two things from that class. One is a concept: the Tragedy of the Commons (see the Wikipedia article here, or the original article here), which suggests that folks will always choose their own self interest over the common good, even to their ultimate detriment. If you're curious about this, I recommend you start with the Wiki article, since it is shorter than the original article and has considerably more perspective. The other thing I learned in Professor Sarich's class is why men love cleavage. "I want to talk about breasts today," he said, except that with his slight speech impediment it came out "breashts." "Why are they so appealing?" The traditional sociobiological interpretation is that large breasts are desirable because they translate to well fed babies. Sociobiology was big back then. Still is, for all I know. In case you're unfamiliar with it, here's the basic idea. Our behavior is ruled by our genes, and in particular, our genes' desire to pass on more of themselves to the next generation. "But," you argue, "genes are not sentient." Pshaw! Genes don't have to be sentient to find ways of furthering their own interests. Back to boobs. Professor Sarich contended that the sociobiologists were wrong. Men don't love breasts because they want well fed babies. Men crave hooters because of a cross-wiring problem. You see, men get boobs confused with butts:

Recalling that the missionary position is, anthropologically speaking, rare (and dreadfully European), this is the view most men have during sex. Butt cheeks. According to Prof. Sarich, guys crave cleavage because it reminds us of butt cheeks in general, sex in particular. When a woman shows us her décolletage, she's giving us an invitation to the dance. Theories like this are only useful if they can shed light on other inexplicable phenomena. For me, Sarich's idea worked because it explained why, when I was a kid, this old cover for Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach

always gave me wood. It's gotta be true. D.

How many is too many?

2005-09-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

Meet the Duggar family. (You're looking at the old site, folks. For the properly formatted version of this post -- with more comments -- click here.) Note that (Head Count) - Mom - Dad = 14. This is the Duggar family circa 2004, before #15 arrived. The Duggars were the subject of a Discovery Health channel documentary, "14 Children and Pregnant Again!", which airs again on October 27 and October 29. Here's the blurb: "The Duggars are letting God dictate how many children they have and, with nine boys, five girls, and one on the way, Jim Bob and Michelle feel blessed many times over! Find out how the Duggars coordinate a household that would challenge any manager." Before discussing precisely how the Duggars coordinate that household, let's get some Guinness Book of World Records perspective. According to sexualrecords.com, the 2001 Guinness Book gives the record to "the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782) of Shuya, Russia": 69 children, many of them multiple births, 67 of whom survived infancy. In recent times, the record belongs to "Leontina Albina from San Antonio, Chile. Now in her mid-sixties, Leontina claims to be the mother of 64 children, of which only 55 of them are documented". Can we at least agree that 55 children is too many? Back to the Duggars. Never mind that Jim Bob and Michelle dress their children like clones and give them names, ALL of them, that start with J (including Jinger -- pronounced Ginger, in case you're wondering). Never mind that the white suprem acist website st0rrmf runt dot org* luuurves the Duggars cuz they're bringin' all them white Christian babies into the world. After all, the Duggars can't help it if they've become the neo-Knotsies' poster family. No. What I wonder is whether Jim Bob and Michelle are doing the job. Not that job -- obviously, they're doing very little else. I mean the job of parenting. Take a look at the Quiverfull FAQ. Here's their response to the question (not really a question, but what the hey), "You won't be able to give as much time or attention to a dozen kids as you could to just two or three": "We trust that God will give us the ability to meet the needs of all the children He gives us -- and that includes their need for love and attention as well as material needs." Read the rest, if you like. They go on to talk about all the great parenting opportunities you get eating and praying together as a family. And don't forget the joys of having ten or more siblings: "[H]ow could we consider robbing our children of the opportunity for a life-time of shared experiences with another brother or sister, in exchange for a theoretical increase in attention from their parents?" I have a brother and a sister. One each. Did I really need to have another ten of 'em to get that wonderful experience? Damn it, I'm going to call my parents and tell them I've been ROBBED.

***

Karen and I got tweaked over the Duggars, the Prairie Muffins, and the Quiverfull folks thanks to the comments thread for this post at The News Blog. That thread led Karen to discover the Television Without Pity website, which, when it comes to television programming, has to be the snarkiest of the snarky snark. They truly live up to their name. Anyway, for the last four days, Karen has been a slave to TWP's two hundred page thread of comments in response to "14 Children and Pregnant Again!" Since we haven't watched the show, our understanding of its content comes from that comment thread. (Check it out, but prepare to be addicted. Some of the posters are hilarious -- e.g., "I think my tubes just spontaneously tied themselves.") Remember, "Find out how the Duggars coordinate a household that would challenge any manager"? Here are a few highlights of the Duggars' managerial, I mean child-rearing, methods.

The kids are home-schooled. Their only outside contact is with other Fundamentalist Christian families; they don't even go to church (they hold services at home).
There's a "buddy system" in place to care for newly weaned infants. Eight- to ten-year-old children are charged with care responsibilities for children under two. Where's mom? Giving suck to the next in line.
With fourteen (now fifteen) kids on board, economies must be observed. The photo above is the rule, not the exception: the kids all dress in the same clothes. The program also focused on meals in the Duggar household -- they sure like Tater Tot casserole!
In a household of this size, the chores are enormous. Each child is given his/her "jurisdiction". A six-year-old is responsible for all of the laundry, and so forth.

Some of you will no doubt point out that in past generations, this, or something close to it, was the norm. But consider: Back then, such folks lived on farms, and the numbers were necessary to provide labor. Back then, infant mortality claimed a sizable share of the family. Back then, birth control was illegal, unavailable, or (if available) next to useless. Back then, a child wasn't expected to do much more than finish grade school and learn a trade (or work on the family farm). With scaled-down expectations, and with the fruits of a family farm (such as a ready supply of chicken eggs and cow's milk), a husband and wife could provide for a large family in what was, at the time, a respectably ample fashion. Back then, what opportunities did a woman have? It was the rare woman who could rise above this fate.

***

Yes, you can argue that this is a free country. The Duggars are self-sufficient thanks to Jim Bob's real estate investments, so they're not living on the public dole. Why shouldn't they procreate like bunnies, if that's what they want? I worry about the kids. Except for the youngest (the one lucky enough to be born just before Michelle Duggar's uterus commits seppuku), they'll grow up without a childhood, and they'll grow up knowing nothing else but the Duggar Way. I can't help but think the Duggars are carrying their freedom a little too far. Further reading (in case you found this post last): So you want to be a Prairie Muffin? D. *I don't particularly want these guys sniffing around my website, you know what I mean? Hence the misspellings. Google the Duggars and you'll find plenty of Knotsie links.

I've moved

2006-02-04T22:01:00.000-08:00

Yup, Blogger done buggered me one too many times. Come visit me at

Balls and Walnuts dot Com

For the time being, it will look bare-bones over there, but that will change. Update your links, folks. No telling when I might crash this place AGAIN. D.

My glamorous profession

2006-02-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

Warning: don't read this on a full stomach. Did I ever mention that Alec Baldwin watched me to get into character for the movie Malice? It's true. And for my end-of-residency roast, I did a little stand-up comedy for my fellow residents and my attending physicians, wherein I showed this video clip from Malice: You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God. Stop video clip. Lights back on me. I'm shaking my head slowly, my mouth agape. Then, I say: It's uncanny. That is so . . . ME. Ah, well. You had to be there. Truth is, if we're playing God, then God has one messy, messy job. You know what I do more than anything else? I mean, as a simple percentage of time spent? I dig out ear wax. But that's not the messiest thing I do. I'm a PusBuster. Pus is one of the main reasons I'm late blogging today. That, and my son talked me into playing two games of chess with him, and of course I had to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. In residency, I owned a tiny brown bottle full of oil of wintergreen. When it comes to pus, oil of wintergreen is your best friend. Schmear a bit of it under your nose and everything smells wonderful, even gangrene. Well, maybe not gangrene. Somewhere along the way, I lost my little brown bottle. Could have used it last week -- that pus shot two-and-a-half feet across the room. Thank heavens I wasn't in its path. My nurse, a woman in her mid-sixties, said that was the worst thing she'd ever smelled. For a nurse (especially one in her mid-sixties!) that's really saying something. I'm not complaining. I like busting pus, just as I like cleaning ear wax. Nothing satisfies quite like a good spill of the yellow poo or a big fat plug of the brown-and-hairy. These are some of the happiest patients: in the case of pus, they usually experience a rapid resolution of their pain and pressure symptoms; with ear wax, they can hear again. I've been hugged more than a few times. If I thought about complaining even for a moment, I would force myself to remember my comrades in general surgery, who regularly pull beer cans, beer bottles, and baseballs from people's rectums; my comrades in urology, who remove bobby pins and other delightful items from people's urethras; and my comrades in gynecology, who sometimes have to explain to their patients that, no, tampons do not dissolve, and it's a bad idea to stuff one in after the other. See? I have it easy. Only the eye docs have it better. We're medieval barbers, that's all we are. Sometimes I try to explain that to my patients. Usually, I stop myself before they get that glazed, wide-eyed look. D. PS: Here's the US Military's latest recruiting video (NOT). Hat tip to Daily Kos for linking to this biting satire.

Thirteen Dreams

2006-02-02T08:13:00.000-08:00

Thirteen Dreams from Doug Tales from the other third of my life (Other people's dreams are boring as hell. Let's see if I can make this work.)

 1. The earliest dream I can recall: a pixie lives in my closet, and she alerts me to her presence by playing on a tiny piano. She leads me into a room I had never seen, sunlit, full of toys, a world of safety and beauty.

2. My grandfather (he of the surgically removed horns, and the monkey in the attic) and I travel to the moon. It's so small, I could walk around it in a matter of minutes. I jump higher and higher in the low gravity while my grandfather scratches his bald head and mumbles in Yiddish.

3. Late at night, my parents talk quietly near the gas range. All the burners are on, not a pot in sight.

"With all of your problems," my father says, "it's a wonder you're not dead."

My mother falls to the kitchen floor, unconscious.

(What can I say -- she was a bit of a hypochondriac.)

4. I'm in a car with my brother and sister, and we're pulling away from a home construction site. We leave my mother behind. She wants to give me some food -- a Hershey's chocolate bar, no doubt -- and she runs after the car, holding it out for me to grab. She can't catch up.

That one recurred, haunting me for years for reasons I still don't understand.

5. I've had insomnia for as long as I can recall. I used to tell myself stories to pass the hour or two it would take to get to sleep. Sometimes, it's difficult to know the difference between a remembered dream or one of those stories. In one, I'm a secret agent, poisoning Hitler's carrot patch.

6. A woman wakes up in the night to an empty bed. She calls out for her husband, but no one answers. In a panic, she runs outside, calling his name. Terror surges; she passes out in the driveway. She wakes up the following morning in her own bed, and does not realize that the experience hours earlier was a waking dream.

This is not my dream.

7. A woman watches a chef boil a lobster. The lobster screams as it is lowered into the pot. He takes it out and removes its limbs, one by one.

This is not my dream, either.

8. I am amazed at how readily dreams can reprogram decades of memory. In one recurring dream with many variations, I'm back in that state of loneliness I lived in before meeting Karen. A girl or woman (depending upon how old I am in the dream) lets me know she's interested in me.

Together, we take the first step.

9. Oh, lordy, the student's dream. My favorite remains the one in which I'm late to the final, but I still have 20 or 30 minutes left. I look at the first question, then the second, then the third. Each and every question is nonsensical -- essay questions with numerical answers, mathematical equations with multiple choices covering the gamut from "honesty" to "betrayal."

10. I'm peeing, and I lose control of my aim. Soon, the ceiling and the walls are dripping in urine.

11. My teeth fall out.

12. I'm in a crashing plane, or a car attacked by gunmen, and in a last minute restoration of faith, I recite the Shema.

13. And then there's the one about the malt shop -- you know the kind, red-cushioned spinning stools beside a long, gleaming countertop. Twelve cheerleaders, sweaty from their last workout, sit atop the stools. They are a Godiva Deluxe Assortment of ethnicities, they are all beautiful, and none of them are wearing underwear.

Oh, wait. That's a fantasy, not a dream. My dreams are never that much fun.

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D.

We have a winner!

2006-02-02T10:13:00.000-08:00

Shelbi wins the drawing. Congratulations! Thank you, all of you who played. That was a delightful bit of self-stroking for me. If you missed out, don't feel bad -- I'll have another contest in April when I hit the one year mark. Shelbi, email me at azureus at harborside (dot) com, and send me your snail mail addie. If you would rather have a gift certificate than Borges's Collected Fictions, let me know. Thanks again, everyone. D.

With apologies to vampire bats

2006-02-01T22:58:00.000-08:00

So President Bush is worried about human-animal chimerae: Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale. Well, Mr. Bush, aside from the fact that such a law would prevent the cloning of human genes into bacterial or viral vectors, thus crippling biomedical research for decades to come, I think you should clean house before implementing such a policy. You may begin with your Vice President. D.

Cindy Sheehan arrested for wearing a tee shirt.

2006-02-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: San Jose Mercury News reports, Police Drop Charge Against Sheehan, Apologize. Gracias to Blue Gal for pointing me to John Nichols's editorial in The Nation, The War on T-Shirts. Here's a bit of meat: Is there really a law against wearing a political T-shirt to the State of the Union address? No. The Capitol Police, who on Wednesday dropped the charges against Sheehan, have acknowledged in an official statement that: "While officers acted in a manner consistent with the rules of decorum enforced by the department in the House Gallery for years, neither Mrs. Sheehan's manner of dress or initial conduct warranted law enforcement intervention." What they have not acknowledged, and what is truly troubling, is the evidence that Sheehan was singled out for rough justice. What follows is the entry I wrote this morning: Here's Cindy's story. Her shirt said, "2245 dead. How many more?" Read the whole story, but here's the part that gets me: I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; "Protester." He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like "I'm going, do you have to be so rough?" By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, "That's Cindy Sheehan." At which point the officer who arrested me said: "Take these steps slowly." I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, "That's because you were protesting." Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, "Protesting."

Bradblog has updates and pictures.

I don't know if I have many Bush supporters in my audience, but I'm speaking to you folks now. What will it take for you to wake up? That's all I'm asking. What will it take?

The rest of you, sorry for the political post, but it seems like something new pisses me off every single day.

Quickie poll

2006-02-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

Don't forget the Number 500 Giveaway! I hope to see several more entries before the evening is over.

***

I'm happy -- not about the state of the world, of course, but about my trilogy. In the last few hours, I did a bit of cosmetic surgery on the first novel, and the current word count stands at just under 90,000 words. Ideal! Not only that, but this first novel is one tight sumbitch, and I think anyone who finished it would have to buy the next book. But that's just me. I'm chucking the working title (The Brakan Correspondent) because it put the main character's father front and center. I want to keep Cree (the correspondent's daughter) center stage. All of the titles below refer to her, although they also have double meanings that spread to a few of the other characters as well. Tell me whether any one of these grabs your eye better than its neighbors: Nest Out of the Nest Fallen from the Nest Fledge Fledgling Thanks! D.

Funny thing is

2006-02-01T12:26:00.001-08:00

I own a Miata, which is almost the spittin' image of this car (except for color).

I'm a Honda S2000!

You live on the edge, and you live for the adrenaline rush. You don't need luxuries, snob appeal, or superfluous gadgets. You put your top down, get your motor revving, and take all the curves that life throws at you at full speed. So what if you spin out occasionally?

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

I found this quiz at Dean's place. By the way: don't forget to enter my 500th Post Giveaway, if you haven't done so already. D.

Number 500: a giveaway

2006-01-31T22:00:00.000-08:00

Yup, this is my 500th post. I'd like to celebrate by giving away a copy of one of my favorite books, Jorge Luis Borges' Collected Fictions. If you already own it, or if you despise Borges, let me know, and I'll send you a gift certificate instead. The rules are easy. In the comments, tell me how you found your way here the very first time. I know the answer for some of you (the BBSers), but for most of you, I haven't a clue -- and I'm curious. Tomorrow night at this time, I'll write down the names of the commenters and draw one at random. The winner will need to email me with his or her snail mail addie.

***

Coming Attractions

Karen reads Kate Rothwell's Somebody Wonderful . . . in one day! Little Green Fascists tests the waters of poor taste . . . and finds them warm and inviting! And . . . I finally explain why you should belittle your children at every opportunity! Plus . . . Too many exclamation marks cause fingernail cancer!!! And more. D.

My little humorist

2006-01-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

More later. I thought I'd dash this off before fixing dinner. I've been teaching my son grammar from Strunk and White, and from Karen Gordon's books, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire and The New Well-Tempered Sentence. He finished reading Gordon's chapter on commas last week, so now I'm having him go back through it and write sentences demonstrating each of her major points. Here is what he has done so far, uncorrected by yours truly: Monday. He barfed, he heaved, he blew his nose. I barfed Sparky up, and I saw her half-digested tail wagging. Sparky didn't like being in Sam's stomach, but she liked his intestines. He wanted lunch and she wanted a heart. He always salted her before eating, but he thought she was bland all the same. [Eeeew.] I woke up covered in barf [I think I understand the theme of this composition] and said, "Let's go again! Let's go again!" Tuesday. Sam tumbled and splashed and rolled around in the radioactive waste. When the radio started saying, "Recently there has been a radioactive spill and we would just like to caution everybody from playing in it, that is all", he started drinking the foul liquid. Sam drank the water so that he would get 6 extra eyes. From the left, a boy rose up and Sam saw his tentacles. At dark he thought 30 tentacles were enough. Out of the murky water appeared a girl with 6 red eyes and 4 tentacles. I'll make him a blogger yet. D.

Too cute not to share

2006-01-31T11:33:00.000-08:00

With this morning's mail, I received a card from one of my patients. She doubles as my surrogate grandma. Here's her note: Dear Dr. Hoffman, When I think of you . . . "Appreciation" comes in view. Thank you for your care. Sending medical samples is kinda rare, But then, so is a doctor who can serve up a wickedly delicious "Latker!"* P.S. My Yiddish is kind of kiddish. *Okay, you have to love this forced rhyme: doctor and 'latker'. She's referring to my potato pancakes (latkes). Here's the recipe. No one has ever written me a poem before. D.

Why is Bush so awesome?

2006-01-30T22:54:00.000-08:00

Major tip of the hat to Jellio at YesButNoButYes for this hilarious video. Okay. Now I can get to sleep with a smile on my face. G'night. D.

Samuel Alito got me out of bed this morning

2006-01-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

. . . at 6 AM. I guarantee you, if I had set the alarm for 6 with the intention of spending an hour editing, or perhaps working out at the gym, I'd have groaned, turned over, and gone back to sleep. Nope, it took Sam Alito to motivate my ass out of bed. Something strange is happening inside my head; the neurons are rearranging themselves, like one of those old mosaic puzzles where you had to scoot squares around in order to unscramble the choo-choo train. I'm becoming more political. Yeah, I've written political posts, I've donated to lefty causes and campaigns, and I've even emailed my representatives in the past, but nothing compares to the all-out blitz against Alito that I -- we -- took part in over the weekend. Sure, we lost, but we picked up 23 votes against cloture that we didn't have when this all started. We know who our friends are, and we know who the Vichy Dems are, too. We have some sense of the clout we can wield as citizens of the net. And we did it all without support from the established liberal groups, like People for the American Way. Quote from Kos: But say what you will about blogs and the netroots, we are not effective organizers for this type of large-scale effort, with an opposition wielding tens of millions of dollars. That we got this much accomplished in the fact of that is simply incredible. And a rallying cry from Meteor Blades that, I swear to you, brought tears to my eyes (but then, I cry watching sitcoms, too): . . . But a battle is not a war. And, disappointing as it was, and as devastating as Alito's tenure on the court may turn out to be, giving up is simply not an option.

No matter what the odds, and no matter how few of our elected representatives we can count on to stand with us on this matter, and a hundred others, we have to keep up the fight. The war against Big Brotherization is as crucial as that for abolition, for women's suffrage, for civil rights.

In every case, the warriors in those wars suffered immense setbacks, repeatedly so, and found it hard to get the politicians to speak up and stand up for them. Eventually, however, because they refused to surrender, and because they took the fight beyond the electoral arena, they won.

We will, too.

Read the whole thing. One more inspirational link -- Jane, at firedoglake: We shook things up. Oh, yeah.

***

It may sound weird to you, but I finally feel like a citizen of this country. The other day, my son asked my wife -- and I'm paraphrasing here, cuz I wasn't present for the discussion -- whether we were just watching the world go to hell, or whether we were trying to do something to change it. It feels good to show him that we do more in this family than write checks to politicians, Amnesty International, and the ACLU. I don't think this is a flash in the pan, either. I keep popping over at my favorite political blogs, looking for marching orders. I've already pledged money and phone-calling time to Ned Lamont, the one dude who looks like he has a chance to unseat Windbag Lieberman in the primary. I'm angry. I want to do more. And I'm not alone.

***

Yeah, yeah. I know I promised you more self-esteem BS yesterday, but I'm not sure anyone cares about that but me. Right now, I'm having a hard time firing myself up over what used to be one of my pet peeves, since I'm too fired up about other things. Off topic: go say hi to Balls and Walnuts's newest friend, Mark Hoeschletter, an 82-year-old gentleman who just began blogging less than one week ago. Today, Mark has some important words for the young people of today. Finally, my apologies to all of you in the blogosphere whom I haven't visited this week. I'll do better, I promise. D.

The merits of poor self-esteem: Part I

2006-01-29T19:18:00.000-08:00

My mother, bless her labyrinthine heart, saved every scrap of writing and artwork I produced in elementary school, or at least she had saved every scrap until I moved out for college. Then, somehow, everything managed to fit into a single box in our garage. Some time between college and med school, I went through the box. It held no surprises for me -- I had been through it several times before, looking for answers that I hoped would be more palatable than the obvious ones I'd known from the beginning. Nope, nothing new. I saved the interesting stuff and tossed the rest. I kept my first grade report cards, quarter by quarter showing a teacher initially enchanted by me, ultimately exhausted. I kept a small folder of stories bound with three brass brads. And I kept another brad-bound folder from first grade, this one titled MY FAMILY. The frontispiece consists of a family portrait, hand-crayoned by yours truly. You know the type -- family in the foreground, names pencilled crudely under each, house in the background, smoking chimney, yatta yatta yatta. The smallest figure's legs are fused in one column, he's armless, and his head sits atop his body, an undifferentiated lump. That's me. I imagine any post-Benjamin Spock child shrink would have had palpitations over that drawing, and he would have been right. I was one fucked up kid. And look at me now.

Yeah, admit it. You missed that photo. (My son says, "You know, it's kind of obvious it's faked." To which I say: "What? What? What's fake about it?") I'm grappling for some image or memory to convey how self-hating I was as a kid, but you know something? So much of it was internal. I don't have it in me to be self-destructive, so I can't cough up any stories of drug abuse, insanely reckless behavior, or failed suicide attempts. Mostly, I stayed depressed. Fred Delse, my med school mentor I told you about in this post on ego boundaries, once said that it was nearly impossible to diagnosis major affective disorders in kids. I don't recall if he said, "It's impossible because they're all sick," but that's what I took home from that conversation. I thought: It's okay that you spent your whole childhood wishing you were anyplace but where you truly were. Other kids were undoubtedly more screwed up than you. Not surprisingly, I did have one addiction, schoolwork. I aced everything I touched. My one kernel of self-worth came from the knowledge that I was at the head of the pack. I earned this bit of self-esteem; I didn't have it foisted upon me by teachers eager to praise my every artistic, literary, or spoken turd. I clung to it like a life preserver, and in the end it did, indeed, save me.

***

Sometimes I worry that my son's childhood is too happy. I feel a little better after yesterday's brouhaha.

***

The fiction writer in me cringes. Show, don't tell, remember? But I can't show you, not while my parents are still alive and capable of reading my blog. Irrational as it may sound, my father's command to me in first grade still carries weight. I had blabbed to my first grade teacher. At our first open house, she asked my parents about the stories I'd told her. My dad denied everything, of course, but when he got me home, he laid down the law. Don't ever, ever talk about what happens in this house. So I can't show you. Some of these things you'll just have to take on faith. Besides -- when have I ever lied to you? But I'm still cringing. This is not effective writing.

***

I'm not here to whine about an unhappy childhood. In fact, my second choice title for today's post was, It's never too late to have an unhappy childhood. I never would have become who I am today if I hadn't been fueled by a ton of self-hatred. I couldn't continue being who I am and doing what I do if I didn't still have that hatred burning inside me, constantly requiring appeasement. My worst enemy is my best friend. And I am resolute in my belief that a groundless "high self-esteem" is a bad, bad thing. Tomorrow: Sociologists agree with me. D.

Letter to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

2006-01-29T10:16:00.000-08:00

(Feel free to use this yourselves. The DSCC's email addie is info@dscc.org. Now, I'm off to post this as a Kos diary. See ya later!) Dear Sirs, I am a registered Democrat, and my wife and I contributed heavily to the last Democratic Presidential campaign. In the 2006 election, we fully intend to contribute both time and money to help defeat the Republican majorities in Congress. However . . . It has become increasingly difficult to support a party that fails to show spine in opposing the Republicans and their imperial President. I am opposed to the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, because I feel he will push our country further from democracy, closer to fascism. Judge Alito has made clear his opinion regarding the unlimited range of Executive power. I feel that his opinions are discordant with my wishes and the wishes of a majority of my fellow citizens -- and even if most Americans wanted to be led down the path of fascism, I still don't think his confirmation would in any way be good for the country. It's the old, "If your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff too?" routine. I will not donate my money or time to a Party of Lemmings. Actually, lemmings are not that stupid. This is a myth, but it is also a useful metaphor. In reality, humans are this stupid. Let me be very clear: at this time, more than ever before, I expect to see leadership and resolve on the part of the Democratic Party. This may be the last chance we have to oppose an Imperial Presidency. Please, for the health of our democracy, get our Democratic Senators to vote to oppose cloture, and to support Senator Kerry's filibuster. Thank you. Douglas Hoffman

Is there a dog whisperer in the house?

2006-01-29T08:55:00.000-08:00

I had to share this with you. This morning, RaZen at YesButNoButYes brings us a video of a possessed dog. I think St. Francis needs a day or two a month, not just one day a year -- this dog needs to be blessed big time. You may not know this if you're sane, but dogs will acquire the psychopathology of their masters. I've seen it again and again. Mostly in my family. But I do have one family-safe story to tell regarding psycho canines. As some of you may recall, I volunteered at Napa State Mental Hospital for a few years, during my time at UC Berkeley. Napa had a halfway house on their grounds, a building that looked and functioned like a real home, nothing ward-y about it. Folks who were ready for the real world could spend a few weeks there, cooking in their own kitchen, using actual knives. The halfway house had a pet dog, one of those creatures that looks part poodle, part terrier, part chihuahua, and part Tasmanian devil, and this dog had a favorite pillow. After you've watched the possessed doggy video (linked above), imagine our runty little hero treating his pillow in just this manner. Just when you think he had given that pillow what-for, he would change tactics and hump the pillow. A minute or two of fruitless humping, and he'd back in full attack mode, snarling, biting, ravaging that poor pillow. I'd never met a dog with borderline personality disorder before, but I'm sure he had it.

***

For those of you who read my boogers blog, I've posted a long rant on ear wax. Just what you wanted with your Sunday coffee. D. PS: and this is partly a note-to-myself, so that I can find the links first thing Monday morning . . . Vichy Democrats has a one-stop resource in the fight against confirmation of Sam Alito: Senators' local phone numbers, fax numbers, email addies, web forms, plus where they stand on the cloture vote. Also, links to online petitions. For those of you wondering what all the fuss is about, Georgia at Kos says it better than I ever could. Many of us who oppose Alito do so because of his opinions regarding the powers of the Executive branch. In the context of the George W. Bush power grab, Alito is downright dangerous. This may be our best chance to block the Imperial Presidency, folks. Let your voice be heard, preferably over and over again. Tomorrow, I'll be getting up an hour early so that I can make lots of phone calls and send lots of faxes before my day begins. We can do this!

Oy, what am I doing wrong?

2006-01-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

Here's what happened: One of Jake's pet millipedes died. He fusses over these critters to no end, spraying them once or twice a day with water, giving them bits of lettuce. He didn't seem too upset by the death, but he kept talking about it. He wanted to show his mom the dead millipede, and she refused, saying it was a yucky, dead, decaying millipede (based on Jake's description of brown stuff oozing out of its body). Jake got insulted and demanded an apology. Karen wouldn't apologize. Meanwhile, he was supposed to be reading his biology, and he kept turning the pages with his feet. Or something like that. I wasn't there, didn't see it happen. All I know is, I came upstairs, saw wrinkly pages in his nice new biology textbook, and said, "Um. You know, I wish you wouldn't mess up your new book." No anger. I didn't realize Karen had already said something to him about it. Next thing I know, we're in Tantrum Central. Then he kicks me in the shin. Now, I've almost never hit this kid. One little slap on the butt to get his attention (at about 18 months old), nothing since, and he's ten now. So I sent him to his room and told him if he DIDN'T get down to his room right away, no computer for a day. For three days. For a week. (I'm upping the ante because he's standing there, refusing to go downstairs.) I think he misunderstood me, because he thought he had to go to his room AND was getting booted off the computer. Next thing I know, he pops out of his room with his pillow, blanket, and flashlight. He leaves the house and begins running away. Slowly. My parenting skills are exhausted at this point. In the old days, you were supposed to just let the kid go, right? Let him have his temper tantrum and wander back sheepishly. But this isn't the old days, and besides, we live on a street where folks barrel down in their trucks at 50 MPH. Nevertheless, I had Karen come downstairs (her pelvis has mended well enough that she can get around with a cane, but still) so she could see Jake running away down the driveway in slow motion. "Go after him," she said. "Bring him back. I don't want him walking down the road." I met up with him at the entrance to the driveway. Another 'don't you think you're overreacting' speech, to no effect. He wouldn't come back. "I'll carry you back if I have to," I said, and he said, "You can try." I lifted him up and carried him back, with him kicking me in the shins as hard as he could all the way. We put him in his room and left him there. That was about an hour ago. Karen's thinking we should punish him extra (for all the shin-kicking): no computer, no TV. But I don't think we've seen the end of this insurrection. Look, folks. My parenting skills are for sh*t. As a kid, I didn't get much of an example, and neither did Karen for that matter. Dr. Phil me, people (tell me what to do). Thanks. D.

Support the Alito Filibuster

2006-01-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

Gilliard has coverage. Be warned: every Senate office number I called has the same message (this mailbox is full), so I had to resort to emailing as many Senators as I could. From Daily Kos, here is a great list of links to Senators' web forms. The main point to make, assuming this Senator is not your Senator: "My contributions of time and money to the DNC will depend on the outcome of the upcoming filibuster." Or words to that effect. Even if he or she is not your Senator, this message should still hit home. Update: here is the most recent action post from Daily Kos. We have 15 no votes for cloture -- up 3 votes from this morning. One easy thing you can do to help: sign the petition at SaveTheCourt.Org. D.

Your morning bwaahahahahaha

2006-01-28T08:56:00.000-08:00

The BEAST brings us the 50 Most Loathesome People in America of 2005, including a special punishment for each one. Warning: if you think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are great, wise, and wonderful human beings, stay away from this list. This BEAST article may be old news, but I just discovered it this morning, by -- how else? -- snooping around Technorati. My take? Michelle Malkin deserves to be much higher in the list than #49; Michael Brown and Scooter Libby got off too easy; Terry Schiavo -- cheap shot, not funny; most chilling entry: #4; person most conspicuously absent from the list: Tim Russert. I mean, really. They put Geraldo Rivera on the list, but not Russert? Rivera's a has-been. Okay, Hoffman, stop goofing off and get to work. D.

Fesenjan

2006-01-27T20:46:00.000-08:00

I've given you balls up to your ears; now, at long last, I shall deliver on my promise to give you walnuts. By necessity, I've learned how to cook ethnic. I can bake pita bread (since our grocery stores consider this too exotic), fix a mean baklava, do a delicious baba ganouj or hummus. My Chinese stir fries are passable, yet better than the local fare, and my Indian cuisine is excellent. One of our favorite dishes is leftover tandoori chicken stewed in a sauce of onions and cream. Tonight, I felt like doing something special with duck. Cassoulet takes days to prepare, and Peking duck at least a full day, so that meant either pan-seared duck breast or fesenjan. Karen opted for fesenjan. Ninety percent of the labor comes from boning the duck, so if you want to substitute boneless chicken thighs and breasts, be my guest. Fesenjan 1. Skin and bone the duck. (Use the carcass to make a quick stock, and render the fat from the skin. Fried duck skin is great all by itself, but it's also yummy on salads. Duck fat can be substituted for butter or olive oil for any savory dish. I use it to make chopped chicken liver.) Chop the meat into one-inch pieces and sprinkle the pieces with salt and freshly ground pepper. 2. Meanwhile, toast 2 cups of walnuts in the oven at 350F until, erm, toasty. Don't let 'em burn. Do let them cool, then grind them in a food processor. You want the mixture to be a little coarse. 3. In a heavy-bottomed pot (a Dutch oven works great), brown the duck meat in two or three tablespoons of butter. Set the browned meat aside in a glass bowl to catch the drippings. 4. Chop a large onion -- fine, coarse, doesn't really matter. Fry the onions in the leftover butter. If you'd like, add a teaspoon of cinnamon to the onions towards the end of the frying. You want the onions to be golden, or a little darker. 5. Add to the onions the duck and its drippings, the ground walnuts, about 1 cup of pomegranate paste, and 1 to 2 cups of stock. Start with one cup of stock, stir the ingredients, and add more stock until you get the desired consistency. (You know -- like stew!) Here's an online Persian Grocery that sells pomegranate paste and oh my heavens zereshk berries, too! Now I can make zereshk polo. 6. Add about 1 tablespoon of sugar, and adjust the salt to taste. Add more pomegranate paste if you'd like your stew a bit more sour, or (if you're like my wife) you just love pomegranate. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. 7. For tender meat, you want to brown the meat as quickly as possible, and then simmer as gently as possible. Remember, dark meat doesn't toughen up nearly as readily as white meat, so if you're using chicken, you may want to use nothing but thigh meat. 8. Serve over basmati rice. (Yes, that Persian Grocery sells basmati, too.) Best basmati rice: rinse a cup of rice, boil the rice in LOTS of salted water until it is not quite tender, then strain the rice. In a non-stick or heavy-bottomed pot, melt 2 to 4 tablespoons of butter. Layer the rice on top of the butter. Put the lid on the pot. Now, let the rice steam by keeping the pot over a very low heat for, I dunno, 15 to 30 minutes. It will be done long before 30 minutes, but that doesn't matter. If you do it right (and believe me, this is an art I still haven't quite mastered) you'll have a delicious golden brown crust of rice at the bottom of the pot. Any questions? D.

When Chihuahuas attack!

2006-01-27T16:47:00.000-08:00

First killer bees, now attack chihuahuas hungry for human flesh: The officer suffered minor injuries including bites to his ankle on Thursday when the five Chihuahuas escaped the 17-year-old boy's home and rushed the officer in the doorway, said Fremont detective Bill Veteran. Nor is this an isolated incident. According to this professional consultant who dresses his chihuahuas in camo gear, "Before they've had their morning coffee, attack Chihuahuas are not to be trifled with." Fortunately, for $44.95, you can warn neighbors and passersby that your attack Chihuahuas are on duty. So -- what do you think -- Worst? Photoshopping? Ever? More later. The Du Bist Deutschland campaign has given me ideas. D.

Will Gabriele or Darla . . .

2006-01-27T08:15:00.000-08:00

please come over here and tell me about the significance of Du Bist Deutschland and klowände? They are both top search terms at Technorati, but I can't find much of an explanation in English. I feel so out of the loop. D.

Late night variety pak

2006-01-26T22:39:00.000-08:00

It's late, I'm tired, and this is all ya get. Helen Wheels left one looooong response to my Sunday blog on the rise of fascism in America. I thought about reprinting it here, but it turns out Helen posted the more detailed version on her blog, yesterday. She quotes Lawrence W. Britt's article on fascism at length, to chilling effect. Here it is. Consider that a mighty shout.

***

Many thanks to Kate and her hubs for turning me on to Campbell & Reece Biology, Seventh Edition. Looks like this is going to be a great experience for my home schooler AND his dad. This beautiful textbook includes a CD with useful material (how rare is that?), and the online resources rock. Tests! They have tests! They sure know how to make home schooling easy. Jake dove into it with both feet. Right away, the book stimulated a useful discussion on embryogenesis, haploidy, diploidy, gastrulation, and neurulation. We had to backtrack a bit to talk about gametogenesis and fertilization, but I didn't mind. Damn it, if there's one thing I'm qualified to teach, it's biology. No, really, I have a PhD in this stuff (didn't know that, did ya?) I warmed to the discussion, eager to share my knowledge of meiosis and mitosis, spermatogenesis and seminal vesicles, ovulation and the menstrual cycle. Then, suitably enlightened, I guided Jake back towards the subjects of fertilization, implantation, and early embryonic development: initial cell divisions, morula (what the Germans call zellballen, IIRC), blastula, morula, gastrula, neurula, embyro. Me: Any questions? Jake: I still don't get how the sperm get up there. Me: Their tails spin round and round, like little motorboat propellers. They swim up there. Jake: But how do they get up there? Me: Well, during orgasm, muscular contractions in the uterus help draw the sperm upward. Jake: But how do they get up there? This clearly called for a visual aid. Moral of the story*: never take anything for granted. D. *That part of the story is false. Of course my ten-year-old already knows the basic mechanics of intercourse. He's my son, for heaven's sake. Moral of the story: never discount my willingness to pounce on a cheap visual joke.