A pile of books raises a question.

Books left on the chair by the last occupant of the table I was lucky enough to grab here at Borders café today:

Matter (serious looking book of poetry)



I Keep Falling in Love with You (cheesy looking poetry anthology)



Readings in Economic Sociology



Principles of Economic Sociology



Obsessive Compulsive Disorders: A Complete Guide to Getting Well and Staying Well



Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: New Help for the Family



Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:The Facts



Tormenting Thoughts and Secret Rituals: The Hidden Epidemic of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Wouldn't you think someone that interested in obsessive compulsive disorder would reshelve his books?

Is "Merry Christmas"/"Happy Holidays" the new red/blue?

I see Metafilter is discussing the Lileks response to the James Woolcott response to Lileks, Instapundit, etc. etc., commenting on the way "Happy Holidays" is replacing "Merry Christmas." Now, the whole subject has been talked about so much that it's going to seem like saying "Merry Christmas" is throwing down the gauntlet. Is "Merry Christmas"/"Happy Holidays" the new red/blue? We're declaring political positions now with our choice of seasonal pleasantry?



In a related development, my local Borders bookstore is not playing any Christmas or seasonal music of any kind this week, it seems (based on my afternoon visits on Monday and Tuesday). Is this some sort of declaration of blue state-iness? Personally, I found it a relief not to hear Christmas music (or the related "it's snowing"/"I'm cold" music) while shopping, but I wonder if turning it off is now some sort of staunch political move.



People have worried about the commercialization of Christmas, but now we've got the politicization of Christmas. Must politics leak all over everything?

The magnificent Tony Blair.

I was just listening to C-Span's re-airing of the press conference that took place yesterday in Baghdad with Tony Blair and Iyad Allawi. Blair's brilliance as a speaker always amazes me. My intense admiration for his speaking is tinged with the pain of the comparison to President Bush, whose gift for communication is modest. If only Bush could speak like Blair, it seems, things would go much better. I know Blair has his troubles back home, but I marvel at his capacity to inspire. This part of the press conference particularly impressed me, as a reporter tries to pin him with a hard question:

Q: Nick Robinson, ITV News: Can you just give us a sense of your feelings today? You flew here in secrecy under armed protection into what is still a safe zone more than a year and a half after Saddam fell. Can you honestly say to yourself, this is what I meant to bring about when I said that we ought to invade Iraq?



Tony Blair: That's a good question. I'll tell you exactly what I felt coming in. Security is really heavy - you can feel the sense of danger that people live in here.

He takes a very long pause here -- long enough to make you worry that he's going to crack and reveal his despair.

But what I felt more than anything else was this - the danger that people feel here is coming from terrorists and insurgents who are trying to destroy the possibility of this country becoming a democracy.



Now where do we stand in that fight? We stand on the side of the democrats against the terrorists. And so when people say to me, well look at the difficulties, look at the challenges - I say well what's the source of that challenge - the source of that challenge is a wicked, destructive attempt to stop this man, this lady, all these people from Iraq, who want to decide their own future in a democratic way, having that opportunity.



And where should the rest of the world stand? To say, well that's your problem, go and look after it, or you're better off with Saddam Hussein running the country - as if the only choice they should have in the world is a choice between a brutal dictator killing hundreds of thousands of people or terrorists and insurgents.



There is another choice for Iraq - the choice is democracy, the choice is freedom - and our job is to help them get there because that's what they want. Sometimes when I see some of the reporting of what's happening in Iraq in the rest of the world, I just feel that people should understand how precious what has been created here is. And those people from that electoral commission that I described as the heroes of the new Iraq - every day... a lot of them aren't living in the Green Zone, they've got to travel in from outside - they do not know at any point in time, whether they're going to be subject to brutality or intimation even death and yet they carry on doing it. Now what a magnificent example of the human spirit - that's the side we should be on.

UPDATE: An emailer suggests that Tony Blair comes across as too slick when you have to hear him all the time. Conceivably, Bush's imperfect, but strong and heartfelt speech is more effective.



ANOTHER UPDATE: The link above is to the text of the press conference, but you can watch the streaming video here. The delivery is a big part of the effect.

The travails of the stay-at-home father.

The NYT reports that it's a hard life for the man who stays home with the kids and has a wife who's a good provider:

"If I were a woman, people would say I was amazing," he said, sitting in his kitchen on a gray day this month. "But I'm a man, and so this is seen as weak."

And they are left out of play date arrangements. They've had to go out of their way to find other stay-at-home dads to arrange play dates with. Some of them, anyway. Then there's this guy (who, I suspect, is more the usual stay-at-home dad type than those play date guys):

"I would like to get other people's tips and hear how they handle things, but I'm not really interested in finding men just to talk to..."



[The man's wife] has encouraged him to make more male friends near their home..., but he says he is content to doze or play video games during his downtime in the day.

I have nothing to say individually to the particular couple in that anecdote. But just generally, guys, when your wife says something like that to you, maybe she's not just trying to prod you to derive a little more enjoyment out of life. Maybe she's letting you know that you are not a very interesting person to come home to. People imagine that women will think it's just great to have a man who devotes so much time to taking care of the kids. But will this dozing, video-game-playing man remain attractive to the woman who is out in the world interacting with lively, career-driven men?



The Times article concentrates on the way the men feel and drags in the pop-culture reference of the day:

And while the desperate housewives on Wisteria Lane have their exciting trysts with teenage gardeners and mysterious neighbors, there are seemingly few worries that these stay-at-home husbands have any potential for steamy affairs with their female counterparts. After all, what is threatening about a man loaded down with diapers?



"It takes one's manhood, chews it up, spits it out and does it again," said [a man] who has taken care of his daughters for two years. "You really need a strong marriage and confidence. I don't have a lot of friends who could do this."

Hmmm ... let's see. Who is more likely to have an affair -- the man who feels secure in his masculinity or the man who feels his manhood has been ground into a pulp?



UPDATE: Nina writes that the dozing, video-game-playing guy was probably already inherently boring, which is way he's satisfied to doze and play video games. This is a chicken-and-egg conundrum: do people do boring things because they are boring or are they boring because they do boring things? I'm inclined to think boringness is a big complex interactive mix of inherent tendencies and acquired attributes. But if the question is not are you really boring but will your spouse lose interest in you, the context matters. Picture two boring men: one is dozing on the couch when his hardworking wife comes home and the other comes home to his stay-at-home wife after a long day as the most boring man in the office. Which marriage is more at risk?



ANOTHER UPDATE: I've been asked whether I'm simply trying to justify traditional sex roles. Not at all. I'd like to see the most freedom for people to decide who stays home with children, who goes to work, and whether both go to work. I'm only saying that choosing one approach or the other does not insulate you from the hard feelings or the erosion of the relationship that may follow. There is nothing about choosing a nontraditional division of labor that insures that you will not have retro-feelings that hurt the relationship.

When is it considered socially acceptable to joke to a stranger that people like you should all be dead?

Answer: When you find out someone is a lawyer.



I learned this little point about the expression of hatred when Christmas shopping today. The salesman saw that I had an American Bar Association credit card and proceeded to tell the ancient joke about what you call a large number of lawyers in a crashed bus at the bottom of a body of water, with the answer being "A good start." He was Madison enough to make the body of water Lake Mendota.



Now, you could substitute any group for lawyers in that joke, and I'm sure the joke has had many versions over the years, used to express hostility to all sorts of groups. But the only version I've ever heard is aimed at lawyers, because apparently it's just perfectly fine to say anything nasty you want about lawyers. But here I am, buying Christmas presents at the man's store. How about a little "Merry Christmas"? Or even "Happy Holidays"? What the hell, I'd settle for "Seasons Greetings"?

A strangely recurrent Wisconsin dialogue.

"Did you get a haircut?"



"No, I was wearing a hat."

Notes on yesterday's press conference.

Here are just a few assorted things that struck me about Bush's press conference yesterday.



1. Most enigmatic exchange:

Q I'd like to go back to Secretary Rumsfeld. You talked about --



PRESIDENT BUSH: (Inaudible.)



Q Thank you.



PRESIDENT BUSH: (Laughs.)

2. Cutest quip:

Q Mr. President ... As you know, presidents back to Carter have searched for a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Your dad worked hard for it. Your predecessor said once it was like going to the dentist without getting your gums numbed. I'm wondering what great --



PRESIDENT BUSH: Guy had a way with words. (Chuckles.)

3. Nice recognition:

[I]n case you're not following high school football in Texas ... the Crawford Pirates are the state 2-A, Division 2, champs. And we look forward, don't we, to wave the championship banner above the Crawford High School.

4. Best save after petering out:

[T]he minute you bring up Social Security reform, people go running around the country saying, "Really what he says is, he's going to take away your check," or that which you become dependent upon will no longer be available for you to live on. And so therefore part of setting the stage, laying the groundwork for there to be a successful reform effort is -- is assuring our seniors that they just don't have to worry about anything. When they hear the debate is that is taking place on the floor of the Congress, they just need to know that the check they're getting won't change, the promises will be met; that, you know, if there's to be an increase in their check, they'll get their check. In other words, the -- the formula that has enabled them to -- to -- to extent -- to the -- to a certain extent to -- the formula they're relying on won't change. Let me put it that way. I was trying to be really brilliant.

5. Best occasion for a chuckle:

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... Now in terms of the --



Q DNI.



PRESIDENT BUSH: -- NDI --



Q DNI.



PRESIDENT BUSH: -- DNI -- the -- I'm going to find somebody who knows something about intelligence -- (chuckles) -- and capable and honest and ready to do the job.

6. Part of the press conference that made me say, "Notice how many times he said 'heart.' That makes me think this really is what he originally wanted his presidency to be about."

Q. Yeah, Mr. President. Since early in your first term you've talked about immigration reform, but yet people in your own party on the Hill seem opposed to this idea, and you've gotten opposition even on the other side. Do you plan to expend some of your political capital this time to see this through?



PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah. I appreciate that -- first of all, welcome. I'd like to welcome all the new faces, some prettier than others, I might add. (Laughter.)



But yes, I intend to work with members of Congress to get something done. I think this is a -- a issue that will make it easier for us to enforce our borders, and I believe it's an issue that is -- will show the -- if when we get it right, the compassionate heart of the American people. And no question it's a tough issue, just like some of the other issues we're taking on. But, you know, my job is to confront tough issues and to ask Congress to work together to confront tough issues.



Now let me talk about the immigration issue. First, we want our Border Patrol agents chasing, you know, crooks and thieves and drug runners and terrorists, not good-hearted people who are coming here to work. And therefore, it makes sense to allow the good-hearted people who are coming here to do jobs that Americans won't do a legal way to do so. And providing that legal avenue, it takes the pressure off the border.



Now, we need to make sure the border is modern and we need to upgrade our Border Patrol, but if we expect the Border Patrol to be able to enforce a long border, particularly in the south -- and the north, for that matter -- we ought to have a system that recognizes people are coming here to do jobs that Americans will not do, and there ought to be a legal way for them to do so.



To me, that is -- and not only that, but once a person is here, if he or she feels like he or she needs to go back to see their family, to the country of origin, they should be able to do so within a prescribed -- and the card and the permit would last for a prescribed period of time. It's a compassionate way to treat people who come to our country. It recognizes the reality of the world in which we live. There are some people in -- there are some jobs in America that Americans won't do and others are willing to do.



One of the important aspects of my vision is that this is not automatic citizenship. The American people must understand that. That if somebody who is here working wants to be a citizen, they can get in line like those who have been here legally and have been working to become a citizenship (sic) in a legal manner. And this is a very important issue.



And it's a -- and I look forward to working with members of Congress. I fully understand the politics of immigration reform. I mean, I was the governor of Texas, right there on the front lines of border politics. I know what it means to have mothers and fathers come to my state and across the border of my state to work. Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River is what I used to tell the people of my state.



People are coming to put food on the table. They're doing jobs Americans will not do. And to me it makes sense for us to recognize that reality and to help those who are needing to enforce our borders; legalize the process of people doing jobs Americans won't do; take the pressure off of employers so they're not having to rely upon false IDs; cut out the coyotes, who are the smugglers of these people, putting them in the back of tractor trailers in the middle of August in Texas, allowing people to suffocate in the back of the truck; stop the process of people feeling like they got to walk miles across desert in Arizona and Texas in order just to feed their family -- and they find them dead in the -- out there, you know.



I mean, this is a system that can be much better, and I'm passionate on it because the nature of this country is one that is good-hearted and our people are compassionate. The system we have today is not a compassionate system. It's not working. And as a result, the country is less secure than it could be with a rational system.

UPDATE: I see that Jacob Weisberg has made a "Bushism of the Day" out of the misspoken "working to become a citizenship" in that last quote. Doesn't Weisberg have anything better do? A "Bushism" should at least be a distinctively Bushian type of mistake, not the sort of speech slip that everyone makes. And it really ought to be also, maybe, you know, a little funny. I really hope people point and laugh inanely at Weisberg whenever he fails to say everything just right. Jeez! Am I sick of him!