Surviving the Workday

And I mean that.

More than a decade ago, when I was investigating seminaries at which to study to become a UU minister, I visited four of them (Starr King wasn’t one of them simply because of personal preference. I’ve lived in California for far too long). And at one seminary, my tour guide told me about his rather weak financial aid package (he meant this as a warning to me). As part of my response, I used The Phrase That Shall Not Be Uttered.*

His response?

That’s racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-semitic/anti-something or other (I’m not going to tell you which one, but it’s in the comments).

Really? I said (blushing, by the way, and filling with shame).

Oh, yes, he said. We don’t say that here.

Why? I said.

He had no explanation other than that the phrase was racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-semitic/anti-something.

And so I thought about The Phrase That Shall Not Be Uttered* a lot during my time at the seminary and became increasing less vocal about anything. I did survive private liberal arts education in the early 1990s though, during the height of what is termed “political correctness.” I took an excellent course on language prejudice at Smith and participated in a lively discussion about “gyped” and gypsies at Wesleyan. So I thought I was sort of sensitive to issues of language. Apparently not.

I returned to the Indian** reservation on which I lived in New Mexico where I had lots of friends who belonged to the group I insulted, and asked them about the phrase over dinner one night, and they laughed uproariously.

I’ve since searched for documentation about language prejudice and The Phrase That Shall Not Be Uttered and haven’t found anything. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-semitic/anti-something or just an asshole, but here’s the moral:

I didn’t go to that seminary. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with that seminary. Rather than having any sort of informed dialogue or conversation about that phrase, it was simply off-limits and I was racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-semitic/anti-something. That, friends, is not helpful to anyone.

*You can figure it out. And, if you can’t, it’s in the comments.

**The Indians on the reservation referred to themselves as “Indians” not “Native Americans” or “American Indians,” which they think are terms made up by white people. And since I taught at an Indian school, I respected their wish for what they wanted to be called.

Since there is no federal law to require that food products are labeled as to their origins, as a consumer you are at the mercy of the manufacturer and how much information they wish to put on the label. In our case, that manufacturer is Trader Joe’s. We’ve shopped at Trader Joe’s weekly for years. I estimate that we’ve spent probably roughly $40,000 there ($100/week x 50 weeks x 8 years), and been perfectly happy to do so.

But Trader Joe’s was also where Jim noticed that we were eating “fresh” edamame from China, so we’ve been much more careful with labels, choosing produce grown in the US over other countries, and choosing organic over conventional. One thing I’ve noticed is that anything that is processed (e.g., cans of beans, jars of tomato sauce, hummus in a tub) wears “Distributed by Trader Joe’s, Monrovia, CA” or occasionally, “Distributed by Trader Joe’s, Needham, MA.” What does that mean about the origin of the ingredients?

Here’s what I first emailed to Trader Joe’s using their feedback form:

***
I’ve been carefully reading labels on my last few trips to Trader Joe’s, and I can easily see where fruits and vegetables come from (US, Mexico, China), but can’t tell about the origin of ingredients with processed foods. Do you use ingredients from China in processed foods? (e.g., cereals, pastas, pesto, hummus)
***

Here’s the response I received from Customer Service:

***
At Trader Joe’s, we have been dealing with standards and practices in many different countries for over 49 years, and our buyers are diligent about making sure our suppliers and the products they provide are not below standards set in the United States. Certainly some companies in China, and other parts of the world, are far behind the times when it comes to organics, etc; however, we do not do business with those companies. As always, we allow our customers to vote with their dollars. If nobody wants vegetables from China, those products certainly won’t be in our stores for long.

We require FDA regulated GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) program of our vendors. HACCP is a systematic approach to identifying, evaluating and controlling food safety hazards. In addition, our Quality Assurance Team audits our vendors to monitor their facilities and practices.
***

I wasn’t thrilled with that as a response, particularly because what I asked was if there were ingredients in processed foods from China, and what she said was that if there were, they were careful about it. At least I think that’s what she said. It reads like a press release, no?

So I emailed her back with the question again. The email bounced. So I used the feedback form again and got this response from someone else in Customer Service:

***
Thanks for your email. Anytime there is no country of origin statement(”product of …”) it means it is a product of the USA. We always label when we import a product.
***

Hmm…that’s not exactly what I asked either. I realize that if all the ingredients in a product were from China, it might be labeled as such. But what if the ingredients are from all over the place? I think it then wears the “distributed by Trader Joe’s, Monrovia, CA” or “Distributed by Trader Joe’s, Needham, MA” label.

Any other interpretations?

Or just one journal article.

Or just the mere mention of “brown bag” and its connotations.*

I’ve been reading the various posts* on the phrase “brown bag” at Starr King and whether it’s racist to use it or overly sensitive (or politically correct) to admonish its use. And I would like to see some documentation that the phrase “brown bag” in reference to lunches or simply in reference to itself is racist. I took an excellent class called “Language Prejudice in the United States” at Smith, and know that there is plenty of scholarship on language prejudice. So if you know where I can find an actual article or mention of the phrase “brown bag,” in relation to racism, please let me know. Because I’ve looked.*

I am a life-long UU, former seminarian, current writer with a strong interest in language, but I’m a little disturbed that this entire discussion has gone on without an actual source (a visitor to Starr King?) and any actual documentation of past or present racist connotations. Surely something must exist. Could it enter into the discussion? Please.*

*Original post here from the UUA. Related posts by Peacebang here and here, Andy here, Fausto here, Chalice Chick here, and Rev Sean here.

*Read the comments for more discussion.

Let’s say you’re female.

Let’s say you start a new job at the same time as a male colleague. You both have the same amount of education and same experience. Slowly, you become friends. You discuss kids or weekend plans or bowling, but not salaries, maybe because you’re being polite, maybe because there’s a corporate policy against it. And then, after six months, you find out that your male colleague earns more. A lot more.

Too bad.

The Supreme Court just ruled in Ledbetter v. Goodyear that you have 180 days to figure out if there is a pay disparity or if discrimination occurred. That’s it. If more than 180 days pass, too bad.

In this case, Ms. Ledbetter was hired at the same salary as male colleagues, but she consistently received smaller raises. By the time she brought the lawsuit against her employer, Goodyear, her salary was 40% less than the lowest paid male of similar rank.

Perhaps she was just a terrible worker?

Right.

That was sarcasm.

Part of the problem with wage inequities is that we don’t talk about money at work (or at home, for many of us). So we have no idea what our coworkers earn. Starting a Wage Club is one way to work on the wage disparity. I’ve certainly found that most of the time, it is in your best interest to find ways to talk (discreetly) about money. It is almost always in your employer’s best interest for you to remain silent.

When you start checking clothing labels, you’ll find that many items of clothing are made in China, and unless you deliberately seek out non-sweatshop goods, you’ll find that just about everything comes from a sweatshop.

As someone who writes about workplace ethics, this concerns me greatly. I don’t want to support regimes, such as China, that use sweatshops. You might think that only lower-end lines at K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and Target are made in China, but higher-end clothes are as well. My particular favorite brand of clothing for work is Ann Taylor, and while the fabrics are often Italian, the 32% of clothes are all pieced together in China…. So no Ann Taylor for me.*

Ahem. (Cough, cough)

At least no new Ann Taylor. My compromise is that I will occasionally buy pre-owned (used) clothing (thereby not contributing any new dollar to the Chinese economy) or clothing that is not made in sweatshops. I’ll post more about brands made in places other than China in a different post, but here are some tips for buying used clothing:

Know What Brands to expect The surrounding community creates much of the thrift store merchandise. Perhaps this is obvious. But, for example, Santa Clarita, California, is a bedroom community, and is about 90% Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, Mervyn’s, Old Navy, Gap, and The Limited brands with (you guessed it) some Ann Taylor thrown in. Many items still have tags; many items seem totally unworn.

Know Sizes It’s much easier to buy used clothes, particularly if you don’t want try them on, if you know what size you wear in different brands. For example, I wear a 8 in Ann Taylor, but a 10 at the Gap, and a 12 at Old Navy, no doubt a 14 at Target. I just get fatter as the price goes down (or slimmer as the price goes up). But that sort of self-knowledge can go a long way toward screening clothes.

Rule Out Stains, Rips, and Smells Clothing is donated only for a handful of reasons, which are useful to identify as you sort through clothes:

a. death or divorce
b. style (out of style, too hip for person who purchased it, too matronly, etc.)
c. fit (too big, too small)
d. damage (stains, tears, and god help me, smells)

Obviously, you want to stay away from option d, and choose pieces from options a-c. With pants, you especially want to check out if the zipper works, and if they are worn in the crotch (ew). With tops, you want to check out if buttons are missing, if the collar is clean, and if there are armpit stains.

Clean I also wash everything in hot water when I get home. I also take a shower.

I buy clothes that are beautiful in some way and/or make me feel good, which is the same criteria I apply to new clothes.

Any other tips?

*It is worth noting that I’m not a fashonista in any sense. I was trained as a geologist, and could, given the possible implosion of the publishing industry, work as a low-level geologist and inspect gas station tanks. Geologists, as you may know, are the worst dressed of the scientists, and it has taken years for me to realize that I do not need to dress as an extra large flannel-clothed man in order to be taken seriously in the workplace.

I was using the time-honored practice of “wait time” to see if anyone had a story of gratitude. And, apparently no one does. Or no one has a story to share. Or no one expresses gratitude at work the day after a long weekend.

I was reading in Psychology Today about how women are chemically addicted to semen (and I was simultaneously chortling), when I decided to actually look for work articles. I found at least one relevant article. How to Become Your Own Boss is a good primer on a fundamental management skills: setting clear agreed upon goals and letting people go about their business with the goal in mind:

How does a manager maintain the balance between effort, attention to excellence and consistent accountability—essential elements of a successful workplace—and workaholism, perfectionism and punishment, which work against workplace well-being ?

Basically by keeping the goals clear and the reins loose. That’s the balance that gives an employee the greatest shot at self-management, while guaranteeing a boss the likelihood of achieving her objectives. It’s what discipline in the workplace truly means.

For those who manage, it’s easier said than done, of course.

I think we could all use more gratitude during the workday. It tempers the complaints nicely. And the very act of giving thanks illustrates that we are not the center of the universe, that we need one another, and that we are able to appreciate one another. Consider expressing gratitude toward one of your coworkers, and then posting in comments. I would love to hear your story.

Resource: Saying Thank You as a Spiritual Practice

So, let’s talk about sin.

As a business owner, I know that it is hard to make a product to sell to the masses that doesn’t sin along the way. I certainly can’t do it. And by sin, I’m using a very general definition: becoming estranged from God; violating God’s will or a moral code. I’m not going as far as equating all sin with the Seven Deadly Sins, though some might apply as many are sins of excess.

In the case of goods made in China, I think the sin is treating some human beings as if they’re worth a hell of a lot less than you or me. That certainly violates Matthew 7:12, “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” Working in just about slave-like conditions* isn’t a work environment I want for me (or them).

To illustrate “sin,” let’s look at Greenslinging: Recycled Shoemaker Not Perfect. Here we learn that “not perfect” in the title actually means that just about slave labor is used to create “green” shoes. Worn-Again are shoes that are “actually made in a vast shoe factory in China where workers, who live in grim dormitories, are so unhappy with their pay and conditions that nearly one-tenth of them walked out on their jobs in February.” That’s not “green.” Yes, the shoes are made from recycled materials, but the materials are flown from the UK to China (Nice carbon footprint!), many of the materials end up in the Chinese landfill, and the nearby river runs black. This is a similar story to This is Not a Bag, touted as ethical consumption (We avoid plastic bags!) that manufacturers the bags in similar conditions in China.

It is my great concern that our insatiable need in the first world to consume products has put much of the third world in just about slave-like conditions* with corporations as their masters, but you and me as a big part of the problem. And that’s a sin.

*Just about Slave-like Conditions include extremely low pay (lower than what is legal in China), 7-day work weeks, 15-hour workdays, mandatory overtime, unsafe working conditions, and coercive regulations.

I’m thinking about ways to reward yourself discussed Pulpit Weight, and it occurred to me that there’s a valuable difference between self-nurturing and self-soothing.

Self-nurturing practices are good for us, but they don’t necessarily feel good. Exercise, for example, is self-nurture. Eating whole foods is self-nurture. I take a 45 minute hike every morning with my dog. Most mornings I’m not particularly interested in it, and it often hurts in some fashion. But ultimately, I know that this is part of taking care of me, and making sure my body works well as I age. It is self-nurture, but it is not fun in the short run.

Self-soothing does feel good in the short run. Masturbation, for example, is the ultimate in self-soothing (and the Good Lord blessed us with this ability). Comfort foods are self-soothing. After a week trapped in the Hilton in Sacramento, the first thing I did afterward was visit a friend and eat a large bowl of macaroni and cheese with a salad on the side. Now the mac n’ cheese part of this experience was self-soothing, but because I am lactose intolerant, it was in no way self-nurturing.

I think that one reason that we overeat is because we have self-soothing practices that are contrary to self-nurturing. Donuts taste good. Chocolate tastes good. But consuming large amounts is not self-nurture. Sitting on the sofa watching TV often feels self-soothing, particularly after a difficult day at work, but it’s contrary to self-nurture.

Here’s a list of self-nurturing practices and one of self-soothing practices to find practices that work for you. A few ideas with self-nurturing that you can do during the workday: wear something that makes you feel good about yourself, feed yourself good food at lunch, and speak kindly to yourself in your internal monologue. And here’s a few ideas to start with your self-soothing at work: keep a vial of an essential oil that you like nearby, rub on a hand lotion that you like, decorate with live plants, or display cut flowers or anything you find relaxing to look at (though not porn), and listen to music that you find relaxing.

Katrina asks in comments if food labels show where food comes from.

Probably not.

There is no comprehensive law in the United States that requires this, and even the laws that do require it (origin of fish, for example, is required) are not really followed. This does make shopping tricky and the No China Diet difficult.

One of the reasons I think that there is so much rancor around the concept of ethical eating (and that’s ethical with a small “e”) is that eating is one of those fundamental needs (the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). You act as if you are taking away food options from folks and telling them how to eat, and you might as well be taking away air. People freak out. So I’m not taking away your food. I’ll tell you what I eat and why. But I’m not taking away your food. Put the club down. I’m not a threat to your food supply. China is, in my humble opinion, but I’m not.

And let’s be honest. Making choices about food is important and it’s difficult. I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit. If you are making thoughtful choices about food, regardless of whether or not you’re buying organic chicken or domestic conventional spinach, you are doing a good thing. You’re thinking. Thinking is good. And action is good too.

I found this great quote from Marion Nestle of Food Politics, which nicely complements what I wrote about voting with your wallet:

If people are inspired to make a change, what should they do?

You vote with your fork. Every time you buy a food, you are making a decision about the kind of world you want to live in. If you like the status quo, you buy the cheapest food available. If you want to make a difference in protecting the environment, you buy organic. If you care about the way animals are raised or farm laborers are treated, you buy foods that are produced in better — and more expensive — ways.

Beyond individual food choices, everything else is politics. You join organizations working on the kinds of issues you care about. You write letters; you lobby organizations. I know that sounds trite, but that’s in fact how the system works. I tell people who care about food issues to speak out. Exercise their political rights. And enjoy dinner.

Read the whole interview here at Food Politics. And then read Scott Wells on The Healthy, Sustainable Diet, about what he eats (points awarded for use of “bejeweled”) and Elizabeth on Death by Veganism, who gives lots of links to healthy ways to eat less animal products (points awarded for annoyance at the New York Times).

We’ve reached an official month of the No China Diet, in which we’ve rather meticulously read the labels of the things we buy and tried to avoid those that are explicitly Chinese in origin. Why? In short, human rights violations, animal torture, environmental degradation, food safety, intellectual property theft.

We’re not big consumers or spenders in general, so much of what we buy isn’t electronics or clothes, but food. One of the issues with food from China is that farmers overuse pesticides, some of which are toxic enough to be illegal in the United States (but not in China), and don’t wear gear to protect themselves.

However, pesticide abuse aside, another issue with food from China is that it is often mislabeled in some fashion. The most recent example I came across (randomly, mind you, I’m not even looking for mislabeling examples from China) is of pufferfish mislabeled as monkfish. Monkfish are fish that won’t kill you; pufferfish are fish that will kill you. And so two Chicagoans were hospitalized after eating what they thought was (and labeled as such) monkfish, but was actually pufferfish from China. And, there is no antidote to the poison in the pufferfish.

Thus Speaks the Paranoid Harpy of Doom.

When I first arrived at Smith in 1990 for first-year orientation, one of the first things I noticed was that there were lot of signs that everyone was a lot wealthier than me. Their clothes seemed nicer and fit better. They had more flattering hair cuts. They had several homes, one per season, and Laura Ashley bedroom sets for their dorm rooms. Not everyone, of course, but many. For the first time in my life, I felt poor.

But I wasn’t. Not at all. I grew up middle class in Santa Barbara, California, well aware of the inequities in wealth before college. But in Santa Barbara, I was middle class, and while not in the upper echelon by any means, I still had far more access to goods and services than many people I knew. In high school, several of my friends had fled oppressive regimes in Asia, with stories of imprisonment and torture. They lived in Isla Vista, best known as an alluring slum adjacent to UCSB. So I knew I was not poor.

But if I felt poor at Smith, I can begin to imagine how someone who is poor might feel. While Smith (and Wesleyan, where I actually graduated from), and Harvard (where I earned a master’s degree) have chosen to address issues of diversity, they’ve done it mostly in terms of color, and not in terms of class. And while diversity of color is good, diversity of class could be revolutionary.

For example, there is no reason that Harvard can’t be free. None at all. It’s a university with an endowment of 28 billion dollars larger than the budget of many countries. So, for a second, imagine if tuition to Harvard were free. Imagine if students didn’t have to borrow to attend Harvard. Imagine if anyone who was qualified could attend. Imagine true diversity of class in higher education. Now, that would be revolutionary.

While reading Elite Colleges Open Door to Low-Income Youths, I imagined the potential if there were many students like Tony Jack at Amherst:

To Mr. Jack, unlike many of his classmates, food stamps are not an abstraction. His family has had to use them in emergencies. His mother raised three children as a single parent and earns $26,000 a year as a school security guard. That is just a little more than half the cost of a year’s tuition, room and board, fees and other expenses at Amherst, which for Mr. Jack’s class was close to $48,000.

So when Mr. Jack, now 22 and a senior, graduates with honors on May 27, he will not just be the first in his family to earn a college degree, but a success story in the effort by Amherst and a growing number of elite colleges to open their doors to talented low-income students.

If college and universities actually operated more as revolutionary institutions rather than corporate ones, they could completely remake the landscape of class within a few generations in the United States.

I did not invent the slogan Cast out Caste. Just so that’s out of the way before we begin.

More than half a century has passed since India became democratic, but it still has a caste system with 240 (or 160 depending on the source) million Dalits, or Untouchables. Officially India is a country of equal rights, but the Dalits face any number of prejudices.

If you are born a Dalit, your daily life is dominated by an awareness of your caste. Dalits do the dirty work, literally, and have menial occupations that they didn’t choose, but that often deal with filth and death. There are a number of other hardships in daily life for Dalits, all of which are about Dalits not having equal rights.

As a result of the caste system, on Sunday, there is going to be a massive conversion in Mumbai of Dalits from Hinduism to Buddhism, which doesn’t affirm the caste system. We shall see what that does for Dalits in terms of their daily lives.

Resources: Low Caste Indians Set to Convert and National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (where I got the cool Cast out Cast slogan)

Bloodless Revolution: The Abolition of Menstruation gives an interesting breakdown of the division among women regarding ending menstruation with Lybrel: crunchy feminists think it’s unnatural and techno feminists think it’s liberating. So, Ms. Kitty would fall into the crunchy category (feel free to dispute, Ms. Kitty), and most of feministing would fall into the techno category.

Just about all dichotomies, such as crunchy feminists v. techno feminists, are inherently false. They help illustrate a division, but tend to polarize and leave out everyone who isn’t polarized. And I’m somewhere in between. Recently I tried to obtain a tampon at a party of women (a baby shower). There was not a tampon among us. Most women I know don’t menstruate at all. They have entered menopause, or they take their pill packs continuously, without the sugar pills, in order to suppress ovulation. Oh, and then some are pregnant and some are breastfeeding and haven’t resumed menstruation. So there is a lot of Not Menstruating going on. None of that is particularly unnatural to me. Or manly, I might add.

I honestly don’t find menstruation natural. Or liberating. I don’t connect to the earth. I don’t particularly connect to my body. And I can remember many a cycle where, given the option, and given the pain, I’d just as soon curled up and died. Ann on Feministing describes it this way, “Actually, when I menstruate I feel like a small animal with very large claws is trying to escape from my lower abdomen.” Yes, indeed. So long live naturalness.

While I’m not an astronaut, I can still remember more than a few experiences at work where my period was not only unpleasant, inconvenient, embarrassing, and weirdly out of place. Like being a junior counselor at Aqua Camp. Or doing field work in Glacier National Park, grizzly country where you don’t want to smell of blood. Or any field work, for that matter. Even working in an office when I couldn’t actually sit upright because of the pain. I hesitate to call that much pain “natural.” But, then again, childbirth is “natural.”

So then what is natural? I bet you can’t define it. We don’t know what natural is anymore. I’m not sure we ever did. We have constructed our world in ways that are natural, given technological advances, but perhaps unnatural, if you took away all technology.

The problem for me, as with just about any drug, is I don’t think we ever understand the long-term effects on humans before the FDA approves of it. So, in this case, we choose to use a generation of women as guinea pigs. The true problem isn’t about what’s natural, but that the government and drug companies don’t have women’s (or men’s) health as a priority.

You may be aware that there are these cloth bags with smug sayings on them like, “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” that have been touted as luxury ethical consuming. But, then they were outed as being made in China not so um ethically:

A campaign group which highlights the exploitation of workers in the fashion industry said making the bag in China dented the bag’s ethical claims.

And the fact that the bags have been sent thousands of miles from China raised questions about whether its carbon footprint is threatening to offset its environmental benefits. A spokeswoman for the supermarket chain conceded the bag, billed as ‘making a difference to the world’, was ‘not perfect’ while refusing to say in which factory the bag is made.

I’m not okay with making “green” products in China so that the icky chemicals and human rights violations don’t exist in the first world. That is not okay.

When I was three years old, at the Starr King Parent Child Workshop, God spoke to me. He very clearly said to me, “Run forward with your eyes closed.” So I did.

I ran forward, arms outstretched, eyes closed, smacked into the Moreton Bay Fig tree, and broke some little bones in my nose. It hurt a lot. And the parents and teachers who were present hugged me, I bled on them, and they wondered aloud at what a strange thing I had done.

I’m writing this story as part of Vein of Gold, in my narrative time line, an exercise in writing your autobiography, only in your voice. Of course, I suppose it’s obvious that an autobiography is in your own voice, but often we hear family stories that take a perspective that isn’t necessarily our own.

For example, when my parents tell the story, they leave out the God parts (as they are California UUs and the mere mention of God makes them squirm; and heaven help us that God was actually male and made a request of a human being). They tell simply the story of a strange little girl not quite understanding the properties of physics (f = ma, for starters). But I remember very clearly that God spoke to me. Not a parent or teacher, but God.

I was reading UUMomma’s story of her flat tire in which she wonders about the theological significance, and I was thinking how odd it is that I had this experience, so clearly, of God, but it was sort of swept under the carpet in favor of reason and science and, well, say not running forward with your eyes closed.

You might try using a lot of plastic products. Truthfully, I find this sort of finding absolutely terrifying:

Convening in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, toxicologists, pediatricians, epidemiologists and other experts warned that when fetuses and newborns encounter various toxic substances, growth of critical organs and functions can be skewed. In a process called “fetal programming,” the children then are susceptible to diseases later in life — and perhaps could even pass on those altered traits to their children and grandchildren.

The last sentence is chilling. And keep in mind that 80% of chemicals used in the United States, including those in plastics in food and water containers and cosmetics, have not been tested for their effects on fetal and early childhood development.

What specifically should you be concerned about?

bisphenol A, found in polycarbonate plastic food and water containers;
the pesticides atrazine, vinclozolin, and DDT;
lead;
mercury;
phthalates used in cosmetics and soft plastics;
brominated flame retardants;
arsenic, which contaminates some water supplies; and
PCBs, banned but ubiquitous, particularly in fish.

Consider reading the whole article, Common Chemicals Pose Dangers for Fetuses.

it’s time for a quiz, Quiz 15 from the BBC (Choose Archive, then Quiz 15.)

Again, I will provide a non-exemplar of 11 out of 15. My assistant from last summer claimed I made up the word “non-exemplar” but I swear it’s a word. Yes, these are the sorts of disagreements that editors have with one another.

Back to the quiz, most embarrassing, I confused yin and yang. But frankly that seem typical of my own sorts of gender confusion and reversals of traditional roles. At least that’s how I’ve rationalized it.

Feel free to post your score here. I think last time everyone did better than me, so I consider that I am “motivating” you to achieve. Additional points to the person who figures out what all of these questions have in common: are they all practices? rites? terms?

I just saw a perfect film, Away from Her, adapted from Alice Munro’s The Bear Came Over the Mountain. Here is a brief conversation between me and my friend Beth post-movie in the bathroom post-film:

Ms. T: That was the greatest saddest film I’ve ever seen!

Beth: But it was great, wasn’t it?

Ms. T: I cried so hard that the mascara ran off my face and was washed away by even more tears, and now my face is completely make up free. Look! (points to face)

Beth: (looks away as this seems a bit petty in light of the world’s greatest saddest movie) It was excellent, wasn’t it?

Ms. T: It was brilliant. I wish I wrote it. In fact, if I had wanted to craft a film about love, marriage, and aging, and wanted to make it as painful as possible, as much about alienation and loneliness and sin as it was about love and beauty and joy, it would be that film. Except I didn’t write it.

And then we talked for a long time about what exactly happened at the end.

How is Away from Her related to spirituality and the workplace? Although both characters are retired, something that happened long ago at work haunts them as the wife develops Alzheimer’s. And I could argue that our greatest work on earth is to love one another.* Away from Her is about that sort of work in the hardest times.

*Except possibly Al Gore

This seems a tad harsh: 40 sick days reduced to 3 days per calendar year. From Bloomberg:

Workers out more than three days must discuss the matter with their managers, Merrill said in a memo to employees. Anyone absent four or more days may lose pay, and could face termination at nine days. The rule took effect May 14. Managers have discretion to waive the limits on a case-by-case basis.

How generous, Merrill Lynch! A pox on you.* Clearly they are not up to date on the effect of presenteeism.

*By “you” I mean the corporate entity, which has the legal status of a person

Via Gawker

Could I love Maud Newton more?

I’m not sure I could. And I’ve never met her. I only know her loosely from years ago on zoetrope.

But she wrote the funniest essay I ever read about a cockroach in her pants. And now, as a former tax attorney, she’s providing astute advice on copyright for Gawker on why writers shouldn’t hold the rights in perpetuity.

More than that, she understands the plight of the “work for hire” writer, which is what I do for $. So hard that:

You want to talk about corporations riding to riches on the backs of
authors and artists? Take a look at the copyright rules and terms for “works
made for hire.”

Yes, “no rights” at all when you “write for hire.” You eat, but you retain absolutely nothing.