A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep

I've fantasized for a long time about the class on critical thinking that I would teach if I was ever given the opportunity. (I also fantasize about what I would do with the winnings from lotteries I never play and where I would go if I could time travel, but I digress.) We live in a world where there are powerful forces (e.g. Big Tobacco, Big Oil) with millions of dollars to spend sowing doubt about the scientific consensus on smoking, climate change, and more. We live in a world of self-styled experts who have discovered there are millions of dollars to be made from peddling conspiracy theories about vaccines, GMOs, the 9/11 attacks, and more.  A number of years ago I watched the 1999 Errol Morris documentary "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." and knew immediately how I would use it to talk about the limitations of forming an opinion without knowledge or expertise. First, I would show my fictional class these three clips to provide the necess

I’ve been asked what I think is going to happen in the House now that Kevin McCarthy has pulled out of the running for speaker. The answer is... complicated. But first… If you haven’t been following the tumult in the U.S. House of Representatives with a bowl of popcorn and an ear-to-ear schadenfreude grin… well, let’s just say you don’t live in our home. Here’s the thirty-second recap:  In late September current House Speaker John Boehner was facing a likely coup attempt and an imminent government shutdown unless he caved to the demands of ~40 whackjobs to "defund" Planned Parenthood. As a devout Catholic, he had also just fulfilled his lifelong dream of bringing the pope to speak to a joint session of Congress. So, with little warning even to his closest allies, he announced that he would bring a “clean” short-tern funding bill (i.e. one free of partisan non-starters such as the defund language) up for a vote to prevent a government shutdown. Then he would step

This article is so interesting to me, and seems to touch on so many different aspects of our current culture, both secular and non. I have no objection to cosmetic surgery. I've had both lasik eye surgery and liposuction over the years -- the former an equal measure of laziness and vanity, the latter pure vanity. I'd hated that little spare tire since I was 6 years old and so one day I had it delightfully sucked right out of me! But the stories over the years about the enormous amount of plastic surgery -- particularly breast augmentations -- performed in Utah have been eye-catching (not the least of which because the Church frowns so heavily on other much-less-invasive violations of the body-is-a-temple principle, like tattoos and multiple ear-piercings in an earlobe). When we were still friends, the husband of my old roommate continually pushed her to get a 'boob job' because everyone else in their ward had gotten one and he wanted her to have bigger breasts.

My husband says I’m a contrarian who disagrees just to disagree. To which I say, “No, I’m not. You’re wrong!” A friend shared this blog column on Facebook and I basically disagreed with every word. First and foremost — and viscerally — I disagree with policing what other people post on Facebook and shaming them for failing to follow someone else’s arbitrary standard. It’s an authoritarian impulse that I understand — dear Lord if I could prevent all sports-related posts, I would! I would! — but let's call it what it is and not cloak it in some kind of moral high ground. We can have our personal pet peeves without dressing them up as proof of society's decline.   And to be clear, these are arbitrary standards we're talking about. I’ve written before about the social media conundrum that if you only post positive things about your life and happy-smiling pictures, you’re criticized for image-branding. But if you post honest comments about depression or divo

Nobody uses Facebook anymore. Hello! Two teenagers tried to explain Snapchat to me this week. It turns out it's not just for sexting . It's for sexting AND sending your friends pictures that aren't worthy of being kept. Frankly, that sounds even worse. I enjoy Facebook's feed of baby pictures and trip updates, but if you're going to interrupt my day with a picture I can only view for 10 seconds, at least make it worth my while and show some leg. Lord knows I don't need to keep up with what you're eating for lunch today. But I digress. My chief question at the end of the lesson was, "But how do you post articles and essays and have conversations about philosophical questions that are interesting to you but don't involve pictures?" The answer is, you don't. Apparently teenagers are not that big into sharing news articles. What. Ever. On that note, here's an interesting Atlantic article I stumbled across while looking up Cory Booker

1- In May, the Senate passed TAA+TPA as one package and with only 3 votes to spare on cloture (5 Republicans voted no).  TAA is Trade Adjustment Assistance, aid for workers displaced by trade. TPA is Trade Promotion Authority, fast track authority that 1- allows the president to negotiate international trade agreements over the next 6 years with only symbolic input from Congress and 2- guarantees the president an up-or-down vote -- no amendments -- on any agreement presented by him/her to Congress (hence why it's called "fast track").  2- Most of the 14 Senate Democrats who supported the package made clear that their support was contingent on inclusion of TAA.  3- Further, some Senate Democrats (e.g. Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray) voted for the package because Mitch McConnell promised them an imminent vote to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank (a different trade issue), whose charter expires at the end of this month. Having gotten their votes on the trade bills, McCo

I almost always enjoy finding out that someone reads my posts. We are social creatures and it's not enough to just call out into the darkness; part of the pleasure comes in knowing someone out there has understood and answered back. I write about my experiences with anxiety and mental health care -- including medication -- because I am living them. But also because I believe strongly that we can't de-stigmatize mental health issues if no one who has them is ever willing to out herself.  I write about my experiences as a parent -- and a child. I write about my experiences with race, gender, economic class, status, religion, hierarchy, and social norms because it is only through thinking and writing about the world that I ever understand even a small slice of it -- and my relationship to it. I write about politics and policy because these are the intellectual pursuits that fire me. If there's one moment to sum up my adult life it's of my 21-year-old self wandering