A couple of fun interviews I did last month have now surfaced online. KRUU-FM is a non-profit radio station in Fairfield, Iowa, that runs a food show called “Great Taste.” Here‘s my guest appearance. Usually I don’t mind doing radio interviews from home, but I would really have liked to be in the studio where that fried cheese was being prepared.

And here is an interview I did for a woman who writes for military newspapers and publications, on the topic of “bad compliments.” What a great idea for an article, eh? It’s a good one, too.

What’s the most awkward/backhanded compliment you’ve ever received?

And again, from the Globe, an op-ed on renting versus homeowning by Nicolas Retsinas, the director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. Among his other arguments, Mr. Retsinas states:

Although the pitfalls of homeownership are clearly visible, there are advantages (some real, some only perceived) of homeownership. Homeownership gives the person a genuine stake, physical as well as psychic, in a neighborhood. Because homeowners are not so mobile, people form stronger ties with neighbors.

Overall, I am sure he is correct, and anyone who has lived in mostly renter-occupied neighborhoods (I’m thinking of my first two years of grad school, living in the Allston student ghetto) knows what it’s like when the majority of residents feel no accountability to their property or neighbors. And I must admit that, as a social scientist myself, it can be very annoying when you tell someone about an overall statistical trend and they immediately start spewing out the two or three exception to that finding that they personally know about.

But since I’m not at a cocktail party with Mr. Retsinas, but rather here in the comfort of my own blog, I’m going to do exactly that.

Mr. Improbable and I are renters in part because we are committed to our community: a community that we can’t afford to own property in. We probably have enough money to get our own place if we were willing to move 45 minutes or so out of town, but our connections to Harvard run broad and deep–it’s where I work, it’s where we put on the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony (tickets for which are available now!), it’s where we’ve met many of our friends and colleagues. And, of course, we have our pizza guy and the great coffee shop on the corner that doesn’t have wifi, so you can actually get some damn writing done instead of noodling around on Facebook for hours, and Milo’s doggie friends, and all of that.

We love our neighborhood, and we can only live in it if we rent.

I wonder if that’s true of other people in some of the area’s high-priced real-estate markets, as well?

The Globe reports on the increased use of cochlear implants in children under three. Medical stories don’t tend to grab me, but identity, communication, and politics do, and there are serious ramifications to “fixing” deaf children at such an early age:

Before implants, deaf children learned American Sign Language or lip reading. Most fared well, although many could not speak. Like the De Laras, however, many families whose children receive implants today are dissuaded from learning sign language, a trend that will bear repercussions for the entire deaf community and that some specialists fear is a mistake.

Tyler’s generation, hearing specialists say, will redefine what it means to be deaf.

“I describe it as a revolution,’’ Schorr says. “It’s close to a miracle, what this technology has made possible.’’

I’m not so sure the Deaf community would define it as a “miracle,” although “revolution” they would certainly agree with. “Deaf” with a capital D is used not to define a physical condition, but a culture, a culture based to great extent around American Sign Language and the constraints and opportunities it affords. The “Deaf culture” view of deafness is contrasted with the “pathological” view of deafness, i.e., the view that being deaf is a disability and nothing more. (One can find both hearing and deaf individuals in both camps. For a good overview of Deaf culture, including some basic etiquette tips for hearing folks, go here. For a thoughtful argument for the pathological view, go here.) If cochlear implants are used at such an early age, the hearing parents of deaf children may, understandably, have little motivation to learn ASL or have it taught to their children. Without the next generation of signers, what will happen to Deaf culture?

I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve met the writer, and if you are interested in cochlear implants–or science fiction!–check out Michael Chorost’s Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human. Michael was hard of hearing from early childhood, received cochlear implants in his 30s when he went completely deaf, and is enough of a scientific and literary geek (in the best sense!) to have truly made the most of becoming a cyborg. (He is also an attractive man who bears some resemblance to Brent Spiner, the actor who played Data on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and we both agreed that it was a shame that Mr. Spiner would be too old to play him, should a film ever be made of Michael’s life. Who better to play a cyborg than the actor best known for playing an android?) His speech at Gallaudet University is a must-read.

My book got a nice review in the Globe yesterday! Thanks to the ConductMom for spotting it. Who needs Google Alerts when you have a proud mother?

… is online here.

“Mad Men” starts this weekend, and I can’t wait. I may have to, of course, at least until it shows up on iTunes, because Mr. Improbable and I don’t have cable. But I think you can get it on iTunes 24 hours after it airs. In the meantime, here‘s a good article in Vanity Fair to whet your appetite–and a “Which Mad Man Are You?” quiz. Look who I got!

… well, I do have ideas. They got that part right. (Actually, unlike a lot of viewers, I don’t hate Peter Campbell. I think there is a possibility of redemption in him–and he is a hard worker, with good ideas. My prediction is that whatever happens to his character this season, his realization that he fell in love with a plain-looking, working-class Catholic girl on the basis of her brains, wit, and ambition will fundamentally change him as a person. Also, my ex-boyfriend is distantly related to Vincent Kartheiser. Is that a weird #lameclaimtofame or what?)

I never did enter the contest to win a walk-on role. I saw some of the entries and mine was nowhere near as well done, and I didn’t have time to do another photo shoot. Kind of a shame, as I have several good vintage or vintage-look dresses, including one Little Black Dress that is cut exactly like the one I chose for my avatar. (It seems that about half my Facebook friends have “Mad Men” avatars as their profile pictures. It is to spring ’09 what Shepard Fairey-izing yourself was to fall ’08.)

For your amusement, here’s the photo I did take:

Not bad, but it’s not great. The book is bigger than my face, and my hands, which are 1) not my best feature and 2) not manicured in a 60s style, are too prominent. (Also, I just noticed, it looks as though my left breast is about six inches higher than my right one, which–peeking down shirt to check–no, it isn’t.) All in all, if that was the best I could do, there didn’t seem to be much point to entering.

But you remember yesterday, how I said Milo had the total early-60′s look? Seriously, check out little Doggie Draper:

Exact same facial expression. Exact. Although that is not the expression Milo would have on his face if his chair were slowly filling with water, I tell you what.

Comments open for all “Mad Men” fans! Don’t worry about spoilers–if I don’t want to see them, I won’t look.

I love you guys.

No, I’m not drunk, thanks for asking. It’s six in the morning, for heaven’s sake!

But I’m really enjoying this blog, and I thought I would tell you.

Someday, I hope my blog makes it big, and I can get money from advertisers, and win awards, and all that. Right now I’m not even looking at the stats. I know I don’t have that many readers yet. And I want that to change.

But still … the blog will also change if and when that happens. I’ll have to moderate more aggressively, and the tone will become more general. Right now, you’re all regulars, and we have our little in-jokes about Spock and the Golden Rod Rainbow Stripe Shawl Sweater Shrug Cardigan, and I read the comments because they are fun and insightful, not because I have to wade in and play disciplinarian.

I want this blog to be a big success. But do you know what it feels like, right now?

It feels like when you’re going to throw a big party, and you ask a couple of friends to come early to help you set up. And you’re all sitting there, in your party clothes, with the food all laid out, waiting for the greater horde of guests to arrive. And wondering who will come, and grabbing a couple of pretzels, and having the kinds of in-depth conversations and private jokes that you won’t be able to once the party starts. You’re hanging out, enjoying not having to worry about who might be drinking too much, or who might be feeling left out, or who might be starting a political argument that could get nasty.

Waiting for the real party to begin, and thinking, at the same time, that maybe the real party is now.

Thank you for helping set up my party. Thank you for letting me just be a friend for a while, before I have to play hostess.

This article in the New York Times tackles an issue of burning social import: do dogs and their owners look alike?

The research, apparently, is as mixed as the heritage of the beloved Milo. Milo is an exceedingly good-looking little fellow, and my immediate reaction upon seeing the headline “Some Dogs Look Like Their Owners” was, “I wish!” My brains and Milo’s looks and general adorability would be a potent combination indeed. And there would have been no question of me winning that “Mad Men” contest, either: Milo is the epitome of sleek, understated early-60s design. Peep this handsome little man:

Does your dog (or cat) look like you?

More interestingly, do you see your dog or cat as being similar to you in personality or life story?

Milo’s black-on-white spots aren’t the only thing he has in common with a Rorschach test. As I wrote on his first Gotcha Day, “I know you grew up in a suburban backyard, without many friends, and that once you were old enough you got bored and lit out for something more. I could identify …” I also identify with Milo’s hatred of the heat, his neuroticism, his distrust of strangers, his love of Greek yogurt and olive oil, and his fastidious grooming.* Mr. Improbable, if asked to describe some of his favorite things about Milo, would probably note his boundless energy, his curiosity, his athleticism, his friendliness, and his love of being laughed at.

I don’t think this is accidental.

Research** suggests that people do see their pets as being similar to themselves in personality, and that the more similar you think you and your pet are, the more you like your pet, and the more you think your pet is better than other pets. (This would explain the wholly objective observation that Milo is, in fact, the Best Dog in the World.)

What about you? Do you think your pet resembles you, either physically or psychologically? How do you feel about that? Do you identify with your pet’s positive or negative qualities, or both? (I listed all positive ones for Mr. Improbable, but I’m sure he sees some of his own flaws in the little guy as well.)

*I generally take a lot of care with my appearance, but before any major event my beauty preparations really ramp up. You can imagine what having my first book come out, and “Today Show” appearances and all that, did to me. I–being, as noted, somewhat neurotic–tortured myself over this for a while. Was I betraying my principles? Or was I making a rational decision to invest in my appearance as a career asset? Were the pedicures and retinol and facials an expression of self-love or self-hatred? Then it occurred to me: when I get nervous, I groom myself. I am not the only animal that does this. There didn’t seem to be any need to pathologize or politicize it nearly as much as I was.

**El-Alayli, A., Lystad, A.L., Webb, S.R., Hollingsworth, S.L. & Ciolli, J.L. (2006). Reigning Cats and Dogs: A Pet-Enhancement Bias and Its Link to Pet Attachment, Pet–Self Similarity. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 28 (2) 131-143.

Baby Boomer though he is, Mr. Improbable very quickly figured out exactly how upset I was at the unexpected news of John Hughes’s death, and knew that the right answer when I peeked my tear-streaked face into the room where he was reading and said, “Can we rent ‘The Breakfast Club’ tonight” was “Good idea!”

I was worried that he wouldn’t like it. I was worried that I wouldn’t like it. I hadn’t seen it since it came out in 1985, my senior year, and, well, when a movie like that comes out in your senior year, you can hardly be objective at the time, can you? And we have had our generational differences, in terms of humor and movies before. (All right, I’ll tell you, but I don’t care what you say, he’s a wonderful husband and I’m not leaving him: Mr. Improbable does not think “Spinal Tap” is funny. I know, I know. I don’t get it either.)

About five minutes in, he was nodding his head and saying, “This isn’t so different from when I was in school” and when they all started whistling the theme from “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” he burst out laughing and said, “This is a good movie!”

I was so relieved.

A few things that struck me, on what is almost the film’s 25th anniversary:

Anthony Michael Hall has a gun in his locker and they give him Saturday detention?! Wow. How pre-Columbine. That, I think, more than anything, dates the film. (And the similar issues about lack of security, smoke alarms, etc. in the school.)

I don’t think Judd Nelson’s character would be played quite as homophobic today. Would an angry, abused, working-class kid like John Bender probably be homophobic, assuming he weren’t gay himself? Probably. But John Bender is the least real of all the characters. He’s a wish-fulfillment archetype, the bad boy with the sensitive insides and remarkable verbal dexterity. The character everyone wants to either be or do. And I don’t think, if you were making such a perfect sensitive criminal today, that you’d make him a verbal gay-basher. It’s nice to think we’ve made some progress.

There would, however, probably be just as much slut-shaming and rape innuendos if the movie were made today. Along with a whiny rant from the Anthony Michael Hall character about how “nice guys” can’t get a date. I wonder if we’ve made quite as much progress in that regard. (Here‘s a good take on John Hughes’s sexual and class politics.)

Speaking of Anthony Michael Hall, about halfway through the movie, Mr. Improbable said, “He’s Milo.” He is so right. You don’t have to know Milo personally to get this: just imagine the sneaky, sideways moves of a submissive but mistrustful dog. Some actors do get inspiration from animals’ body language, and I wonder if Mr. Hall figured out some of his physical work from watching a dog like Milo, the kind of dog who will rarely fight for his rights but will always look out for his interests. In the dog park, keeping an eye out for the bigger dogs, or trying to abscond with a bit of forbidden food. (I mentioned this to a friend of mine who knows and loves Milo well, and she snorted and replied tartly, “Well, that’s what high school is–a big, badly supervised dog park.”)

I had the hugest crush on Judd Nelson as John Bender in high school–hey, there’s no shame in admitting that–but he really did have the weirdest face ever at that age. There was absolutely nothing about him that looked like a young man. All of his features were either those of a pretty girl, or an old Jewish zayde. But on him, it looked good.

I recall hating the Emilio Estevez/Ally Sheedy hookup when I was a teenager, but it works for me now: the compulsive conformist and the compulsive non-conformist, neither acting out of any sense of authenticity, neither making real choices. Maybe they’ll give each other strength. She needs the confidence to know she can play by the rules of “normal” when she chooses. He needs the confidence to know he doesn’t have to unless he wants to. Plus, this bit:

Allison: He can’t think for himself.
Andrew: She’s right.

… is a masterpiece of timing and brevity. They don’t seem like strangers in that moment, but like a long-married couple that has the comedy routines–and a deep awareness of how the relationship itself transcends those routines–down to an art and science.

I suspect my own high school neuroses played into my underestimation of both the character of Andrew and the superb job by Emilio Estevez. (Ya think?) Wow, he was good. Has Mr. Estevez done anything comparable since then? A look at IMDB doesn’t make me optimistic (though it reminds me I do need to rent “Repo Man.”) What happened?

Oh, and another “times have changed” moment–Andrew’s shamed, straightforward acknowledgement that taping another, very hairy, boy’s butt together is torture, when our government and major newspapers seem to have a difficult time being similarly honest about waterboarding.

And speaking of IMDB–this may be corrected by the time the post goes up, but when I wrote this they had listed Judd Nelson as Andrew and Emilio Estevez as John. Which was exactly the same mistake I’d made when I first saw it. Because, you know, John was all swarthy and stuff. But 1) I didn’t exactly grow up in the kind of hotbed of diversity that would lead me to grasp that people with Latino names may also sport blond hair, and 2) the damn movie’s been out for 25 years! What’s your excuse, IMDB?

Mr. Improbable kept mentioning that he wanted the principal to be more of a real character, and I kept disagreeing, because I’d forgotten the scene between the principal and the janitor. “Now this is the thought that wakes me up in the middle of the night. That when I get older, these kids are going to take care of me.” “I wouldn’t count on it.” Wow. Yes, maybe the adults should have gotten a little more screen time.

Or maybe I just think that because I am one now.

In 2007, the Oxford English Dictionary dubbed “locavore” the word of the year:

The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation.

(This is a quote from the Oxford University Press blog; the online 3rd edition of the OED that Harvard has still hasn’t included the term, so I can’t give you their precise definition.)

I got another one for you, that I coined this weekend during a discussion with a friend: mediocrevore. Definition: A person who wants to eat local, organic food that is produced sustainably and without abusing farm workers, but about half the time is too busy and lazy and just grabs whatever is inexpensive and/or convenient.

I think this has the potential to really take off! Please feel free to use it and tell any foodie or writer (prosie?) friends about it–ideally, with a link back here.

This weekend I went down to New York to see a friend of mine who was in town for a conference, and took the opportunity to visit some Cambridge friends who had moved to Brooklyn last month. I like walking in New York–I find it oddly relaxing, in the same way stimulants can sometimes help people with hyperactivity to calm down. Go figure. So on Saturday, the day I planned to visit my Brooklyn friends, I wandered down from my Midtown hotel to Greenwich Village, and then Soho, and then decided, the heck with it, instead of trying to figure out the subway I’ll just walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and grab a cab on the other side. It’s fun to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge on a nice day.

I asked a traffic cop which way Park Slope was, so that I could get a cab that was going in the right direction, and started off. Great plan, except for one detail: there are no cabs in Brooklyn that are not already in service. So I walked, and kept walking.

And walked all the way from Midtown Manhattan to Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Now, there was a moment at which I decided to commit to walking the entire way, because I knew I was going in the right direction and would get there eventually, and once you’ve been walking for three hours, what’s another hour or two? And it would be worth it to see my friends’ reaction. But there was a good long stretch of Flatbush Avenue in which I was really, really hoping to find a cab.

And here’s what didn’t occur to me until Sunday morning: I could have gone into any store or restaurant, asked someone for the number of a cab company, and called one.

How could I not have realized this?

I interrogated myself about this some (because while Saturday afternoon I’d hit the zone and could have kept walking indefinitely, on Sunday morning my butt and thighs were making their opinion of my non-cab-taking ways felt). And here’s what I think was going on. I think in some deep, unconscious way, I was thinking of taxicabs as though they were a sort of animal with two subspecies: domestic and wild. Domestic cabs are the ones that come to your house, the cabs you call, as you would call a dog. Wild cabs are the cabs you encounter on the street, that cannot be called, but can only be caught. Once you have entered the street, the native habitat of the wild taxicab, you can’t call one, any more than you can go on a safari and call the rhinos (or dangeroos) to come in closer for photographs. You have to catch them. (Thanks to my two anonymous FB friends for those links, which aren’t all that relevant but are hilarious.)

So: domestic = house = calling v. wild = outside = catching.

This leads me to three things:

1. Metaphors are fundamental to the way we think. Yes, I know this was a particularly weird metaphor, but there is a whole field of linguistics and cognitive science that is based around metaphor and thought. I don’t mean highly conscious, literary metaphors and similes that are deliberately created for a combination of novelty and recognizability, but basic ones, so basic that they don’t even seem like metaphors at first, but simply like descriptions of how things are. Look at the way we characterize the development of careers, relationships, and so forth as physical journeys forward or upward: “This relationship isn’t going anywhere.” “My Harvard MBA has put me ahead in my career.” “My workout routine has plateaued.” “Now that I’ve got tenure I don’t know where to go next.”

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, list a number of what they call “primary metaphors,” including:

Affection is Warmth

Important is Big

Happy is Up

Knowing is Seeing

These are based on our immediate physical experiences (that of being held closely; realizing one’s relative impotence in the face of bigger people; naturally becoming more posturally erect or even jumping when happy; and taking in information visually). Other metaphors we learn through culture. If I didn’t live in a culture that had both domesticated and wild animals, I wouldn’t have unconsciously come up with the metaphor that I did for taxis.

In American society, for example, a dominant metaphor is that “time is money.” On the surface, this only seems to mean that the more you work, the more you will succeed. But if you dig deeper, it goes beyond that: time is a resource. Time can be used well, or wasted. Time can be spent or saved. Time is something we can invest (“I need to put more time into that project”). Time is something there is a finite amount of. Although some people have more or less time than others, time itself is the same for everyone, just as $10 in Bill Gates’s pocket is the same as $10 in mine. Not all cultures have these beliefs about time.

Metaphors can enrich our thinking, but as you can see through my error with the taxis, they can also constrain it.

2. What does it mean to know something, and what does that imply for the testing and evaluation of knowledge? I have no doubt that had the possibility of calling a cab from a restaurant appeared on a multiple-choice or true-or-false test,* I would have answered correctly. In fact, just the night before, my friend had mentioned calling cabs from restaurants in the context of drinking-and-driving laws, and I certainly didn’t say, “What is this strange custom of which you speak?”

I “knew” you could do this, but I obviously didn’t know you could do this. So what does that say about the validity of multiple-choice and true-or-false tests that are based on the ability to recognize information, but not to recall or to apply it? Nothing good, I fear.

3. Dude, I walked from Midtown to Park freakin’ Slope! According to Google Maps, I walked about seven miles, but I couldn’t make it take the path I’d actually used, which involved a lot of wandering up and down and around in Manhattan before hitting the bridge. My normal pace is a little over three miles an hour, and I walked for a little over four hours, so you do the math. A 12-mile walk may be a lot for you or a little, but it’s a lot for me. Endurance has never been my strong suit and even a couple of years ago, I would not have been able to complete a walk like that going non-stop. So I was rather proud of myself.

Which got me thinking, don’t most of us have stories of things we are simultaneously embarrassed about yet proud of? I’m not hugely embarrassed about my unconscious belief that taxicabs are animals, but I do pride myself on being a good problem-solver, and I failed rather spectacularly to be that.

My current theory is that the basic structure of the shame-with-pride story (and I’d love to hear some of yours!) is that you are embarrassed about/ashamed of the stupidity or ignorance that got you into a given situation, and then proud of the stamina/competence that allowed you to either endure, change, or get out of the situation.

Embarrassed to go into the situation, proud to get out of it.

See? That there’s one of them “life is a journey” metaphors.

*Maybe. From the time I was a little girl until now, I have done badly on true-or-false tests. Even as a child, there were very few statements that seemed unequivocally true or false to me; I needed to know the context in which they were meant to be applied in order to judge, not that I would have put it that way in third grade. So then I’d get all weird and start thinking it was a trick question and put the wrong answer down.

… is online here, and contains a question that harks back to our Friday discussion of kidney donation. I’d forgotten about that. Usually I have a list of what columns/question are running when, but for editorial reasons we had to jigger a few around for the past couple of weeks, so I somewhat lost track.

Larissa MacFarquhar wrote a piece in the New Yorker that’s been getting some buzz lately, about people who donate kidneys to strangers. I read it last night, and oh my. It is remarkable–not only for the examination of the psychology of these donors and the complexities of the relationship between organ donors and recipients*, but also of the history and evolving attitudes about organ donation, and the medical realities of kidney disease and donation. (Did you know, for example, that if you get a replacement kidney, they don’t take the old ones out, so it’s possible to have quite a few sloshing around in there?)

There is no single profile of the psychology of a stranger-donor, and the piece ends with a remarkably matter-of-fact Methodist minister for whom donating a kidney appeared to have no more emotional freight attached to it than tithing to her church. Someone needs a kidney, she’s got two, the operation is remarkably safe, what’s the problem? Why aren’t more people doing it?

What is the problem?

Would you donate a kidney to a stranger? To a family member? To a friend?

And–another question Ms. MacFarquhar examines that I find just as interesting–would you accept a kidney from someone you know? Would you actively solicit a kidney from friends and family, if you needed one?

I would not donate a kidney to a stranger, nor do I feel any sense of a moral call to do so merely on the grounds that I could. My body and its functions are not some form of wealth that I am hoarding like Scrooge McDuck: they are constitutive of my identity. They are ME. And no one has an a priori right to my blood, my organs, my womb. I may choose to share, but that is my choice. Having two kidneys when others have none is not the same has having two loaves of bread when others have none. The body is different. I do not owe anyone access to my body.

That said, I believe I would give a kidney up quite willingly for a family member or friend. (“I believe” because I’ve never been in that position.) Often, apparently, organ donation can cause some difficulties in personal relationships: the burden of gratitude on the part of the recipient may be too much to be borne gracefully. That, to me, seems a risk worth taking. Have you never lost a friend because of a thoughtless thing you did or said, or simply because you drifted apart? This hurts, but we survive it, and that is a friendship lost for stupid reasons. If I saved a friend’s life, or their quality of life (dialysis is far worse than I knew), and lost the friendship as a result, I could cope with that. I would live without you, if you could live.

I also believe that I would have no problem hitting “Send” on a mass “Okay, guys, I need a kidney, who’s up for it?” e-mail to my own nearest and dearest. And–perhaps this will strike you as selfish–if that relationship could somehow not withstand the hugeness of what had passed within it, I could live with that, too. I would do everything I could not to allow a vortex of guilt and martyrdom and obligation and unease from taking over, but if it did … at least I’d still be alive to experience the awkwardness. I can live without you, if I can live.

Why not to a stranger? In his book The Life You Can Save (which is about global poverty, not organ donation) philosopher Peter Singer lays out the following principles:

First premise: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad.

Second premise: If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.

He goes on to make an argument about giving to international aid, but clearly the same reasoning would apply to giving a kidney. And I agree with both premises.

I find Mr. Singer’s logic hard to argue with, but his belief that proximity and relationship do not matter when assessing ethical choices seems fundamentally wrong to me. Perhaps not wrong according to cold Vulcan logic, but any ethical system that doesn’t allow for how people will actually behave and feel is not a workable one, and a philosophy that is not workable is nothing but a thought experiment. I would spend money to save the life of Mr. Improbable that might save the lives of 20 poverty-stricken Africans I have never met and feel no guilt, in part because I bet every one of those 20 would do the same in my position. If we do not owe more to our family and friends than to strangers, what, exactly, does “relationship” even mean?

What do you think? Do go read the article, if you can. I would be deeply interested in hearing your thoughts! (I’m going to have to have delayed gratification on that, however. I’m traveling and internetless this weekend. If you’ve posted here before, your comment will go through automatically; if not, you’ll have to wait until I return on Monday to moderate. Thanks for your patience!) If you’re not a subscriber, you can apparently buy online access to a single issue through the link above–or go to your library or borrow a friend’s copy. There’s a new issue out on the stands, so you probably can’t get it in a bookstore.

*Can we please stop calling them “donees”? And what is with this trend of referring to a person being mentored as a “mentee,” which makes them sound like a demented candy? The beneficiary of a donor is a recipient. The person being mentored is a protege. It’s not that hard.

… without all that black shit on my eyes. Especially after I’ve been crying.

DAMN. This hurts more than Michael Jackson, much more. Sorry to be showing my age so bad, folks. Be nice to me. I’ll let you.

Breaking news: John Hughes died.

Wow. I don’t know what to say. Mr. Improbable, a Baby Boomer, asked me if his films were any good. I said I didn’t know. They were simply the vocabulary of my teenage years.

A brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.

Which one were you? Which of his movies was your favorite? Which of the actors he worked with did you like the best?