A Sunday evening quiz

Q: What happens when you set your internal alarm to 6pm (central time) thinking that this is when the Awards are aired and find yourself staring at Barbara Walters instead?
A: I turn beet red, turn off the TV and go back to blogging.

Q: What does it say about a 'scholar' who chooses to watch the Awards but neglects the political debate between democratic candidates earlier that day?
A: That she was busy earlier maybe doing her work so that she could take the time to do something frivolous in the evening?

Q: Is plunging live lobsters into a pot of boiling water a humane act ending lobster misery, or an act of sheer barbarian monstrosity?
A: Somewhere in between, but I hate doing it and offer prayers of remorse even though I am not exactly religious.

Q: Is it okay to watch something so inane as Barbara Walters interviewing DK of NY?
A: No, but I’m itching to do it, so the post ends here.

Is it me or you?

A wonderfully loyal reader and friend from Poland today admitted that sometimes my text runs completely into terrain that muddles and befuddles her. I just want to publicly reassure her that this isn’t at all due to her (or anyone’s) knowledge of English of Americanisms. It muddles and befuddles most readers I am sure. In fact, I just took an informal poll and the results are clear: I write spontaneously, oddly, inconsistently on topics that range from odd to odder (why DID I blog about my ancient truck, excuse me, van?). In my moment of complete humility and deep appreciation – thank you all for sticking by me in this project.

Sunday chat

I am recording the following conversation between a reader (r) and myself (n):

r: I have known you all these years and I never knew you owned a truck [referring to post from February 28]

n: Yes, you do know! Don’t you remember the time you needed a ride to Noah’s Ark where the water animals play?

r: You have never given me a ride in a truck. Well, once, you helped me move in a U-Haul truck, but that is it. And where do you keep the truck? Does it fit in your garage? Is it a pick-up? Like one of those Chevy pick-ups that they write songs about?

n: Of course not, it’s just a gray number, with a cracked headlight from the day you borrowed it and decided that you would fit it into a tight parking place at Border’s but couldn’t.

r: That is not a truck! It is nowhere near a truck! You are misleading your readership.

n: Listen, where I come from, a vehicle that is five times as big as you need or want it to be is a truck. A car is a little number that you zip through narrow passageways. This is a monster vehicle therefore, in my eyes, it is a truck. (sigh) People here can be so literal…

Taxes and legacy admissions

The NYT Magazine has an article today that tracks the debate about whether universities should abandon the “legacy advantage” in their admissions policies. The author notes that affirmative action has become the “political punching bag of the right” while legacy admissions – a significantly less important factor in admissions, but a factor nonetheless – has become the “political punching bag of the left.” The article concludes that neither affirmative action nor legacy status are going to go away anytime soon.

Oh, I know the time has come to cast away legacies – a relic of an aristocratic past, I know… For me, however, legacy status has a fundamental similarity to taxes. How so? Well, I am big on taxes. I only don’t like them in practice because they take a chunk out of the paycheck. But I believe in them, I don’t try to avoid paying them, and I think it is right that I should pay more if my income goes up (which it wont – see post on February 27). The devil within, however, gets happy when there is a rebate check in the mail. I do not send it back to the IRS with a note saying – here, the government needs this more than I do. I deposit it in the bank and think happy thoughts about next year’s vacation.

I feel the same way about legacy admissions: I agree that they are inherently unfair. Being in a household full of first generation college (to say nothing of post-college) grads, I certainly can say that I reaped no legacy benefit, and that offspring of this household reaped no benefit either, given their own educational choices. So of course, I am a wee bit wistful: when the first-time reapers, the yet-to-be-born grandchildren can finally lay claim to that privilege –pfffft! away it flies. I know, I know –and so it should. But darn it, can we wait just one more generation before we get rid of it? No no, I didn’t mean it. I like taxes, I don’t like legacies. Final answer.

Blog posts well taken

I want to mention two blog posts that were as interesting as anything I might cite to in the press:
The first is Tonya’s (here), where she states her belief that film stars rarely transit successfully into the music world. I balked when I read that. [Though I do think that her other comments about the incongruity of upper-east-side NY women rapping are well-taken; I’m not sure that I agree in principle, but I do see that it is an awkward genre to push yourself into if you haven’t any identification with the life milieu that gave birth to this type of music.] Surely that can’t be right? Oh yes it is: there ARE more singers that move successfully into acting than there are actresses/actors who then pick up a singing career. I can think of a million that have gone the route of singing-to-acting and I cannot think of any moving in the other direction with great success. A friend pointed me to Lena Horn, since she really became initially famous for her movies and only later did her singing career take off. Oh, and I suppose one could mention Jim Nabors – how about that, I now have all of TWO! But why is it almost impossible to go further with this list?

The other post that made me dig into my limited storage chest of counter examples was Ann’s (here) where she reflected that most politicians tout the careers of their fathers and rarely showcase the humble work of their mothers. Of course, there is a small group out there (Clinton comes to mind) without identifiable fathers, and in those cases humble moms make the cut. But the point can be taken out of the political context as well. I have a number of colleagues who paint a picture of their upward mobility by referencing their dad’s work, by-passing their equally blue-collar employed moms. Here, the reasons aren’t so mysterious, but the general phenomenon is fascinating nonetheless, in that, absent some element of fame associated with our mothers, we almost always rush to describe the work of our fathers, and sometimes by-pass entirely the achievements or under-achievements of our mothers. If you don’t buy this, try in your imagination to start the description in the other direction – “my mother was…. “ and then after a pause “… oh, and my father was…” Awkward, and rarely done.