Weird Word of the Week: Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortune of others, or in plain old English, gloating.

It's an immature and mean response, of course. And Madame L wishes the Obama supporters who have been gloating over Romney's loss of this election would stop. Just stop. It makes you small and graceless and it demeans the man whose victory you are celebrating.

Can we celebrate without gloating? Yes, we certainly can. Here's one way to do it, exemplified by Pres. Obama himself in his victory speech:

Notice how he said:

     "I want to thank every American who participated in this election..... whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference.

     "I just spoke with Governor Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign.

     "We may have battled fiercely, but it's only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight.

     "In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Governor Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward...."

Book Review, Monday, November 12, 2012: Fooling Houdini

Madame L picked up this book on the "New Arrivals" shelf at her local library and is really glad she didn't spend any money on it.

"Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks and the Hidden Powers of the Mind" is a catchy and enticing title, isn't it. But its author, Alex Stone, is really playing us all for suckers.

As he says at least once in the book, "If you look around the poker table and don't see a sucker, then YOU'RE the sucker." 

And that's how Madame L felt as she read this book.

Because here's the thing: If you want to learn how to fool Houdini, every magic trick imaginable is now available on YouTube. And Alex Stone is apparently the one who started this trend by breaking his solemn oath to a magicians' organization never to reveal their secrets. He gave away a lot of the tricks first in an article in the July 2008 issue of Harpers Magazine, "The Magic Olympics, With tricks explained!" (This article is available online only for readers who have a paid online subscription to the magazine. But don't waste your time and certainly don't waste your money in a subscription to that magazine)

So, Alex Stone, what do you do after you've broken your vow of silence? You go on to make yourself famous by explaining other tricks to whoever will give you sufficient adulation to satisfy your gigantic ego, and then by writing this book, "Fooling Houdini."

So, Madame L found as she got farther into the book, SHE, and EVERY READER of this book, we are all the suckers. Because any item of interest about the world of magicians, mentalists, "math geeks" and statisticians, and "the hidden powers of the mind" is available in hundreds of other locations, and in more accurate presentation.

But Alex Stone doesn't stop there. His ego is so gigantic that he proclaims Jesus Christ himself, as well as all the prophets, including Joseph Smith, to be charlatans. 

Apparently if you make a living deceiving people, you can't help but think that's what everyone else is doing, too.

Thus, Madame L graciously saves her Dear Readers from wasting their time with this book. 

Madame L is also happy to report that although she had to return a REALLY good book, The Signal and the Noise, to the library, she has been able to buy it from Amazon.com since it shot up the best-seller list after its author Nate Silver was found to have predicted the 2012 national and state elections almost to every detail. 

No magic involved here, just sound statistical analysis, which Mr. Silver explains without assuming his readers are suckers or condescending in any way. Madame L hopes to be able to offer a more complete review of this book within a week or two.

Fordham University Vs. Ann Coulter

Dear Readers,

Have you ever been offended by Ann Coulter's hateful and outrageous blasts against everybody who doesn't agree with her extremely conservative views (and even people who agree with her but have incurred her wrath for the moment)? 

You're not alone, and here's a great story about Fordham University's decision on handling a request by a student club for Ms. Coulter to speak to them.

Rather than give all the background and commentary, Madame L will paste below the university president's statement about the proposed speaking engagement:

     "The College Republicans, a student club at Fordham University, has invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. The event is funded through student activity fees and is not open to the public nor the media. Student groups are allowed, and encouraged, to invite speakers who represent diverse, and sometimes unpopular, points of view, in keeping with the canons of academic freedom. Accordingly, the University will not block the College Republicans from hosting their speaker of choice on campus.

 

     "To say that I am disappointed with the judgment and maturity of the College Republicans, however, would be a tremendous understatement. There are many people who can speak to the conservative point of view with integrity and conviction, but Ms. Coulter is not among them. Her rhetoric is often hateful and needlessly provocative — more heat than light — and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature.

     "As members of a Jesuit institution, we are called upon to deal with one another with civility and compassion, not to sling mud and impugn the motives of those with whom we disagree or to engage in racial or social stereotyping. In the wake of several bias incidents last spring, I told the University community that I hold out great contempt for anyone who would intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed.

     "'Disgust' was the word I used to sum up my feelings about those incidents. Hate speech, name-calling, and incivility are completely at odds with the Jesuit ideals that have always guided and animated Fordham. Still, to prohibit Ms. Coulter from speaking at Fordham would be to do greater violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement. Preventing Ms. Coulter from speaking would counter one wrong with another. [Emphasis added] The old saw goes that the answer to bad speech is more speech. This is especially true at a university, and I fully expect our students, faculty, alumni, parents, and staff to voice their opposition, civilly and respectfully, and forcefully.

     "The College Republicans have unwittingly provided Fordham with a test of its character: do we abandon our ideals in the face of repugnant speech and seek to stifle Ms. Coulter’s (and the student organizers’) opinions, or do we use her appearance as an opportunity to prove that our ideas are better and our faith in the academy — and one another — stronger? We have chosen the latter course, confident in our community and in the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice. ---  Joseph M. McShane, S.J., President

And the Republican Club's response:

     "The College Republicans regret the controversy surrounding our planned lecture featuring Ann Coulter. The size and severity of opposition to this event have caught us by surprise and caused us to question our decision to welcome her to Rose Hill. Looking at the concerns raised about Ms. Coulter, many of them reasonable, we have determined that some of her comments do not represent the ideals of the College Republicans and are inconsistent with both our organization’s mission and the University’s. We regret that we failed to thoroughly research her before announcing; that is our error and we do not excuse ourselves for it. Consistent with our strong disagreement with certain comments by Ms. Coulter, we have chosen to cancel the event and rescind Ms. Coulter’s invitation to speak at Fordham. We made this choice freely before Father McShane’s email was sent out and we became aware of his feelings – had the President simply reached out to us before releasing his statement, he would have learned that the event was being cancelled. We hope the University community will forgive the College Republicans for our error and continue to allow us to serve as its main voice of the sensible, compassionate, and conservative political movement that we strive to be. We fell short of that standard this time, and we offer our sincere apologies."

---Ted Conrad, President; Emily Harman, Vice President; Joe Campagna, Treasurer; John Mantia, Secretary

Madame L is very impressed at the civil and intelligent handling of this situation by the college president and the leaders of the student club. Wouldn't it be great if more people in positions of authority and responsibility or even just plain political people who are infamous rather than famous (Ann Coulter is not the only one who comes to mind; others include Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Glenn Beck, and ... too many to mention here) would show the same respect and humility and practice of Christian principles!

Sincerely,

Madame L

Obama Won --- So What?

Dear Madame L,

I've been reading comments online from people who are really mad that Obama won the election, and I understand that they're angry because they think he's going to ruin our country with socialism or whatever. 

But what I don't understand are the people who act like it didn't matter whether he won or Romney won. They seem to be saying that because Obama and Romney are basically both good men, with similar ideas about governing, the country would be no different, either way.

Since you appear to have been supporting Obama through all this election furor, I wonder if you agree with this view.

Sincerely,

Not Undecided, But Not Gonna Tell You Who I Voted For

Dear Decided Voter,

Madame L certainly understands both points of view, though she thinks those angry and scared people may may have been persuaded by hateful rhetoric, rather than rational and thoughtful and knowledgeable discourse, to oppose Pres. Obama's re-election,

However, although she thinks she understands the motives behind those who say there would not be different results based on who was elected, she disagrees with their conclusions.

Madame L notes that Gov. Romney promised to revoke the Affordable Care Act, declare China an enemy, and invade Syria (and undertake many additional impossible ventures) on his first day in office. 

He also promised to undo Roe V. Wade, stop funding Planned Parenthood, begin to voucherize Medicare and Medicaid, encourage immigrants to "self-deport," and undertake many other destructive actions as soon as possible.  

All of those stated goals, in Madame L's opinion, would have drastically changed the future for the majority of Americans: women, the poor and elderly, people with chronic illnesses, members of the military and veterans, victims of rape and incest, and minorities.

Yes, yes, yes, Madame L understands that whoever is elected President can't do much at all with a divided Congress, and she understands that most of Romney's promises were shady, empty, and/or will-o'-the-wisp panderings to whatever audience of the moment.

But that fact in itself means we had no way of knowing which of the many Romneys would actually take the presidential office. 

Also, Madame L notes that most of Gov. Romney's advisers were taken from the ranks of former Pres. George W. Bush's advisers, a disastrous group in every sense.

Therefore, while Madame L applauds those who want to make peace with their friends of opposing views by saying it doesn't matter who is elected this year or four years from now (or ever), she disagrees with them. 

Madame L thinks it mattered, for instance, that Pres. Clinton knocked down our national deficit (drastically increased during the Reagan years and ratcheted up again by Bush the Second). It matters that Pres. Obama fought for and signed a law that will continue to put into place protections for people with medical problems and long-standing illnesses, while still giving the big medical insurers all those health-care premiums they're so anxious about.

It matters who will be appointed to the Supreme Court. It matters who will oversee a transition to placing our nation among those other industrialized nations with a complete social safety net for their citizens. 

And it matters to have a president who will, as Barack Obama said, "say what he means and mean what he says." Actions speak louder than words, as Gov. Romney kept saying reflexively (and, strangely, without irony) in the last days of the campaign. 

Pres. Obama has shown by his actions how he will continue to govern. He doesn't say, "I love you women!" But he appoints women in his cabinet and to the Supreme Court, and he backs women's health and financially issues.

There's much more to be said and written about this, but not by Madame L, who is really tired of talking and reading about this stuff, so she hopes this will be the last question she receives about the election!

Sincerely,

Madame L

Coach Laura: Knees

Dear Coach Laura,

Which exercise is best for someone with knee problems?

Dear Bees-Knees,

Knee problems area huge deterrent to wanting to and being able to exercise!  And your knees are an integral part of how the body moves, supports itself - everything! If you want to focus on good aerobic exercise and you already have knee problems, some good options are swimming, biking, walking and low-impact aerobics. (The definition of "low-impact" means that both feet are never off the ground at the same time.) Oh, yoga is a great one too! (There's a great article here with additional information.)

If you're concerned about developing knee problems and have heard horror stories about how horrible running is for your knees - take that with a grain of salt. I used to consider myself as having knee problems. I played the position of catcher on a championship high school softball team, and there was definitely wear and tear put on my knees during that time. I also got tackled during a friendly game of flag football (hopefully you sense the irony in that sentence) and my knee buckled in an awkward position. I used those two reasons for years as excuses as to why I couldn't consistently exercise - if my knee started to hurt while exercising, it seemed like a good reason to take a few days off from exercising. So I never got into a regular routine of exercising. 

The irony of the cycle of making excuses is that regular exercise actually increases joint strength, muscle strength and flexibility and overall strength. 

Another factor in knee pain is the simple mechanics of weight. Every ten pounds of body weight means 40 pounds of pressure on the knee. If you're even 10 pounds overweight, you're adding an additional unnecessary 400 pounds on your knees. If you are in the beginning stages of knee pain, losing weight is a great way to reduce pressure and knee pain. 

Guess what? I don't have any consistent knee pain anymore. By losing weight and exercising regularly, knee pain and discomfort that I had experienced for decades (yes, decades!) is completely gone. The last piece to the puzzle of eliminating my own knee pain was to make sure I stretch both my quads and hamstrings after exercising. Quads (the large muscles in the front of the thigh) are easy to stretch because we're so often aware of them. They're the ones that make themselves known in the form of muscle tightness and soreness when doing squats, lunges, running, cycling, walking -- anything, really. 

The hamstrings are the quads' supporting muscles - the muscles on the back of the thigh. They are frequently neglected and forgotten, poor things. Since they support the quads, which are major muscles in promoting knee joint motion and movement, it's equally important they get stretched. I have found that making sure all the major muscles in my legs get stretched after working out has made all the difference in my overall knee health. 

Next week we'll look at what the BEST exercise overall is that you can do. Stay tuned!

To your health,

Coach Laura

 

Bayes and Silver

Dear Readers,

This is a teaser and a plug for Nate Silver's book "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail -- but Some Don't." As her Dear and Faithful Readers will recall, Madame L wrote a preliminary review of the book last Sunday, lamenting that she hadn't been able to finish reading it and promising to provide a more complete review when she has read the book carefully.

Madame L was reading this morning about how the election results did and did not conform to the polls and punditry of the past months. Not surprisingly, the convergence of the predictions with the actual results depended on the prediction model the pundit used. Not surprisingly, because of his Bayesian model and careful use of facts, Nate Silver came close.

Madame L kept reading Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight blog at the New York Times website as the election went along, as did many others. Salon.com's Jacob Sugarman this morning provides a side-by-side comparison of Nate Silver’s predictions with the presidential election’s results as of last night:

Madame L is waiting for the book's price to drop into her affordable range, at which time she will snap it up and underline and scribble, turn page corners down, and go through all her other rituals for figuring out and understanding difficult material; and then share what she learns from it with You, Dear Readers.

Sincerely,

Madame L 

Post-Script: Just after posting this, Madame L read that sales of "The Signal and the Noise" shot  up by 800 percent on Amazon.com as election day drew into night, which means Madame L will soon be buying the book at the "best-selling" price discount at Amazon or her local bookstore.

Post-Post-Script: Madame L has also found an article "explaining" why Nate Silver isn't really "a towering electoral genius." Hmmm. Madame L thinks it's pretty easy to write something like that now and a lot harder to actually do what Nate Silver does. (And the author does write, "To be fair, the art of averaging isn't simple....") No duh. However, Madame L sees, upon actually reading the article, that the writer is not denigrating Mr. Silver's accomplishments but rather warning the newly converted to his cult that he's just a numbers manipulator, not some new messiah of the universe. And, Madame L sees, after looking up some other articles by that author, that he's mostly just doing his job of writing provoking and clickable (and therefore revenue-producing) articles about science.

Weird Word of the Week: Mansplaining

Every woman has had this experience: Some guy descends from his great height of manhood to explain something to you about which he knows relatively little and you know about 100 times more.

This is mansplaining: "To explain in a patronizing manner, assuming total ignorance on the part of those listening. The mansplainer is often shocked and hurt when their mansplanation is not taken as absolute fact, criticized or even rejected altogether." 

 The Urban Dictionary explains that it's not only men who do this, and Madame L has indeed had the same experience with women. 

(Madame L hastens to add, as does the author of this wonderful and true story of having some man do some mansplaining to her about a book she herself had written, that she has enjoyed the friendship and companionship of men who are not guilty of mansplaining and who in fact have been wonderful, helpful, appropriately humble, and so on. And Madame L must confess she has been guilty of mansplaining, once or twice at least, and hereby promises to stop. Including not writing any more about mansplaining. )