The Wagging Dog

Thesis: Insufferable assholery is a preexisting condition that ought to disqualify a person from voting on the AHCA (or any other social welfare legislation). First, let’s get a picture of who we are talking about. Ron Johnson is a US Senator from Wisconsin. During a telephone town hall I attended, he argued that it was unfair to make healthy people pay the costs of treatment for sick people. Mo Brooks, a Representative from Alabama, said that we need to reduce costs for “people who lead good lives” and are healthy. Presumably in contrast to those lazy bad people who are off getting sick instead of working. These are just two instances. Reagan gave us, “blame the poor.” Now we have, “blame the sick.” In identifying this condition as “insufferable assholery” I am not (merely) trying to be offensive. “Asshole” is a technical term, described by Aaron James in his book,   Assholes: A Theory . James writes: an asshole, "allows himself to enjoy spec...

I have decided to start blogging about my family. I have made this decision, not to strike fear into my wife and children, though that is a bit of a side benefit (keep them on their toes), and not because I have noticed that on Facebook if you post about your kids you get like 50 likes and comments, but if you post a well-reasoned essay about obscenity and trigger warnings, you get close to zippo. I admit there may be subconscious motives at work, so I can’t discount the second entirely. I believe I have decided to start writing about my family because I was thinking about my dad, and about how he would have enjoyed blogging (and how he sort of did, in fact, have a blog). So I was going to start writing a post about my dad, and then I thought of President Obama (He is actually still president, right? This is all just some sick joke, I assume). I do try to take Obama as a model, as a point of comparison. I guess it’s kind of embarrassing that I compare myself to Obama. It’s kind of...

Regular Feature: Hated the Article, Should I Read the Book? #1 In this section I pick a lucky author of a New York Times “Sunday Review” piece and tell them what they got wrong. You’re welcome. First entry, “What Women Get From Work” by Jill Flipovic, adapted from “The H Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness.” This is an excellent one for me to start with, because not only can I mansplain, I can also classplain (Is that a thing? Will be when I’m done, watch.) The thesis is that pressures on mothers to stop working and stay home for their kids, deprives women of happiness that would come from working. No doubt, totally agree (see, I told you this would involve mansplaining). But what kind of happiness are we talking about forgoing here? Flipovic tells the story of her grandmother who worked a series of “pay the rent” jobs to care for her family. She describes the pride her grandmother had in providing for her family: The sense of accomplishment (and freedom) that came from ...

Now that I have just about finished offering my new class for the first time (how to be an educated consumer of statistics & data), it occurs to me that teaching is a lot like stand-up comedy. Classes need to be workshopped to really be effective. I just debuted 37 hours of material. Take that Louie C. K.! It also makes me wonder what comedians think is the optimal audience size? Too small and too big both seem problematic. For a class I think it’s around 25. Comedians must have some wisdom here. I bet it is the same for a class and for a stand-up show. I decided to watch The Aristocrats to do some research. I want to tell the students about my theory (that classes need to be workshopped) so they will understand what has been going on the last 15 weeks. I also kind of want to tell them about the movie (not assign it, just mention it). It’s really funny after all. But no way. I’m nervous even telling you guys, and you are the responsible internet community. It’s not so m...