It’s quite clear what the blog is, I mean; it’s a blog about mystery fiction. I know some of my readers are fans — or even if not, many of you are all-around book people who enjoy a good review on its own merits. So check out Only Detect, which offers triweekly reviews of a variety of mystery novels, and a good blogroll, all against a tastefully retro wood-paneling background.

The blog “Feminists with Disabilities” called out my May 2nd column, about the mother who insists that her toddler have vegetables with every meal, pretty harshly. I have certain reservations about that blog overall, and I don’t agree with their analysis of my advice, obviously, but the discussion is fascinating, and the comments are really worth a read. Even if you disagree, there are points being made that are definitely worthy of consideration. Eventually someone did come in and defend my point of view.

(Side note: I was amused that one of the most indignant commenters referred to me as “Miss Demeanor.” I’ve always said if I’d gotten to name the column myself, that’s what I would have preferred!)

A particular dynamic that I find intriguing, and that comes up a lot, is that I will say in my column — either implicitly or explicitly — “X is something controversial that people are passionate and not wholly rational about.” And then I will get a slew of angry letters or comments disagreeing with me, by people who apparently don’t realize that the very nature of their passionate, judgmental, highly personal disagreement validates my point. I get this sometimes over gender-related etiquette (especially the use of “ma’am,” honorifics, “you guys” or any other term to address women), but I don’t think anything brings it out quite as much as food or religion.

Maybe you do, too. From my favorite beauty blog, Already Pretty:

And sometimes, when I’m curled up in bed listening to the alarm clock yammer at me about getting up, I think, “Why bother? Why not just throw on a sweater and jeans, put my hair in a ponytail, and slog into work un-showered? Who would care, or even notice a difference?” Sometimes when it’s 30 below and I’ve had a long day at work, I look at my gym bag and think, “Why bother? One less workout isn’t going to make a difference.” Sometimes I look at my unruly and deeply high-maintenance mop and think, “Why bother? I’ve got hats.”

Read the whole thing. I am starting to have a serious girl-crush on this woman. Michelle Obama, you have been warned. Your days as my fashion icon are numbered.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a brilliant post up about weight loss, the American food industry, environmentalism, racism, and stuff. He’s one of my favorite bloggers anyway, and this post exemplifies why; in essence, he’s trying, as always, to get his readers to look at the bigger picture and not point fingers at individuals. This is a huge part of what I try to do with etiquette, and what part of my whole “epidemic of rudeness” post was about — looking at systemic causes for why people behave the way they do, instead of just running around shrieking “Narcissism! Internet! Mindlessness! Selfish bastards!”

You really have to read the whole thing to understand how he gets from low-fat Oreos to racism, but here’s two key paragraphs:

But more than that, I understand enough to be wary of inveighing against people who eat at McDonalds–or even McDonald’s itself–of harshly interrogating the morality of flesh-eaters (I am, of course, among them.) It’s not that any of this is wrong per se, so much as it’s limited. When you’re constantly naming people for their sins of consumption, it’s very hard to get them to act against a system of consumption. More than that, it often misses the point of how hard it is to pull oneself out of the Matrix, and thus underestimates the Matrix, in that it assumes we can win by yelling.

Likewise, I think in my best writing here, in the writing that really matters, I’ve worked to steer us away from the reductive parlor game of “Is this/he/she racist?” It’s useful to a point, but ultimately self-serving. It underestimates our demons and it underestimates how an entire system warped nearly every institution in this country, and continues to warp it to this day. What I’d rather we us understand is some sense of the big system, some sense of American white supremacy as mechanized racism.

You might disagree with some of his specific points, but the overall thrust of his argument is, I think, profound.

(Also, while we are on the topic of the U.S. food system, did anyone catch “Parks & Recreation” last night? Yes, it tripped some of my body-acceptance triggers, but I thought for a sitcom, it did a damn good job of showing some of the problems of our current food system and legitimate points of view from both the liberal and libertarian sides. And all that along with a B-plot featuring an iPod/Roomba hybrid called “DJ Roomba” and a C-plot of April becoming disenchanted with her two gay boyfriends. No small accomplishment, that.)

Just discovered that blogger behind “Fatshionista” was profiled in today’s Globe! Her name is Lesley Kinzel and she lives in Revere.

I love her prediction (on her blog) for what will be in the comments section of the story:

… some people passionately wishing me ill by some fat-related doom; some people passively-but-ominously observing that while they don’t actively wish me fat-related doom, fat-related doom is coming for me nonetheless; some people wondering how the Globe can possibly justify publishing anything not on the subject of unemployment, the economy, and/or local sports right now in These Troubled Times, and bemoaning this evidence of irresponsible journalism; and some people exasperatedly opining that if SOME people can’t handle a little snow during a New England winter, then SOME people should move south and shut the hell up about it.

Heh. It’s funny ’cause it’s true.

The fashion stuff I write about — it’s not only because I enjoy it. I truly do believe this stuff matters. As I wrote here a few years ago, your clothing choices communicate who you are to other people, whether you want them to or not, so you may as well take control of that message.

PeaceBang has a particularly eloquent post about the importance of image today on Beauty Tips for Ministers. She’s writing about female clergy, but what she says can apply to everyone, of any profession or gender:

Drab, aggressively sexless, sartorially clueless people in any profession make a statement by their very presence, and that statement is not a good one. Some of the non-verbal statements such appearance makes are:

1. I do not want anyone to look at me.
2. I don’t deserve attention; being noticed is something I am not prepared to accept and a responsibility I do not want.
3. I am harmless; in fact, I am passive. The world is happening around me and I hope to be invisible in it.

That’s only the first three. There’s more. Go read.

If, like me, you are feeling dismayed at the prospect of hauling out your boots and tights and turtlenecks again, when it seems like you just put them away — take heart. Already Pretty gathers together a nice range of alternative options for your winter fashion “basics” from other fashion blogs.

I also subscribed to a few of the blogs AP had highlighted (how am I not already reading Academic Chic?). I think the rise of fashion blogs is an unmitigated Good Thing. Enough of airbrushed supermodels wearing three hours worth of makeup and $5,000 worth of clothes. Thank God, I’m old enough now that they don’t give me a horrible body image, but they don’t give me any useful ideas, either, that I could actually use to improve my appearance in the unairbrushed, budget-conscious, meteorologically unpredictable real world. I want to know how to look good when I have a freelance writer’s clothing budget and a 1.5 mile to work across brick sidewalks. Jimmy Choos are not part of that equation, I tell you what.

Fashion blogs are better for that kind of thing. They’re about style as a thing we live, not a thing we aspire to — and certainly not as a thing we can only earn by having flawless figures and skin and bank accounts. I’m pro-fashion: you can have all the socialist and feminist revolutions you want, but people are always going to want to dress up and look good. We’re a visual, social, cooperative, competitive species. Put that together with opposable thumbs and the capacity to use tools, and you’ve got yourself an animal that’s gonna accessorize, hon. Seems like every couple of years there’s some new archeological dig revealing that decorative fabric or jewelry goes back a few thousand years further than we thought it did.

Dressing up and grooming one’s self is a natural, social function that ought to be about hygiene and joy,* not about self-hatred and excessive consumerism. I think fashion blogs are bringing back the real spirit of that. Magazines don’t; they’re too busy making you feel insecure so that you’ll buy the stuff they advertise.

Do you read fashion blogs? Which ones? I think I’ll be reading a few of the ones AP highlighted, and of course I’m a great fan of Beauty Tips for Ministers and a couple of Muslim fashion blogs. (Everything I know about layering I learned from Muslim fashionistas.) And I’m a great fan of Mrs. O — I hope to get the book for Hanukkah! — although I have been led astray by it before. (Mrs. Obama is six feet tall and has skin the color of chocolate. I am five feet four and have skin the color of halvah. This means that the bold, often mixed patterns and “statement” jewelry that looks so smashing on her makes me look like a badly upholstered fainting couch. I must remember this.)

Do you get anything out of clothes at all, or are you more like Mr. Improbable that way? Would you like to see more fashion blogging on this blog? It wouldn’t be at the expense of other content, just in addition to. Do you have fashion problems you’d like Miss Conduct to solve?

*Okay, because you people know I couldn’t resist it:

Oh Dress, You Merry Gentlefolk
When dressing up for work or fun
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember you can now wear white
Well after Labor Day.
And love your body, dress it up
No matter what you weigh,
O tidings of hygiene and joy
Hygiene and joy!
O tidings of hygiene and joy!

Longtime readers may remember my Easy Greek casserole recipe. Melissa at Better Bag of Groceries blogged it today, along with pictures! Her version looks even tastier than mine …

Blogger FemaleScienceProfessor has a great article up at the Chronicle of Higher Education about academic etiquette. Amusing and informative — and good for people who work in many walks of life, as well. (Particularly, some good advice about job searching from the points of view of both applicant and hiring committee.) And I have to love tip # 11:

If you are going to ask a professor a question and you need to refer to your notes or a book, have them within easy reach, with the relevant pages marked. Don’t spend the first few minutes searching through your backpack and your giant folders covered with skull doodles only to realize that you left the desired item at home and have no idea what your question was, so instead you just ask the professor if you missed anything important in the class session you skipped because you overslept.

I’ve been quoted, and there’s some wonderful news posted about “Project Grizzly.” (If you’re looking for an evening of bear-themed entertainment, and why wouldn’t you be, you could do worse than back-to-back viewings of “Project Grizzly” and “Grizzly Man.”)