According to the New York Times, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is going to be Barack Obama’s Secretary of State:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the position of secretary of state, making her the public face around the world for the administration of the man who beat her for the Democratic presidential nomination, two confidants said Friday.

The apparent accord between perhaps the two leading figures in the Democratic Party climaxed a week-long drama that riveted the nation’s capital.

Mrs. Clinton came to her decision after additional discussion with President-elect Barack Obama about the nature of her role and his plans for foreign policy, said one of the confidants, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the situation.

Mr. Obama’s office told reporters on Thursday that the nomination is “on track” but this is the first word from the Clinton camp that she has decided.

“She’s ready,” the confidant said, adding that Mrs. Clinton was reassured after talking again with Mr. Obama because their first meeting in Chicago last week “was so general.” The purpose of the follow-up talk, he noted, was not to extract particular concessions but “just getting comfortable” with the idea of working together.

A second Clinton associate confirmed that her camp believes they have a done deal. Senior Obama advisers said Friday morning that the offer had not been formally accepted and no announcement would be made until after Thanksgiving. But they said they were convinced that the nascent alliance was ready to be sealed.

As I said before, I think Clinton’s a savvy pick by Obama; Clinton is certainly qualified for the job, and would be perhaps the highest-profile appointment to the position since Woodrow Wilson tapped William Jennings Bryan for the job.

The potential for “drama” has been far overplayed by the media, which desires nothing more than a return to the good ol’ days of the 1990s, when they could have fun attacking the Clintons and pretending that there were no actual issues worth worrying about. Clinton is a smart politician, and she knows that the quickest way out of the Obama administration is to start freelancing. Will Clinton challenge Obama when it comes to foreign policy? I certainly hope so. Obama needs to get differing perspectives from his foreign policy team. Joe Biden will have one position, Hillary Clinton another, and Gen. Jim Jones (ret.), who’s expected to become Obama’s National Security Advisor, will stake out still a different position. Good! We got in trouble over the past eight years because we had a president who surrounded himself with sycophants and yes-women who enabled a disastrous and dangerous war. The one obstacle to it left after the end of Bush’s first term.

Having a group of heterogeneous advisors is good for the country. And kudos to Obama for realizing that. I feel quite positive about the direction our country will be heading, precisely because Obama does not appear to be so insecure as to need people to support his ego.

“Alas” reader Joe pointed out this article to me:

Proposition 8 passed because of religious folk. There is no question about it. Church-going Black Americans, tithe-paying Mormons, mass-attending Latinos, and Evangelical whites all joined forces in “protecting marriage.” The underlying reason religious people voted to revoke from gays and lesbians the legal right to marry is doggedly theological: God doesn’t like it. And when a society or culture does things that God doesn’t like, that society or culture will suffer.

We’re seeing this going on now, as some fundamentalist Christians are saying that wildfires in California are God’s judgment on fags.

And it simply isn’t true. If God punishes societies that violate his commandments and rewards those that do, this just isn’t apparent by looking at the state of the world today. The sociological fact is that the most irreligious nations right now are among the most successful, humane, moral, and free, while the most religious nations tend to be among the most destitute, chaotic, crime-ridden, and undemocratic. A similar pattern also holds true within the United States: those states and counties that boast the greatest numbers of strong believers and regular church attenders tend to have higher poverty rates, child abuse rates, violent crime rates, and lower educational attainment rates than those states and counties characterized by more secular populations.

And so the richest, healthiest — and most pro-gay — nations are in the godless Neatherlands, whereas the most religious nations in the world, while reliably anti-homosexual, also tend to lack for freedom and money. (The exception, in the state to state comparisons: Utah.)

The writer, Phil Zuckerman, points out that there is a catch to this phenomenon, which is that forced atheism just brings about sucky totalitarian atheist states; the good effects of godlessness only happen when “secularism is not forced upon a captive citizenry by dictators, but emerges organically and freely over several generations.” And, of course, the direction of causation — or if there’s any causation here at all, rather than just correlation — is a real question.

But the fact remains — if you want to find a healthy, wealthy, free society, you’d do very well by just choosing any democracy where people don’t go to church very often.

From the Pew Global Attitudes Project:

Pew also notes:

Throughout Western Europe and much of the Americas, there is widespread tolerance towards homosexuality. However, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Israel stand apart from other wealthy nations on this issue; in each of these countries, fewer than half of those surveyed say homosexuality should be accepted by society. Meanwhile, in most of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, there is less tolerance toward homosexuality.

At the Statistical Modeling Blog, Andrew creates a similar graph for states of the US, and finds similar results — less religion equals more wealth. But he also notes an interesting result from within states:

…Overall we see a positive correlation between income and religiosity in poor states and a negative correlation in rich states: To put it another way, in Mississippi, the richer people attend church more. In Connecticut, the richer people attend church less.

Some Californians are suing to overturn proposition 8.

The primary argument for the lawsuit is a little bit technical. Under California law, voters may pass an “amendment” to the California state constitution with a simple majority. But a “revision” of the constitution requires the agreement of two-thirds of the legislature, plus the majority of voters.

Proposition 8 was passed by the voters, but not by the legislature (nor would 2/3 of the California legislature, which favors marraige equality, vote to support prop 8). If prop 8 just “amends” the constitution, then that’s legitimate. But if prop 8 “revises” the constitution, then it’s not valid law.

So what’s the difference between an amendment and a revision? It’s sort of subjective. Back in 1978, here’s what the California Supreme Court said (quoted by Professor Bainbridge):

Taken together our Livermore and McFadden decisions mandate that our analysis in determining whether a particular constitutional enactment is a revision or an amendment must be both quantitative and qualitative in nature. For example, an enactment which is so extensive in its provisions as to change directly the ‘substantial entirety‘ of the Constitution by the deletion or alteration of numerous existing provisions may well constitute a revision thereof. However, even a relatively simple enactment may accomplish such far reaching changes in the nature of our basic governmental plan as to amount to a revision also. In illustration, the parties herein appear to agree that an enactment which purported to vest all judicial power in the Legislature would amount to a revision without regard either to the length or complexity of the measure or the number of existing articles or sections affected by such change.

So is proposition 8 a revision, and thus invalid? Eugene Volokh (who opposed proposition 8) argues that “The proposal to allow only opposite-sex marriages is likely to be found to be only an amendment, not a revision” because it is a single, narrow law, rather than a broad and complex revision to large sections of the California constitution. The Alaska Supreme Court, faced with more or less the same question, ruled that “Few sections of the Constitution are directly affected, and nothing in the proposal will ‘necessarily or inevitably alter the basic governmental framework’ of the Constitution.”

Professor Bainbridge agrees:

Having said that, however, Prop 8 doesn’t add anything near 21,000 words to the state constitution. It affects 1 section of 1 article, not “at least 15.” It doesn’t create a new state agency outside the scope of ordinary checks and balances. It gave the people an up or down vote on a single issue. And it falls far short of effecting such a fundamental change as reallocating the judicial role to the legislature.

On the other hand, Dale Carpenter thinks the court could see it as a revision (although he doesn’t predict they will):

Consider a couple of analogies. (1) Suppose a majority of the people became concerned about the growing political influence of Mormons, exhibited by what the majority regarded as their huge donations to political campaigns, and decided to alter the state constitution to deny Mormons, and Mormons alone, the right to make contributions to ballot fights. Aside from the obvious federal constitutional issues involved, would the change be considered an “amendment” or a “revision” under the California constitution? (2) Suppose a majority of the people decided that blacks were not taking the responsibilities of marriage very seriously, exhibited by what the majority regarded as high illegitimacy rates, high divorce rates, and rampant cohabitation and promiscuity, and decided to alter the state constitution to deny to blacks, and blacks alone, the fundamental right to marry? Again putting aside the invalidity of such a change under the federal constitution, would the change be an “amendment” or a “revision” under the California constitution?

Under the Bainbridge/Volokh analysis, wouldn’t these proposed changes be amendments, requiring only approval by a bare majority of the state’s voters? Neither involves extensive changes to the state constitution, or numerous or profound changes to the basic structure of California government, or an alteration of the judicial role. Each involves the denial of a fundamental right to a protected class, just as Prop 8 does (again, according to the California Supreme Court). If Prop 8 is different, how is it different? Just because gays are involved? Under California law, whether you agree or not, gays stand on the same plane as any other protected class. Discrimination against them is as suspect as it is against blacks or Mormons. And also under California law, marriage is as fundamental for them as it is for blacks and as important for them as political speech is for Mormons.

It’s just a thought experiment, of course, since we would never dream of amending a constitution to make such outrageous changes eliminating the important rights of racial and religious minorities. But if the question were presented, it’s not obvious to me that the issue would be resolved by counting the words in the hypothetical amendments, tallying the number of constitutional provisions affected, or asking simply whether the judicial role had been compromised. It’s plausible that the courts would say these are “revisions” requiring approval by two-thirds of each house of the state legislature followed by a majority vote at the ballot box.

In the comments of The Faculty Lounge, “Jackson” puts it succinctly:

From my perspective, Prop 8 did more than change the scope of a fundamental right (equal protection), as you assert here. By stripping a fundamental right solely from one (suspect) class off people, Prop 8 has essentially removed the equal protection clause from the California Constitution entirely. It allows any right to be stripped from any group based on a simple majority vote. The additional procedural protections of the revision process would amount to nothing if such a drastic reframing of the basic foundational tenets upon which the California Consitution is based could be changed on a simple majority vote. If Prop 8 is not a revision, it is unclear when, if ever, the revision clause would apply.

I think that Jackson, and Carpenter, make a stronger argument. A fundamental change like this should require the more deliberative process of a Constitutional revision.

But that may not matter. I think the judges on the California Supreme will take the politically easier route, which is finding that proposition 8 was an amendment, not a revision, and so is now good law and part of the California constitution.

If so, the next step is a proposition asking the voters to remove proposition 8 from the Constitution — maybe as soon as 2010. If so, I think it’ll have a chance of passing. In 2008, too many of us who favor marriage equality (me included) thought for too long that prop 8 was certain to be defeated (those early polls showing prop 8 losing by a solid margin were, as it turned out, deadly). Plus the presidential election was sucking up almost all the progressive energy in the country. And pretty much everyone agrees that “no on 8″ ran a mediocre campaign. None of those factors would have to be the same in 2010.

Robert Franklin, a co-blogger at Glenn Sacks’ blog, complains that mothers who kill their own children get treated more sympathetically than fathers:

Her behavior, according to the story was “a cry for help.” If a father had murdered his toddlers, would we say he was crying out for help? I’ve never seen it and I frankly don’t expect to.

So this story falls into the familiar pattern – when women behave badly, we seek to understand why; when men behave badly, we judge and condemn them. One approach is love and understanding; the other is condemnation. The difference is based on the sex of the bad actor.

I’ve seen this complaint made by many MRAs, and I was initially inclined to agree with it — after all, all else being equal, there’s no reason to have any more sympathy for female than male criminals. Plus, I fully believe that the media is sexist. And maybe the media’s sexism is biasing their coverage of filicides. But there’s another reason for the imbalance Franklin notices: mothers and fathers murder for very different reasons.

“Filicide” means the murder of a child by her or his own parent. And all the research agrees: paternal filicide (murder of kids by fathers) typically has very different motivations from maternal filicide (murder of kids by mothers). The typical father-killer is a longtime abuser, and is motivated by a desire to control his family, or by jealousy because he believes (rightly or wrongly) that his wife is cheating on him or leaving him. (He is, however, sane, in the legal sense that he has an understanding of right and wrong.) The typical mother-killer is committing neonaticide in a context of postpartum depression, denial, and social isolation; or, if she’s killing an older child, she’s doing so out of a deranged belief that the child is better off dead.

Is it unfair that our society looks down on revenge-killings of children, more than we look down on killings done in postpartum madness? Maybe. But that’s not an argument that Franklin makes. And it’s usual in our society to find killings done by people who understand right and wrong more reprehensible, and deserving of a greater level of condemnation.

Research published in The Journal of Family Violence found:¹

The data on motives indicated major differences between the two groups of offenders: Men were more likely to kill their children as a means of reprisal against their spouse, whereas women were more likely to kill their children for altruistic reasons.

(”Altruistic”? How can murder be “altruistic”? Well, obviously it’s not genuine altruism: but the killers believe the murders to be altruistic.)²

Let’s take sex away from this. Which is more sympathetic — a parent who kills a child because the parent has come unhinged from reality; or a parent who kills a child for revenge on a cheating or divorcing spouse? Is it really unjust if the latter parent gets treated more harshly by the press, and by the courts?

In an article in The Guardian, Jack Levin, a professor at Northeastern University, profiles men who kill their famililes:

“He doesn’t hate his children, but he often hates his wife and blames her for his miserable life. He feels an overwhelming sense of his own powerlessness. He wants to execute revenge and the motive is almost always to ‘get even’.” [...]

In the majority of cases, if the perpetrator fails in his own suicide, as in the Hogan and Hall cases, they almost always plead some form of insanity.

But Levin rejected this: “These are executions. They are never spontaneous. They are well planned and selective. They are not carried out in the heat of the moment or in a fit of rage. They are very methodical and it is often planned out for a long time. There are certain people the killer blames for his problems. If a friend came along, he wouldn’t kill him or her. He kills his children to get even with his wife because he blames her and he hates her. The killer feels he has lost control. Annihilating his family is a way of regaining control. It is a methodical, selective murder by a rational, loving father. That’s why it is so terrifying.”

This is a case in which reality is not sex-neutral. Although there are individual exceptions, if you read about a filicide in which a parent is going mad from social isolation and depression and kills their infant, odds are overwhelming that that parent is the mother. If you read about a filicide in which a parent kills their infant because they’re trying to control the other parent, or get revenge because the other parent wants a divorce, odds are overwhelming that parent is the father.

That said, I’m not arguing that sexism has nothing to do with it — actually, sexism has a lot to do with the differences in how mothers and father murder. Writing in Child Abuse Review, Ania Wilczynski argues that sexist social conditioning accounts for the difference in how women and men commit filicide:³

Marked sex differences were also apparent in filicide motivation. While men tend to predominate in the retaliating, jealousy and discipline categories of filicide, women tend to be found in the unwanted child, altruistic and psychotic categories…. The literature reports comparable results on both these findings.

The gender differences in filicide motivation indicate that an understanding of the social construction of masculinity and femininity may be crucial to an adequate understanding of filicide. Men are socialized to be unemotional, aggressive, dominant and sexually possessive. Therefore their filicides tend to most commonly involve retaliation, jealousy and discipline. Conversely, social norms encourage women to be passive, nurturant and self-sacrificing. Hence women’s filicides tend to be found in the altruistic, psychotic and neonaticide categories. Thus, while filicide is often seen as an aberrant and inexplicable act committed by someone who is either evil or mentally deranged, it is important to place the crime in its social context and to see that it represents in extreme form the playing out of traditional gender roles.

MRAs like Robert Franklin might do more good if they concentrated on fighting the sexist model of masculinity that harms nearly all men, but also leads a tiny minority of men to feel that they have to murder to maintain control of their families. If men felt less need to be “aggressive” and “dominant,” fewer men would be murdering their families. To this end, we should be looking at changing the culture of violence and bullying that too many boys are raised in, and too many adults (of both sexes) accept or encourage.

Men who commit felicide have very often been abused themselves, when they were children. Obviously, our society needs to do more to fight child abuse. But it would also be worthwhile to try and provide counseling and services to adult survivors of child abuse. Men are frequently socialized to avoid admitting when we need help, so outreach programs for male survivors of child abuse are also extremely necessary.

What about reducing felicide among mothers? The lowest-hanging fruit here is neonaticide, the murder of very young infants by their mothers. Mothers who commit neonaticide are usually poor, usually teenaged, usually socially isolated, and are often in denial about having been pregnant. Increased sex education, and increased availability of free prenatal care — including confidential care for minors — would be good steps to take. I’d also speculate that it would help if society was more accepting of teenage pregnancy, so that pregnant girls might feel less desperate and isolated.

1. Léveillée S, Marleau JD, Dubé M (2007) Filicide: a comparison by sex and presence or absence. of self-destructive behaviour. Journal of Family Violence v22 n5 p287-295. Link. (back)
2. From Psychiatric News: “In ‘altruistic’ filicide a parent—almost always a mother in this category—kills her child or children as an extension of a suicide attempt. ‘These mothers see their children as an extension of themselves,’ he said. ‘They do not want to leave a child motherless in a ‘cruel’ world as seen through their depressed eyes.’ In a second type of altruistic filicide a child is killed to end his or her real or imagined suffering. ‘These mothers may project their own unacceptable symptoms onto the child,’ he said.” (back)
3. Wilczynski, Ania (2005). “Child Killing By Parents: A Motivational Model.” Child Abuse Review v4 365-370. Pdf link. (back)

The seas were higher in the Cretaceous period. When last the dinosaurs walked the Earth, the Rocky Mountains were a sea dividing western North America from the east, and the inland sea flowed right into Hudson Bay, dividing the northernmost part of the continent from the rest. North America is hardly unique in having a different topography, of course — India was located off the southeast coast of Africa at the time, and Australia was just separating from Antarctica — but it is of the North American continent I speak today.

The higher seas of the Cretaceous covered the southeast of what would, 65 million years later, become the United States of America. Florida was a part of the continental shelf, as was Louisiana; most of Alabama and Mississippi were part of a bay, or perhaps a delta, that jutted into the coastline. We forget that by our planet’s lights, these lands were a part of the sea until recently; it is why the sea so often tries to be taking these lands back.

Along the ancient coastline, life thrived, as usually does. It especially thrived in the delta region, the Bay of Tennessee, if you will. Here life reproduced, ate, excreted, lived, and died. On the shallow ocean floor, organic debris settled, slowly building a rich layer of nutritious debris. Eventually, the debris would rise as the sea departed, becoming a thick, rich layer of soil that ran from Louisiana to South Carolina.

65 million years later, European settlers in America would discover this soil, which was perfect for growing cotton. They settled the land, and built plantations, importing slave labor from Africa to toil the fields, while the settlers reaped the profits. Though they did not know it, they built their plantations on the floor of the ancient seas.

It was a reasonably successful endeavor from the slaveholders’ perspective, surviving hundreds of years. It took a civil war to free the slaves from bondage, if only technically; during reconstruction, many of the slaves were given the proverbial 40 acres and a mule, and encouraged to remain on the land, farming, but this time for themselves — at least in theory.

Many of the slaves took that deal, and stayed along this rural belt in the south. While in the north, rural America was becoming a land of sundown towns, in the south, the racism was universal; there was not the same exodus of African Americans into the urban centers as was forced in the North. The population of these rural counties remained largely African American for well over a century; indeed, it remains so to this day. Today, it’s referred to as the “Black Belt,” a set of counties stretching from Louisiana to South Carolina, one that, as has been noted, voted for Barack Obama on Election Day.

It is easy to draw the line from slavery to that map, of course, but we often forget that the lines go further back than that. For all our conceit that we have become masters of our world, we still cling to places shaped long before the first primate had evolved. The farmers of the midwest benefit from the glaciers, which pushed fertile soil down from the north, and abandoned it on the plains. We power our computers with coal, laid down in fertile swamps hundreds of millions of years ago. We build cities along rivers and at seaports that were shaped long before we could write, sometimes long before mammals evolved. And we do so without thinking about it for a moment, for to consider how our lives are shaped by the great movement of continental plates, the advance and retreat of the seas and the glaciers — that is to realize that we are a species that has existed for but the tiniest second of Earth’s existence, one whose disappearance, while horrible to us, would matter not a bit to a world that has seen more species live and die than we can imagine. The Earth will go on changing itself, with or without us. And we are far more beholden to it than it is to us.

(Via Katherine Mangu-Ward)

Science fiction becoming fact, from the New York Times (and via Lawyers Guns and Money):

Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.

The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one can obtain hair, horn, hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years, the effective age limit for DNA. [...]

There is no present way to synthesize a genome-size chunk of mammoth DNA, let alone to develop it into a whole animal. But Dr. Schuster said a shortcut would be to modify the genome of an elephant’s cell at the 400,000 or more sites necessary to make it resemble a mammoth’s genome. The cell could be converted into an embryo and brought to term by an elephant, a project he estimated would cost some $10 million. “This is something that could work, though it will be tedious and expensive,” he said.

Not to mention the cost of building a woolly mammoth preserve, and really they’d have to do it a bunch of times so we’d have some breeding stock. So probably more like $100 million or more. But we’d have woolly mammoths! I say we ask the jackbooted thugs of the IRS to show up at the house of every libertarian and shake them down until we have enough money.

Of course, there are other possibilities besides mammoths….

The full genome of the Neanderthal, an ancient human species probably driven to extinction by the first modern humans that entered Europe some 45,000 years ago, is expected to be recovered shortly. If the mammoth can be resurrected, the same would be technically possible for Neanderthals.

But the process of genetically engineering a human genome into the Neanderthal version would probably raise many objections, as would several other aspects of such a project. “Catholic teaching opposes all human cloning, and all production of human beings in the laboratory, so I do not see how any of this could be ethically acceptable in humans,” said Richard Doerflinger, an official with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Dr. Church said there might be an alternative approach that would “alarm a minimal number of people.” The workaround would be to modify not a human genome but that of the chimpanzee, which is some 98 percent similar to that of people. The chimp’s genome would be progressively modified until close enough to that of Neanderthals, and the embryo brought to term in a chimpanzee.

“The big issue would be whether enough people felt that a chimp-Neanderthal hybrid would be acceptable, and that would be broadly discussed before anyone started to work on it,” Dr. Church said.

I believe a chimp-Neanderthal hybrid would not merely be acceptable, it would be an essential step towards making the world that much cooler! Flying cars and transporters, here we come! (Wait, if we have transporters, why do we want flying cars?) I want to have a plug-in slot installed in my skull so I can become addicted to pleasure when I’m not instantly downloading everything I need to know to be able to build my own robots with Asimov circuits so I can order them to jump out windows or I’ll kill myself.

Alternatively, maybe it’ll lead to humanity being enslaved by talking apes. Either way, I’m for it.

From gender.org:

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.

Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgendered — that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant — each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgendered people.

We live in times more sensitive than ever to hatred based violence, especially since the events of September 11th. Yet even now, the deaths of those based on anti-transgender hatred or prejudice are largely ignored. Over the last decade, more than one person per month has died due to transgender-based hate or prejudice, regardless of any other factors in their lives. This trend shows no sign of abating.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgendered people, an action that current media doesn’t perform. Day of Remembrance publicly mourns and honors the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. Through the vigil, we express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. Day of Remembrance reminds non-transgendered people that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends and lovers. Day of Remembrance gives our allies a chance to step forward with us and stand in vigil, memorializing those of us who’ve died by anti-transgender violence.

That was via Jack at Angry Brown Butch, who has some excellent suggestions for how you can take action.

Bird of Paradox and Feministe both have link round-ups.

Minnesota Public Radio has a page showing examples of contested ballots, with a poll under each one, so you can see how your call on each vote compares to what MPR readers in general think. It’s surprisingly entertaining.

Nate Silver has a good discussion of the ongoing Minnesota recount process, which is still neck and neck between Franken and Coleman.

Intra-Democrat fights are rarely this sweet. Waxman beats Dingell:

Representative Henry Waxman won the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, ousting John Dingell, the longest-serving member of the U.S. House.

On Shakesville, Oddjob comments:

THAT’S CHANGE!! …[T]he single largest reason why car fuel efficiency standards have not been meaningfully raised since the 1970’s is because Dingell has been the chairman of the House committee most responsible for such legislation, and he’s from Detroit. Waxman is a liberal and from California, the state where smog from automobiles has been the biggest air pollution problem.

This fight has been going on for years, but before now Dingell has held his ground. From a Greenwire report in 2006:

Climate, Pelosi said, is “a critical part of our agenda.”

Pelosi referred specifically to a global-warming bill from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), which many environmentalists have identified as one of the few measures on Capitol Hill to take the steps necessary to avert irreversible changes to the Earth’s climate. Last month, Pelosi cosponsored the measure.

But Dingell thinks the Waxman proposal goes too far too fast. “I have reason to believe,” he said, “it’s on the extreme side.”

Sane legislative responses to global warming are now much, much more likely.

Like most Democrats, I was gleeful after the Dems took a big lead in the Senate. Sure, part of that was about getting our agenda pushed through, but mostly I was happy because it meant that defenestrated Sen. Joe Lieberman, Joe-Conn., would soon be out of a job. His gavel would be stripped, his epaulettes ripped from his shoulders, and he’d be sent out of the Democratic caucus into the cold twilight of the GOP caucus, where he’d have to put up with idiots like Tom Coburn. It would be glorious.

But a funny thing happened to Holy Joe: he got his butt saved by former Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who happens to be the President-Elect that Lieberman spent all summer campaigning against. Obama suggested quietly to the Democratic caucus that they not throw Joe to the wolves, and the Democrats obliged, letting Joe keep his committee chairmanship, the removal of which, Lieberman said, would force him from the caucus.

And so you might expect me to be a bit disappointed. But I’m not. Because I think, on careful reflection, that Obama did precisely the right thing — and the thing that will cause Lieberman the most consternation. He saved him.

Yes, Obama will win plaudits for being bipartisan and moderate and sensible and whatnot, and the usual suspects will take the opportunity to claim the left is dead. But before you despair, think about what would have happened had Lieberman been stripped of his chairmanship and forced from the caucus. We like to say that Lieberman would then become just another Republican, but we know better: Lieberman would still have been a media darling, the Democrat Too Moderate to Stay a Democrat. Throughout the next four years, Lieberman would have been invited on Fox and CNN to gravely intone as to why his ejection from power was proof that the Democrats had gone to far. I can hear him saying, “I didn’t leave the party — the party left me” ad infinitum, and to Joe and Jane Bagadonutz, it might even sound somewhat accurate.

Far from punishing Lieberman, he would have been liberated to be the complete douchebag that we know him to be. And make no mistake — he would have been more in demand than ever.

But that’s not what’s going to happen now. Now, Lieberman is in the Democratic caucus, but only because Obama and the Democrats were forgiving of his trespasses. From Obama to Reid, the message today is, “Okay, Joe’s a douchebag, but we’re going to let bygones be bygones.” Yes, Joe gets to keep the gavel — but with the gavel comes some big strings. Joe’s not going to be able to go on Fox and declare that Obama’s destroying the country, nor is he going to be able to vote against cloture on Obama’s first SCOTUS nominee, not without risking a public shellacking. If Lieberman strays off the reservation, the Democrats can cut him off — and do so more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, explaining that they tried to work with Lieberman, but he made the decision for them. Instead of being a thorn in the side of the Democrats, the man most likely to work against them, and a guy who would bet everything on a GOP revival in 2012 (for he has no real shot at re-election), Lieberman has become a Democrat with every incentive to toe the party line.

Is it the most viscerally satisfying solution? No, it isn’t. But if you’re looking at the next four years, it’s probably the smartest poltical move for the Democrats. Even if we’re stuck at 58 or 59 votes in the Senate (and I think that’s probably where we are; we might win Minnesota or Georgia, but the odds of winning both are slim), Lieberman’s presence in the caucus means we only have to snag one or two Republicans to break a filibuster, which is easier than three or four. And Lieberman’s presence in the caucus makes that easier, because Reid can squeeze Holy Joe to go out and try to win over Lindsey Graham or John McCain on this global warming bill or that torture bill.

In short, Lieberman will be a good soldier. If not, he’ll be forced out — but after proving once and for all that he can’t be trusted. And in the meantime, he’ll become just another Democratic senator, one whose time on the talk shows will be curtailed, who can’t lay into Obama without looking like an ungrateful wretch. It’s not viscerally satisfying, but if you believe in politics as a means to an end, it’s for the best.

EDIT: The address is 1666 North Vermont, not 1666 Sunset.

If you’re free on Thursday afternoon from 4 to 5:30 and happen to be in Los Angeles, head on over to the Vermont Handwash at 1666 North Vermont for an interfaith protest against employee abuse in the L.A. and Orange County carwash industry, courtesy of PJA, the UCLA Labor Center, CHIRLA, CLUE, and the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.

From CLEAN’s website:

Workers Charge LA Carwashes with Dangerous Health and Safety Violations

Health and Safety Experts Warn of Serious Risks of Heat Illness and Toxics Exposure

Los Angeles–Carwash workers who are part of the Carwash Workers Organizing Committee of the United Steelworkers (CWOC-USW) filed complaints today with the California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health alleging serious health and safety violations at two Los Angeles carwashes owned by members of the Pirian family. The Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN), a coalition of community, labor, and faith-based organizations, called for a boycott of six Pirian family-owned carwashes in April because of a history of serious employment, health and safety, and environmental law violations at some Pirian family-owned carwashes.

“The complaints filed today against Vermont Hand Wash and Hollywood Car Wash reveal shocking violations of our state’s health and safety regulations,” said Eden Flynn, a health and safety expert who heads the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (SoCal COSH). “Among other serious violations, management has not provided shade and rest breaks for all workers, despite record high temperatures in Los Angeles. These workers are subject to the same risks of heat illness as farm workers in the Central Valley,” said Flynn.

Bosbely Reyna, one of the workers who filed the complaint against Vermont Hand Wash, said “We work in the hot sun drying cars, and when it’s busy we have to go without any break to drink water or cool off in the shade. But we’ve heard about the farm workers who died, we know we have the right to protect ourselves at work, and we know what the boss is doing is illegal.”

Workers in the carwash industry are regularly exposed to toxic chemicals in car cleaning products that are known by the state to cause cancer. Prolonged exposure to some of the chemicals found in LA carwashes can cause liver, kidney and heart, and central nervous system damage.

“None of the carwash workers we spoke to had received any training whatsoever on the handling of these highly toxic chemicals,” said Flynn, “and many are forced to work without protective equipment such as gloves or masks.”

The complaint also describes faulty equipment that causes chemical spills, such as a leaking hose that transports acid for wheel cleaning. When workers have used the hose to clean wheels, acid leaked onto their skin.

“When the acid touches your skin, it burns and makes your hands peel and crack. We never received any training on what the chemicals are or how to use them, so sometimes the workers mix up window cleaner with the acid and when they spray it onto the windshields it gets in their eyes. Some of the guys have problems seeing for months after that,” said Reyna.

Carwash workers described bathrooms shared by more than 30 people with no soap or toilet paper, and toilets clogged for as long as a week at a time.

The complaint also details broken machinery at Hollywood Car Wash that has injured workers, such as a dryer that workers must stick their arms into to stop manually. Due to the dryer’s excessive heat and constant spinning, at least one employee has been burned while attempting to retrieve a towel from the dryer.

The CLEAN Carwash Campaign welcomed yesterday’s announcement that the Labor Commissioner’s office had conducted sweeps of dozens of Southern California carwashes. “CLEAN welcomes the state’s efforts to clean up the carwash industry,” said Lilia Garcia, a leader of the CLEAN coalition and the head of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund. “The violations uncovered in the sweeps confirm that this is a dirty industry and violations by carwash owners are rampant. Just one sweep exposed carwash owners who were violating child labor law, failing to pay minimum wage, and failing to insure for workers’ compensation.”

More than half of the L.A. and Orange County carwashes inspected in the sweeps were cited for violations of employment laws. “We look forward to working with Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet to ensure consistent and aggressive enforcement of employment laws in the carwash industry. We know that real enforcement of our laws, combined with workers organizing for their rights, is the only way to create sustainable compliance with the law by owners,” said Garcia.

See you there!

(Cross-posted at Modern Mitzvot.)

…than to speak out and remove all doubt. This bit of wisdom, oft attributed to former President Abraham Lincoln, is something John Ziegler should take to heart. Ziegler is the producer of a new movie that totally proves that a lot of Obama supporters were misinformed, partly through the use of a Zogby poll that asks inaccurate questions. Nate Silver called out Zogby earlier today for running what amounted to a push poll; Ziegler responded by demanding an interview with Silver.

Hilarity ensues:

[Nate Silver]: Do you stand by all the statements in the survey as being unambiguously true?
[John Ziegler]: I stand one hundred percent by the notion that there is absolutely zero ambiguity as to what the right answer is to any of the questions. With the one exception of the Palin-Russia-Alaska question which we asked the way we did for a very specific purpose which was to try and gauge the Tina Fey Effect which I think we did in a very effective manner which was what was actually said by Tina Fey, everyone attributed to Sarah Plain. But for purposes of scoring Obama supporters’ answers we counted Palin as a correct response.

NS: What was the right answer to that [Palin] question?
JZ: The technically accurate question [sic] is that none of the four people said that, but we counted it as correct if they said Sarah Palin.

NS: Why would you commission a survey question with no correct response?
JZ: The purpose of the question, you pinhead, was we wanted to determine the Tina Fey Effect.

[...]

NS: Did you have financing for the project or was it paid for out of pocket?
JZ: It is not self-financed.

NS: Who paid for it?
JZ: You think I’m going to tell you that? When you’ve already shown yourself to be the enemy?

NS: Was it paid for by the RNC?
JZ: [Laughs]. In your world, the question that I would ask you is what question [in the survey] is there any ambiguity as to what the answer is?

NS: Well, that Obama ‘launched his career’ at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground –
JZ: That happens to be one of the questions that Obama supporters did the best on! They did better on that question than on any other Obama-related answers! And here you’re telling me that it’s not true?

NS: What do you mean by “launched his career”?
JZ: The first campaign as told by the person whose position he took in the State Senate, as told by her admission, his first campaign event was in the home of Bill Ayers and his wife. [Laughs] Unless you live in the Obama kool-aid world! That is astonishing to me that you would not accept that! And by the way, when you’re given four responses to that question, what else was the response going to be? Sarah Palin?

NS: Well, her husband was a member of a secessionist party.
JZ: You are such a hack! That’s a very good analogy.

NS: Do you think that certain types of voters are less well informed?
JZ: I think anyone that looks rationally at these poll results would have to conclude that Obama voters are incredibly poorly informed about major issues that occurred during the campaign — my guess is because McCain voters got their information from different types of media than Obama voters did.

NS: What types of media would you consider credible?
JZ: I think you need a variety of sources, but I do not accept the notion that if it’s not in the New York Times it’s not true and if it is in the New York Times it is. Just because Sean Hannity says something doesn’t mean it’s not true.

The whole thing is full of win, especially the half-dozen times that Ziegler argues that Silver won’t post the transcript of the interview. Because the transcript, I suppose, makes Silver look bad. Or something.

Brilliant. (Via Amanda).

(All the women in the “attractive girls union” appear to be white. Thoughtlessness or satire?)

In mid-October, the California Court of Appeals ruled¹ that California cannot legally fund women-only shelters.² I didn’t see anything about it in the feminist blogosphere until yesterday, when Renee posted about the case.

In California, it is generally illegal for the government to discriminate based on sex.³ The California statutes funding domestic violence shelters, however, contained language defining “domestic violence” as something that only happens to women,⁴, and some funding apparently went to women-only services.

This was legal (before this court ruling) because of this provision of California law:

No person in the State of California shall, on the basis of race, national origin, ethnic group identification, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, color, or disability, be unlawfully denied full and equal access to the benefits of, or be unlawfully subjected to discrimination under, any program or
activity that is conducted, operated, or administered by the state or by any state agency, is funded directly by the state, or receives any financial assistance from the state. [...]

This article shall not be interpreted in a manner that would adversely affect lawful programs which benefit the disabled, the aged, minorities, and women.

The plaintiffs, a group including men who said they had been abused, and a teenage girl who claimed her father had been abused by her mother, sued. The appeals court found in their favor, writing:

The greater need for services by female victims of domestic violence does not provide a compelling state interest in a gender classification. As Connerly makes clear, equal protection is not concerned with numbers. “In applying the strict scrutiny test, it must be remembered that the rights created by the equal protection clause are not group rights; they are personal rights guaranteed to the individual.” (Connerly, supra, 92 Cal.App.4th at p. 35.) Arguing that a group of people (here male victims of domestic violence) is too small in number to be afforded equal protection is simply arguing “that the right to equal protection should hinge on ‘administrative convenience.’” (Molar v. Gates (1979) 98 Cal.App.3d 1, 18.) Administrative convenience is an inadequate state interest under a strict scrutiny analysis. (Id. at p. 17.) Plaintiffs and defendants agree domestic violence is a serious problem for both women and men, and programs funded under Health and Safety Code section 124250 and Penal Code section 13823.15 offer a variety of services, primarily shelter but also counseling and other support services. Defendants fail to show a compelling state interest in providing funding only to those programs that provide these services to women only.

Even if there were a compelling state interest, defendants do not show the classification is necessary, rather than convenient, and no gender-neutral alternative is available. Most of the programs funded by DHS and all of the programs funded by OES offer services on a gender-neutral basis, showing the classification is not necessary.[...]

The gender classifications in Health and Safety Code section 124250 and Penal Code section 13823.15, that provide state funding of domestic violence programs that offer services only to women and their children, but not to men, violate equal protection.

Nothing in either statute evinces a legislative intent to restrict funding to programs that assist only women. Indeed, all of the programs funded under Penal Code section 13823.15 and the vast majority, 85 percent, of the programs funded under Health and Safety Code section 124250 provide services on a gender-neutral basis. Accordingly, both Health and Safety Code section 124250 and Penal Code section 13823.15 are reformed to provide funding for services to victims of domestic violence, regardless of gender.

In reforming the statutes that provide funding for domestic violence programs to be gender-neutral, we do not require that such programs offer identical services to men and women. Given the noted disparity in the number of women needing services and the greater severity of their injuries, it may be appropriate to provide more and different services to battered women and their children. For example, a program might offer shelter for women, but only hotel vouchers for a smaller number of men.

Overall, I agree with this decision. Five quick points:

1. Equal protection and treatment by the law, regardless of gender (race, gender identity, etc), is a principle I support.

2. It makes sense that the law makes an exception for beneficial programs like affirmative action, which could not exist without the exception. However, services for victims of intimate violence seem to fall into a different category, because it is possible for shelters to provide services to both women and men. Indeed, the vast majority of publicly-funded DV services in California served both female and male victims, even before this lawsuit.⁵

3. This ruling will have very little practical effect on anything. As the court noted, the large majority of publicly-funded DV services in California are already gender-neutral.

4. Although I approve of equal protection, and of this ruling, it’s frustrating that the MRA movement — which is so much more dedicated to attacking feminism than to helping men — ever gets what it wants. Many or most DV services were initially created by feminist work and activism; MRAs have done none of the hard work involved in creating this network. Nor is the MRA movement fundraising to enable DV programs affected by this ruling to add services for men without reducing services for women, or lobbying to increase funding for DV shelters. In short, the MRA movement is a leech movement; MRAs sue to change systems feminists (mostly women) have built, but they don’t contribute positively to those systems.

This is, I think, part of what Renee was talking about in her post on Woods v. Shewry.

But when I look at the bigger picture, MRAs are irrelevant. It’s not the fault of male victims who need help that MRAs are leeches, and the worthlessness of the MRA movement can’t justify denying services to someone because of their sex.

5. The appeals court also ruled on a program which allows children under age six to be raised by mothers in prison, if the mothers are sentenced to 3 years or less. The program is available only to primary caretakers, and only if it is determined that staying with the mother is in the child’s best interest. The program is available only to mothers.

The appeals court allowed the program to stand, because the plaintiffs couldn’t find a single real-life example of a father who would have qualified for this program, if only he were female. I would have preferred the appeals court to order that the program be made available to fathers, should one who qualifies ever turn up.

1. The case is “Woods v Shewry”; a pdf file of the court’s decision is here (back)
2. I first read about the case via Glenn Sacks and Feminist Critics. (back)
3. Although, thanks to proposition 8, it now seems that it is legal for the government to discriminate based on sex when it comes to same-sex marriage. (back)
4. From the statute in question:”‘Domestic violence’ means the infliction or threat of physical harm against past or present adult or adolescent female intimate partners, and shall include physical, sexual, and psychological abuse against the woman, and is part of a pattern of assaultive, coercive, and controlling behaviors directed at achieving compliance from or control over, that woman.” (back)
5. The appeals court noted that the plaintiffs weren’t able to provide compelling evidence that any California services discriminate against men; the only evidence of discrimination against men was a statement by a defense witness: “The only evidence that some state-funded programs discriminate against men is the declaration of Dr. Susann Steinberg that 85 percent of agencies funded by DHS provide services to men, from which we presume the other 15 percent do not.” (back)

Pity the Nice Guy™. Please. His world is all topsy-turvy. All he wants is to know exactly what all women want, so that he can have sex with them. But it turns out that different women want different things. Some women believe firmly in traditional gender roles, while others are believers in egalitarianism. Some women are all about hooking up, others want a commitment. And this means that a Nice Guy™ is completely unable to get it right on every single date. Quelle horreur!

The latest bit of Nice Guy™ wankery comes courtesy of Kay S. Hymowitz, writing in City Journal, who explains that the rules just don’t matter anymore, and that’s just terrible for the menz. She had written a previous article arguing that today’s men are too childish (which is another stupid stereotype for another day), and men wrote in to say nuh-uh, it’s all girls’ fault:

It would be easy enough to hold up some of the callow ranting that the piece inspired as proof positive of the child-man’s existence. But the truth is that my correspondents’ objections gave me pause. Their argument, in effect, was that the SYM is putting off traditional markers of adulthood—one wife, two kids, three bathrooms—not because he’s immature but because he’s angry. He’s angry because he thinks that young women are dishonest, self-involved, slutty, manipulative, shallow, controlling, and gold-digging. He’s angry because he thinks that the culture disses all things male. He’s angry because he thinks that marriage these days is a raw deal for men.

Here’s Jeff from Middleburg, Florida: “I am not going to hitch my wagon to a woman . . . who is more into her abs, thighs, triceps, and plastic surgery. A woman who seems to have forgotten that she did graduate high school and that it’s time to act accordingly.” Jeff, meet another of my respondents, Alex: “Maybe we turn to video games not because we are trying to run away from the responsibilities of a ‘grown-up life’ but because they are a better companion than some disease-ridden bar tramp who is only after money and a free ride.” Care for one more? This is from Dean in California: “Men are finally waking up to the ever-present fact that traditional marriage, or a committed relationship, with its accompanying socially imposed requirements of being wallets with legs for women, is an empty and meaningless drudgery.” You can find the same themes posted throughout websites like AmericanWomenSuck, NoMarriage, MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), and Eternal Bachelor (“Give modern women the husband they deserve. None”).

Ah, yes, the mating call of the MRA: “Women suck and they just want our money and they totally suck and they’re slutty and icky and dirty and I really hate them because they don’t want to be with me.” You’d think, at some point, that these men would be happy that they’d figured out that women were all evil whorebags, and be satisfied with being single. I mean, if women really are as universally evil as the MRAs claim, why would men want to be with them?

Now, I would tend to think that this level of anger comes from a deap-seated hatred of women, one with roots probably going back to childhood. Through self-examination, these men might be able to overcome these problems. But Hymowitz knows better. These men are really upset that women aren’t all on the same page:

The reason for all this anger, I submit, is that the dating and mating scene is in chaos. SYMs of the postfeminist era are moving around in a Babel of miscues, cross-purposes, and half-conscious, contradictory female expectations that are alternately proudly egalitarian and coyly traditional. And because middle-class men and women are putting off marriage well into their twenties and thirties as they pursue Ph.D.s, J.D.s, or their first $50,000 salaries, the opportunities for heartbreak and humiliation are legion. Under these harsh conditions, young men are looking for a new framework for understanding what (or, as they might put it, WTF) women want. So far, their answer is unlikely to satisfy anyone—either women or, in the long run, themselves.

Ah, yes. What do women want? Let me ask a different question: what do men want? Well, it depends, you might say. Some men want a family. Some want sex. Some want an equal. Some are looking for a homemaker. Some are looking for someone to snuggle with on a cold winter’s night, and some are looking for someone to cuckold them while they hide in the closet and take pictures. If there are 150 million American men, there are 250 million different things that those men want.

And the same goes for women. There is no one thing that “women want.” Different women want different things. Some are looking for a friend and companion that will be with them as they build careers. Some are looking for a potential father. Some are looking for a night of commitment-free sex. Some are looking for a threesome. Some are looking for all of the above, or none of the above. And many women — and many men — aren’t sure exactly what they’re looking for.

Confusing? Yes, it is. Welcome to the 21st century. Two hundred years ago, it was easy — everyone was supposed to want the exact same thing. Of course, many women and many men were deeply unhappy then.

Now, men and women have probably been a mystery to one another since the time human beings were in trees; one reason people developed so many rules around courtship was that they needed some way to bridge the Great Sexual Divide

The older I get, the more I believe that women and men are a mystery to each other only because we are constantly told from birth that women and men are a mystery to each other, who speak different languages and are unable to actually communicate. It turns out that men and women are a lot alike. There may be minor differences, but nothing that can’t be figured out by asking questions. Indeed, much of the trouble in relationships could be solved by teaching our children that if they have questions about that boy or girl they’re interested in dating, the best thing to do is just bite the bullet and go ask them. And that if they get asked an honest question, then give an honest answer. Instead, we teach boys and girls that they have to deal with girls and boys through an elaborate system of games and deception. It’s a wonder any relationships work at all.

By the early twentieth century, things had evolved so that in the United States, at any rate, a man knew the following: he was supposed to call for a date; he was supposed to pick up his date; he was supposed to take his date out, say, to a dance, a movie, or an ice-cream joint; if the date went well, he was supposed to call for another one; and at some point, if the relationship seemed charged enough—or if the woman got pregnant—he was supposed to ask her to marry him. Sure, these rules could end in a midlife crisis and an unhealthy fondness for gin, but their advantage was that anyone with an emotional IQ over 70 could follow them.

Today, though, there is no standard scenario for meeting and mating, or even relating. For one thing, men face a situation—and I’m not exaggerating here—new to human history. Never before have men wooed women who are, at least theoretically, their equals—socially, professionally, and sexually.

By the time men reach their twenties, they have years of experience with women as equal competitors in school, on soccer fields, and even in bed. Small wonder if they initially assume that the women they meet are after the same things they are: financial independence, career success, toned triceps, and sex.

And you know, there are a lot of women who are into those things. And a lot of women who aren’t. A lot of men aren’t, too — for example, I don’t even know where my triceps are, and I assume they probably aren’t toned. And if a woman wanted to date me, but was insistent that my triceps were toned…well, it wouldn’t work out. Because I tone my triceps for no earthly being.

But then, when an SYM walks into a bar and sees an attractive woman, it turns out to be nothing like that. The woman may be hoping for a hookup, but she may also be looking for a husband, a co-parent, a sperm donor, a relationship, a threesome, or a temporary place to live. She may want one thing in November and another by Christmas. “I’ve gone through phases in my life where I bounce between serial monogamy, Very Serious Relationships and extremely casual sex,” writes Megan Carpentier on Jezebel, a popular website for young women. “I’ve slept next to guys on the first date, had sex on the first date, allowed no more than a cheek kiss, dispensed with the date-concept altogether after kissing the guy on the way to his car, fucked a couple of close friends and, more rarely, slept with a guy I didn’t care if I ever saw again.” Okay, wonders the ordinary guy with only middling psychic powers, which is it tonight?

Well, here’s a way to find out, guy with middling psychic powers: ask the girl. She’ll tell you.

Or maybe she won’t, but then you’ll know that she’s just looking to play games. And you’ll have to decide whether you want to play along.

Now, maybe the woman gives you an answer you don’t like. Maybe you want a relationship, and she just wants sex. You know what you do then? Thank her for her time, and move along. Because there’s another woman out there who does want a relationship, and you’re looking for her. And there’s another man out there who’s just looking for sex, and you’re getting in his way.

In fact, young men face a bewildering multiplicity of female expectations and desire. Some women are comfortable asking, “What’s your name again?” when they look across the pillow in the morning. But plenty of others are looking for Mr. Darcy. In her interviews with 100 unmarried, college-educated young men and women, Jillian Straus, author of Unhooked Generation, discovered that a lot of women had “personal scripts”—explicit ideas about how a guy should act, such as walking his date home or helping her on with her coat. Straus describes a 26-year-old journalist named Lisa fixed up for a date with a 29-year-old social worker. When he arrives at her door, she’s delighted to see that he’s as good-looking as advertised. But when they walk to his car, he makes his first mistake: he fails to open the car door for her. Mistake Number Two comes a moment later: “So, what would you like to do?” he asks. “Her idea of a date is that the man plans the evening and takes the woman out,” Straus explains. But how was the hapless social worker supposed to know that? In fact, Doesn’t-Open-the-Car-Door Guy might well have been chewed out by a female colleague for reaching for the office door the previous week.

Please. You know what you do when you go out on a first date with a woman who’s really upset that you didn’t open the car for her (or did, wev)? You don’t go out on a second date with her. The reverse is true, too. First dates aren’t binding, long-term contracts. They’re a chance to meet someone and decide if they’re right for you. If you find a person whose idea of a relationship is different than yours, then you’ve probably found a person you don’t wa