Half Changed World

• I’m very pleased to see the last of Giuliani. The NY Times editorial anti-endorsement was harsh, but reflects the opinion of most New Yorkers.
• As recently as this week, I was getting emails from the Edwards campaign saying that he was in it until the convention.  He’s saying that there hasn’t been a change in Elizabeth Edwards’ health, so I wonder what made him drop out now.
• Given the rules of the Democratic primaries — with no winner-take-all primaries — I do still think it’s possible that we’re going to wind up heading into the convention with neither Clinton nor Obama having secured enough delegates to win.  It’s a lot less likely with Edwards out of the race, so maybe that’s why he dropped out.  It’s not like — even with a hung convention — the Democratic party could plausibly bypass the top two vote getters to select a white man as their nominee.  Not without riots.
• Kevin Drum thinks that McCain has a problem because the Republican base isn’t thrilled by him.  But the polls suggest that McCain has a edge on both Clinton and Obama, but Romney loses to either one. The polls don’t show it, but I think Clinton has to have a harder time against him than Obama, because she’ll motivate the Republican base to come out to vote against her.
• It’s going to be quite an election year here in the 11th District of Virginia, with open House and Senate seats, as well as the presidential election.

Via Lauren at Faux Real Tho, I read about this exercise in encouraging students to gain awareness of social class.  As transformed to a meme, it’s basically a somewhat more thoughtful version of the "spoiled" meme that we discussed here previously*.

As it’s designed by a professor, it doesn’t have most of the flaws that made the "spoiled" version so irritating (although as it’s aimed at college students, it does have some generation-specific questions that are irrelevant to anyone born before about 1980 (eg. having a cell phone in college)). I didn’t actually score myself on it, but it looks like there’s only a handful of questions that I’d say no to, and yes, I’m pretty comfortable saying that I’m pretty privileged, both materially and in terms of social capital.**

That said, it’s gotten a bunch of scathing responses (as well as some supportive ones).  The authors of the original exercise and other class educators seem to pretty much dismiss their critics as privileged people who want to claim all their success as the result of their hard work, and thus deny the role of privilege/luck in their accomplishments.  And I’m not going to dispute that the "bootstraps" story is one of the strands in the discussions.

But I think they’re being overly dismissive of the people who say that the quiz includes too many things that "everyone" has, or things that the truly rich don’t have, because they consider it declasse.  Another way of phrasing this criticism is that the scale is designed to distinguish between deep poverty and middle-class backgrounds, but does a lousy job of distinguishing between middle-class and upper-middle-class or rich backgrounds — going to Europe every summer doesn’t get you more points than having saved for years to go once; owning a McMansion in McLean doesn’t get you more points than owning a small house in Woodbridge.

And I think that’s important, because the big economic story of the past two or three decades hasn’t been about the poor falling further behind the middle class, but the rich pulling away from everyone else.  (I’m not going to look for links now, but Paul Krugman’s written extensively about this.)  And those rich are very visible, which makes middle-class people are very aware of the ways in which they’re not privileged.  So it’s not just denial that makes people protest this quiz.

Maybe in the academic context that it was originated, focusing on the privileges experienced by people who don’t think of themselves as privileged is useful. (I read an interesting article recently that argued that support services at community colleges designed to help low-income students nonetheless reinforce privilege, because the students who are most disadvantaged, especially in terms of social capital, don’t learn about them.)  But in a broader context, especially a political context, it’s a pretty lousy strategy to tell people who feel like they’re losing ground that they’re actually still incredibly privileged by comparison to others.  Even if it’s true.

* I’m reaching the stage when more and more often, I red these things and say "didn’t we have this conversation already?"  I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve been posting less.

** There’s another point I want to make about the distinction and overlap between these two types of privilege, but this is long enough, so I’ll save it for another day.

Note that we’re now on the second page of comments, so click the >> at the bottom of the page to read the most recent ones.  I don’t know how to override this Typepad setting.

In honor of the Roe v. Wade anniversary, I’m highlighting the Hyde- 30 Years is Enough campaign to lift the restrictions on Federal funding of abortion services to poor women who receive health insurance through Medicaid.  Here are some of the reasons I oppose the Hyde amendment restrictions:

• I believe that the ability to control one’s reproduction should not be limited on the basis of income.  NNAF says it better than I can:

"We call for full public funding of abortion as a
part of comprehensive health care for all, and support for low-income
women to care for their children with dignity.  We stand for
reproductive justice, a world in which all women have the power and
resources necessary to make healthy decisions about their bodies and
their families."

• One of the main effects of the Hyde restrictions is to push abortions from the first trimester into the second.  This increases the health risks to the woman, raises the cost of the procedure, and pushes closer to the viability line.

• The logic of the Hyde amendment — and the related laws that prohibit coverage of abortion for federal employers, military personnel, and their dependents — is fundamentally flawed.  Supporters argue that even though abortion is legal, people should be able to avoid having their tax dollars support something that they consider immoral.  Well, I can think of a number of things that my tax dollars support that I consider immoral, and I don’t get to opt out. 

If you’re not poor, a federal employee, or a member of the armed services, these bans don’t affect you.  Now.  But if you hope to someday be covered by a public health insurance system, you should be paying attention.

It looks like Congressional leaders and the President are going to be meeting today to hammer out an agreement on the outlines of an economic stimulus package.  If you can possibly send an email or make a call to your representative and Senator this morning, and emphasize that any tax rebate should include everyone who pays payroll taxes, not just those who owe federal income tax, it could make a big difference.

Most people’s eyes glaze over when they start to read about the details of the stimulus proposals, so let me try to explain what’s going on and why it matters.

The key thing to understand is that this is a case where making sure that the rebate reaches low-income families is both the efficient and the just thing to do.  Liberals spend a lot of time arguing about the value of justice when it conflicts with efficiency, but there’s no conflict here, and this point isn’t getting enough attention.

• Efficiency:  If people get their rebate checks and stick them in the bank, this doesn’t actually stimulate the economy.  It only makes a difference when people spend their money, putting more money into the pocket of the people they’re buying from, and so on and so forth.  (This is in fact the argument behind Bush’s much maligned response to 9/11, encouraging people to go out and shop…)  And economists overwhelmingly agree that low-income people are more likely to go out and spend the additional money, because they’re more likely to have urgent unmet needs.  Upper-income people are more likely to stick the money in the bank.  All the news stories use a big screen TV as the example of what people might buy with the rebate, but upper income people are more likely to already have a big TV.  And especially if they think a recession is coming, it makes sense to build up a bit of a cushion.  (The CBO report is also unequivocal that business tax credits are inefficient stimulus, but the Dems seem to have already folded on that front.)
• Justice: You can make reasonable moral arguments that it makes sense to spread this windfall payment out equally among everyone in the US, or that it makes sense to give more to those who are most in need.  But what the Bush proposal would do is give less to those who are most in need and most to those who don’t need it.  Their claim is that they’re giving it to "everyone who pays taxes" but that’s a lie.  They want to only include people who pay federal income taxes, which totally excludes a huge chunk of low-income families — who do pay payroll taxes (for Medicare and Social Security), sales taxes, etc.  Moreover, families who are in the 10 percent bracket would only get a partial credit.

This should be a no-brainer.  But the Administration is proving once again that it places knee-jerk opposition to progressive taxation over common sense, and the Democrats in Congress haven’t consistently shown the backbone needed to stand up.  So call in this morning and demand a stimulus package that is both just and efficient.

Updated 1/24/2008:  Bush, Pelosi and Boehner announced their agreement today.  The good news is that at least a partial rebate — $300 — will go to anyone who earned at least $3000 (unclear what the reference year is, or the phase-in range, or any of that).  The bad news is that as part of the compromise, the House Democrats both accepted business tax credits that none of the economists think will do any good and gave in on demands for extended unemployment insurance and a temporary increase in food stamp benefits.  On the Senate side, the Dems are at least making noises about holding the line on including an extension of unemployment benefits.  So if you’re just reading this, and are inclined to make some calls, that’s probably the issue to focus on.

At dinner tonight, I asked D if he knew why we were celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday.  He said that King was famous, and that he worked so that blacks and whites could both do things equally.  Fair enough for a first grader.

Last year, D’s class was almost entirely African-American, with one other white kid.  This year, at a different school, his classmates are more diverse, with a majority Hispanic, but a scattering of white, black, and Asian kids.  He considers almost all of his classmates his friends, with Pokemon the main unifying interest. When he draws a generic person, he reaches for the brown crayons.

But we’re not living in a non-racial utopia.  One day D came home sad because a classmate didn’t want to play with him, and he explained it as this boy only wanting to play with other kids with brown skins.  I didn’t know what to say. We’ve been trying to set up a playdate with another kid for months, but it hasn’t happened — I’m not sure whether it’s the language barrier, cultural issues, or just that family’s lack of interest. 

D’s invited about 8 of his classmates to his birthday party next week, and we haven’t heard back from most of them.  I’m afraid that my super-sensitive kid is going to be heartbroken if they don’t come.  And I’m concerned about what message he’s going to take away if it’s only white kids who wind up coming.

I don’t think it’s race per se that’s the barrier, but economic class and language may well be issues.  Some of the kids’ parents probably don’t own cars. Our house is only about half a mile from the bus stop, but the buses run very seldom on weekends.  Or non-fluent English speakers may feel awkward about calling us to RSVP.  We’re going to ask his teacher if we’re allowed to bring in cupcakes so he can celebrate with his friends in any case, but I’m still worried.  I’m probably overdoing it with the party preparations (a papermache pokeball pinata, a jigsaw puzzle with a secret message) to compensate.

This is a sponsored review, part of a MomCentral blog tour.

When I was asked if I would be interested in participating in a blog tour for some new Cranium games, I jumped at it, because we’ve enjoyed everything we’ve tried from them.  The Super Fort was N’s big Hanukah present this year, and Hullaballoo has been a mainstay of kids parties for several years. 

The games are part of their new "Cranium Bloom" line, which is aimed at preschoolers.   The boys were excited to see what was in the package that arrived, and hovered over as I opened it.  N loves to cook, so he immediately focused on the Let’s Play Count and Cook Game.  It’s a cute game, where by rolling a die, you find the ingredients needed to make different dishes.  Each round only takes a few minutes, and after I played it with the boys once, they understood the game well enough to play against each other without my help.

Things I liked about the game:

• Quick play is a big relief to any parent who has desperately tried to cheat to let their kid win chutes and ladders just to end the game.
• Everyone works together to find the ingredients, so it’s basically luck that determines the "winner."  So the 4 year old and the 7 year old can play together and both have a chance.
• The game has some good suggestions for how to build on the cooking theme.

Things I didn’t like about the game:

• Not particularly interesting for adults.  Probably inherent in a game for preschoolers.  For slightly older kids, I think Cranium’s Balloon Lagoon is more fun, because there are some activities (like launching the frogs into the pond) that are challenging for adults too. 
• The box only had pictures of girls and women.

The other game they sent was the Let’s Go to the Zoo Seek and Find Puzzle.  This is a puzzle with big pieces, that once assembled turns into a "can you find" game?  This was of more interest to D than to N, who likes very simple puzzles, but gets frustrated with harder ones easily.  So this got less play, but I still think it’s a nice idea. 
***

While I’m on the subject of games for young kids, I wanted to toss out the names of some others that we’ve enjoyed.  You really don’t have to torture yourself with Candyland:

• Hisss
• Zingo
• Catch the Match

The new Apple laptops sure are gorgeous.  I can’t justify a new laptop right now, but they’re sweet enough that I may finally make the jump over to the Mac world with my next computer. Of all the computers I’ve owned, I’ve never had a Mac, although my first computer was an Apple IIc.

In general, I don’t think of myself as an early adopter. I can (and do) ooh and ah over the iPhone, but my actual cell phone is about 4 years old, and running on pre-paid minutes from t-mobile — $100 buys you 1000 minutes, which lasts me for about a year.

But we did get a Wii the first day it went on sale. And we were early adopters of TiVo — although we got it because a friend
had bought it, and was then moving to Ireland, so he sold the machine
to us.

I think the distinction for me is whether a new gadget does something fundamentally new and different, or if it’s an improvement over something I already have.  If it’s the later, and what I have is working, I find it hard to justify forking over the money for the latest and greatest…

That said, our big family holiday gift this year was that we upgraded our tivo to
HD.  TiVo successfully hooked us by allowing people to transfer their lifetime plans to a new machine — but only for a limited period.  I feel manipulated, or something. 

So, are you an earlier adopter?  Or do you never pay attention to the hot new thing?  For everything, or only some things?  And if you’re selective, how do you decide?

T and I were astonished last summer to notice a "made in China" label on a bottle of bubble solution.  This is a statement about how mindbogglingly cheap international shipping is, given that even in the US, it can’t cost more than pennies to make a plastic bottle, put a label on it, and fill it with water and soap.

Given that, how on earth is an American manufacturer supposed to compete?  I want to talk about the couch that we just bought, because it offers one answer to that question.

The couch is made by Carolina Chair.  This is a small, family-run company.  (Seriously, when I asked Cathy in customer service what something would cost, she said "let me ask my brother and get back to you.") They’re surviving in the era of globalization by:

• making a high quality product
• cutting out the middleman — they only sell direct to customers
• cutting out inventory — every piece is custom made, and they don’t start making it until you place your order.
• providing incredible customer service — truly friendly and helpful — they even emailed us a photo of our couch in their manufacturing plant. 

I found them via googling for a love seat/chaise combo because the ones we were looking at from Pottery Barn were really just a bit too big to fit in our living room.  When I emailed them, they were quite happy to make one just the right size for us, in the fabric of our choice.  (Ours is the 3rd one down on this page.  Yes, it’s very red.)  It made me a little nervous to order something like a couch online, but this Wall Street Journal article reassured me.  So we went ahead, feeling good about supporting an American company.

And we’re really happy with the couch.

It’s been a while since I did a Tuesday book review, and I realized that I never commented on the Daring Book for Girls.  It’s a nice book, with a mixture of traditional girls’ activities (double dutch, cats cradle, slumber parties), not so traditional activities (karate, campfires), practical skills (first aid, changing a tire, basic money management) and straight-up feminism (bios of women scientists and spies and a bunch of queens).  If I had a daughter, I’d give it to her with much less reservation than I have in giving my sons the companion Dangerous book.

In fact, I mostly left the Daring book wishing that Miriam and Andi had gotten to do the book for boys as well as for girls.  Fundamentally, if the Daring book is a throwback to the 70s, the Dangerous book is a throwback much further, perhaps to Teddy Roosevelt’s youth.  And it seems a lot more useful for my sons to know how to change a tire or balance a checkbook than to make their own bow and arrows.

Blogging while I watch the election results come in from New Hampshire.  Clinton’s still leading Obama with a bit under 1/3 of the results in so far.  If she wins, it will be really interesting to see the analyses of why the polling over the last few days was so far off.

The Steinem piece on Hillary has been getting a lot of play today.  I think she’s completely right that Hillary has been the object of a great deal of sexism — from the constant refrain that she’s "shrill" and "strident" to the obsession with her appearance and the damned if you do, damned if you don’t coverage of her emotions.

That said, I do think the campaign has highlighted the degree to which
sexism continues to permeate the environment, at a time when overt
racism has become clearly unacceptable, at least in high-level
politics.  Obama’s been the subject of some nasty anti-Muslim comments
(even though he’s Christian), but other than the people who keep
calling him "articulate",* there’s been very little racism in the
campaign so far.  (But I still think racism probably does more to hold
people back on the US overall than sexism.  Some other day, I need to
blog about the Pew findings on race, gender and intergenerational
mobility)

[CNN just said that their exit polling is showing more support for Clinton from women in NH than they saw in IA.  If so, I think that may well be driven by the blatant sexism of the news coverage of the past few days — from the headlines, I thought that she had burst into tears and been unable to continue, rather than having a hitch in her voice.]

But I think Steinem’s overstating the degree to which sexism is driving the results so far, as opposed to people’s real enthusiasm for Obama.  Yes, it’s improbable that a woman with Obama’s bio could be a serious candidate for president. But it’s also totally improbably that he’s a serious candidate for president.  And it’s not fair, but that’s part of his appeal.

I also think that when Steinem includes "powerful fathers" along with "sex, race, money.. and paper degrees" in the things that shouldn’t be driving our choices, it’s more than a bit disingenuous for her not to include "famous husbands" in the litany.

*  "Articulate" is a compliment when you’re talking about a teenager, or someone you’re interviewing for their first job.  When applied to an adult who has been elected to political office, it’s either damning with faint praise or code for "he doesn’t sound black."

[AP and CNN are calling New Hampshire for Clinton.  Judging by my disappointment, I’m officially off the fence.]