Some Thoughts on Blogging, Technology and Gender, and What We Choose to Reveal About Ourselves

I had a very bloggy week, between watching Julie & Julia and Monday’s episode of House, which both revolved around women whose blogs got the better of them.

Julie & Julia received a lot of press for its portrayal of supportive husbands, on both women’s side. The Times gleefully wrote of Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci’s portrayal of middle-aged passion, but Julie’s husband was a “saint”, so much so that he objected to the label. Much is made of the Childs’ marriage, how passionate they were, but I found Paul Child to be supportive, but distant; in fact, both husbands in the movie were quite bland. Maybe that’s the point—they both were supportive characters, meant to prop up the leads, so they usually are less developed than the protagonists.

But other than that observation, it was Julie’s bloggy passion that stood out, in comparison to this week’s House episode, concentrated on a blogger who goes a little too personal with her diagnosis. Both women get caught up in blogging about their lives, neglecting their significant others, who come to resent their girlfriend’s hobby. (Tip: Get a boyfriend who blogs, or who at least likes the medium as much as you do.) This is reminiscent of Emily Gould’s fantastic bloggy piece in the New York Times nearly two years ago, where she recounts how blogging about her personal life wrecked her relationship and her life. All three women had successful blogs, the real-life ones turning into successful writers. All three were transformed by their hobby, sharing their love with others and eventually having their own audience. Both Julie and Laura Prepon’s Frankie worry too much about their audience; Julie, about actually having one, and Frankie, about what they think. She uses her blog as a crowdsource of opinion, on both the large and small decisions of her life, including the many major medical ones she faces in the episode. Their blogs become their lives, their reason for getting up in the morning. Julie’s Julia Child obsession is fueled by her blogging, and without it the structure of her project would fall apart, as she is documenting her progress. Frankie, too, is obsessed with documenting her life, and despite protestations from her boyfriend, feels she would be lying if she did not faithfully record or retell everything. Julie does not feel this way, though she does consent to not publicizing a fight she has with her husband (though by it being in the movie we presume that it is retold in her book).

The issue here, of course, becomes privacy. Sure, on the surface, Julie Powell’s project sounds fun, if daunting, and not particularly invasive; she is in charge of how much she chooses to reveal, and on the surface a cooking blog would not be one to draw readers.

But of course, that’s too simplistic. One of the women mentioned in the film who actually makes an appearance is Amanda Hesser, a New York Times food writer who made a name for herself (at least to this writer) by writing a column in the Times Magazine in the early part of the ‘00s, “Cooking for Mr. Latte”, about her meals and dates with a certain Mr. Latte, later revealed to be the New Yorker writer Tad Friend. “Cooking for Mr. Latte”, a kind of Sex and the City meets food, certainly had enough dish and romantic intrigue to make it more than just another food column, and, though it was on paper, had a bloggy feel to it, as it chronicled their burgeoning relationship. (The column also became a book.)

So why are all these bloggers women? Why is it that women feel the need to emotionally reveal themselves online, to chronicle their lives? Men seem to go about it in a much more analytical, data-driven fashion; Nicholas Felton has designed a number of what he calls “Personal Annual Reports”, yearly compilations of the minutia that makes up his life, and it’s fascinating: all the restaurants he ate at, the countries he visited, his most played songs on iTunes. Every year, the charts and graphs, not to mention what he actually records, get increasingly complex. (The MIT Media Lab has done similar projects, recording and analyzing personal, daily data of students.) Sure, I already know all the comments, the criticism: even a friend of mine, when I showed him Feltron, responded, “I know the irony of what I'm about to say as a man that Tweets but that's kind of self absorbed.”

Sure, it’s self-absorbed. But it’s a whole other form of diary, a multimedia one, life writ large. The data aspects makes it so much cooler, because it’s objective, and it’s a form that you can’t argue with; maybe that’s why men like it. There are so many ways to tell a story, and neither is completely right, for each time it’s told, it’s done a little differently, and they all give different sides to the same one.

The Internet, in all its lovely possibilities, has also given us a way to be anonymous and solicit anonymous opinions. That comes across in blogging—again with the choosing to reveal what we want. But there’s also the new ChatRoulette and Formspring.me, services that flip anonymity on its head.

ChatRoulette, memorably introduced to many (including me) via this New York article, is a basic service that automatically turns on a user’s webcam and randomly beams you into someone else’s browser, and they you. The only options are to engage, move on, or turn off. Most outlets have connected it back to the days of the “wild, wild Internet”, before it became safe for minors, where everything and everyone was searchable. Here, it doesn’t matter if your name or your face or your home really belongs to you, as you are only known by your face, and there is no tag—there’s not even a record of who you’ve been connected with. There’s no way to track, no searching, no user names, no login information, no password. Glorious freedom. And yet it’s scary and incredibly intimidating, a party game to play.

Formspring.me is a site, a meme if you like, that lets people ask questions of a particular user. The person can use his or her real name, or a version of it, if the person desires, and those asking the questions can also identify themselves, though they usually stay anonymous. People asking the questions are strangers and friends; maybe you’ll get something good. It’s a version of a Facebook application known as the honesty box, which always got someone in trouble; that’s what honesty tends to do. And yet it’s addicting, in a way, to say too much; God knows in this era of TMI that it’s hard to put a lid on. Lying is contagious too, but it’s confusing as hell; being openly honest, too openly honest, can be about connecting or prolonging the awkward, having something to say, maybe just making a funny.

So we have two sides of a coin here: a site where we are expected to divulge secrets to those asking, and another an interface where we are personally faced with random strangers, no accountability. The first is implicitly about accountability, though we aren’t supposed to be pegged; the second, an escape route if we wish it to be.

But of course, we often occupy on the assumption that more information is better, and that notion led to ChatRoulette map, where users’ IP addresses are tracked to see who is using the service at any time. You do not need to be engaged on ChatRoulette to use ChatRoulette map, as I discovered this afternoon. There’s an option to turn this off, for it ruins the fun for some people. Exposing IP addresses always has a whiff of creepiness, as it feels like Big Brother is coming down to watch.

There are plenty of people who say that both will be a fad, but in Internet world, there are few things that have escaped this designation, one being Facebook. The Internet is both a blessing and a curse, causing us both to escape and feel trapped by our past, and we eagerly take up the call whenever we need to do so.

P.S. I have a formspring.me account. Ask questions, readers!

Also cross-posted on Notes on Popular Culture.

Embarrassing Obama?

Why is Barack Obama constantly being embarrassed by his wife?

Maria Menounos (who is moving up in the world, doing segments for Today and the Nightly News) recently did a four-part segment featuring the entire Obama family on Access Hollywood, and Barack rarely spoke, letting his daughter Malia and wife Michelle spill all his dirty secrets, like how he doesn’t like most sweets (except pie).

Most of this stuff is benign, but it was delivered with a hint of hostility, a tone I’ve detected in Michelle’s previous comments about her husband’s personal habits. Her daughter has picked up on this, too.

I don’t understand this impulse at all. I don’t find it endearing or cute. I know people razz on their friends and family members all the time, but usually there’s an undercurrent of affection in the teasing. But with Michelle Obama, I just don’t see it, even though I’m sure she means well. It’s supposed to open up the candidate, showing us who he really is, foibles and all. That’s why candidates and their families do silly puff interviews like the Access Hollywood one in the first place, although Barack has been regretting it of late. I usually don’t mind personal habits—to a degree. Nothing embarrassing, nothing I’m cringing at. It also has to be delivered in a way that makes all parties ok with it, and my problem seems to be that because Barack himself doesn’t seem to be ok with this teasing, I’m not either. He doesn’t look mildly embarrassed, a little sheepish, just coldly nodding his head, letting the facts stand there.

It’s also what Michelle Obama says that irks me. Her comment that he is “snore-y and stink-ey” struck me as low, even if she’s talking about him first thing in the morning. There’s a difference in saying that a spouse is clumsy or forgetful at times; attacking him for personal hygiene habits is too TMI for my taste.

I understand that Michelle Obama is just trying to flesh out her husband and not deify him, to offset this kind of cult rock star figure image that has glommed on to him. As she stated in the Glamour article, as an explanation to her earlier comments:

I think [most] people saw the humor of that. People understood that this is how we all live in our marriages. And Barack is very much human. So let’s not deify him, because what we do is we deify, and then we’re ready to chop it down. People have notions of what a wife’s role should be in this process, and it’s been a traditional one of blind adoration. My model is a little different—I think most real marriages are.

But in the Access Hollywood interviews, his family spends a good portion of time ragging on him; he barely gets a word in. He only eats mint gum. He doesn’t like sweets. He hates to shop. He wears old clothes. Wowee. He might be a little staid, but so are a lot of guys, so are a lot of political guys. Maybe it’s their way of just saying that he fits right in, despite all the ugly rumors proving he’s too much of an outsider. But it doesn’t come off that way; from Michelle it sounds like a litany of complaints. I’m not interested.

I’m not saying first ladies or potential first ladies and campaign spouses have to hold their tongues. Especially nowadays with their own high-powered careers, there is no need for them to be completely demurring and just fawn and smile sweetly when discussing their husbands, but there’s something to be said for discretion. Cindy McCain has acknowledged that her husband was away for her three miscarriages and her addiction to painkillers—something that would kill many other marriages. Like the Obamas, they decided to spend a good portion of their time living in separate places, each working where their career took them and the women largely raising the children. But while Cindy McCain has mentioned these hard times in both her marriage and in her life, she has not denigrated her husband.

Now, because I’m not voting for either Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain, this shouldn’t matter. It should have no bearing on my feelings for either candidate.

But stuff like this seeps through. Cindy McCain says she always knew that John would put the country ahead of her—so should that make us feel confident that he would make a good president because he cares about the country’s needs more than his wife’s? Should I wonder why Obama married a woman who would insult him in public? Is this a good thing, because he knows criticism and can handle it, shrugging it off like he does now? Or is this harmful, because he is immune to criticism? How does this affect—or not—his running of the country?

Recently, Slate’s XX blog has been discussing Ellen Tien’s apparently scathing account of her husband, how she thinks about divorce every day. I didn’t even read the article (written by the woman who does the Sunday Style’s Pulse), but I was appalled. What is the point of trashing your spouse (or significant other), who you are still currently with, in a public forum (print, online, video)? The only logical conclusion would be that you want out, and you want to hurt that person very, very badly.

Which is exactly what Christie Brinkley did in her exceedingly humiliating spectacle of a divorce. She exposed Peter Cook to humiliate him (and her), to get what she wanted, children and propriety be dammed. Exposing such nasty truths only serves as revenge. Michelle Obama, who has said that she won’t let Obama run again if he loses, and Cindy McCain, who is known to dislike the whole running for president thing, aren’t as brokenhearted and humiliated as Christie Brinkley is (we hope), but I don’t think they are saying these things purely out of spite. They are just telling the truth. But the truth doesn’t have to sound like they hate their husbands.

We Still Get All Hot and Bothered Even Though We Know Better

Do we ever get tired of these scandals?

Last week a golden girl finally got her "due"--hey, it was time, it wasn't like South Park didn't warn us--and a universally acknowledged douchebag were further indicted in lowbrow and highbrow print alike.

As for Miley--yes, it's someone's fault, yes, those pictures are disturbing. As the teen starlets get younger and younger, the point is obviously to create a ruckus. C'mon--very few of Miley's fans read Vanity Fair; she's trying to look mature to an older audience. They're still not going to listen to her music, read her autobiography or watch her TV show. But despite this, assuming that Vanity Fair contacted her with a story in mind (hidden between a story about a man who was assassinated 40 years ago), why wouldn't Miley take them up on their offer? If I had the opportunity to dress in couture for a photo shoot when I was 15, I sure as hell would have done it--ignoring the fact that I would have been scared out of my wits and incredibly awkward. It sounds so glamorous, grownup, and sexy. The MySpace pictures of her showing off her green bra are so disturbing because she looks so young, yet she's just parroting what she's seen. Of course she knows this; any girl, even in private, who has mugged some sexy poses knows what she's doing. Compare this with Britney Spears, who, nine years ago (!) posed sexily as a schoolgirl for Rolling Stone and the uproar that caused. She'd barely been out for more than three or four months at that point; she didn't yet have a huge virginal reputation to discard like a pair of low rise jeans during a heavy makeout session. Don't those pictures seem tame now? At 16 Britney then already looked years older--and in a completely different world than Miley. Britney was only just beginning.

I caught a glimpse of Miley performing the other week, a random change of a channel. She was on her knees, her legs split. It's a fantastic rock star move, but one not suited for a girl who is (and looks) as young as she is. It's a move done countless times by performers and Madonna; it's also the type of move that should stay in the living room when the performed by a teenager.

It's not just her age that's a factor here, not even that she's practically the face of Disney or that an alarming number of kids under 16 look up to her. It's the fact that she looked so young, that her character stood for the everygirl and made a name for herself by living out many child's fantasies. She had the best of both worlds, the fun and perks of fame without the real, adult drawbacks. She still looks like a child, no matter what the green bra says.

Shine Does Not Sparkle

So Yahoo created a new "portal", Shine, for women between the ages of 25 and 54. It's supposed to be another area for women to congregate, much like the older iVillage. Apparently it's an "underrepresented demographic" (um, ok...) and is the first time that Yahoo is categorically targeting based not on interests or pyschographics. But, like any other major portal, it's struck deals with other content providers and will feature their material in addition to original stories.

Of course, the company is trying to market itself as a destination for women who are looking for "attitude," "personality," and "humor", while providing advice and secret tips like "a friend." First of all, I don't go looking for websites to be "my friend". That's what people are for. "Attitude" "personality" and "humor" are also better served by niche sites. I'll take Radar any day over generic posterings--although, obviously, one well-linked article suddenly will gain a couple million viewers when it's featured on a main page of a portal. Something as mainstream as Yahoo will not be able to afford to appeal to those looking for something "edgier", the ever-important encompasser of all things that constitute "attitude", "personality" and "humor".

As part of marketing the image of a hipper version of iVillage, Shine is written in blog format. But short spurts of text masquerading as articles do not a successful website make (just ask any blogger). That's its most innovative feature. Everything else is your standard women's content: food, astrology, parenting tips, fashion, beauty, boring nothingness. Based on market research (the bread and butter of companies), Shine is meant for women who are "looking for one place that gave them everything," "a place that was looking at the whole them — as a parent, as a spouse, as a daughter." Like everything else in life, there is not one thing that is going to fulfill all your desires. The idea that one thing can be everything to everybody is a laughable concept, though one that companies in every conceivable industry will strive to be. After all, I wouldn't go here if I was looking for in-depth analysis on the news of the day, but that's relevant to me. I know that's not the point, but I'm also not looking for content that works for me as a daughter, because, well, who thinks like that? I'd sift around for good father's day gifts, but that's about it. But despite wanting women to "start their day" with a portal that will offer them "a more relevant experience" (compared to regular web browsing? like more bang for their buck?), Shine can't really work if there's no link from the main Yahoo page.

Another Survey Explaining Why Men Don't Get Women

Clueless Guys Can't Read Women

"More often than not, guys interpret even friendly cues, such as a subtle smile from a gal, as a sexual come-on, and a new study discovers why: Guys are clueless.

More precisely, they are somewhat oblivious to the emotional subtleties of non-verbal cues, according to a new study of college students.

"Young men just find it difficult to tell the difference between women who are being friendly and women who are interested in something more," said lead researcher Coreen Farris of Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences."

Yes!

This "lost in translation" phenomenon plays out in the real world, with about 70 percent of college women reporting an experience in which a guy mistook her friendliness for a sexual come-on, Farris said.

As any girl knows, there's a fine line, which is why intentions often need explanation.

Of course, most people are going to use this as another example of Why Boys Are Dumb, why a lot of popular science is of the "duh" variety, why women need to be more direct (you go girl!), and why we're all so damn clueless.

But what might be the most interesting thing about this study is that it was funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

As even more girls will tell you, drinking means that that friendly "Hey! I haven't seen you in FOREVER!" automatically MUST mean that you're totally digging said long-lost buddy. And, well...relationships affect our mental health. Just ask anyone going through a breakup.

News Analysis: 60 Minutes, Hillary Clinton, US Weekly and Gender Stereotypes

Although these 60 Minutes interviews aired a month ago, and much has changed, I feel the criticisms and observations I’ve recorded still stand. I’ve updated and edited various versions of this since that time, more because of time restraints than anything else. The segments are solid pieces, very well-written, but look at the stark differences in terms of style of questioning, arrangement of questions, what they discussed.

60 Minutes aired the Obama interview first, then after the commercial break came Hillary. Notice the differences, in approach, in style:

Obama’s video:

(Transcript)

Now watch Hillary:

(Transcript)

They’re both excellent interviews, no doubt. There's no coincidence that Katie Couric is the one interviewing Hillary, and the 60 Minutes newsman Steve Kroft has Barack. Katie Couric--with all the criticism of her Evening News broadcast, her soft Today Show background--is going to be asking "the tough questions" of the female presidential candidate. It's a perfect meld: Katie gets to be serious, yet show off her gentleness, how at ease she can be, and Hillary can indulge them.

Both interviewers ask good questions, often touching on similar topics, and both candidates do shill out a bit their lines. But notice: while Kroft ends the interview with the “How do you do it?” question, Couric begins her interview that way. While both interviewers aren’t antagonistic, and are usually very friendly, Couric affects camaraderie right away: She brings up her troubles, the fact that she could very well lose the nomination, starting the interview off negatively, though with a pressing question. Yet Hillary answers positively, that she believes in what she’s doing, telling herself, essentially, that she can do it. It’s all very touchy-feeling women’s magazine-y. Katie interrupts her: “You never think, oh I’m so tired, I’m so exhausted, I’m spending so much money, wouldn’t it be easier to hang it all up?”

It’s such a bonding moment, yet it’s a question I’m sure many are wondering. “Katie, you can’t think like that, you have to believe you’re going to win, otherwise leave the field and let someone who has the confidence and the optimism and the determination that a leader has to have get on the field and stay,” Hillary responds with iron-strong conviction. However, as much as it is easy to mock Hillary Clinton's women's magazine-self-help strong-woman mantra of "I believe I can", she's got a point. There's no way--and this goes for anyone undertaking such a massive effort--that you can do something so huge, so completely taxing on every possible facet of your life, without believing in what you are doing. It’s impossible. You have to believe that you can effect change, that you can succeed. That will (and her money) must be strong. Yet that line, especially in this context, does come across as a little pandering, self-serving, haughty, even. To some people it sounds patronizing. Would it come across that way if Barack Obama said it, if a male candidate said it? Probably not; it wouldn’t have that ring of cynicism that plagues her.

Watch their faces during this interaction. Katie Couric really wants to know how Hillary does it, and Hillary, true to her gender and her persona, gives details, techniques: hot peppers, water, no diet soda, washing her hands to stay healthy. Details are what women want to know. We marvel at those who somehow have it all, get it all done, and Hillary fits perfectly into that. It’s why her “crying moment” before New Hampshire worked for many women voters.

Katie also asks if Hillary likes Barack Obama. Hillary’s whole spiel–she helped campaign for him, there’s a picture of him in her office, yada yada yada–is inconsequential. What’s the point? Is Katie trying to get Hillary to crack, to prove there is more than a scintilla of bad blood between them, trying to form wedges? Isn’t that what people accuse women of doing all the time, holding onto grudges and forming new ones, to prove that Hillary’s full of hate? Notice Steve Kroft didn’t ask Obama his opinion of Hillary. Why does this matter? Presidential candidates have been known to pick running mates based on electability, not on their personal opinion. Hillary’s answers are all pat, pandering responses that deserve eye-rolling–yeah, we all waited on bated breath for the day where a white woman would run against a black man for president. She is right, though, in that this election is both about what they represent and who they are, more so than any other election. I question whether Obama’s ever had a negative ad run against him. He did run for Congress; senate races do have attack ads. Hell, even my local mayoral election had some nasty (yet clever) flyers sent out.

Look at Katie’s face when she asks, teasingly, if Hillary “couldn’t handle it”. She’s egging her on. Couric also asks about media treatment compared to Obama, and—this is before the “whining” in the Ohio debate—she acknowledges it, but says it’s ok. It has to be ok. If it’s not, she’s got a grudge, a vendetta, and even if that’s true, she can’t let everybody know it. It must not be verified.

Katie also goes into Hillary’s personal history. “Weren’t you the girl who sat in the front row who took copious notes and always raised her hand?” “Well, not always...” C’mon, Katie, weren’t you that type of girl too? They giggle, sharing a laugh about high school boys (it is pretty funny). It’s all designed—much like the entire segment—to show Hillary as human, feminine, to appeal to women voters, her base. I want to ask if it’s really necessary, but that’s a moot question. It’s what you do, and she’s been just as “aggressive” and “manly” in some of her tactics as commented on in the press. It doesn’t matter—you do what you need to do to win.

She doesn’t just do this on television. In this multifaceted media world, you have to hit every possible target, so why not do a spread in US Weekly? Here, she’s embarrassingly over-the-top and garishly girlish and giggly—exactly what this trashy mag is. She's trying to be "relatable", for all those young and middle-aged and bored women who like to thumb through those celebrity digs. It's downmarket Hillary. Look at those exclamation marks! Because it’s too elitist to be in a Vogue spread, since only Coasters read that magazine, and they’re going for Obama anyway. Downtrodden middle-class middle-American voters, that’s who she needs!

But since then, in order to be fair (and because an US Weekly staffer is an Obama fan), the other Democratic hopeful had his spotlight in this great tabloid. His though is cute, People-magazine friendly, with shots of his family and lots of kids, including himself as a lil tyke. Aww. It’s not embarrassing; it’s the male version of “He’s Just Like Us!” the popular feature where famous people are shown doing everyday things. Although one can argue that because Hillary’s been in the public eye longer than Barack has, it’s a better feature to show her atrocious outfits, especially because she’s a woman of power; she should know better. But instead, even with the ridiculous prose and tone of the entire publication dumbing them down, Hillary’s piece comes off as voyeuristic; it’s time to shake our heads and cluck-cluck at her stupidity. It can be relatable, but not in the Oprah way. Barack’s piece, despite him doing “normal” things, isn’t voyeuristic at all; it’s classy. It’s sweet, it’s what Life magazine would do if Life still existed or if he was running decades ago.

It's hard to be humble and confident, especially in politics. No one can be everything to everybody, but a presidential candidate's got to try. For those who accuse me of following the election based on identity politics, there were many times during this interview where I cringed a little. Hillary, like many driven, hard-charging women, comes across a little too earnest, and that turns a lot of people off. Earnestness is vulnerability mixed with passion; you see this trait when people get on their high horse over some issue important to them.

Is the analysis unfair? I’ve been pretty harsh towards both Katie Couric and Hillary Clinton. I don’t have a particular bias against either one of them; some people might call me a fan or apologist for them because of things I’ve said in the past. But I’m struck by the different tactics used in the interviews and by US Weekly. Their agendas were similar; both interviewers were gentle, and the spreads only served as another extension of coverage, reaching to people who may not be politically aware. In the interview, both Obama and Clinton gave excellent answers; I particularly liked Obama’s example of Google as a company that hasn’t been around long but that runs excellently. He has a point–but I also think that experience does go hand in hand with longevity/age, for lack of a better word–it’s why young people have such a hard time finding jobs and such.

But what might be one of the most telling moments in the entire segment is the ending: Says Hillary, “I have a clear sense that things will work out the way they work out. I will be fine.” It’s the quintessential ending for a female-centered story. After all, that’s how Sex and the City ended, with Carrie saying she’ll be fine, and that it’ll be just fabulous. I can just hear Hillary saying the same thing.

Times Roundup, March 1-3, 2008

“How do you prove you’re a Jew?”

A question my family was recently discussing regarding the Birthright Israel trip. I haven’t read the article yet (one of these days…), but I know it’s way more serious than what we were wondering. Still, a good question...

In expanding my repertoire of Times columnists, reading William Kristol’s latest, another elegy on William F. Buckley, I was struck by the sheer number of SAT-worthy words and phrases. Mordantly! Recrudescence! Lodestar! Immanentize the Eschaton! Coincidence? Is this how he really writes? We’ll see. I’m certainly getting an education.

This Scrabulous thing certainly has legs. I don’t know anyone who plays it (I’ve only seen it once on a profile); it was the media that alerted me to its popularity. I agree that nowadays everybody’s gotta adjust to the web; it completely transforms a business. Digital media—expanding beyond the internet, into phones, television and the like—is how a business survives. I understand where Hasbro and Mattel are coming from, feeling assaulted, but for tech-savvy people, that’s not how it works. Money quote:

Many Scrabulous fans, some of whom say they bought the board game for the first time after playing the online version on Facebook, call their approach heavy-handed and out of touch. […] People believe it to be in the public domain, like chess,” Mr. Williams said. “The idea that Scrabble belongs to a corporation is something that people don’t or are unwilling to accept.”

Nowadays we're so used to "owning" things that the idea of paying for certain things--like downloaded music--seems stupid. My brother doesn't see the point in buying CDs if you can just as easily burn them as I feel that every feature article should be available online in full text. It's similar in that for some people it's hard to believe that happy birthday is actually copyrighted. This feeling is only going to get worse, because as things become porous and easily available, it's natural that we feel entitled to it. Another damnation for our generation?

Megan Meier was mentioned in an article discussing suicide and the blogosphere, how harmful criticisms can explode, and ruin lives. This time we’re not dealing with a teenager. More to come.

While I’m not sure how I feel about Gail Collins (other than I’m glad the Times has another female op-ed columnist), I’ve begun to get used to her flippant humor. She’s not biting or punny like Maureen Dowd; she favors a Q-and-A style that’s been used by David Brooks before, but her answers are both irreverent and concise.

I also love the idea of a secular Sabbath, something I’ve done on occasion, whenever I feel my life is being overtaken by Facebook or AIM. There is a freedom to being unreachable, and we’ve gotten to the point where we look at those who reject these technological accoutrements as weirdoes. How do they do it? How do they stand being in their own fluid life, unbeholden to anybody? How do they stand not wondering, unconcerned about what other people are doing?!?!

Tomorrow are the Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont primaries. It's all on Clinton now. Win or lose, we know it's gonna be one hell of an exciting day. Frankly--and I know many people label me a Clinton apologist--if she loses tomorrow she should not fight for the nomination. It'll be tainted because she didn't win it fairly, and fighting for Michigan and Florida delegates when she signed an agreement saying they were out of bounds as punishment for being greedy and moving their primaries up is only going to make her look worse, not better. Going full-throttle ruthless isn't going to help her in the least; it'll just turn off a lot of people.

I've been thinking about Hillary over the past couple of weeks. I remember in 2000 I was against her Senate run precisely because she wasn't truly from New York; like rich people with political persuasions, she could effectively pick a geographic location, plunker down and run for office. Not cool. I was disappointed that Rick Lazio lost by so much. So how in the intervening years had I forgotten this? Yet I've also taken umbrage by those who say that she just relied on her husband, that she could've run on her own. We'll never know. I used to be firmly in that camp, of "you don't need someone's coattails to ride on, do it yourself," and I was very passionate about that. But then one day I went, so what? So what if she used Bill? He undoubtedly used her. People use each other for mutual gain all the time; it's a part of friendship, whether we admit to it or not. Besides, it's long been known in history that women, to get what they wanted, to have any sort of say or power, needed men to do so and often overtook their positions when they were unable to serve. That sounds like what everyone fears here, that Hillary's just extending Bill's run in office. Unfortunately for her, she'll never escape who she is or her past. I'm still not sure how I stand on this subject of women using men to get the position they want. I usually think it manipulative (there tends to be no character I hate more than a manipulative bitch), coldhearted, and in a way, weak (this is for modern-day women), but sometimes I'm not so sure. Maybe it's just smart.

Names

Why is it that women are called by their first names and men by their last? Hillary is running for president, but everyone I know has been caught by Obama-mania. You could say that it’s because there already was a president with her last name, but that doesn’t really work when you think about the current one. He was referred to by nicknames or his last name, never by his first, unless derisively. I think of it in a sports environment, how all the players are called by their last name. It’s been a while since I’ve seen A League of Their Own, but I’m sure there was some sort of scene, look or line where some of the players were called by their last names. It’s gotta be a bonding thing–from both sides. Hillary is Hillary because we know her; she’s one of us. A last name is more impartial, since it belongs to your family. You call your friends by their first name (hence Hillary), but the playground tykes nicknames or last names. A last name might be funny, or carry more weight, some authority. In jobs (not my current one), I’ve been called by my last name, always by a guy. Guys seem to give nicknames more easily, are comfortable calling each other by their last names, usually as a way of differentiating them. In school I was known by my first name and last initial, a mark I still hate today. I never really minded being called by my last name–probably because it made me feel like one of the guys.