Last Sunday’s column is online here, and I apologize for not posting it earlier.

Here’s this week’s column, in which I’m nice to a smoker.

This week’s magazine is a special food issue, and in addition to the column, I also wrote a “Perspectives” piece on food guilt and policing in the office.

And here’s why I’ve been so quiet around here the past few days — because I’ve been working on this, my first article for Salon!

What a great way to end the week!

Workin’ on a link farm
Trying to raise my hit rate
Plowing through my RSS
Pokin’ your posts.

Yes, I’m feeling silly. It’s Monday, I’m allowed! Besides, I’m married to the only Baby Boomer in North America who does not think “Spinal Tap” is funny. I have to work it in when I can.

Links!

First of all, tonight is the first night of Passover — and apparently the President and First Lady will be celebrating. I like it. Passover is probably the most universal of the Jewish holidays, and except in ultra-Orthodox circles (I assume), it’s very common for Jewish families to invite non-Jews to share in their celebrations. I also like that the first seder in the White House happened under the administration of the first African-American President and First Lady. If anyone has the right to the Exodus story in this country, it is African-Americans who, like Michelle Obama, are the descendants of slaves. Chag sameach, Mr. and Mrs. Obama.

And speaking of matters faith-related, check out this fascinating article: “Is Hearing God Like Being a Skilled Athlete?” Without making any claims for or against the existence of God, the article looks into the capacity for religious experience, and how that capacity is developed.

From God to dog: an excellent resource on why the “dominance theory” practiced by Cesar Millan, et al., is misguided and potentially harmful. Lots of good advice here. Thanks to Vera Wilkinson at The Cooperative Dog for the link. (You can become a fan of The Cooperative Dog on Facebook, and Vera posts some terrific stuff — a nice mix of the fun and the educational.)

In more doggie news, this headline from the Sacramento Bee may seem odd on the surface: “UC Davis Study Shows Dogs Can Help Youngsters Read,” but the story itself is quite nice. Apparently kids who have problems reading aloud improve significantly if they can read to an attentive, affectionate, yet wholly nonjudgmental audience: dogs!

“Avatar” is apparently the film I am most interested in talking about, and least interested in seeing, this year. Here’s another article that addresses the points some commenters were making about the appeal of the film being partly in its evocation of how biologists see the world. I don’t agree with all the writer’s points, but it’s intriguing nonetheless.

And here’s one article I do agree with, by Peter Straub, about genre and, specifically, horror. As you all have probably figured out by now, I am a great horror fan, and have always found particularly annoying the notion that 1) there is something psychologically wrong about wanting to read horror, and 2) horror isn’t “real” literature. Mr. Straub lays the smack down. (And perhaps later on I’ll discuss in more detail why I’ve been on a particular horror kick lately.)

In addition to being a horror fan, I am also a girly girl. Which is why I am annoyed with the “Pink Stinks” campaign. We don’t empower women by disparaging femininity. This campaign reminds me of a bizarre incident that happened when I was a college professor: another instructor complimented me on the sweater I was wearing, and asked what color it was. I replied, trying very hard not to look at her as though she’d lost her mind, “It’s pink.” I mean, this sweater was flat-out Pepto-Bismol pink, no possible option of “light red” or “dusty rose” or “burnt peach” about it. My colleague immediately replied, “Oh, it can’t be pink, it’s too nice!” Clearly, she had such a negative mental image of pink that the idea of an independent, intellectual, professional woman dressed in the color was literally unimaginable to her, even as I stood before her in all my peppermint glory. (Here is another article on pink, by a delightful writer I met at the New Haven event.)

This article in the New York Times has haunted me, though it gives no real answers. But we have all known people determined to sabotage their success through whatever means, people who define themselves by their failures, their resentments, their illnesses, their weaknesses.

Finally, I’ve been meaning for some time to write an ode to my new favorite television show, “Parks & Recreation.” Procrastinate long enough, and someone else will do it for you! You can ignore the inside-baseball aspect of whether Leslie Knope is a “good feminist” or not, and focus on the rest of the entry. So many sitcoms today are based on cynicism and the cringe factor, including the increasingly unwatchable “The Office.” “Parks & Recreation” is about people who genuinely care about their jobs, each other, and their beliefs, but it completely avoids sentimentality. It’s darned smart, too: a recent episode took on the liberal versus libertarian positions on food policing, in a way that made a good argument for both sides, and all this in 23 minutes of television that included a B and C plot. Not bad.

Time for more linkety goodness:

This blog is written by a friend of Mr. Improbable’s: it’s titled “Esoph’s Fables: Letters Home from an American expatriate in Cancerland.” I’ve only just started reading it and he’s wonderful, both profound and funny. From a recent entry:

As a country, Cancer is divided not into provinces but districts named for organs: Breast and Prostate are very populous, as are Lung, Liver, Stomach and Colon. I am in an outback called Esophagus, which is a narrow strip of territory between Piehole and Belly. It is something like the Khyber Pass: Much traveled through but largely without permanent settlements.

Here’s another thing. Very strange to say, all Cancerlanders are either visitors to the place, whether long- or short-term, or Workers serving the aforementioned Visitors. There is no indigenous population. No one is born here. All come to be in Cancerland either by fate, or professional training and inclination.

About the greeting ritual: Americans engage in the handshake, the French in the air-kiss, Germans in the hug, Japanese in the bow. This is the way it goes in Cancerland: The Visitor extends a hand, palm up, the Worker facing him or her says, Gonna pinch, then pricks one of the Visitor’s fingertips with a needle, through which two little vials of blood are drawn. These vials of blood are the equivalent of the driver’s license back home, or the Social Security card: They serve as bona fides.

Two entries from writers from The Atlantic — one by Ta-Nehesi Coates, one by Alyssa Rosenberg — on the failure of “The Office” and “30 Rock,” respectively. I don’t think I’ll be watching “The Office” past this season, it pains me to say. The show has moved increasingly from a character-driven comedy to one of more and more implausible situations — and the “Scott’s Tots” episode was, frankly, unforgivable. I really hate to use the “r” word around my fellow white people, because it tends to make us stupid and defensive, but that episode was flat-out racist.* You do not bring in two dozen black kids as props to illustrate Michael Scott’s well-established disconnect from reality, you do not make their destroyed dreams the fodder for cringe comedy, and you sure as hell do not then try to end the episode on an upbeat note of unearned minor redemption for Michael Scott. (This is my point, not Mr. Coates’s — his gripe is basically that the damn show jumped the shark and does anyone really care about Jim and Pam anymore, anyway.) The “30 Rock” critique is a more thorough one of how the show has lost its focus over the past season or two. I’m going to hold off on my paean of love to “Parks & Recreation” for a future post, but it seems to me that this show is succeeding where the other two have failed.

Slate reviews the latest novel, and overall ethos, of writer Sam Lipsyte. I’ve read his novel Home Land and liked it quite a bit, so I’m inclined to give The Ask a try. I’ve got the following quote from Home Land on my Facebook page:

“When you work at home … discipline is the supreme virtue. Suicidal self-loathing lurks behind every coffee break. Activities must be expertly scheduled, from shopping to showers to panic attacks.”

So, so true.

Anyone who has ever taught will love this — a total e-mail smackdown of a rude MBA student. Check this paragraph:

In addition, your logic effectively means you cannot be held accountable for any code of conduct before taking a class. For the record, we also have no stated policy against bursting into show tunes in the middle of class, urinating on desks or taking that revolutionary hair removal system for a spin. However … there is a baseline level of decorum (i.e., manners) that we expect of grown men and women who the admissions department have deemed tomorrow’s business leaders.

And speaking of bad manners, the top five Facebook felonies, according to WCVB-TV.

And speaking of manners and television, did you know that “Mind Over Manners” is not just the title of my book, but also one of “TV Tropes” entries? TV Tropes, for those not in the know, catalogues the “devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations.” It’s a fairly addictive site for fans of any kind of narrative entertainment (they moved beyond television only a long time ago). Anyway, “Mind Over Manners” refers to characters who have kickass psychic powers but would never, ever use those powers for evil or to destroy another person’s free will. Oddly, they don’t list Sookie Stackhouse, the psychic waitress on “True Blood,” as an example of this. Though telepathic, Sookie refuses for ethical reasons to listen in on her friends and family — or does she? (No, really; I’ve only watched five episodes. So don’t tell me.)

I haven’t seen “Avatar” and don’t plan to. Special effects don’t thrill me; complex narratives, compelling characters, and moral ambiguity do, and even the most glowing reviews haven’t suggested that the movie offers any of those. Also, the film’s whole ideology of “communing with nature = good/technology = bad” really gets up my nose — especially when you consider the innate hypocrisy of the entire thing. Whatever spiritual high people are getting from seeing “Avatar,” it’s not from communing with nature, it’s from a three-to-four hundred million dollar movie using the most technically advanced filmmaking equipment ever. It’s a celebration of the natural world that would never have been possible without technology and capitalism. I have no problem with either environmentalism or capitalism, nature or technology, but let’s be clear on what’s going on here.

Anyway, those are my gripes. Racialicious, a blog on race and/in pop culture, has another one. I’m not sure I fully agree with all their points, but it’s a very thought-provoking post, definitely worth a read. And in case you’re still confused about how I can call “Scott’s Tots” racist when it was the white guy who looked like a fool, not the black kids, this might clear up for you the different ways a story can be racially insensitive.

Finally, my cousin Bill is friends with this guy. Check out his store: I love this stuff! And I love his writings on Islam:

If you walk into your average mosque, you’ll hear, “Islam is a way of life!” And then they’ll go on to tell you how to snort water all the way up your nose to make ablutions properly. They see Islam as a way of life in the “It-Tells-You-How-To-Do-Everything!” kind-of way. I don’t see it that way.

For me, “Islam is a way of life” relates to being a champion for ALL good, just causes on Earth. There is no separation between my islam and fighting for gender/environmental justice, closing the gap between rich/poor, taking care of my body, etc.

Yes. This is how I feel about being Jewish, as well. Being Jewish to me is the thing that pulls all the different aspects of my identity together — wife, writer, daughter, friend, scholar, person with a chronic illness, fashionista, feminist. My life has many colors; Judaism give me the canvas on which I paint my life, and puts the frame around it.

I hope to meet him someday, and I’m grateful to Cousin Bill, and Facebook, for making me aware of this amazing individual.

And what have you been reading lately, dear readers?

*No, this does not mean the writers deliberately set out to make a racist episode, or harbor conscious negative feelings toward black people. Nor does it make you a racist if you laughed at the episode, or if you intend to continue watching “The Office.”

Still too toasted to post (although I’m seeing a nutritionist today! yay!) but this ought to be enough to keep you reading for a while:

Here is an entertaining article about what people ate at the theater in Shakespeare’s time. I’m always amused by these folks who write in to me complaining that someone dared to hum along to an opera aria, or, God forbid, be fat at them at a live performance. Because you know these same aesthetes with their delicate sensibilities, if you asked them what period in history they’d like to visit, will immediately get all misty-eyed and talk about the Athenian drama festival or Shakespeare’s original performances at the Globe. Yeah, good luck with that. You can’t handle a teenager texting during “The Blind Side” or an African-American woman wearing her church hat to a Sweet Honey in the Rock concert? Have fun with the groundlings munching oysters or the guy slaughtering chickens in the front row, then.

This article is absolutely fascinating: why there are so few Jewish writers of fantasy. (Yeah, I know, I immediately popped up the same names you’re thinking of — Singer, Ozick — the author addresses this.) As a Jew, a lover of genre fiction, and someone who did her dissertation on the psychology of narrative and genre, this absolutely floored me.

Some good old-fashioned straight-up ranting about a social annoyance: excess noise in U.S. airports. Amen, Patrick Smith. What a pity nothing will be done about it.

Good interview with the author of “Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith,” at the invaluable Muslimah Media Watch.

You want weird? I got weird. Or, more to the point, eBay does: an action figure of Elizabeth Bathory:

My favorite part is “Item condition: New.” It would have been funnier if they’d listed it as “Disturbingly well preserved.”

I got more weird, too. Check out this apparently real political advertisement. I mentioned in comments in my post on the “Demon Sheep” ad that my best friend, a theater professor, and I are thinking about doing some kind of project on the use of horror-movie imagery in political advertising. Here’s one for our archive.

Finally, as you may know, I have a thing for cardigans. I have a cardigan for every day of the week, and that’s only counting the grey ones. I mean, it’s close to being an obsession, like I’m the love child of Mr. Rogers and Michelle Obama or something. So imagine my delight that Academichic will be doing a whole week on cardigan fashion 101!

Chat tomorrow, and morel linky-loos on Thursday!

… is online here.

I’ve also got an extra feature up — since this was a wedding issue, go figure — about how to deliver a toast. It was written for weddings, but works for other situations, too.

I mentioned a while ago that my boss and I had an article coming out in Harvard Business Review on the top five mistakes people make when changing jobs. Here it is — although, unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber or buy a PDF to read the whole thing.

… Miss Conduct’s Guide to the Holiday Season, perhaps you’d enjoy it.

(Also, may I point out — Miss Conduct’s Mind Over Manners makes a terrific holiday gift! It’s inexpensive, entertaining, and has enough psychology and humor in it that it avoids the horrible message that “OMG someone just gave me an ETIQUETTE BOOK do they think I need one??” that can be a risk with more traditional tomes.)